competition by james causey _they would learn what caused the murderous disease--if it was the last thing they did!_ greta _january , earth time_ i wish max would treat me like a _woman_. an hour ago, at dinner, john armitage proposed a toast, especially for my benefit. he loves to play the gallant. big man, silver mane, very blue eyes, a porcelain smile. the head of wsc, the perfect example of the politician-scientist. "to the colony," he announced, raising his glass. "may epsilon love them and keep them. may it only be transmittal trouble." "amen," max said. we drank. taylor bishop put down his glass precisely. bishop is a gray little man with a diffident voice that belies his reputation as the best biochemist in the system. "has farragut hinted otherwise?" he asked mildly. armitage frowned. "it would be scarcely prudent for senator farragut to alarm the populace with disaster rumors." bishop looked at him out of his pale eyes. "besides, it's an election year." the silence was suddenly ugly. then armitage chuckled. "all right," he said. "so the senator wants to be a national hero. the fact still remains that epsilon had better be habitable or pan-asia will scream we're hogging it. they want war anyway. within a month--boom." * * * * * for a moment, i was afraid he was going to make a speech about earth's suffocating billions, the screaming tension of the cold war, and the sacred necessity of our mission. if he had, i'd have gotten the weeping shrieks. some responsibilities are too great to think about. but instead he winked at me. for the first time, i began to realize why armitage was the director of the scientists' world council. "hypothesis, greta," he said. "epsilon is probably a paradise. why should the test colony let the rest of the world in on it? they're being selfish." i giggled. we relaxed. after supper, armitage played chess with bishop while i followed max into the control room. "soon?" i said. "planetfall in eighteen hours, doctor." he said it stiffly, busying himself at the controls. max is a small dark man with angry eyes and the saddest mouth i've ever seen. he is also a fine pilot and magnificent bacteriologist. i wanted to slap him. i hate these professional british types that think a female biochemist is some sort of freak. "honestly," i said. "what do you think?" "disease," he said bitterly. "for the first six months they reported on schedule, remember? a fine clean planet, no dominant life-forms, perfect for immigration; unique, one world in a billion. abruptly they stopped sending. you figure it." i thought about it. "i read your thematic on venusian viruses," he said abruptly. "good show. you should be an asset to us, doctor." "thanks!" i snapped. i was so furious that i inadvertently looked into the cabin viewplate. bishop had warned me. it takes years of deep-space time to enable a person to stare at the naked universe without screaming. it got me. the crystal thunder of the stars, that horrible hungry blackness. i remember i was sort of crying and fighting, then max had me by the shoulders, holding me gently. he was murmuring and stroking my hair. after a time, i stopped whimpering. [illustration: illustrated by stone] "thanks," i whispered. "you'd better get some sleep, greta," he said. i turned in. i think i'm falling in love. * * * * * _january _ today we made planetfall. it took max a few hours to home in on the test colony ship. he finally found it, on the shore of an inland sea that gleamed like wrinkled blue satin. for a time we cruised in widening spirals, trying to detect some signs of life. there was nothing. we finally landed. max and armitage donned spacesuits and went toward the colony ship. they came back in a few hours, very pale. "they're dead." armitage's voice cracked as he came out of the airlock. "all of them." "skeletons," max said. "how?" bishop said. armitage's hands were shaking as he poured a drink. "looks like civil war." "but there were a hundred of them," i whispered. "they were _dedicated_--" "i wonder," bishop said thoughtfully. "white and brown and yellow. russian and british and french and german and chinese and spanish. they were chosen for technical background rather than emotional stability." "rot!" armitage said like drums beating. "it's some alien bug, some toxin. we've got to isolate it, find an antibody." he went to work. * * * * * _january _ i'm scared. it's taken three days to finalize the atmospheric tests. oxygen, nitrogen, helium, with trace gases. those trace gases are stinkers. bishop discovered a new inert gas, heavier than xenon. he's excited. i'm currently checking stuff that looks like residual organic, and am not too happy about it. still, this atmosphere seems pure. armitage is chafing. "it's in the flora," he insisted today. "something, perhaps, that they ate." he stood with a strained tautness, staring feverishly at the chronometer. "senator farragut's due to make contact soon. what'll i tell him?" "that we're working on it," bishop said dryly. "that the four best scientists in the galaxy are working toward the solution." "that's good," armitage said seriously. "but they'll worry. you _are_ making progress?" i wanted to wrap a pestle around his neck. we were all in the control room an hour later. armitage practically stood at attention while farragut's voice boomed from the transmitter. it was very emetic. the senator said the entire hemisphere was waiting for us to announce the planet was safe for immigration. he said the stars were a challenge to man. he spoke fearfully of the coming world crisis. epsilon was man's last chance for survival. armitage assured him our progress was satisfactory, that within a few days we would have something tangible to report. the senator said we were heroes. finally it was over. max yawned. "wonder how many voters start field work at once." armitage frowned. "it's not funny, cizon. not funny at all. inasmuch as we've checked out the atmosphere, i suggest we start field work at once." taylor blinked. "we're still testing a few residual--" "i happen to be nominal leader of this party." armitage stood very tall, very determined. "obviously the atmosphere is pure. let's make some progress!" * * * * * _february _ this is progress? for the past ten days, we've worked the clock around. quantitative analysis, soil, water, flora, fauna, cellular, microscopic. nothing. max has discovered a few lethal alkaloids in some greenish tree fungus, but i doubt if the colony were indiscriminate fungus eaters. bishop has found a few new unicellular types, but nothing dangerous. there's one tentacled thing that reminds me of a frightened rotifer. max named it _armitagium_. armitage is pleased. perhaps the fate of the hundred colonists will remain one of those forever unsolved mysteries, like the fate of the _mary celeste_ or the starship _prometheus_. this planet's _clean_. * * * * * _february _ today max and i went specimen-hunting. it must be autumn on epsilon. everywhere the trees are a riot of scarlet and ocher, the scrubby bushes are shedding their leaves. once we came upon a field of thistlelike plants with spiny seed-pods that opened as we watched, the purple spores drifting afield in an eddy of tinted mist. max said it reminded him of scotland. he kissed me. on the way back to the ship we saw two skeletons. each had its fingers tightly locked about the other's throat. * * * * * _february _ we have, to date, analyzed nine hundred types of plant life for toxin content. bishop has tested innumerable spores and bacteria. our slide file is immense and still growing. max has captured several insects. there is one tiny yellow bush-spider with a killing bite, but the species seem to be rare. bishop has isolated a mold bacterium that could cause a high fever, but its propagation rate is far too low to enable it to last long in the bloodstream. the most dangerous animal seems to be a two-foot-tall arthropod. they're rare and peaceable. bishop vivisected one yesterday and found nothing alarming. last night i dreamed about the first expedition. i dreamed they all committed suicide because epsilon was too good for them. this is ridiculous! we're working in a sort of quiet madness getting no closer to the solution. armitage talked to senator farragut yesterday and hinted darkly that the first ship's hydroponics system went haywire and that an improper carbohydrate imbalance killed the colony. pretty thin. farragut's getting impatient. bishop looks haggard. max looks grim. * * * * * _february _ our quantitative tests are slowing down. we play a rubber of bridge each night before retiring. last night i trumped max's ace and he snarled at me. we had a fight. this morning i found a bouquet of purple spore-thistles at my cabin door. max is sweet. this afternoon, by mutual consent, we all knocked off work and played bridge. bishop noticed the thistle bouquet in a vase over the chronometer. he objected. "they're harmless," max said. "besides, they smell nice." i can hardly wait for tomorrow's rubber. our work is important, but one does need relaxation. * * * * * _february _ armitage is cheating. yesterday he failed to score one of my overtricks. we argued bitterly about it. taylor, of course, sided with him. three hands later, armitage got the bid in hearts. "one hundred and fifty honors," he announced. "that's a lie," i said. "it was only a hundred," he grinned. "but thank you, greta. now i shan't try the queen finesse." no wonder they've won the last three evenings! max is furious with them both. * * * * * _february _ we played all day. max and i kept losing. i always knew armitage was a pompous toad, but i never realized he was _slimy_. this afternoon it was game all, and armitage overcalled my diamond opener with three spades. bishop took him to four and i doubled, counting on my ace-king of hearts and diamonds. i led out my diamond ace and armitage trumped from his hand. bishop laid down his dummy. he had clubs and spades solid, with doubleton heart and diamonds. "none?" max asked armitage dangerously. armitage tittered. i wanted to scratch his eyes out. he drew trump immediately and set up clubs on board, dumping the heart losers from his hand, and finally sluffing--_two diamonds_. "made seven," he said complacently, "less two for the diamond renege makes five, one overtrick doubled. we were vulnerable, so it's game and rubber." i gasped. "you reneged deliberately!" "certainly. doubleton in hearts and diamonds in my hand. if you get in, i'm down one. as it was, i made an overtrick. the only penalty for a renege is two tricks. the rule book does not differentiate between deliberate and accidental reneges. sorry." i stared at his florid throat, at his jugular. i could feel my mouth twitching. on the next hand i was dummy. i excused myself and went into the lab. i found a scalpel. i came up quietly behind armitage and bishop saw what i was going to do and shouted and i was not nearly fast enough. armitage ducked and bishop tackled me. "thanks, dear," max said thoughtfully, looking at the cards scattered on the floor. "we would have been set one trick. club finesse fails." "she's crazy!" armitage's mouth worked. "the strain's too much for her!" i cried. i apologized hysterically. after a while, i convinced them i was all right. max gave me a sedative. we did not play any more bridge. over supper i kept staring at armitage's throat. after eating, i went for a long walk. when i got back to the ship, everyone was sleeping. * * * * * _march _ bishop found armitage this morning, in his cabin. he came out, very pale, staring at me. "you bitch," he said. "ear to ear. now what'll i do for a partner?" "you can't prove it," i said. "we'll have to confine her to quarters," max said wearily. "i'll tell farragut." "and let him know the expedition is failing?" max sighed. "you're right. we'll tell them armitage had an accident." i said seriously, "it was obviously suicide. his mind snapped." "oh, god," max said. they buried armitage this afternoon. from my cabin, i watched them dig the grave. cheaters never prosper. * * * * * _march _ max talked with senator farragut this morning. he said armitage had died a hero's death. farragut sounds worried. the pan-asians have withdrawn their embassy from imperial africa. tension is mounting on the home front. immigration _must_ start this week. max was very reassuring. "just a few final tests, senator. we want to make sure." we puttered in our laboratories all afternoon. bishop seemed bored. after dinner he suggested three-handed bridge and max said he knew a better game, a friendly game his grandmother had taught him--hearts. * * * * * _march _ it's a plot! all day long bishop and max have managed to give me the queen of spades. it's deliberate, of course. three times i've tried for the moon and bishop has held out one damned little heart at the end. once max was slightly ahead on points and bishop demanded to see the score. i thought for a moment they would come to blows, but bishop apologized. "it's just that i hate to lose," he said. "quite," max said. when we finally turned in, bishop was ahead on points. too far ahead. * * * * * _march _ i suppose it's bishop's laugh. it has a peculiar horselike stridency that makes me want to tear out his throat. twice today i've broken down and cried when he made a jackpot. i'm not going to cry any more. supper was the usual, beef-yeast and vita-ale. i remember setting bishop's plate in front of him, and the way his pale eyes gleamed between mouthfuls. "three thousand points ahead," he gloated. "you'll never catch me now. never, never!" that was when he gripped his throat and began writhing on the floor. max felt his pulse. he stared at me. "very nice," he said. "quick. did you use a derivative of that green fungus?" i said nothing. max's nostrils were white and pinched. "must i make an autopsy?" "why bother?" i said. "it's obviously heart failure." "yes, why bother?" he said. he looked tired. "stay in your cabin, greta. i'll bring your meals." "i don't trust you." his laughter had a touch of madness. * * * * * _march _ max unlocked my cabin door this morning. he looked drawn. "listen," he said. "i've checked my respiration, pulse, saliva, temperature. all normal." "so?" "come here," he said. i followed him into the lab. he indicated a microscope. his eyes were bright. "well?" "a drop of my blood," he said. "look." i squinted into the microscope. i saw purple discs. oddly, they did not attack the red blood cells. there was no fission, no mitosis. the leucocytes, strangely enough, let them alone. my hands were shaking as i took a sterile slide and pricked my finger. i put the slide under the microscope. i adjusted the lens and stared. purple discs, swimming in my bloodstream. thriving. minding their own business. "me, too," i said. "they're inert," max said hoarsely. "they don't affect metabolism, cause fever, or interfere with the body chemistry in any way. do they remind you of anything?" i thought about it. then i went to the slide file that was marked _flora--negative_. "right," max said. "the purple thistle. spores! the atmosphere is clogged with them. greta, my sweet, we're infected." "i feel fine," i said. all day long we ran tests. negative tests. we seem to be disgustingly healthy. "symbiosis," max said finally. "live and let live. apparently we're hosts." only one thing disturbs me. most symbiotes _do_ something for their host. something to enhance the host's survival potential. we played chess this evening. i won. max is furious. he's such a poor sport. * * * * * _march _ max talked with senator farragut this morning. he gave epsilon a clean bill of health and the senator thanked god. "the first starship will leave tonight," the senator said. "right on schedule, with ten thousand colonists aboard. you're world heroes!" max and i played chess the rest of the day. max won consistently. he utilizes a fianchetto that is utterly impregnable. if he wins tomorrow, i shall have to kill him. * * * * * max _march _ it was, of course, necessary for me to destroy armitage and bishop. they won far too often. but i am sorry about greta. yet i had to strangle her. if she hadn't started that infernal queen's pawn opening it would have been different. she beat me six times running, and on the last game i pulled a superb orang-outang, but it was too late. she saw mate in four and gave me that serpent smirk i know so well. how could i have ever been in love with her? * * * * * _march _ frightfully boring to be alone. i have a thought. chess. right hand against left. white and black. jolly good. * * * * * _march _ i haven't much time. left was black this morning and i beat him, four out of five. we're in the lab now. he's watching me scribble this. his thumb and forefinger are twitching in fury. he looks like some great white spider about to spring. he sees the scalpel, by the microscope. now his fingers are inching toward it. treacherous beast. i'm stronger. if he tries to amputate ... --james causey transcriber's note: this etext was produced from _galaxy science fiction_ may . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. transcribed from the macmillan and co. edition by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk the diary of a man of fifty by henry james florence, _april th_, .--they told me i should find italy greatly changed; and in seven-and-twenty years there is room for changes. but to me everything is so perfectly the same that i seem to be living my youth over again; all the forgotten impressions of that enchanting time come back to me. at the moment they were powerful enough; but they afterwards faded away. what in the world became of them? whatever becomes of such things, in the long intervals of consciousness? where do they hide themselves away? in what unvisited cupboards and crannies of our being do they preserve themselves? they are like the lines of a letter written in sympathetic ink; hold the letter to the fire for a while and the grateful warmth brings out the invisible words. it is the warmth of this yellow sun of florence that has been restoring the text of my own young romance; the thing has been lying before me today as a clear, fresh page. there have been moments during the last ten years when i have fell so portentously old, so fagged and finished, that i should have taken as a very bad joke any intimation that this present sense of juvenility was still in store for me. it won't last, at any rate; so i had better make the best of it. but i confess it surprises me. i have led too serious a life; but that perhaps, after all, preserves one's youth. at all events, i have travelled too far, i have worked too hard, i have lived in brutal climates and associated with tiresome people. when a man has reached his fifty-second year without being, materially, the worse for wear--when he has fair health, a fair fortune, a tidy conscience and a complete exemption from embarrassing relatives--i suppose he is bound, in delicacy, to write himself happy. but i confess i shirk this obligation. i have not been miserable; i won't go so far as to say that--or at least as to write it. but happiness--positive happiness--would have been something different. i don't know that it would have been better, by all measurements--that it would have left me better off at the present time. but it certainly would have made this difference--that i should not have been reduced, in pursuit of pleasant images, to disinter a buried episode of more than a quarter of a century ago. i should have found entertainment more--what shall i call it?--more contemporaneous. i should have had a wife and children, and i should not be in the way of making, as the french say, infidelities to the present. of course it's a great gain to have had an escape, not to have committed an act of thumping folly; and i suppose that, whatever serious step one might have taken at twenty-five, after a struggle, and with a violent effort, and however one's conduct might appear to be justified by events, there would always remain a certain element of regret; a certain sense of loss lurking in the sense of gain; a tendency to wonder, rather wishfully, what _might_ have been. what might have been, in this case, would, without doubt, have been very sad, and what has been has been very cheerful and comfortable; but there are nevertheless two or three questions i might ask myself. why, for instance, have i never married--why have i never been able to care for any woman as i cared for that one? ah, why are the mountains blue and why is the sunshine warm? happiness mitigated by impertinent conjectures--that's about my ticket. th.--i knew it wouldn't last; it's already passing away. but i have spent a delightful day; i have been strolling all over the place. everything reminds me of something else, and yet of itself at the same time; my imagination makes a great circuit and comes back to the starting- point. there is that well-remembered odour of spring in the air, and the flowers, as they used to be, are gathered into great sheaves and stacks, all along the rugged base of the strozzi palace. i wandered for an hour in the boboli gardens; we went there several times together. i remember all those days individually; they seem to me as yesterday. i found the corner where she always chose to sit--the bench of sun-warmed marble, in front of the screen of ilex, with that exuberant statue of pomona just beside it. the place is exactly the same, except that poor pomona has lost one of her tapering fingers. i sat there for half an hour, and it was strange how near to me she seemed. the place was perfectly empty--that is, it was filled with _her_. i closed my eyes and listened; i could almost hear the rustle of her dress on the gravel. why do we make such an ado about death? what is it, after all, but a sort of refinement of life? she died ten years ago, and yet, as i sat there in the sunny stillness, she was a palpable, audible presence. i went afterwards into the gallery of the palace, and wandered for an hour from room to room. the same great pictures hung in the same places, and the same dark frescoes arched above them. twice, of old, i went there with her; she had a great understanding of art. she understood all sorts of things. before the madonna of the chair i stood a long time. the face is not a particle like hers, and yet it reminded me of her. but everything does that. we stood and looked at it together once for half an hour; i remember perfectly what she said. th.--yesterday i felt blue--blue and bored; and when i got up this morning i had half a mind to leave florence. but i went out into the street, beside the arno, and looked up and down--looked at the yellow river and the violet hills, and then decided to remain--or rather, i decided nothing. i simply stood gazing at the beauty of florence, and before i had gazed my fill i was in good-humour again, and it was too late to start for rome. i strolled along the quay, where something presently happened that rewarded me for staying. i stopped in front of a little jeweller's shop, where a great many objects in mosaic were exposed in the window; i stood there for some minutes--i don't know why, for i have no taste for mosaic. in a moment a little girl came and stood beside me--a little girl with a frowsy italian head, carrying a basket. i turned away, but, as i turned, my eyes happened to fall on her basket. it was covered with a napkin, and on the napkin was pinned a piece of paper, inscribed with an address. this address caught my glance--there was a name on it i knew. it was very legibly written--evidently by a scribe who had made up in zeal what was lacking in skill. _contessa salvi-scarabelli, via ghibellina_--so ran the superscription; i looked at it for some moments; it caused me a sudden emotion. presently the little girl, becoming aware of my attention, glanced up at me, wondering, with a pair of timid brown eyes. "are you carrying your basket to the countess salvi?" i asked. the child stared at me. "to the countess scarabelli." "do you know the countess?" "know her?" murmured the child, with an air of small dismay. "i mean, have you seen her?" "yes, i have seen her." and then, in a moment, with a sudden soft smile--"_e bella_!" said the little girl. she was beautiful herself as she said it. "precisely; and is she fair or dark?" the child kept gazing at me. "_bionda--bionda_," she answered, looking about into the golden sunshine for a comparison. "and is she young?" "she is not young--like me. but she is not old like--like--" "like me, eh? and is she married?" the little girl began to look wise. "i have never seen the signor conte." "and she lives in via ghibellina?" "_sicuro_. in a beautiful palace." i had one more question to ask, and i pointed it with certain copper coins. "tell me a little--is she good?" the child inspected a moment the contents of her little brown fist. "it's you who are good," she answered. "ah, but the countess?" i repeated. my informant lowered her big brown eyes, with an air of conscientious meditation that was inexpressibly quaint. "to me she appears so," she said at last, looking up. "ah, then, she must be so," i said, "because, for your age, you are very intelligent." and having delivered myself of this compliment i walked away and left the little girl counting her _soldi_. i walked back to the hotel, wondering how i could learn something about the contessa salvi-scarabelli. in the doorway i found the innkeeper, and near him stood a young man whom i immediately perceived to be a compatriot, and with whom, apparently, he had been in conversation. "i wonder whether you can give me a piece of information," i said to the landlord. "do you know anything about the count salvi-scarabelli?" the landlord looked down at his boots, then slowly raised his shoulders, with a melancholy smile. "i have many regrets, dear sir--" "you don't know the name?" "i know the name, assuredly. but i don't know the gentleman." i saw that my question had attracted the attention of the young englishman, who looked at me with a good deal of earnestness. he was apparently satisfied with what he saw, for he presently decided to speak. "the count scarabelli is dead," he said, very gravely. i looked at him a moment; he was a pleasing young fellow. "and his widow lives," i observed, "in via ghibellina?" "i daresay that is the name of the street." he was a handsome young englishman, but he was also an awkward one; he wondered who i was and what i wanted, and he did me the honour to perceive that, as regards these points, my appearance was reassuring. but he hesitated, very properly, to talk with a perfect stranger about a lady whom he knew, and he had not the art to conceal his hesitation. i instantly felt it to be singular that though he regarded me as a perfect stranger, i had not the same feeling about him. whether it was that i had seen him before, or simply that i was struck with his agreeable young face--at any rate, i felt myself, as they say here, in sympathy with him. if i have seen him before i don't remember the occasion, and neither, apparently, does he; i suppose it's only a part of the feeling i have had the last three days about everything. it was this feeling that made me suddenly act as if i had known him a long time. "do you know the countess salvi?" i asked. he looked at me a little, and then, without resenting the freedom of my question--"the countess scarabelli, you mean," he said. "yes," i answered; "she's the daughter." "the daughter is a little girl." "she must be grown up now. she must be--let me see--close upon thirty." my young englishman began to smile. "of whom are you speaking?" "i was speaking of the daughter," i said, understanding his smile. "but i was thinking of the mother." "of the mother?" "of a person i knew twenty-seven years ago--the most charming woman i have ever known. she was the countess salvi--she lived in a wonderful old house in via ghibellina." "a wonderful old house!" my young englishman repeated. "she had a little girl," i went on; "and the little girl was very fair, like her mother; and the mother and daughter had the same name--bianca." i stopped and looked at my companion, and he blushed a little. "and bianca salvi," i continued, "was the most charming woman in the world." he blushed a little more, and i laid my hand on his shoulder. "do you know why i tell you this? because you remind me of what i was when i knew her--when i loved her." my poor young englishman gazed at me with a sort of embarrassed and fascinated stare, and still i went on. "i say that's the reason i told you this--but you'll think it a strange reason. you remind me of my younger self. you needn't resent that--i was a charming young fellow. the countess salvi thought so. her daughter thinks the same of you." instantly, instinctively, he raised his hand to my arm. "truly?" "ah, you are wonderfully like me!" i said, laughing. "that was just my state of mind. i wanted tremendously to please her." he dropped his hand and looked away, smiling, but with an air of ingenuous confusion which quickened my interest in him. "you don't know what to make of me," i pursued. "you don't know why a stranger should suddenly address you in this way and pretend to read your thoughts. doubtless you think me a little cracked. perhaps i am eccentric; but it's not so bad as that. i have lived about the world a great deal, following my profession, which is that of a soldier. i have been in india, in africa, in canada, and i have lived a good deal alone. that inclines people, i think, to sudden bursts of confidence. a week ago i came into italy, where i spent six months when i was your age. i came straight to florence--i was eager to see it again, on account of associations. they have been crowding upon me ever so thickly. i have taken the liberty of giving you a hint of them." the young man inclined himself a little, in silence, as if he had been struck with a sudden respect. he stood and looked away for a moment at the river and the mountains. "it's very beautiful," i said. "oh, it's enchanting," he murmured. "that's the way i used to talk. but that's nothing to you." he glanced at me again. "on the contrary, i like to hear." "well, then, let us take a walk. if you too are staying at this inn, we are fellow-travellers. we will walk down the arno to the cascine. there are several things i should like to ask of you." my young englishman assented with an air of almost filial confidence, and we strolled for an hour beside the river and through the shady alleys of that lovely wilderness. we had a great deal of talk: it's not only myself, it's my whole situation over again. "are you very fond of italy?" i asked. he hesitated a moment. "one can't express that." "just so; i couldn't express it. i used to try--i used to write verses. on the subject of italy i was very ridiculous." "so am i ridiculous," said my companion. "no, my dear boy," i answered, "we are not ridiculous; we are two very reasonable, superior people." "the first time one comes--as i have done--it's a revelation." "oh, i remember well; one never forgets it. it's an introduction to beauty." "and it must be a great pleasure," said my young friend, "to come back." "yes, fortunately the beauty is always here. what form of it," i asked, "do you prefer?" my companion looked a little mystified; and at last he said, "i am very fond of the pictures." "so was i. and among the pictures, which do you like best?" "oh, a great many." "so did i; but i had certain favourites." again the young man hesitated a little, and then he confessed that the group of painters he preferred, on the whole, to all others, was that of the early florentines. i was so struck with this that i stopped short. "that was exactly my taste!" and then i passed my hand into his arm and we went our way again. we sat down on an old stone bench in the cascine, and a solemn blank-eyed hermes, with wrinkles accentuated by the dust of ages, stood above us and listened to our talk. "the countess salvi died ten years ago," i said. my companion admitted that he had heard her daughter say so. "after i knew her she married again," i added. "the count salvi died before i knew her--a couple of years after their marriage." "yes, i have heard that." "and what else have you heard?" my companion stared at me; he had evidently heard nothing. "she was a very interesting woman--there are a great many things to be said about her. later, perhaps, i will tell you. has the daughter the same charm?" "you forget," said my young man, smiling, "that i have never seen the mother." "very true. i keep confounding. but the daughter--how long have you known her?" "only since i have been here. a very short time." "a week?" for a moment he said nothing. "a month." "that's just the answer i should have made. a week, a month--it was all the same to me." "i think it is more than a month," said the young man. "it's probably six. how did you make her acquaintance?" "by a letter--an introduction given me by a friend in england." "the analogy is complete," i said. "but the friend who gave me my letter to madame de salvi died many years ago. he, too, admired her greatly. i don't know why it never came into my mind that her daughter might be living in florence. somehow i took for granted it was all over. i never thought of the little girl; i never heard what had become of her. i walked past the palace yesterday and saw that it was occupied; but i took for granted it had changed hands." "the countess scarabelli," said my friend, "brought it to her husband as her marriage-portion." "i hope he appreciated it! there is a fountain in the court, and there is a charming old garden beyond it. the countess's sitting-room looks into that garden. the staircase is of white marble, and there is a medallion by luca della robbia set into the wall at the place where it makes a bend. before you come into the drawing-room you stand a moment in a great vaulted place hung round with faded tapestry, paved with bare tiles, and furnished only with three chairs. in the drawing-room, above the fireplace, is a superb andrea del sarto. the furniture is covered with pale sea-green." my companion listened to all this. "the andrea del sarto is there; it's magnificent. but the furniture is in pale red." "ah, they have changed it, then--in twenty-seven years." "and there's a portrait of madame de salvi," continued my friend. i was silent a moment. "i should like to see that." he too was silent. then he asked, "why don't you go and see it? if you knew the mother so well, why don't you call upon the daughter?" "from what you tell me i am afraid." "what have i told you to make you afraid?" i looked a little at his ingenuous countenance. "the mother was a very dangerous woman." the young englishman began to blush again. "the daughter is not," he said. "are you very sure?" he didn't say he was sure, but he presently inquired in what way the countess salvi had been dangerous. "you must not ask me that," i answered "for after all, i desire to remember only what was good in her." and as we walked back i begged him to render me the service of mentioning my name to his friend, and of saying that i had known her mother well, and that i asked permission to come and see her. th.--i have seen that poor boy half a dozen times again, and a most amiable young fellow he is. he continues to represent to me, in the most extraordinary manner, my own young identity; the correspondence is perfect at all points, save that he is a better boy than i. he is evidently acutely interested in his countess, and leads quite the same life with her that i led with madame de salvi. he goes to see her every evening and stays half the night; these florentines keep the most extraordinary hours. i remember, towards a.m., madame de salvi used to turn me out.--"come, come," she would say, "it's time to go. if you were to stay later people might talk." i don't know at what time he comes home, but i suppose his evening seems as short as mine did. today he brought me a message from his contessa--a very gracious little speech. she remembered often to have heard her mother speak of me--she called me her english friend. all her mother's friends were dear to her, and she begged i would do her the honour to come and see her. she is always at home of an evening. poor young stanmer (he is of the devonshire stanmers--a great property) reported this speech verbatim, and of course it can't in the least signify to him that a poor grizzled, battered soldier, old enough to be his father, should come to call upon his _inammorata_. but i remember how it used to matter to me when other men came; that's a point of difference. however, it's only because i'm so old. at twenty-five i shouldn't have been afraid of myself at fifty-two. camerino was thirty-four--and then the others! she was always at home in the evening, and they all used to come. they were old florentine names. but she used to let me stay after them all; she thought an old english name as good. what a transcendent coquette! . . . but _basta cosi_ as she used to say. i meant to go tonight to casa salvi, but i couldn't bring myself to the point. i don't know what i'm afraid of; i used to be in a hurry enough to go there once. i suppose i am afraid of the very look of the place--of the old rooms, the old walls. i shall go tomorrow night. i am afraid of the very echoes. th.--she has the most extraordinary resemblance to her mother. when i went in i was tremendously startled; i stood starting at her. i have just come home; it is past midnight; i have been all the evening at casa salvi. it is very warm--my window is open--i can look out on the river gliding past in the starlight. so, of old, when i came home, i used to stand and look out. there are the same cypresses on the opposite hills. poor young stanmer was there, and three or four other admirers; they all got up when i came in. i think i had been talked about, and there was some curiosity. but why should i have been talked about? they were all youngish men--none of them of my time. she is a wonderful likeness of her mother; i couldn't get over it. beautiful like her mother, and yet with the same faults in her face; but with her mother's perfect head and brow and sympathetic, almost pitying, eyes. her face has just that peculiarity of her mother's, which, of all human countenances that i have ever known, was the one that passed most quickly and completely from the expression of gaiety to that of repose. repose in her face always suggested sadness; and while you were watching it with a kind of awe, and wondering of what tragic secret it was the token, it kindled, on the instant, into a radiant italian smile. the countess scarabelli's smiles tonight, however, were almost uninterrupted. she greeted me--divinely, as her mother used to do; and young stanmer sat in the corner of the sofa--as i used to do--and watched her while she talked. she is thin and very fair, and was dressed in light, vaporous black that completes the resemblance. the house, the rooms, are almost absolutely the same; there may be changes of detail, but they don't modify the general effect. there are the same precious pictures on the walls of the salon--the same great dusky fresco in the concave ceiling. the daughter is not rich, i suppose, any more than the mother. the furniture is worn and faded, and i was admitted by a solitary servant, who carried a twinkling taper before me up the great dark marble staircase. "i have often heard of you," said the countess, as i sat down near her; "my mother often spoke of you." "often?" i answered. "i am surprised at that." "why are you surprised? were you not good friends?" "yes, for a certain time--very good friends. but i was sure she had forgotten me." "she never forgot," said the countess, looking at me intently and smiling. "she was not like that." "she was not like most other women in any way," i declared. "ah, she was charming," cried the countess, rattling open her fan. "i have always been very curious to see you. i have received an impression of you." "a good one, i hope." she looked at me, laughing, and not answering this: it was just her mother's trick. "'my englishman,' she used to call you--'_il mio inglese_.'" "i hope she spoke of me kindly," i insisted. the countess, still laughing, gave a little shrug balancing her hand to and fro. "so-so; i always supposed you had had a quarrel. you don't mind my being frank like this--eh?" "i delight in it; it reminds me of your mother." "every one tells me that. but i am not clever like her. you will see for yourself." "that speech," i said, "completes the resemblance. she was always pretending she was not clever, and in reality--" "in reality she was an angel, eh? to escape from dangerous comparisons i will admit, then, that i am clever. that will make a difference. but let us talk of you. you are very--how shall i say it?--very eccentric." "is that what your mother told you?" "to tell the truth, she spoke of you as a great original. but aren't all englishmen eccentric? all except that one!" and the countess pointed to poor stanmer, in his corner of the sofa. "oh, i know just what he is," i said. "he's as quiet as a lamb--he's like all the world," cried the countess. "like all the world--yes. he is in love with you." she looked at me with sudden gravity. "i don't object to your saying that for all the world--but i do for him." "well," i went on, "he is peculiar in this: he is rather afraid of you." instantly she began to smile; she turned her face toward stanmer. he had seen that we were talking about him; he coloured and got up--then came toward us. "i like men who are afraid of nothing," said our hostess. "i know what you want," i said to stanmer. "you want to know what the signora contessa says about you." stanmer looked straight into her face, very gravely. "i don't care a straw what she says." "you are almost a match for the signora contessa," i answered. "she declares she doesn't care a pin's head what you think." "i recognise the countess's style!" stanmer exclaimed, turning away. "one would think," said the countess, "that you were trying to make a quarrel between us." i watched him move away to another part of the great saloon; he stood in front of the andrea del sarto, looking up at it. but he was not seeing it; he was listening to what we might say. i often stood there in just that way. "he can't quarrel with you, any more than i could have quarrelled with your mother." "ah, but you did. something painful passed between you." "yes, it was painful, but it was not a quarrel. i went away one day and never saw her again. that was all." the countess looked at me gravely. "what do you call it when a man does that?" "it depends upon the case." "sometimes," said the countess in french, "it's a _lachete_." "yes, and sometimes it's an act of wisdom." "and sometimes," rejoined the countess, "it's a mistake." i shook my head. "for me it was no mistake." she began to laugh again. "caro signore, you're a great original. what had my poor mother done to you?" i looked at our young englishman, who still had his back turned to us and was staring up at the picture. "i will tell you some other time," i said. "i shall certainly remind you; i am very curious to know." then she opened and shut her fan two or three times, still looking at me. what eyes they have! "tell me a little," she went on, "if i may ask without indiscretion. are you married?" "no, signora contessa." "isn't that at least a mistake?" "do i look very unhappy?" she dropped her head a little to one side. "for an englishman--no!" "ah," said i, laughing, "you are quite as clever as your mother." "and they tell me that you are a great soldier," she continued; "you have lived in india. it was very kind of you, so far away, to have remembered our poor dear italy." "one always remembers italy; the distance makes no difference. i remembered it well the day i heard of your mother's death!" "ah, that was a sorrow!" said the countess. "there's not a day that i don't weep for her. but _che vuole_? she's a saint its paradise." "_sicuro_," i answered; and i looked some time at the ground. "but tell me about yourself, dear lady," i asked at last, raising my eyes. "you have also had the sorrow of losing your husband." "i am a poor widow, as you see. _che vuole_? my husband died after three years of marriage." i waited for her to remark that the late count scarabelli was also a saint in paradise, but i waited in vain. "that was like your distinguished father," i said. "yes, he too died young. i can't be said to have known him; i was but of the age of my own little girl. but i weep for him all the more." again i was silent for a moment. "it was in india too," i said presently, "that i heard of your mother's second marriage." the countess raised her eyebrows. "in india, then, one hears of everything! did that news please you?" "well, since you ask me--no." "i understand that," said the countess, looking at her open fan. "i shall not marry again like that." "that's what your mother said to me," i ventured to observe. she was not offended, but she rose from her seat and stood looking at me a moment. then--"you should not have gone away!" she exclaimed. i stayed for another hour; it is a very pleasant house. two or three of the men who were sitting there seemed very civil and intelligent; one of them was a major of engineers, who offered me a profusion of information upon the new organisation of the italian army. while he talked, however, i was observing our hostess, who was talking with the others; very little, i noticed, with her young inglese. she is altogether charming--full of frankness and freedom, of that inimitable _disinvoltura_ which in an englishwoman would be vulgar, and which in her is simply the perfection of apparent spontaneity. but for all her spontaneity she's as subtle as a needle-point, and knows tremendously well what she is about. if she is not a consummate coquette . . . what had she in her head when she said that i should not have gone away?--poor little stanmer didn't go away. i left him there at midnight. th.--i found him today sitting in the church of santa croce, into which i wandered to escape from the heat of the sun. in the nave it was cool and dim; he was staring at the blaze of candles on the great altar, and thinking, i am sure, of his incomparable countess. i sat down beside him, and after a while, as if to avoid the appearance of eagerness, he asked me how i had enjoyed my visit to casa salvi, and what i thought of the _padrona_. "i think half a dozen things," i said, "but i can only tell you one now. she's an enchantress. you shall hear the rest when we have left the church." "an enchantress?" repeated stanmer, looking at me askance. he is a very simple youth, but who am i to blame him? "a charmer," i said "a fascinatress!" he turned away, staring at the altar candles. "an artist--an actress," i went on, rather brutally. he gave me another glance. "i think you are telling me all," he said. "no, no, there is more." and we sat a long time in silence. at last he proposed that we should go out; and we passed in the street, where the shadows had begun to stretch themselves. "i don't know what you mean by her being an actress," he said, as we turned homeward. "i suppose not. neither should i have known, if any one had said that to me." "you are thinking about the mother," said stanmer. "why are you always bringing _her_ in?" "my dear boy, the analogy is so great it forces itself upon me." he stopped and stood looking at me with his modest, perplexed young face. i thought he was going to exclaim--"the analogy be hanged!"--but he said after a moment-- "well, what does it prove?" "i can't say it proves anything; but it suggests a great many things." "be so good as to mention a few," he said, as we walked on. "you are not sure of her yourself," i began. "never mind that--go on with your analogy." "that's a part of it. you _are_ very much in love with her." "that's a part of it too, i suppose?" "yes, as i have told you before. you are in love with her, and yet you can't make her out; that's just where i was with regard to madame de salvi." "and she too was an enchantress, an actress, an artist, and all the rest of it?" "she was the most perfect coquette i ever knew, and the most dangerous, because the most finished." "what you mean, then, is that her daughter is a finished coquette?" "i rather think so." stanmer walked along for some moments in silence. "seeing that you suppose me to be a--a great admirer of the countess," he said at last, "i am rather surprised at the freedom with which you speak of her." i confessed that i was surprised at it myself. "but it's on account of the interest i take in you." "i am immensely obliged to you!" said the poor boy. "ah, of course you don't like it. that is, you like my interest--i don't see how you can help liking that; but you don't like my freedom. that's natural enough; but, my dear young friend, i want only to help you. if a man had said to me--so many years ago--what i am saying to you, i should certainly also, at first, have thought him a great brute. but after a little, i should have been grateful--i should have felt that he was helping me." "you seem to have been very well able to help yourself," said stanmer. "you tell me you made your escape." "yes, but it was at the cost of infinite perplexity--of what i may call keen suffering. i should like to save you all that." "i can only repeat--it is really very kind of you." "don't repeat it too often, or i shall begin to think you don't mean it." "well," said stanmer, "i think this, at any rate--that you take an extraordinary responsibility in trying to put a man out of conceit of a woman who, as he believes, may make him very happy." i grasped his arm, and we stopped, going on with our talk like a couple of florentines. "do you wish to marry her?" he looked away, without meeting my eyes. "it's a great responsibility," he repeated. "before heaven," i said, "i would have married the mother! you are exactly in my situation." "don't you think you rather overdo the analogy?" asked poor stanmer. "a little more, a little less--it doesn't matter. i believe you are in my shoes. but of course if you prefer it, i will beg a thousand pardons and leave them to carry you where they will." he had been looking away, but now he slowly turned his face and met my eyes. "you have gone too far to retreat; what is it you know about her?" "about this one--nothing. but about the other--" "i care nothing about the other!" "my dear fellow," i said, "they are mother and daughter--they are as like as two of andrea's madonnas." "if they resemble each other, then, you were simply mistaken in the mother." i took his arm and we walked on again; there seemed no adequate reply to such a charge. "your state of mind brings back my own so completely," i said presently. "you admire her--you adore her, and yet, secretly, you mistrust her. you are enchanted with her personal charm, her grace, her wit, her everything; and yet in your private heart you are afraid of her." "afraid of her?" "your mistrust keeps rising to the surface; you can't rid yourself of the suspicion that at the bottom of all things she is hard and cruel, and you would be immensely relieved if some one should persuade you that your suspicion is right." stanmer made no direct reply to this; but before we reached the hotel he said--"what did you ever know about the mother?" "it's a terrible story," i answered. he looked at me askance. "what did she do?" "come to my rooms this evening and i will tell you." he declared he would, but he never came. exactly the way i should have acted! th.--i went again, last evening, to casa salvi, where i found the same little circle, with the addition of a couple of ladies. stanmer was there, trying hard to talk to one of them, but making, i am sure, a very poor business of it. the countess--well, the countess was admirable. she greeted me like a friend of ten years, toward whom familiarity should not have engendered a want of ceremony; she made me sit near her, and she asked me a dozen questions about my health and my occupations. "i live in the past," i said. "i go into the galleries, into the old palaces and the churches. today i spent an hour in michael angelo's chapel at san loreozo." "ah yes, that's the past," said the countess. "those things are very old." "twenty-seven years old," i answered. "twenty-seven? _altro_!" "i mean my own past," i said. "i went to a great many of those places with your mother." "ah, the pictures are beautiful," murmured the countess, glancing at stanmer. "have you lately looked at any of them?" i asked. "have you gone to the galleries with _him_?" she hesitated a moment, smiling. "it seems to me that your question is a little impertinent. but i think you are like that." "a little impertinent? never. as i say, your mother did me the honour, more than once, to accompany me to the uffizzi." "my mother must have been very kind to you." "so it seemed to me at the time." "at the time only?" "well, if you prefer, so it seems to me now." "eh," said the countess, "she made sacrifices." "to what, cara signora? she was perfectly free. your lamented father was dead--and she had not yet contracted her second marriage." "if she was intending to marry again, it was all the more reason she should have been careful." i looked at her a moment; she met my eyes gravely, over the top of her fan. "are _you_ very careful?" i said. she dropped her fan with a certain violence. "ah, yes, you are impertinent!" "ah no," i said. "remember that i am old enough to be your father; that i knew you when you were three years old. i may surely ask such questions. but you are right; one must do your mother justice. she was certainly thinking of her second marriage." "you have not forgiven her that!" said the countess, very gravely. "have you?" i asked, more lightly. "i don't judge my mother. that is a mortal sin. my stepfather was very kind to me." "i remember him," i said; "i saw him a great many times--your mother already received him." my hostess sat with lowered eyes, saying nothing; but she presently looked up. "she was very unhappy with my father." "that i can easily believe. and your stepfather--is he still living?" "he died--before my mother." "did he fight any more duels?" "he was killed in a duel," said the countess, discreetly. it seems almost monstrous, especially as i can give no reason for it--but this announcement, instead of shocking me, caused me to feel a strange exhilaration. most assuredly, after all these years, i bear the poor man no resentment. of course i controlled my manner, and simply remarked to the countess that as his fault had been so was his punishment. i think, however, that the feeling of which i speak was at the bottom of my saying to her that i hoped that, unlike her mother's, her own brief married life had been happy. "if it was not," she said, "i have forgotten it now."--i wonder if the late count scarabelli was also killed in a duel, and if his adversary . . . is it on the books that his adversary, as well, shall perish by the pistol? which of those gentlemen is he, i wonder? is it reserved for poor little stanmer to put a bullet into him? no; poor little stanmer, i trust, will do as i did. and yet, unfortunately for him, that woman is consummately plausible. she was wonderfully nice last evening; she was really irresistible. such frankness and freedom, and yet something so soft and womanly; such graceful gaiety, so much of the brightness, without any of the stiffness, of good breeding, and over it all something so picturesquely simple and southern. she is a perfect italian. but she comes honestly by it. after the talk i have just jotted down she changed her place, and the conversation for half an hour was general. stanmer indeed said very little; partly, i suppose, because he is shy of talking a foreign tongue. was i like that--was i so constantly silent? i suspect i was when i was perplexed, and heaven knows that very often my perplexity was extreme. before i went away i had a few more words _tete- a-tete_ with the countess. "i hope you are not leaving florence yet," she said; "you will stay a while longer?" i answered that i came only for a week, and that my week was over. "i stay on from day to day, i am so much interested." "eh, it's the beautiful moment. i'm glad our city pleases you!" "florence pleases me--and i take a paternal interest to our young friend," i added, glancing at stanmer. "i have become very fond of him." "_bel tipo inglese_," said my hostess. "and he is very intelligent; he has a beautiful mind." she stood there resting her smile and her clear, expressive eyes upon me. "i don't like to praise him too much," i rejoined, "lest i should appear to praise myself; he reminds me so much of what i was at his age. if your beautiful mother were to come to life for an hour she would see the resemblance." she gave me a little amused stare. "and yet you don't look at all like him!" "ah, you didn't know me when i was twenty-five. i was very handsome! and, moreover, it isn't that, it's the mental resemblance. i was ingenuous, candid, trusting, like him." "trusting? i remember my mother once telling me that you were the most suspicious and jealous of men!" "i fell into a suspicious mood, but i was, fundamentally, not in the least addicted to thinking evil. i couldn't easily imagine any harm of any one." "and so you mean that mr. stanmer is in a suspicions mood?" "well, i mean that his situation is the same as mine." the countess gave me one of her serious looks. "come," she said, "what was it--this famous situation of yours? i have heard you mention it before." "your mother might have told you, since she occasionally did me the honour to speak of me." "all my mother ever told me was that you were--a sad puzzle to her." at this, of course, i laughed out--i laugh still as i write it. "well, then, that was my situation--i was a sad puzzle to a very clever woman." "and you mean, therefore, that i am a puzzle to poor mr. stanmer?" "he is racking his brains to make you out. remember it was you who said he was intelligent." she looked round at him, and as fortune would have it, his appearance at that moment quite confirmed my assertion. he was lounging back in his chair with an air of indolence rather too marked for a drawing-room, and staring at the ceiling with the expression of a man who has just been asked a conundrum. madame scarabelli seemed struck with his attitude. "don't you see," i said, "he can't read the riddle?" "you yourself," she answered, "said he was incapable of thinking evil. i should be sorry to have him think any evil of _me_." and she looked straight at me--seriously, appealingly--with her beautiful candid brow. i inclined myself, smiling, in a manner which might have meant--"how could that be possible?" "i have a great esteem for him," she went on; "i want him to think well of me. if i am a puzzle to him, do me a little service. explain me to him." "explain you, dear lady?" "you are older and wiser than he. make him understand me." she looked deep into my eyes for a moment, and then she turned away. th.--i have written nothing for a good many days, but meanwhile i have been half a dozen times to casa salvi. i have seen a good deal also of my young friend--had a good many walks and talks with him. i have proposed to him to come with me to venice for a fortnight, but he won't listen to the idea of leaving florence. he is very happy in spite of his doubts, and i confess that in the perception of his happiness i have lived over again my own. this is so much the case that when, the other day, he at last made up his mind to ask me to tell him the wrong that madame de salvi had done me, i rather checked his curiosity. i told him that if he was bent upon knowing i would satisfy him, but that it seemed a pity, just now, to indulge in painful imagery. "but i thought you wanted so much to put me out of conceit of our friend." "i admit i am inconsistent, but there are various reasons for it. in the first place--it's obvious--i am open to the charge of playing a double game. i profess an admiration for the countess scarabelli, for i accept her hospitality, and at the same time i attempt to poison your mind; isn't that the proper expression? i can't exactly make up my mind to that, though my admiration for the countess and my desire to prevent you from taking a foolish step are equally sincere. and then, in the second place, you seem to me, on the whole, so happy! one hesitates to destroy an illusion, no matter how pernicious, that is so delightful while it lasts. these are the rare moments of life. to be young and ardent, in the midst of an italian spring, and to believe in the moral perfection of a beautiful woman--what an admirable situation! float with the current; i'll stand on the brink and watch you." "your real reason is that you feel you have no case against the poor lady," said stanmer. "you admire her as much as i do." "i just admitted that i admired her. i never said she was a vulgar flirt; her mother was an absolutely scientific one. heaven knows i admired that! it's a nice point, however, how much one is hound in honour not to warn a young friend against a dangerous woman because one also has relations of civility with the lady." "in such a case," said stanmer, "i would break off my relations." i looked at him, and i think i laughed. "are you jealous of me, by chance?" he shook his head emphatically. "not in the least; i like to see you there, because your conduct contradicts your words." "i have always said that the countess is fascinating." "otherwise," said stanmer, "in the case you speak of i would give the lady notice." "give her notice?" "mention to her that you regard her with suspicion, and that you propose to do your best to rescue a simple-minded youth from her wiles. that would be more loyal." and he began to laugh again. it is not the first time he has laughed at me; but i have never minded it, because i have always understood it. "is that what you recommend me to say to the countess?" i asked. "recommend you!" he exclaimed, laughing again; "i recommend nothing. i may be the victim to be rescued, but i am at least not a partner to the conspiracy. besides," he added in a moment, "the countess knows your state of mind." "has she told you so?" stanmer hesitated. "she has begged me to listen to everything you may say against her. she declares that she has a good conscience." "ah," said i, "she's an accomplished woman!" and it is indeed very clever of her to take that tone. stanmer afterwards assured me explicitly that he has never given her a hint of the liberties i have taken in conversation with--what shall i call it?--with her moral nature; she has guessed them for herself. she must hate me intensely, and yet her manner has always been so charming to me! she is truly an accomplished woman! may th.--i have stayed away from casa salvi for a week, but i have lingered on in florence, under a mixture of impulses. i have had it on my conscience not to go near the countess again--and yet from the moment she is aware of the way i feel about her, it is open war. there need be no scruples on either side. she is as free to use every possible art to entangle poor stanmer more closely as i am to clip her fine-spun meshes. under the circumstances, however, we naturally shouldn't meet very cordially. but as regards her meshes, why, after all, should i clip them? it would really be very interesting to see stanmer swallowed up. i should like to see how he would agree with her after she had devoured him--(to what vulgar imagery, by the way, does curiosity reduce a man!) let him finish the story in his own way, as i finished it in mine. it is the same story; but why, a quarter of a century later, should it have the same _denoument_? let him make his own _denoument_. _th_.--hang it, however, i don't want the poor boy to be miserable. _th_.--ah, but did my _denoument_ then prove such a happy one? _th_.--he came to my room late last night; he was much excited. "what was it she did to you?" he asked. i answered him first with another question. "have you quarrelled with the countess?" but he only repeated his own. "what was it she did to you?" "sit down and i'll tell you." and he sat there beside the candle, staring at me. "there was a man always there--count camerino." "the man she married?" "the man she married. i was very much in love with her, and yet i didn't trust her. i was sure that she lied; i believed that she could be cruel. nevertheless, at moments, she had a charm which made it pure pedantry to be conscious of her faults; and while these moments lasted i would have done anything for her. unfortunately they didn't last long. but you know what i mean; am i not describing the scarabelli?" "the countess scarabelli never lied!" cried stanmer. "that's just what i would have said to any one who should have made the insinutation! but i suppose you are not asking me the question you put to me just now from dispassionate curiosity." "a man may want to know!" said the innocent fellow. i couldn't help laughing out. "this, at any rate, is my story. camerino was always there; he was a sort of fixture in the house. if i had moments of dislike for the divine bianca, i had no moments of liking for him. and yet he was a very agreeable fellow, very civil, very intelligent, not in the least disposed to make a quarrel with me. the trouble, of course, was simply that i was jealous of him. i don't know, however, on what ground i could have quarrelled with him, for i had no definite rights. i can't say what i expected--i can't say what, as the matter stood, i was prepared to do. with my name and my prospects, i might perfectly have offered her my hand. i am not sure that she would have accepted it--i am by no means clear that she wanted that. but she wanted, wanted keenly, to attach me to her; she wanted to have me about. i should have been capable of giving up everything--england, my career, my family--simply to devote myself to her, to live near her and see her every day." "why didn't you do it, then?" asked stanmer. "why don't you?" "to be a proper rejoinder to my question," he said, rather neatly, "yours should be asked twenty-five years hence." "it remains perfectly true that at a given moment i was capable of doing as i say. that was what she wanted--a rich, susceptible, credulous, convenient young englishman established near her _en permanence_. and yet," i added, "i must do her complete justice. i honestly believe she was fond of me." at this stanmer got up and walked to the window; he stood looking out a moment, and then he turned round. "you know she was older than i," i went on. "madame scarabelli is older than you. one day in the garden, her mother asked me in an angry tone why i disliked camerino; for i had been at no pains to conceal my feeling about him, and something had just happened to bring it out. 'i dislike him,' i said, 'because you like him so much.' 'i assure you i don't like him,' she answered. 'he has all the appearance of being your lover,' i retorted. it was a brutal speech, certainly, but any other man in my place would have made it. she took it very strangely; she turned pale, but she was not indignant. 'how can he be my lover after what he has done?' she asked. 'what has he done?' she hesitated a good while, then she said: 'he killed my husband.' 'good heavens!' i cried, 'and you receive him!' do you know what she said? she said, '_che voule_?'" "is that all?" asked stanmer. "no; she went on to say that camerino had killed count salvi in a duel, and she admitted that her husband's jealousy had been the occasion of it. the count, it appeared, was a monster of jealousy--he had led her a dreadful life. he himself, meanwhile, had been anything but irreproachable; he had done a mortal injury to a man of whom he pretended to be a friend, and this affair had become notorious. the gentleman in question had demanded satisfaction for his outraged honour; but for some reason or other (the countess, to do her justice, did not tell me that her husband was a coward), he had not as yet obtained it. the duel with camerino had come on first; in an access of jealous fury the count had struck camerino in the face; and this outrage, i know not how justly, was deemed expiable before the other. by an extraordinary arrangement (the italians have certainly no sense of fair play) the other man was allowed to be camerino's second. the duel was fought with swords, and the count received a wound of which, though at first it was not expected to be fatal, he died on the following day. the matter was hushed up as much as possible for the sake of the countess's good name, and so successfully that it was presently observed that, among the public, the other gentleman had the credit of having put his blade through m. de salvi. this gentleman took a fancy not to contradict the impression, and it was allowed to subsist. so long as he consented, it was of course in camerino's interest not to contradict it, as it left him much more free to keep up his intimacy with the countess." stanmer had listened to all this with extreme attention. "why didn't _she_ contradict it?" i shrugged my shoulders. "i am bound to believe it was for the same reason. i was horrified, at any rate, by the whole story. i was extremely shocked at the countess's want of dignity in continuing to see the man by whose hand her husband had fallen." "the husband had been a great brute, and it was not known," said stanmer. "its not being known made no difference. and as for salvi having been a brute, that is but a way of saying that his wife, and the man whom his wife subsequently married, didn't like him." stanmer hooked extremely meditative; his eyes were fixed on mine. "yes, that marriage is hard to get over. it was not becoming." "ah," said i, "what a long breath i drew when i heard of it! i remember the place and the hour. it was at a hill-station in india, seven years after i had left florence. the post brought me some english papers, and in one of them was a letter from italy, with a lot of so-called 'fashionable intelligence.' there, among various scandals in high life, and other delectable items, i read that the countess bianca salvi, famous for some years as the presiding genius of the most agreeable seen in florence, was about to bestow her hand upon count camerino, a distinguished bolognese. ah, my dear boy, it was a tremendous escape! i had been ready to marry the woman who was capable of that! but my instinct had warned me, and i had trusted my instinct." "'instinct's everything,' as falstaff says!" and stanmer began to laugh. "did you tell madame de salvi that your instinct was against her?" "no; i told her that she frightened me, shocked me, horrified me." "that's about the same thing. and what did she say?" "she asked me what i would have? i called her friendship with camerino a scandal, and she answered that her husband had been a brute. besides, no one knew it; therefore it was no scandal. just _your_ argument! i retorted that this was odious reasoning, and that she had no moral sense. we had a passionate argument, and i declared i would never see her again. in the heat of my displeasure i left florence, and i kept my vow. i never saw her again." "you couldn't have been much in love with her," said stanmer. "i was not--three months after." "if you had been you would have come back--three days after." "so doubtless it seems to you. all i can say is that it was the great effort of my life. being a military man, i have had on various occasions to face time enemy. but it was not then i needed my resolution; it was when i left florence in a post-chaise." stanmer turned about the room two or three times, and then he said: "i don't understand! i don't understand why she should have told you that camerino had killed her husband. it could only damage her." "she was afraid it would damage her more that i should think he was her lover. she wished to say the thing that would most effectually persuade me that he was not her lover--that he could never be. and then she wished to get the credit of being very frank." "good heavens, how you must have analysed her!" cried my companion, staring. "there is nothing so analytic as disillusionment. but there it is. she married camerino." "yes, i don't lime that," said stanmer. he was silent a while, and then he added--"perhaps she wouldn't have done so if you had remained." he has a little innocent way! "very likely she would have dispensed with the ceremony," i answered, drily. "upon my word," he said, "you _have_ analysed her!" "you ought to be grateful to me. i have done for you what you seem unable to do for yourself." "i don't see any camerino in my case," he said. "perhaps among those gentlemen i can find one for you." "thank you," he cried; "i'll take care of that myself!" and he went away--satisfied, i hope. th.--he's an obstinate little wretch; it irritates me to see him sticking to it. perhaps he is looking for his camerino. i shall leave him, at any rate, to his fate; it is growing insupportably hot. th.--i went this evening to bid farewell to the scarabelli. there was no one there; she was alone in her great dusky drawing-room, which was lighted only by a couple of candles, with the immense windows open over the garden. she was dressed in white; she was deucedly pretty. she asked me, of course, why i had been so long without coming. "i think you say that only for form," i answered. "i imagine you know." "_che_! what have i done?" "nothing at all. you are too wise for that." she looked at me a while. "i think you are a little crazy." "ah no, i am only too sane. i have too much reason rather than too little." "you have, at any rate, what we call a fixed idea." "there is no harm in that so long as it's a good one." "but yours is abominable!" she exclaimed, with a laugh. "of course you can't like me or my ideas. all things considered, you have treated me with wonderful kindness, and i thank you and kiss your hands. i leave florence tomorrow." "i won't say i'm sorry!" she said, laughing again. "but i am very glad to have seen you. i always wondered about you. you are a curiosity." "yes, you must find me so. a man who can resist your charms! the fact is, i can't. this evening you are enchanting; and it is the first time i have been alone with you." she gave no heed to this; she turned away. but in a moment she came back, and stood looking at me, and her beautiful solemn eyes seemed to shine in the dimness of the room. "how _could_ you treat my mother so?" she asked. "treat her so?" "how could you desert the most charming woman in the world?" "it was not a case of desertion; and if it had been it seems to me she was consoled." at this moment there was the sound of a step in the ante-chamber, and i saw that the countess perceived it to be stanmer's. "that wouldn't have happened," she murmured. "my poor mother needed a protector." stanmer came in, interrupting our talk, and looking at me, i thought, with a little air of bravado. he must think me indeed a tiresome, meddlesome bore; and upon my word, turning it all over, i wonder at his docility. after all, he's five-and-twenty--and yet i _must_ add, it _does_ irritate me--the way he sticks! he was followed in a moment by two or three of the regular italians, and i made my visit short. "good-bye, countess," i said; and she gave me her hand in silence. "do you need a protector?" i added, softly. she looked at me from head to foot, and then, almost angrily--"yes, signore." but, to deprecate her anger, i kept her hand an instant, and then bent my venerable head and kissed it. i think i appeased her. bologna, th.--i left florence on the th, and have been here these three days. delightful old italian town--but it lacks the charm of my florentine secret. i wrote that last entry five days ago, late at night, after coming back from casa salsi. i afterwards fell asleep in my chair; the night was half over when i woke up. instead of going to bed, i stood a long time at the window, looking out at the river. it was a warm, still night, and the first faint streaks of sunrise were in the sky. presently i heard a slow footstep beneath my window, and looking down, made out by the aid of a street lamp that stanmer was but just coming home. i called to him to come to my rooms, and, after an interval, he made his appearance. "i want to bid you good-bye," i said; "i shall depart in the morning. don't go to the trouble of saying you are sorry. of course you are not; i must have bullied you immensely." he made no attempt to say he was sorry, but he said he was very glad to have made my acquaintance. "your conversation," he said, with his little innocent air, "has been very suggestive." "have you found camerino?" i asked, smiling. "i have given up the search." "well," i said, "some day when you find that you have made a great mistake, remember i told you so." he looked for a minute as if he were trying to anticipate that day by the exercise of his reason. "has it ever occurred to you that _you_ may have made a great mistake?" "oh yes; everything occurs to one sooner or later." that's what i said to him; but i didn't say that the question, pointed by his candid young countenance, had, for the moment, a greater force than it had ever had before. and then he asked me whether, as things had turned out, i myself had been so especially happy. paris, _december_ th.--a note from young stanmer, whom i saw in florence--a remarkable little note, dated rome, and worth transcribing. "my dear general--i have it at heart to tell you that i was married a week ago to the countess salvi-scarabelli. you talked me into a great muddle; but a month after that it was all very clear. things that involve a risk are like the christian faith; they must be seen from the inside.--yours ever, e. s. "p. s.--a fig for analogies unless you can find an analogy for my happiness!" his happiness makes him very clever. i hope it will last--i mean his cleverness, not his happiness. london, _april_ th, .--last night, at lady h---'s, i met edmund stanmer, who married bianca salvi's daughter. i heard the other day that they had come to england. a handsome young fellow, with a fresh contented face. he reminded me of florence, which i didn't pretend to forget; but it was rather awkward, for i remember i used to disparage that woman to him. i had a complete theory about her. but he didn't seem at all stiff; on the contrary, he appeared to enjoy our encounter. i asked him if his wife were there. i had to do that. "oh yes, she's in one of the other rooms. come and make her acquaintance; i want you to know her." "you forget that i do know her." "oh no, you don't; you never did." and he gave a little significant laugh. i didn't feel like facing the _ci-devant_ scarabelli at that moment; so i said that i was leaving the house, but that i would do myself the honour of calling upon his wife. we talked for a minute of something else, and then, suddenly breaking off and looking at me, he laid his hand on my arm. i must do him the justice to say that he looks felicitous. "depend upon it you were wrong!" he said. "my dear young friend," i answered, "imagine the alacrity with which i concede it." something else again was spoken of, but in an instant he repeated his movement. "depend upon it you were wrong." "i am sure the countess has forgiven me," i said, "and in that case you ought to bear no grudge. as i have had the honour to say, i will call upon her immediately." "i was not alluding to my wife," he answered. "i was thinking of your own story." "my own story?" "so many years ago. was it not rather a mistake?" i looked at him a moment; he's positively rosy. "that's not a question to solve in a london crush." and i turned away. d.--i haven't yet called on the _ci-devant_; i am afraid of finding her at home. and that boy's words have been thrumming in my ears--"depend upon it you were wrong. wasn't it rather a mistake?" _was_ i wrong--_was_ it a mistake? was i too cautions--too suspicious--too logical? was it really a protector she needed--a man who might have helped her? would it have been for his benefit to believe in her, and was her fault only that i had forsaken her? was the poor woman very unhappy? god forgive me, how the questions come crowding in! if i marred her happiness, i certainly didn't make my own. and i might have made it--eh? that's a charming discovery for a man of my age! transcriber's notes: . this text has numerous intentionally misspelled words. . in several instances, what would normally be a full stop has been presented in the original text and here as an extra space. . the punctuation and spelling of the original text have been retained throughout. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "sequil" or things whitch aint finished in the first by henry a. shute published by the everett press boston, mass., mcmiv ----------------------------------------------------------------------- copyright, , by henry a. shute. entered at stationers' hall. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "sequil" or things whitch aint finished in the first sept. , - gosh, what do you think, last nite father and mother and me and keene and cele and aunt sarah was sitting at supper when father, he sed i am a going to read your diry tonite. gosh i was scart for i hadent wrote ennything in it for a long time. so after supper i went over to mister watsons and asked him if he dident want to see father and he sed he wood and i went home and told father mister watson wanted him to come over jest as quick as he cood and father went over. i knew father woodent ever think of it agen. father and mister watson beanys father set and talked about what they usted to do and father sed do you remember wats that time you and bill yung and brad purinton and jack fog went down to, and then he saw me and beany lissening and he sed, you boys run away and he giv me cents and me and beany went over to old si smiths for some goozberies but i have got to wright that old diry some more whitch is pretty tuf, i have forgot whether it was brite and fair sence i wrote my last diry or not, but ennyway it is brite and fair today. lots of things have hapened sense i wrote my last diry. beanys father is a poliseman now and beany feels prety big. beany hadent better say mutch to me ennyway. the stewdcats have come back and they has been lots of fites. scotty briggam licked stewdcats in one day. one day me and pewt and beany was standing in frunt of the libary and stewdcats went in and pewt threw a peace of dry mud and it hit the stewdcat rite in the neck and bust and went down his coller and he see us laffin and he walked rite out to where we was standing and he sed sorter sisy like whitch of you boys throwd that, and pewt sed jest like him, if you are so smart you had better find out, and he grabed pewt and throwd him rite in the guter and roled him round in the mud and hit him good bats in the ear. me and beany run and pewt he was mad becaus we dident pich in and help him, but lots of times me and beany has got licked and pewt never helped us. i told father about it and he sed he was glad of it and he wished the stewdcats had licked me and beany two. sept. , - brite and fair. the band played tonite downtown. we all went down but mother and aunt sarah and the baby and franky and georgie and annie who was all two little except mother and aunt sarah who had to stop and take care of them. the band played splendid and fatty walker jest pounded the base drum as hard as he cood. most of the fellers run round and played tag and hollered but i set still. i cant see how fellers can run round and holler when a band plays. they tried to pull me out of my seet but i giv beany a good punch. when we came home mother asked if i had behaived and father sed i set there jest like a old potato. he sed i dident know much ennytime but when i herd music i dident know ennything. sept. , - will simpkins is coming to visit us. he is my cuzon and is older then i am and every time he comes he licks me. i dont dass to tell becaus he is company. so this time i am going to get gim erly or tady finton to lick him. he is coming next saterday. he lives in a city and wears a neckti every day and feels prety big and says i am a countryman. i see gim erly today and he says he will lick time out of will for a nife and a slingshot. i had lost my nife so i told beany and he sed he wood give gim his nife if he wood let him see the fite. will licked beany last summer and beany aint forgot it. then i dident have enny slingshot and so i told fatty and fatty he sed he wood give gim his slingshot if he cood see the fite. it seemed kinder mean not to tell pewt, so i told pewt and he sed he would give me his fathers pigs bladder when it was killed if i wood let him see the fite, that makes bladders i am going to have this fall. oliver lane is going to give me his, they will make bully footballs. i gess i can get potter to give me a leest flycatches egg if i will let him see the fite. sept. . brite and fair. will simpkins is coming tomorrow. i bet he will wish he hadent after gim erly gives him that licking. potter gave me a red wing blackbirds egg and a chippys egg and blewjays wings to see the fite. sept. . brite and fair. it was the best fite i have seen since cris staples licked charlie clark you had aught to have seen it. will came this morning he was all dressed up and had his shoes blacked. i knew that wood make gim want to lick him. i felt kinder mean when he came becaus he seamed glad to see me, and mother sed i hope you boys will have a real nice time together, and i sed i gess we will. so after dinner i asked him to go over to beanys and we went over and gim was there and potter and pewt and fatty and billy swett came with fatty and he wispered he wood giv me a whailbone bow. gim sed to me easy have you got them things and i sed yes and gim sed no fooling and i sed hope to die and i crosed my throte and i sed you have got to lick him first and he sed he wood lick him. so we went over in the high school yard to play prisners bass. well prety soon gim sed will cheeted, and will said he dident, and gim sed do you mean to call me a lier and will sed he dident cheet and gim sed he wood giv him a paist on the nose, and will sed he want man enuf and gim scrached a line in the dirt and told will not to dass to step over it and then will put a chip on his sholeder and told gim not to dass to nock it off and will sed if he hit gim he wood nock him so far he woodent come down at all and gim sed if he hit him there woodent be ennything left of him but a red neckti, and will told gim he was a freckled faced mick and gim told will he was a curly haired nigger and just then fatty give will a push rite into gim and they went at it and gim licked time out of will and got him down and lammed him until he hollered enuf. then will he went home balling and i had to go two and when we got home mother sed it was a shame and she wood tell father when he got home. when father got home mother told him and sed it was a shame that willy, she calls him willy, i am glad my name aint willy, i had rather be called skinny or polelegs or plupy then willy, well she sed it was a shame that willy coodent play with me without having that dredful erly boy fiting him and she wanted father to go up to mr. tucks where gim lives and tell him about it. well father sed boys always fit and she mustent wurry about it he gessed willy wood get over it. but he told me not to ask gim erly down here agen. so after supper when i had to go for the yeest i ran up to gims and giv him the nife and the slingshot and told him not to tell. sept. . brite and fair. will has got a black eye and a scrached nose. nellie has got well and we had a ride today after church and i let will drive. in the afternoon beany and pewt came over and we had a shooting mach with the whailbone bow behind the barn. i told beany and pewt not to tell for if they did father woodent let us go together agen. fatty and potter and billy swett wont tell ether. sept. , - brite and fair. today we had a good time. mother let me invite beany and pewt and nipper brown to supper for company for will. pewt coodent come becaus he shot one of his fathers hens with his arrow rifle jest like i shot my hen whitch was eating eggs and mister purinton pewts father woodent let him come. i gess if father had been at home for supper i wood have got a licking but he dident get home til the oh clock train. well we had been raising time up in my room and when we went down to supper i pulled a chair out when nipper went to set down and he set rite down on the floor bang and grabed the table cloth and pulled of his plate and cup and sauser and beanys sauser and they came rite down on his head and broak to smash. nipper was scart but mother picked him up and said he needent wurry for she dident care for the dishes and asked him if he was hurt and said it was my falt and she told me i had aught to be ashamed and i hadent aught to have company if i dident know how to treet them. she dident send me to bed becaus she had to be polite to beany and nipper and so i was all rite, after supper we played domminoes til the nine oh clock bell rang and then beany and nipper went home. sept. . brite and fair. will went home to-day i was sorry he went, we had a good time and i never knew him to be such a good feller before. i gess it did him good to get a lickin. father says it always does me good to get a good lickin. before he went he got me to throw a ball easy at him and he let it hit him in the eye so he cood tell his folks that a ball hit him in the eye, so he wood not have to tell a lie to his father about his black eye. a feller feels a good deal better when he doesent have to lie to his folks. when i usted to hook in swiming i usted to stick my head in the rane water barril so i cood tell father how i wet my hair. i dident like to do it sometimes becaus the barril was full of little wigglers but i had ruther do that then have to tell a lie, ennyway i gess all the wigglers that got into my hair died becaus they never bit me. father says they turn into musketers. sept. , - brite and fair. i forgot to say that i giv will the whailbone bow that billy swett giv me to see the fite. he was glad to get it i tell you, and he sed i was the best feller he knew. i told him when he came here agen we wood have some more fun. mother gave him cents and gave me ten cents for being so good to him. me and pewt and beany had some goozeberies down to old si smiths. father told me one time i cood have a football, so i asked him tonite and he sed i dident desirve ennything, that i had caused him a good deal of truble, ennyway i am going to have bladders. sept. . clowdy but no rane. beany and ticky moses got fiting at resess today. we was playing old cat and we was chewsing sides, and beany and ticky was chewsing and the way they did it was this. beany he throwed the bat at ticky and ticky he cought it about half way down, and then beany he put his hand above tickys and ticky he put his above beanys, and so on til when they came to the end of the bat the last one whitch had his hand on has the first choice and no fudging, only he has got to swing the bat around his head times and throw it times as far as he can gump. well beany he had the last hand on the bat and he cood jest get hold of it a little and when he swung it round his head it sliped and hit ticky on his head, and he piched into beany and jest as they was fiting good the bell rang. that is jest the way. something always stops the good fites. i bet on beany. sept. . brite and fair. the stewdcats have got back long ago--i forgot to wright that in. they are some new fellers not enny biger then i am. honey donovan licked one of them easy and made him ball like a baby. chitter robinson and a stewdcat named hall had a fite on the plains and neether licked. they fit until they was tired out, and darlinton a big stewdcat came up and stoped them. they aint much fun in going to school now. all the girls go to school in the libary bilding and they is nobody but fellers in the grammer school. i tell you it is pretty loansom. we fellers dont care mutch if they miss in there lessons. sept. . brite and fair. after school today me and beany and fatty and nibby and lees moses and whacker went home by the libary building, when the girls came out they dident pay enny attension to us becaus the high school fellers was there. perhaps they will want to slide on our sleds next winter and then i gess they will find out something. sept. , - brite and fair. went to church in the morning and to sunday school in the afternoon. i have got a new pair of britches. old missis stickny made them out of a old pair of fathers. they wasent very old becaus they was made out of the same blew coat that father had when he was going to make his speach when old dirgin put me out of the town hall. father sed he wood never ware them britches ennymore. they was too tite, and his new boots was too tite two, and so he giv them to me, only i cood have the britches made smaler and i coodent have the boots made smaler so i will have to wate a long time before i cood ware the boots. well after sunday school me and bug and cawcaw and pile wood went down to the dam. they are having the dam fixed and the water is auful low, rite below the dam they was some big pikerel in a place where they coodent get out. well we took off our shues and stockings and begun to wade in after them and they wood dart round lively and we got pretty well spatered, and than i fell rite down and got wet soping. after that i went rite in and we got big pikerel and we had apeace. so i went home and i was afraid i wood get a licking and i did two, for when i came in father said where in thunder have you been and i told him and said here are some good pikerel for supper and he said i will atend to you sir, and he took me up stairs and gave me a whaling. gosh you bet it hurt. well then he told me to go to bed and said i coodent have my supper, and when i took of my close my legs were all blew and i called mother up to see how i was black and blew and when she came up she said for mersy sakes, the coler has all come out of your pants and you are all chekered blew, so i tride to wash it of, and it woodent come of. so i went to bed and i felt auful hungry and i cood hear them at supper and i could smell beefstake and i almost wished father was ded, and when it was almost dark mother come up with a tray and she had fride one of the pikerel and had some tost and a baked potato and i set up and had a buly supper. mother wasent mad a bit with me but she told me i did rong but she gessed i got my pay for it and i gess i did. mother is jest as good as she can be. sept. . brite and fair. the coler hasent gone of my legs yet. tonite father took me down to erl and cuts where he got the coat that my britches was made out of and told erl about it and made me show my legs, and erl said i gess george, the cloth hadent been spunged, and father said i dont know about the cloth, but he was spunged most damly when he got them. and mister erl laffed and gave father a pair of new britches, and we went home. father felt pretty good about it, it dont seam rite, i got a lickin and got my legs all blew and it wont come of, and father got a new pair of britches for nothing. enny way one of these pickerel waid a pound. sept. . tonite i went over to beanys. mister watson beanys father was leening his head on his hand and i stumped beany to pull his elbo out. and we nearly dide laffing to think about it and by and by beany got up his spunk and pulled his elbo out and his head came rite down on the table and he jumped up and grabed beany and hit him some good bats and sent him to bed and told me to go home and never come over there ennymore. so i cant go with beany ennymore. the coler hasent gone out of my legs. sept. . rany. the coler has begun to go of my legs. sept. . rany as time. we got some soft sope of old man currier today and the coler is most gone. sept. . it is all gone now. sept. . lubbin smith and geen titcum got fiting at resess today and the bell rung before eether had licked. i bet on lubbin. i went down for some more pikerel today but the river is two deep now. sept. . i went to church today. they issent enny fun sundays. sept. , - brite and fair. today we was playing football at school and whacker got rooted agenst colbaths barn and hit his head whack and fell down jest as if he was ded, and old francis came running out and grabed him up and put water on his head and then he waked up and was all rite but he had a headake. sept. . rany as time. father has sold nelly to old si smith. she was lame in her hind leg and when she stands in the stable she holds her hind leg up in the air all the time, and when she goes out she limps auful but after she goes a while she aint lame. so last nite father hiched her up and took me and we drove over to wire shaws in kensington and when we came back he took out the whip and hit her under the belly with it times and you aught to see her go. when we came to old si smiths she was going like old billy robinsons troter. then father turned round and drove up to sis and old si and shep hodgden and gimmy biddle and charles fifield was there and father said this will make jest the horse you want for your store and old si said she aint biger than a rat and father said i gess she is big enuf to carry out all your lodes unless you put down your price, and then they all laffed at si, and then si said she was a puller and father said what do you want josiar one that you have to push, and then they laffed agen and when father called him josiar i know si had better look out for when father calls me henry i know i am in for a liking. then si said she is lame in every leg and father said you get in here and drive her and if she goes a lame step i will give her to you, and old si said to shep and gimmy you get in and drive her and they got in and drove off and father said he wood take dolars for her and old si said he wood give dolars for her and they talked and talked and then shep and gimmy came back and said she went all rite and old si said he wood give father dolars and father said she was worth but as si was a nabor he wood like to acomodate him. well old si was counting out the money when he said he bet she was a kicker father said she is kind as a kitten and dont bite or kick dont she harry and i said she cant kick becaus she always holds up one leg in the stall, and old si said whats that and i told him how she coodent kick becaus she held up one leg, and then gimmy and shep and charlie fifield and old mister page all laffed and hollered and stamped round and slaped their legs and said that is a good one, and old si stoped counting his money and swore aufully and father looked auful mad for a minit and then he said she is wirth every cent of dolars and asked si what he wood give and si said dolars and they talked and talked and after a while he give father dolars. then we went home and father looked prety mad. i dident know what i had done but when we got home he said harry you go to bed, so i went up about scart to deth but by and by i crep to the stairs and lissened and he was telling about it to mother and he said if he had sence enuf not to ask me about it he cood had got dolars more out of old si and he was mad enuf to lick me, and then he began to laff and mother laffed and said it served you jest rite george to try and cheet a old man, and father said nelly was wirth dolars and the last baril of flour that si sold him was older then methooselas gread granfather and he wood have got square with si if it hadent been for that boy. well mother said you cant whip him for telling the truth and father said thunder no i aint going to lick him but i was mad enuf to. so i felt prety good and crep back to bed. sept. . brite and fair. at school today scotty briggam jumped over the fence today to get the football and fell on his arm and broke it, and then he went home and came back before school was out with some shingles tied on his arm. scotty has got some spunk, but i gess tady finton can lick him now. old francis said axidents in days was too mutch and we mustent play football enny more. so at recess we go behind the school house and have fites. gim miller and ben rundlet had a good fite, and tomorrow plug atherton and diddly colket are going to have a fite it is most as much fun to see fites as to play football. sept. . brite and fair. we cant have enny more fites. at recess today plug and diddly had the best fite i ever saw. they fit all recess and none of us heard the bell and plug had diddly down and we were all hollering, paist him plug and hit him diddly when old francis came round the corner and grabed plug and diddly. i tell you we all went into school lively and old francis made plug and diddly stand on the platform all the rest of the day with their arms round each others necks and we dident have enny recess in the afternoon. it is pretty tuf. we cant play one old cat becaus old polly smith makes a fuss when the ball goes over her fence and we cant play football becaus scotty broke his arm and whack got stunted, and we cant fite becaus it is rong to fite. we might jest as well be girls and roll hoop. sept. , - father has got a new pair of hip boots. rany. sept. . no i ment oct . yesterday was oct , and i got it sept. . went down to henry youngs tonite and had my hair cut. he put some auful nise smeling oil on and when i got home they all took turns in smeling of my head. oct. . i went to church. pile woods sister played the organ she is going to play all time now. oct. . brite and fair today and yesterday. it was so hot today that me and chick chickering went in swiming, the water was cold as time, and we jest ducked our heads and come out lively. oct. . nothing today. brite and fair. they hasent been enny fites at school for the longest while. oct. . keene and cele has got some new balmoral skirts. they feel prety big. oct. . charles talor was down to the house tonite and kept us all laffing to hear him tell stories about father and gim melcher. oct. . brite and fair. tomorrow me and beany are going to wirk for mister hirvey making ice creem. he is going to give us some and some creem cakes. i missed in school today. oct. . brite and fair. i gess i shant forget today very soon. this afternoon we went over to mister hirveys and we wirked a long time making ice creem by turning the handles of the buckets and choping up the ice. after we got done he let us come into his saloon and we had to big glasses of pink and yellow mixed and some creemcakes. well after we had et it beany said less put some pepersass into the rest of the creemcakes. so we did and then we went out and peeked through the window. bimeby a man came in and set down and we saw mister hirvey bring in some icecreem and some creemcakes. well we kept peeking and the feller et one creemcake and we heard him say to mister hirvey that they were the best creem cakes he ever et and then he took another and took a hog bite out of it and then he jumped up and his eyes buged out and he spit it out and begun to swear and drink water and stamp round and mister hirvey said what is the matter and the man spit some more and swore and said they was helfire in the creemcake, and mister hirvey looked into it and said some one has put pepersass into it and i bet i know who did it. when i heard him say that i ran round the corner, but beany waited too long and mister hirvey saw him peeking in the window and came out lively. well beany he ran down into toles yard as tite as he could go and mister hirvey came hipering after him with his white apron on, i dident know he cood run so fast. bimeby he came back holding beany by the ear. beany he wood try to hold back until his ear nearly puled of and then he wood come along. well mister hirvey snaiked him rite into his saloon and said, did you put that pepersass into my creemcakes, and beany he said he dident, and mister hirvey said i dont want enny lying, and said that beany and the long leged shute boy were the last ones in the place and that one of us did it. and beany he said he dident and he saw me with the pepersass bottel in my hand and mister hirvey he said now you have got to eat that creemcake or take a good licking and he took his cane, and held beany by the coller and said and beany dident eat it, and then he said and beany dident eat it and then he said and he hit beany a auful whack over the legs and beany hollered like time and held on to his legs, and then mister hirvey he said again and beany dident eat it and he said and beany dident eat it and jest as he said beany he grabed it and took a bite and tride to swaller it and i thought i shood die to see him, he spit and clawed at his mouth and he howled and jumped up and down and then he ran over to charles toles pump and rensed his mouth and drank out of the horse troth and mister hirvey and the man like to dide laffing. i waited till they went in and then i went over to see beany and when i asked him how he liked the creemcake he said i was a long leged puke. this was one of the times that beany got cought and i dident. oct. , - sunday agen. brite and fair it never ranes sunday. father went to church today. he woodent have gone if keene and cele hadent been going to sing a duet. i dident want to go becaus i was afraid they wood brake down, but father he said i had got to go and so i went. old mister blake who sets rite behind us droped his hym book and had to bend way over to pick it up when he set up he hit his bald head a feerful bump agenst the book rack. i nearly laffed out loud and had to hold on to my mouth. oct. . j. albert clark is teaching keene and cele a new tune. keene sings the treble and cele sings the alto. it is there is a bank where on the wild time grows. at supper tonite i asked what wild time was and aunt sarah said it must be what father and gim melcher used to have. then we all laffed and father told aunt sarah she was geting so funny that she wood have to wear a kerb bit and a martingail. ennyway it was a good one on father. oct. . the wind blows feerful. father wants me to lern to sing a tune with keene and cele. i dident want to but he said i had got to, so we tried it, and i sung it rong every time. i sung it jest enuf rong to make you feel crepey in your back, and father said if you cant sing better then that you had better shet up. so i shet up. oct. . clowdy but no rane. georgie has lerned a new tune. it is i wood i were a fary queen. we are going to have the minister to supper and father is going to make keene and cele and georgie show of. i hate showing of. ennyway i havent got to show of becaus father says i cant sing. i can sing but he dont know it you bet. oct. . rany and windy. i have got a sore throte. father dident want to have the minister to supper. he said to mother, what in thunder do you want a minister for, and mother said, we must have him becaus he will think it very queer if we dont, only you must be careful not to say or do ennything queer, and father he said he wood keep his eye peeled, but he told mother she must look out for the children. oct. . still rany, my throte is beter. we are going to have chicking for supper when the minister comes. tonite father brought some new goblets from boston. mother and aunt sarah wirked all day making pies and cake. then mother let me lite a paper and hold the chickings over it to burn of the little fethers and hairs i like it becaus it smels like thanksgiving only i burnt my hand and it smelt jest like the chicking but i dident like that you bet. oct. , - today the hole town was full of ministers, most of them had long tailed coats and white necktis. deekon gooch came down to the house with of them. aunt sarah was wating in her best dress and when she saw them coming she said murder joanna they is of them, what shall we do, and mother said, mercy sakes what will george say. well the bell rung and i went to the door and asked them in and deekon gooch said they was mister fernald and mister robinson, he said they was his brothers. then deekon he went off and i showed them to the front room up stairs and one of them asked me if i loved the lord and i said yes sir and he said i was a good boy. and then he asked me if i went to church and sunday school and i said yes sir and he asked me what was the tex last sunday and i said i dident know what tex ment and he said what did he prech from and i said he preeched from the pulpit in church and from the platform in sunday school, and mister fernald he began to laff and mister robinson he said i woodent laff if i was you brother, and then he said what does the minister say after the first prair and i said o yes i know now, he says we will now take up the usual colection and then mister fernald laffed again, then mister robinson he asked me how many sisters i had and i said and he asked if they went to church and i said keene and cele sing in the quire and georgie goes but annie and frankie and the baby was two little and then he asked if father went to church and i said not very often, only when keene and cele had to sing a duet, and then he asked me what else he did sundays and i said sometimes he made viniger down celler and sometimes he went over to see john adams hens or down to gim melchers shop or up to hirum gilmores, and he said it is very deploorible is it not, brother and mister fernald he laffed again and said he gessed he better not ask me any more questions, and perhaps my father woodent like to have me tell all about him, and i said father wasent afrade, and he said he dident give much for ministers ennyway and then mister fernald laffed as hard as he cood and mister robinson looked mad, then we went down stairs and they shook hands with mother and aunt sarah and mister robinson he set down by aunt sarah and asked her about the church and prair meetings and why she dident always go and lots of things like that and mister fernald he got the baby in his lap and he talked to mother about the children and told us stories and he was jest buly. then bimeby father he came home and he shook hands with them and he said he was glad to see them whitch was a auful lie. then mother said super was ready and we all went in to super and father kept talking and telling stories until mother said george and looked at him, and he shet up and turned red and then mister robinson began to pray and all of us kept still but georgie who began to gigle, and mother looked scowly at her and she shet up two. then father looked at mother and winked and i had to put my hand over my mouth. mother she almost laffed to, and mister robinson he kept on praying till bimeby frankie he said mama i wish that man wood stop and mister fernald he began to coff i bet he wanted to laff. well ennyway mister robinson he stoped. then father helped them to chicking and bisket and gelly and coffy and everything and then he helped us and we all begun to eat and bimeby annie said we have got some napkins tonite, and frankie said we have got some little plates to put the butter on, and i saw them first, and annie said we have got some new goblets two, so there, and frankie run his tung out at annie and she made up a face at him, and then father told them to stop and they stoped and mother and aunt sarah turned red and mister robinson he looked auful sollum and mister fernald looked funny and then he looked at father an begun to laff and father laffed and then we all laffed as hard as we cood, and mister fernald he said, dont mind a bit missis shute, i have got children of my own, i like mister fernald. after super frankie and annie were sent to bed and we went into the parlor and father kept us all laffing telling stories, and then keene and cele sung now i lay me down to sleep, and there is a bank on whitch the wild time grows, and cele sung flow gently sweet afton and georgie sung i wood i were a fary queen, and then mister robinson wanted us to sing a religous song and we sung shall we gather at the river. then they asked me to sing and i said i coodent and father said before he thought, that boy is bedeviled to play a cornet, then mister fernald he said let him play it, it wont hurt him, then father begun to tell some more stories and kept us laffin fit to die, and mister fernald he said he hadent laffed so much for years, and he said, to mother, missis shute i gess you have a prety good natured husband, and she said yes, and father he said he most never got mad and jest then the bell rung, and keene went to the door and said that mister swane the poliseman wanted to see father and father he went to the door and in a minit we herd him swaring and herd him say it is a dam lie swane and you know it and then swane went away and father came in and said that someone had ridden horseback over the concreek sidewalk and they tride to lay it on me. then it was bedtime and mister robinson he prayed some more and he prayed for those who took the name of the lord in vane, and then we went to bed. oct. . brite and fair. the old ministers has gone. i am glad of it. i liked mister fernald but i hated old robinson. i gess he wont get invited here again. this morning at brekfast he prayed again until the brekfast was most cold and he prayed a good deal about takin the name of the lord in vane and i cood see that mother looked mad but she dident say ennything. bimeby he begun to talk to mother about father having a unfortunate temper, and said his langage was shocking, and cele she up and said, i gess my father is as good as you are and keene stuck out her tung and mother sent them away from the table, and then old robinson he said i am afrade your children are not well brought up, and mother looked rite at him a minit and then she said, i shood feel very badly if my children shood xcept hospitality from another person and crittisise that person to his face, at all events i cannot submit to have my husband or my children crittisized, and mister robinson he dident say ennymore you bet. after brekfast they went away, and mister fernald he shook hands with us all and he asked mother to let cele and keene come down to shake hands and she did. after they had went mother she gave us a peace of mince pie apeace and we all hoorayed for mother. none of us went to church today. oct. . brite and fair. tonite father borowed gim loverings horse and wagun to go riding. gim said it aught to be greesed, so father asked me to greese the wheals, and then he said i will do it myself, and then i will be sure it will be done rite. so he got the munky rench and the lantern and some lard and went out to greese the wheals, and when he had greesed them he come in and washed his hands and then he went out and told mother not to set up for him and he unhitched the horse and hollered gitap and when the horse started one side of the wagun went down whack and out came father. well he held on to the ranes and stoped the horse and mother said what is the matter, and father said that infernal boy dident screw up the nut and the wheal come of and nearly broke my neck, and as soon as i tie this horse i will give him a good whaling and aunt sarah said george you greesed the wheals yourself and father said by thunder so i did. then i got the lantern and we looked for the wheal and it was leaning up against the apple tree and father said jest look at that, the wheal ran up to the tree and stoped, and then we hunted round for the nut and we coodent find it and i got down on my nees and father held the lantern, and cele and keene came out and hunted and we coodent find it. bimeby father said he could put on the wheal and hold it on till he got back to gims and he lifted up the ex and i went to put on the wheal and there was the nut all screwed on the ex. father had put on the nut but had forgot to put on the wheal and had left the ex resting on the jack. i gess he hadent better say mutch about me. oct. . i have got a new box of paper collers. oct. . brite and fair. this afternoon me and fatty melcher wirked all the afternoon puting leafs in old putty lowjys barn. old putty said he wood pay us but when we asked him for our pay he said we cood have all the horse chesnuts we wanted. so we got a baskit and picked it full and went back to fattys and pluged horse chesnuts at old puttys cat. oct. . brite and fair. skinny bruce and ben rundlet got fiting today. old bandbox tomson came in to lern us some music and he left his fiddel in the entry and at resess ben he put some sope on his bow and when old bandbox tried to play on it he coodent make a squeak. then old francis asked every feller in school who done it, and when ben said he dident know who done it old francis he up and whaled time out of ben. i gess old francis see ben do it. ennyway after school skinny he hollered ben how did you like your licking, and ben he hollered back skinny bruce is a redheaded goose, and skinny he got mad and paisted ben one in the eye and ben he give skinny a sidewinder and then they fit from first base to colbaths barn where whack got stunted and old polly smith came out and said if they dident stop fiting she wood go for the polise, and so they stoped. i bet on skinny. oct. , - brite and fair and most as hot as summer. that was prety mean of old putty. oct. . mary watson, beany's sister and mary straton whose father chased me and beany when we broke the gaslite, can run faster then enny of the fellers xcept tomtit and arthur francis. oct. . i have been sick agen. not very sick but my legs aked ferful. mother says it is becaus i am growin so fast, but i know why, me and boog chadwick rassled all yesterday afternoon. ferst i throwed boog and then boog throwed me, and when we got through boog was only throws ahead. we dident get mad at all. ennyway i dident have to go to church. oct. . tonite we had company to super. mister and missis merill. frankie did a funny thing. father asked mother for some chese and mother she said they wasent enny, and frankie he said he knew where they was some and father said all rite frankie if you can get some i will give you a cent, father he thinks frankie is auful smart, and so frankie he climed out of his high chair and ran out into the kitchen and bimeby he came in with little peaces of chese and father he asked him where he got them and he brought in the rat trap. you had just aught to have herd them laff. oct. . clowdy but no rane. some folks can eat chese that is all wiggly. oct. . still clowdy. i cant. oct. . beany has got the best little ax i ever saw. his father got it for him to split his kindlins. i wish i had one like it for i have to split my kindlins with a old rusty ax that ways about a tun. oct. . brite and fair. tonite i went over and helped beany split kindlins with his new ax. it was jest as easy as ennything. oct. . brite and fair. old tom fifield killed his pig today and give beany the bladder, and we blew it up with a pipe stem and kicked it for a football after school. jack melvin is going to have micky kelleys fathers pigs bladder, only he dont kill his pig till most winter. i am going to have oliver lanes, and his pig is the bigest in town. i bet his will be as big as the stewdcats big football. all the fellers wish they cood get it. oct. . cold as time this morning, but i had to go to church jest the same. nov. . beany got a licking today for hollering after old nancy marble. she went into beanys house and told beanys father. i hollered two but father was in boston and she coodent tell him. nov. . brite and fair. oliver lane killed his pig today. it was the bigest pig in town. i had been wating for the bladder ever sense last june and i thought such a big pig aught to have a big bladder, but it was jest the littlest bladder i ever see. i suppose it was so fat inside they wasent enny room for the bladder. skinny bruces pigs fathers bladder, no i mean skinny bruces fathers pigs bladder was most twice as big. nov. . brite and fair. the water in the rane baril was froze over last nite. today i blew up the bladder and dride it in the kitchen. it made a prety good football. pewt dident give me his fathers pigs bladder that he promised me when i let him see the fite when gim erly licked will simpkins. you jest wait pewt and you will see. nov. . brite and fair. georgie got sent to bed today and had to stay in bed all the afternoon. mother told her not to tuch a vase that was full of sand to make it heavy. i wanted the sand for my aquarian and so i poored it out. well bimeby georgie came in and went up to take the vase and it was so lite that when she lifted hard it came up so quick that she went rite over backward and smashed the vase all to bits. mother came running in and found that georgie wasent hurt, but she howled as loud as she cood so that mother woodent lick her, and so she got sent to bed. mother said it sirved her rite. nov. . brite and fair. i have been sick today. i gess i et two much spare rib. when i think of it it makes me sick. so i have been thinking over the poitry about the fellers. some of it is prety good. ed tole fell in a hole and coodent get out to save his sole i made that up. plupy shute is a dirty brute. and never will fite if they is a chance to scoot. pewt he made that up. old tim calahan he was a hell of a man. fatty melcher he made that up. frank hanes aint got enny branes and dont know enuf to go in when it ranes beany he made that up. nipper brown tumbled down and busted his head and cracked his crown. i made that up too. granvil miller the barber went to shave his father the razer sliped and cut his lip becaus he forgot the lather. skinny bruce he made that up. i tell you they is some prety good poits among the fellers. but any feller whitch gets poitry made up about him gets mad. nov. . brite and fair. ed tole can spit further than enny feller in school. nov. . keene and cele are sick in bed and coodent sing today in church. they have feerful headakes. docter perry came in to see them. nov. . brite and fair. keene and cele and georgie are all sick now and the docter says it is scarlet fever. they are all up in the front chamber and mother and aunt sarah take care of them. nov. . clowdy but no rane. annie is sick now and i cant go to school ennymore. i like that. so i am making a hen koop. nov. . rany today. beany he hollered over today to find out how keene and cele and georgie and annie are. i have got a soar throte but i aint going to tell ennyone about it. nov. . i had a headake all last nite. i bet i am going to have the fever. frankie has got it now and mother is afrade the baby is coming down, she asked me how i felt and i said buly. nov. . old missis smith is helping take care of the house and gets the brekfasts and dinners and suppers. today docter perry he came down stairs and i was setting in a chair and he said what is the matter with you, and i said nothing and he said let me look at your throte, and he made me open my mouth and he looked down in my gozzle and then he said you march upstairs into the hospitle and tell your mother that you are a new pacient and i went up and when mother saw me come in she said well i have been expecting you. then i went down to my room and got my niteshert and i thaught i aught to write this down becaus i might die. people do die of scarlet fever, i wonder if ennyone wood read it if i did die. ennyway father said once that a boy whitch was born to be hung never wood die in enny other way, so i gess i am all rite. ennyway i aint going to wright ennymore till i get well. * * * * * jan. . brite and fair. i dident die and every one of us got well. annie had it the wirst and i had it the next wirst and frankie and the baby want hardly sick any. today is the first time i have been out. cele and keene went out last wensday but i coodent becaus i hadent got done peeling. after folks have the scarlet fever their skin dries up and peels of and if you get cold in the peeling you die every time. i had on my hoppy gad boots for the first time today. father brougt them up to show me when i was in bed. i was prety sick and dident know nothing for or days. mother says i was talking about the fellers i knew in reading. we lived in reading one year and so i thought i was there i gess and she says i talked of george and wendal evans and puggy fergerson and totty procter and emma wallis and jonny pike and ed harndin and nelly minot. i had a fite with ed harndin and licked him. when willy died we came back to exeter, and she said i talked about willy to, and everything. we had some fun while we was sick. cele used to tell stories and we made flyboxes and then when mother was out of the room we wood turn sumersets, and bimeby when we got so that we cood eat apples we used to have one apeace every day and we had to scrape them with a nife and eat the soft part, and when we were geting beter we were auful cross. i gess most every one wood be cross to lose thanksgiving and crismas two, and my berthday, and all the skating and snowbaling. ennyway i havent got to go to school this week. jan. , - buly snowbaling. i went out today a long time, mother told me not to plug snowballs, so i only throwed or . i am hungry all the time. jan. . brite and fair. one of my hens died when i was sick and the rooster frose his comb. it is prety tuf on me. jan. . i went sliding today on factory hill, it was buly. they wasent hardly ennyone there. jan. . brite and fair. whack and boog have got a duble runner, they made it out of there sleds dart and arrow. it is the fastest duble runner on the hill. i went with them. we beat pewts duble runner esy. pewts is biger and mister purington pewts father painted it buly but it cant go as fast or as fur as whack and boogs. pewt was mad becaus we beat him. jan. . i went to church today. keene and cele sung in the quire. beany kept sticking his head out from behind the organ and making up faces at me to make me laff out loud till the minister spoke to him and he felt prety cheep. jan. . snowed and raned today both, i had my sled painted today. it is painted black with a gold stripe and exeter boy in gold letters on it. mister purington pewts father painted it. i went to school today. nobody got licked. jan. . clowdy. my sled is most dry enuf to use. jan. . it misted last nite and frose and today everything was covered with ice it was fun to see people fall down. most everybody fell down. i went sliding on spring street. jan. . cold as time. i went to school. we are going over colburns in revew and so i can keep up. jan. . i havent got ennything to wright today xcept that i went to school. john adams has got a new brama rooster. jan. . brite and fair. i licked ti crummet today. me and whack and fatty melcher was over on factory hill sliding and ti crummet and hirum mingo and bobberty robinson and dinky lord came over and i had my sled all new painted, pewts father painted it and ti crummet run his old sled agenst it and nocked of sum of the paint, and i told him to keep his old sled of mine and ti he said he wood nock sum of the paint of me if i said words more and then he swoar feerfully. i dident say nothing becaus i dident want to fite him, and hirum mingo said plupy says he can lick you ti and ti said i can nock hel out of you old spindel legs and i said i dident say so and ti he swoar sum more so it sort of scart me, well then i was going and hirum he pushed ti rite into me and he kicked me in the leg and got hold of my hair and i got the under hold and got him down jest as esy as ennything and then i set on him and lammed him til he holered enuf and then i let him up and he went home balling. i bet he beter not fite me agen. jan. . brite and fair. it aint the feller whitch can swear the feerfullest whitch is the best fiter. i went to church and sunday school today. jan. . brite and fair. johnny kelly can lick enny feller on court or south street and he can swear auful two. i gess most of the fellers is scart of him becaus he can swear so. i aint scart of him. jan. . rany. not mutch but sum. we was playing snap the whip today and johnny kelly was on the end and got snaped rite into a pudel of water and he said i dident hold on and he wood give me a slap in the mug and i said he want man enuf and jest then the bell rang and we had to go in. tomorow he had beter look out i am going to give him one in the eye and then grab for the under hold and get him down and lam him good. i bet he cant fite enny beter then ti crummet did, and when i have licked him all the fellers will be afrade of me. i bet he will wish he had never fit with me. feb. . brite and fair. i have got a black eye. this morning i went to school erly and when i got there johnny kelly was there and he said now old plupy longlegs i will fix you and i said pile rite in and we will see and he began to swear wirse then ti did, and i said if you want a good paist in the gob they is plenty of them rite here if you are man enuf to sale in, and when i said that he come at me so quick that i dident have time to get ready and he hit me in the eye and in the mouth times and got the underhold before i cood and got me down and lammed me till i hollered enuf. then all the fellers holered plupy got licked plupy has got a black eye. it was prety mean ennyway. when i got home to dinner mother asked me how i got my eye sore and i said i got it boxing with johnny kelly and she said was you fiteing and i said we box every day in school sometimes beany and whack and sometimes me and pewt but today me and johnny kelly boxed and he hits to hard and she said she shood think so, and said i had beter box with sum other boy and i gess so two. ennyway i dident lie to her for that wasent lying. feb. . brite and fair. i gave johnny kelly the core of my apple today. gosh sum fellers can fite auful and swear auful two. feb. . brite and fair. beany has got a new blew jacket. he felt prety big about it until pewt took him in the back with a roten apple. beany staid in all resess a scraping the apple off of his coat. this afternoon he wore his old jacket. but he is going to pay pewt for that sum way. feb. . it snowed hard all day all the fellers are whacking cats head on each others back. you take some chork and chork the inside of your hand and your ferst and last finger and then you wet your fingers and make eyes and nose and mouth in your chorky hand and then you wate til a feller comes along and then you lam him one on the back and it makes the funniest cats head on his back you ever see with eyes and nose and mouth and long ears whitch your fingers made. i got on my back today and i got on beany and on pewt and on pop clark and on nipper brown. feb. . it snowed this morning and we dident go to church i dug some paths and read billy bowlegs in the afternoon, after super it snowed again and is snowing now. i bet they will be some deep drifts tomorow. feb. . brite and fair. it has cleared off. everything was jest as white and they wasent hardly a track in the snow. i had to dig sum paths, and i got up erly and dug a path down the frunt steps and out to the road so father cood get into the hack. jo parmer said it was prety tuf slaying. my hoppy gad boots have been greesed and they dont leak a bit. me and pewt and beany had sum fun diving. we tide scarfs round our heds and necks and div from our steps into a snow drift. and we cood go in way out of sight. we tide our britches down over our boots, it was more fun than diving in the river. after we div one drift all down we tride another, and bimeby beany he said come on fellers here is a buly drift down by the shed and we went down and beany said i chuse first dive and he clim up on the shed and said to make ready, to prepare, to be going and to be there, and then he div rite into the swill bucket. it was under the snow and beany coodent see it, and when he came up he was all swill and he was mad and said i knew it all the time, and he went home and aint going to ever speak to me enny more. i coodent see the old bucket enny more than he cood. it is jest like beany to get mad at every little thing. i bet he wood laff if i div in the swill bucket. feb. . brite and fair. beany woodent speek to me today. all rite beany you jest wait and see. feb. . brite and fair. it was buly snowballing. we was pluging stewdcats today and pacer gooch came along. so we got behind trees and pewt peeked jest in time to get one rite in the eye. he had aught to know beter than peek out when pacer is pluging snowballs. feb. . me and fatty melcher are making some arrow rifles down to his shop. we are going hunting for rabbits saterday. brite and fair. feb. . brite and fair. tonite father brougt a magasine home tonite. it is the young folks. we all wanted it so we took turns. ferst cele read a story and then i read a story and then keene, we all read it out loud. cele read amung the glass blowers. keene read the story of a bad boy. and i read around the evening lamp. they was all buly stories. feb. , - this afternoon me and fatty melcher and potter goram went hunting. we had our arrow rifles and fatty had a ax and potter a hachet in his belt and i had a nife. we had a buly time. we went up to the eddy and then went across the river on gilmans side. we saw patriges and rabbit and some blewgays. we dident hit them but we came prety near them. then we bilt a fire and et our donnuts and then we tracked a rabbit into a pile of bushes. when we turned over a log we scart out a field mouse and killed it. tonite potter came down to the house and we read young yagers. feb. . it raned hard all day. keene and cele had to go to church and so i had to go two. they wasent many there. it ranes now. feb. . it raned hard all nite. i cood hear it agenst the window and hear the wind blow. it is comfertible to be in bed and hear the rane. only i forgot my kindlings and i had to get up before six oh clock this morning. feb. . beany nearly got killed today. he was spliting wood with his new ax and he was standing rite under a closeline. beany feels prety big about his new ax and he had got so that he can grunt jest like men who chop wood all the time. so beany he swung the ax over his head and it hit the closeline and bounced rite up in the air and came rite down on beanys head and he fell down whack and laid there till his father came out and lugged him into the house. they thought he was ded but he wasent. i went over today to see him, he was setting in a rocking chair by the stove with his head rapped up in a towel. i sent beany a valentine today. he dident send me one but i gess it was because he was sick. feb. . brite and fair. beany is better today. i went over and split his kindlings for him. feb. . brite and fair and buly snowballing. gimmy watson, beanys brother said if beanys head hadent been jest like the choping block it wood have killed him. gimmy is mad becaus beany calls him gami. he can lick beany alone and can lick me alone but me and beany together can lick him. feb. . they was a fire down on franklin street today and bob carter got all squirted over and his close frose to the ladder he was on. feb. , - it snowed today, and then it raned. feb. . we have vacation in about weeks. feb. . i shall be glad when spring comes. i wet my feet most every day. feb. . we are going to have a school xibision at the end of this tirm and old francis says he is going to give prises to the best scholars. nipper and pricilla and all the other good boys are studying hard so as to get the prises. i woodent take one of their prises if they wood give me one. i woodent give cents for their old prises. feb. . today is washington's berthday and we can ring the town bell at oh clock and at for a hour. i went down both times and ed derbon let us take turns in ringing the bell. only can ring at a time. when me and fatty melcher was ringing the bell went over and it pulled us way up to the ceeling. most of the fellers staid out in frunt of the church and pluged snowballs. bimeby some stewdcats came along and we pluged and hit a stewdcat named lee rite in the back of his head and he said we have stood enuf from these townies and he and stone and clifford and winsor, who was our sunday school teacher until he saw the rooster fite, and belmont came over the fence and charged us and we pluged as hard as we cood and they pluged two and we ran behind the church and they follered us and jest lammed us and washed beanys face and rolled pewt in the wet snow, and jest then boog and whack and puz and zee smith came piling in and paisted time out of them and then the stewdcats charged them and throwed whack in a drift and zee got one in the back that made him lay down and grunt before he cood get his breth, and then all the stewdcats from toles house piled out and piched in and they was giving us time when bozzaris wadly see the fite and jumped of a load of wood and pacer and stuby gooch and scotty briggam and kibo marston and skinny bruce and frank elliott herd us hollering give it to the stewdcats and came running over and then we had jest a buly fite and i tell you the snow balls jest flew and fatty gilman got one rite in the eye and pheby talor got one rite in the mouth jest as he was hollering stewdcat and it filled his mouth with snow and old woodbrige odlin was coming out of the bank and he got one in the leg and one in his old plug hat and it nocked it of and he went over to the hotel and i gess he told old brown becaus he and swane and potsy dirgin the poliseman came over and made us stop, it was the best snow ball fite i ever saw. we are going to lay for the stewdcats next saterday at the libary. old bozzaris wadly was the best fiter we had and nobody knowed he cood fite. when the stewdcats wood charge us he wood not run a bit but wood jest stand and plug and once when clifford tride to put him over he coodent do it. it was a buly fite. feb. . brite and fair. gosh what do you think i am going to get a prise in school. last nite i had to go down to old tom connors store to get some carosene and old francis was going down town with perry molton and they was talking about who was the best fellers in school and who they was going to give the prises. i lissened and old francis said potter and nipper and pricilla was going to have prises, only he dident call them potter and nipper and pricilla, but arthur and jonny and charlie, then he said they is one boy who is as smart as enny of them only he dont study much and i had to shake him up laitly and he is doing better now, then perry he said who is it, and old francis said i gess i wont tell you his name for he may disapoint me, but he lives on court street. i tell you it made me feel all tremly. it coodent be pewt or beany becaus they miss there lesons most every day and they aint enny other fellers living on court street so it must be me, becaus old francis shook me and medo thirsten up day before yesterday and medo lives on south street. gosh wont father be sirprized i nearly got a prise once when fliperty flannygan marked my words all rite and i wood have got it if it hadent been for gimmy fitsgerald. but this time i am going to get it. i bet the folks will think i am quite a feller. feb. . brite and fair. i dident miss in school today. tonite i staid in and studied. pewt and beany come round and were mad becaus i woodent come out. feb. . rany. i got xamples rite today out of , but i missed in speling. it aint often i miss in speling. feb. . i took a book today to church and studied. feb. . rany again. i dident miss in ennything today. i told mother today that i was going to get a prise if i dident disapoint him. so she told father tonite and he said he dident beleive it. he said he had nearly a buchel of prises he got in school and he give them to the fellers to ware in a torchlite percession and they kept them. he said he give all his prise books to the sunday school. he said when he put on all his meddles and walked out they gingled jest like slaybells and glitered so they scart horses. aunt sarah laffed and said the only prises he wore were black and blew ruler marks that old mister ellis give him and he got enuf of them to, and she said tell harry what you left the academy for, and he said the teachers were down on him becaus he lerned faster than they cood teech, and aunt sarah said doctor sole wood tell a diferent story, and father said that doctor sole was a wirthy man but he dident forgive ennyone which was smarter than he was. then father said you talk very strangly sarah for one of your years and i shall ask the coart to apoint me as gardeen over you as a person of unsound mind. then father said he had never told ennyone why he left the academy so suddin, but it was becaus he broak his jaw in places talking greke to doctor sole. well he kept us laffing all the evening and when i went to bed he give me cents so i gess he feels prety good about my prise. feb. . clowdy but no rane. i only missed in geogerfy today. aunt sarah is going to exibision day to see me get my prise. keene and cele are going two. i dont dass to tell beany. he come over tonite to get me to come out and see him set his dog onto mister heads cat and was mad when i told him i had got to study. beany he says i will get so i cant fite or have enny fun i am geting so good. beany will get a good punch if he says much. mar. , - brite and fair. father is going to the school exibision. mar. . brite and fair. tonite father lerned me a speach to say when old francis gives me the prise. i dont want to say it but he says i have got to. this is my speach. mister francis i thank you very kindly for this beautiful present, whitch i value for the honor whitch has been confered on me, and i trust that i shall so conduck myself that you may never regret it. mar. . brite and fair. tomorow is exibision day. today we rehersed. pricilla sung pulling hard agenst the streem and played the organ. potter read a composition and nipper xplaned the sum about the hundred geese the one i never cood do. good morow farmer with your hundred geese sir i have not a hundred but if i had as many more and half as many more and - / geese i shood have a hundred, how many geese had he. well nipper can do that sum and so he has got to show of. i havent got to do ennything xcept to say my speach when old francis gives me my prise, whitch is prety good for me. mar. . brite and fair. i am not fealing very well tonite. father dident go to boston this morning but staid to home. this morning in school we rehersed for xibision. pricilla sung and plaid and nipper rote down the geese sum on the blackboard and rote his name under it jest as good as he cood. i wanted to rite nipper under it but old francis wood paist time out of me if he found out who rote it. you aught to hear pricil play and sing. he sings do your best for one another making life a plesent dream, help a poor and weried brother puling hard agenst the streem, and the old organ goes boom ya, boom ya, boom ya ya ya, that is a prety song for a feller to sing whitch never will give the fellers the core of his apple but always eats it hisself. well this afternoon i put on my best close and my plad neckti and a new paper coller and went to school erly. prety soon the people begun to come in. they was old perry molton and old nat shute and gewett swazie the committy, and old bil morrill with his hair curled under behind and chick chickerings father and mother and docter goram, nippers father and mother and pricillas father and mother and lots of people and i thought father wasent coming but bimeby he come in with his new britches that he made erl and cutts give him and his boots blacked and aunt sarah and keene and cele. aunt sarah had got her best earings and her dolman with beeds and keene and cele had on their bronze boots and there plad dresses and they got a seet on the platform. keene and cele felt prety big becaus they was in the seminary and aunt sarah felt prety big becaus she had on her earings and her dolman and father felt prety big becaus i was going to get a prise. well first old francis said a prayer and everyone bowed there heads and father bowed his two but i saw him peek out under his hand. well then we all sung and mary emery plaid the organ. then our class resited and nipper xplained his sum about the geese and then potter spoke a peace and then pricilla plaid and sung his peace. then there was a dialog and then we sung sum more. then old francis opened his desk and took out a little riting desk and said it had been prety hard to tell whitch was the best scolar becaus they was boys who were so near together. so he would give the riting desk to arthur goram and the glass inkstand to johnny brown and the stamp colecters book to charly hobbs. so when he give them potter and nipper and pricilla stood up and bowd and said thank you. if they had been so smart they aught to have a speach ready. ennyway i had my speach all ready. then old francis said there was one boy who had grate talents and was a very brite boy but owing to his fondness for play had not done as well as he shood. but he had showed such talent that he aught to be menshioned espesially as he had been studying much better laitly. when old francis said that aunt sarah and keene and cele set up strate and father tride to look as if he dident know who he meant and i said my speach over soft, to be sure i had it rite. then old francis said i have selected as a present for this boy a book, and the name of this boy is, and then he stoped a moment and i cood almost hear my heart thumping, and then he said johnny chickering. gosh i had forgotten all about chick chickering living on coart street. when he said that aunt sarah and keene and cele sat rite back in there chairs and father turned auful red and looked at me as if he wanted to nock my head rite of and then he droped his hat on the floor and it fell of the platform and roled way out under medo thirstons seet and then he blew his nose with a auful toot. then old francis give chick the book and then he read the names of the next best scolars and my name wasent there eether. and then father looked mad enuf to bust, and aunt sarah and keene and cele looked prety sick. then we all sung happy school ah from the never shall our hearts long time be turning, and then school was dismissed. docter goram and nippers father and mother and pricillas father and mother and chicks father and mother and lots of the people staid to shake hands with old francis, but father marched rite out and aunt sarah and the girls two. well when i got home you aught to have heard father. he said i was the laziest and most wirthless boy there ever was, and i was a disgrace to him and he sent me to bed lively. i dident want the old book ennyway. mar. . church today. i dont care. mar. . brite and fair. chick feals prety big about his old book. ed tole has got a new game rooster. we are going to throw him over in john adams yard the first time john lets his bolton gray out. i rode on the hack today all the morning. it is more fun then geting good marks in school. ennyway it is vacation and i am going to raise time. i dont care for a old prise ennyway. mar. . brite and fair. i broak a window today on purpose, i dont care. mar. . brite and fair. got sent to bed tonite for swearing. all i said was gol darn it. father needent feel so big. i have herd him say wirse things than that. i dont care. mar. . clowdy but no rane. i dont care if i dident get no prise. chick needent feel so big. i woodent take his old book ennyway. mar. . brite and fair. i got fiting with beany today in his yard. he chased me over to my yard and i turned round suddin and stuck out my arm and my fist hit beany rite in the eye. you had aught to herd him howl. then mother called me in and sent me to bed. it is prety tuf when a feller cant hit another feller in the eye whitch is chasing him. well ennyway i stamped upstairs to bed and when father came home i knew i shood get a licking. so when father came home i lissened and herd them eating super, and i herd father say where is that boy and mother said i sent him to bed for striking elly watson. elly is beany you know. and father said whitch licked. and mother said elly was crying very loud and holding on to his eye, and so i sent harry to bed and father said if he dident do ennything wirse than licking that watson boy i wont complane and if he will get up spunk enuf to lick that boy of brad puringtons, he ment pewt, i will give him a treet. then mother said i dont know what is the matter with harry this vacation. he is cross and impident, and then keene said i slaped her face yesterday and cele told keene it was her falt and she hadent aught to have plaged me, and keene said she dident and cele said she did and father said you girls shet up when your mother is talking. then someone shet the door and i dident hear enny more. after super cele come up in my room with a tray with my super and i set up in bed and et my super and keene looked into the room and made up a face. after super i heard father talking again and he said i needed a good licking and mother said something was the matter with me and she never knew me to keep cross for a hole week, and father said he wood take it out of me in minits and mother said no she wood talk to me. so bimeby mother come up and i made beleeve i was asleep and mother set down by the bed and said are you asleep harry, and i said yes before i thought, and then she sorter laffed and began to talk to me and told me how sory it made her feel to see me so cross and doing bad things and she wanted me to be better and not wurry her for she dident feel very well and gosh before i knew it i was balling rite out. well i balled good and she rubed my head and got me a drink of water and i said i wood do beter. then she kissed me and went down and after a while i went to sleep. gosh i maid up my mind if father licked me that i woodent ball and i wood do something auful the next day, i wont say what it was but it was something auful. i have been a prety mean feller. mar. , - when i got up this morning i felt buly, and i got a pail of water and brogt in wood enuf to fill the woodbox way over the top. it is warm and the snow is all gone xcept in the corners where the drifts were. i saw a robin today and i wished on it but i cant tell what i wished becaus if i did it woodent come true. it is something i have been wanting auful for a long time, but i havent had money enuf to buy it. mar. . rany. i went to church. the minister said it was esy to be good if you tride. i gess ministers dont know much ennyway. mar. . me and beany is going to keep store in my shed. today we made the counter of barils and a board and we made a lot of flyboxes and jacobs laders and tonite we made a lot of sweet firn cigars, and hayseed and mulen leaf and cornsilk. this afternoon we went out picking up bones in a baskit. most every yard had a lot of bones in it xcept where the fellers had been. we got most a buchel. we get half a cent a pound for them down to old gechels store they make nife handels of them and perl buttons. mar. . beany got mad today and says he wont keep store with me. we got our flyboxes all pined up and our boxes of cigars all ready and mother said she wood give me some molases for sweatened water. so we was all ready when beany got mad about the sine. he wanted it to be watson and shute becaus he is older then me, but it was my shed and my sweatened water and my board and my barils and so i said my name shood come ferst and he got mad and took half of the things and went home. i dident let him have a bit of the sweatened water. lucy watson was mad two and woodent speek to keene and cele. mar. , - i opened my store today and nailed up my sine fancy goods and sweatened water h. shute. potter and whack and fatty and boog and puzzy and all the fellers come round and i sold lots of stuff. i charge nails for a sweet firn cigar, nails for a rattan or grape vine cigar and nails for hayseed cornsilk and mullen leaf. nails for white jacobs ladders and for gilt, nails for flyboxes made of writing book paper, and and nails for gilt and silver and red paper. nails for snappers that will snap good, and nails for a glass of sweatened water. i had a big trade and i cood see beany out in frunt of his house looking over. bimeby he came over and i said hullo beany come and have a drink and a cigar. so beany he took a glass and drunk it and lit a cigar, a sweet firn one and said how is trade, and i said they is quite a little stiring, and he said have you got mutch stock and i said most sold out but they is plenty more where that come from and beany he said dont you want to by my stuff and i said no i gess not. bimeby beany he said less make up plupy and i said i aint mad and beany he said well let the old sine rip and so he went over and got his stuff and pinned it up and we had a good trade all the afternoon. tonite we made cigars and flyboxes and snappers. beany is a prety good feller to have a store with only he smokes and drinks two mutch. mar. . brite and fair. i saw a blewbird today. beany come over erly and we had a good trade. beany smoked so many sweet firn cigars and drank so mutch sweatened water that i told him he coodent be my pardner unless he smoked cheeper cigars and only drank glasses a day. in the morning and in the evening. that is enuf for enny man. mar. . rany today. not mutch trade. pewt and nipper has got a store in pewts shed. tomtit says he has got beter things than we have and he got all the fellers to go up there. tomtit was mad becaus we woodent take sheet iron for pay. you cant get ennything for sheet iron down to old getchels and if we took it for pay enny feller cood go out and pick up a old stove pipe and buy out your store. mar. . brite and fair. no i mean it is clowdy. beany is acting prety queer. he has been talking with pewt, and last nite he promised to come over and make cigars and he dident come and nipper said beany was over to pewts. today he was prety sassy and said he would drink all the sweatened water he wanted. he was away all the afternoon. mar. . beany dident make up enny faces behind the organ today. after church i holered at him and he woodent look round. i bet he is going to keep store with pewt. i dont care. mar. . beany came over this morning and said he was going to be pardner with pewt and he wanted his stuff and his half of the iron and nails. i told him he was a mean cuss and he said he woodent be pardner with a feller whitch woodent let him drink and smoke out of the store. he said pewt wasent so mean as all that. so we divided the stuff and beany wanted half of what nails and iron i had taken before we were pardners. he dident get it you bet, and he dident get enny sweatened water neether. mar. . brite and fair. medo thirsten came up today and wanted to buy my stuff and i sold it all to him. i am glad to get out of the store so i can go of with potter and chick chickering. we went up to the eddy today. we saw some blackbirds and some robins and blewbirds, and got last years nests. it is almost time for flying squerels. we saw a redder today. mar. . i saw beany today and he run out his tung at me. all rite for you beany. mar. . it raned and was auful windy today. i sold my iron and bones today to old getchel for cents. i took out cents to treet the fellers and put cents with my cornet money. mar. . it was warm today and fine. i saw some wild geese flying over today. it made me feel funny to hear them holler. me and potter and chick went out in the woods today with our bows and arrows and bilt a fire and fride some potatose. mar. . this is the last day of vacation. beany and pewt have had a auful row, beany says pewt sold all the iron and nails and kept most of the money. pewt says beany drank up more then the moneys wirth of sweatened water and smoked all the best cigars i am glad of it. i gess the next time beany will know more. mar. . sunday. nothing to do but go to church and think of going to school tomorow. i wonder if i shall get a licking this tirm. mar. . i went to school today. they isent much fun now. it is two muddy to play ennything. so the fellers all have clappers and we clap all the time. skinny bruce is the best one. he has some bone clappers that jest ring. fatty gilman has got some made of black walnut. mar. . we plaid ball a little today. it is geting prety dry in the school yard now. mar. . it snowed a little today and then melted. they wasent enuf for snow balling. my hens has begun to lay. mar. . the top of my roosters comb whitch was frose last winter when i was sick has come of and his comb is all smooth and shiny and hasent got enny picks on it. mar. . brite and fair tomorow is april fool day. i am going to get one on beany. apr. . today i had a good one to get on beany. i rung the doorbell of our house and mother came to the door and i stood there laffin and she laffed and said i am glad to see you sir because i want you to fill the woodbox and get me pails of water. gosh i dident think it was so funny. at school old francis woodent let us play april fools on each other but in the afternoon i went over to get beany to come with me to get a foot yardstick down to lyfords. i was going to get beany to ask for it and then they wood lam him, becaus they isent enny foot yardstick. i jest laffed to think of beany getting licked. well when i asked beany he said he wood go only his father wanted him to go down to old kellogs harness shop to get a pint of strap oil to oil some harnes, and if i wood go with him ferst he would go with me. so i said yes and we went. jest before we got there beany said you go in and ask for it, and i will wait becaus old kellog dont like me very well. so i went in and old kellog was sitting straddle of a seet with big wooden nippers on it and he was sowing on a harness and he said cross like what do you want and i said i want a pint of strap oil and he said o yes i have got some good strap oil and he got down and grabed me by the coller and took down a strap and licked me till i hollered. then he let me go and when i went out rubing my legs beany was jest laffing fit to die and he said you thought you was prety smart old plupy to get me to go down for a foot yard stick dident you. and then he ran his tung out and run of down town. i will pay beany for that. apr. . brite and fair. i went to church. apr. . father is going to have a garden and i have got to dig it up. father says he is going to help me but i know how it will be. he will dig about ten minits and then he will go over to see beanys father. i dont see why it is that jest as soon as it is time for fishing father wants to make me wirk. pewt cought pirch today. apr. . brite and fair. last nite we went diging up the garden. father began to dig and dug about a minit and then he stoped and went in the house to change his shues, and then he come out and took of his coat and then he dug a nother minit and then he went to the fence and talked with sam dire and then he took of his vest and took up his spade and then he said i was doing splendid and he wanted to see wats a minit and he went over to see beanys father jest as i said he wood and dident come back. well i dug until mother called me in to go to bed and i got about a pan full of wirms. tonite me and father are going to dig some more. my back is lame. apr. . brite and fair. last nite father told me to cut the eyes out of a lot of potatose to plant. so this noon and after school me and keene and cele cut out the eyes of the potatose. we raced to see which wood beet, i had a sharp spoon handel, keene a darning needle, and cele a pen-nife. we had cups to put the eyes in and when we got the eyes all dug out we counted the eyes. cele had keene and i had . jest as we got done father came home, so we showed him the eyes and i wish you cood see him. i woodent dare to wright what he said. if i talked like he did he wood have sent me to bed for a year. i gess he wood have licked us all but mother laffed and laffed and said we dident know enuf about farming. so we only got sent to bed. apr. . brite and fair. i hoped it wood rane today so we coodent dig. but it dident. if they had been a circus it wood have raned like time. last nite we dug some more. father started all rite but jest then he said he had got to go down town with mother. so i dug until beany and pewt came over and then we begun to plug peaces of dirt at charly dire and after a while somebody broke a window in sam dires house. pewt said it was me and beany said it was pewt. father came home and sent me to bed. he give sam dire cents for the window. ennyway pewt broke it. apr. . brite and fair. apr. , - it raned today. i am glad of it. apr. . it raned today. i am glad of it. i went to church. apr. . tonite me and beany and whack finished diging all the rest of the garden. when father came home he went out and steped on a rake that was lying down with the sharp points up and ran it into his foot and he came limping into the house swaring auful, but he wasent much hurt and isent going to have enny garden. ennyway he left the rake there himself. apr. , - brite and fair. father is going to have some geese. he went to dal gilmors and dal said you cood keep geese for nothing becaus all they et was grass and father says he can raise geese on grass until october and then kill them and sell them and make lots of money. ennyway they was grass enuf becaus we want going to have enny garden since father steped on the rake. dal gilmor has got a old goose whitch is more then years old. i bet he is tuf. apr. . brite and fair. father came home tonite erly and we begun to make a geese pond. we took a baril and cut it in and made tubs. then we dug a hole in the garden and put in tub and filled it with water. it made a buly pond. next saterday father is coming home erly and we are going to hampton falls to get sum geese eggs. apr. . rany franky fell out of bed last nite. father said it was my falt. the baby had the crupe. father says something is always the matter. apr. . clowdy but no rane. beany has got a dog, it is black and tan, not dogs but jest . his name is gip and he can fite. apr. . still clowdy. frank hanes has got a dog like beanys. his name is dime, i bet he can fite. apr. . brite and fair. i put some minnies in the geese pond today. it was after church and i got them yesterday. they wood have dide in the tin pail, so it wasent rong to put them in sunday. tomorow we are going down to get the geese eggs. apr. . brite and fair. i am wrighting this in bed. it has been a prety tuf day i tell you. father coodent come home erly becaus he had to wirk, so he give me fifty cents and me and beany went down to hampton falls after the geese eggs. well we got them and started home. we had beanys fathers horse and we saw a old black horse by the side of the road and beany said i wood like to plug him with a geese egg, i said praps they is a roten egg there. so we shook the eggs till by and by they was one whitch ratled. then beany choze to plug him and he let ding at him and the egg hit him a paister rite in the side and broak and spatered him all over with yellow, and he kicked up and ran away before i cood get a nother egg. then we went on till we saw cows and we shook the eggs again till we got whitch ratled and when we went by we stood up in the wagon and let ding at the cows. i hit one rite in the frunt of her head and the yellow ran down over her nose and beany hit the other in the side and then a man holered at us and we licked the horse and drove of lively. then we saw a cat sitting in a barn door and we both let ding at her but dident hit her and both eggs smached agenst the barn and the cat ran into the barn and a man came out with a tin pail in his hand and a little stool in the other and holered at us and we licked up the horse again. after that we dident plug enny more for they was only eggs left and they only ratled a little. when we got home beany let me out and i told father about the eggs being roten, he was prety mad and said i had aught to have shook them before i took them. he asked me what i did with the roten eggs and i said i threw them away and jest then mister watson beanys father came over with beany and men and it was the same man whose horse we pluged with roten eggs, and the man who holered at us when we plugged the old cows. the man grabed me by the coller and told father i was the wirst boy in the town and if father dident lick me out of my skin he wood, and father said hold on there, they aint nobody going to lick my boy unless he licks me ferst, and he walked up to the man prety quick, and the man let go my coller and father said if they is any licking to be done i can do all that is necesary, and the man said we are going to have him arested, and father said what has he done and the man said these two boys have been throwing rocks at my horse and have cut a big gash in his side and he is all over blud, and the other man said we had been pluging rocks at his cows and had cut one on the head and one on the side well me and beany said we only threw geese eggs at them and the blud was the runny part of the eggs and we crossed our throtes and hoped to die if it wasent so, and father said to the man did you xamine the gash and he said he was so mad when he see the horse that he hitched up the other horse and followed us and told his hired man to look after the horse and brogt the other man to. so father said to beanys father to hich up his horse and we wood go down and see if we had lied to him and he said if i had lied to him he wood give me the wirst licking i ever had. well jest as we were going to get in the wagon the man whitch had the tin pail and the stool in his hand come driving up and said we had been pluging roten eggs at his barn and father said he wood be cussed if he ever saw such boys, and me and beany said we dident mean to hit the barn but we pluged at the cat and dident hit her. then the other men told him about the horse and cows and he said it was only roten eggs and then they felt beter, and they said they was willing to let us of with a good licking, but father said he woodent lick me for ennybody else, but he wood pay them for their truble and they said they wood settle for fifty cents each and i had to pay it out of my cornet money. i only had one dollar and cents but aunt sarah give me cents. i beleive i had rather got a licking for it will take me weaks to ern so much money and i wood have got over a licking as soon as i got to sleep. then father sent me to bed. i wonder if beanys father licked him. i shall know tomorow. apr. . brite and fair. beany dident get licked. apr. . brite and fair. i bet father cood have licked those hampton falls men together easy. apr. . brite and fair. i shall never get that cornet. apr. . i had some fun today. they wasent enny school today becaus old francis had to go to a funeral or something. so i bilt a nest for my hens. apr. . brite and fair. father aint going to have enny geese. tonite we got a old yellow hen of sam dire and set her on eggs in the horse-stal, and then we had super. nothing hapened at super xcept that keene got sent to bed for sticking out her tung at father when she thought he wasent looking but he was, becaus he woodent let her go over to see lucy watson beanys sisters new hat. well after it was dark father said i forgot to pay sam for his hen and he started rite acros the garden to go over to sam diars and it was dark and i herd a auful splash and thumping round and feerful swaring and i knew father was in the geese pond. i woodent dass to wright down what he said, if i had said what he did he wood have sent me to bed for a year. well he came limping home and swaring into the house and he made me get a lanten and we went out to the barn and he took the old hen by her hind legs and swung her round jest as we fellers do when we plug apples on a stick and pluged her way over in sam diars yard and then he took the eggs and pluged them as far as he cood and told me to fill up the pond tomorow or he wood lick me. then we went in and mother and aunt sarah nearly killed themselves laffin and father said i spose you wood laff if i killed myself and when i went up to bed i laffed easy and keene and cele were laffing under the bed close. bimeby i herd father laffin and then we all laffed loud. jest think i had to pay a dollar and a half of my cornet money for pluging eggs and father pluged eggs and a old hen and dident have to pay ennything, ennyway it was fun to see him. apr. . brite and fair. i filled up the geese pond. it was sunday but it was after dark. apr. . brite and fair. when father came home i told him i had filled up the geese pond and he asked me where the tub was and when i said i had filled it up he said i was a loonatic and dident know enuf to go in when it raned. so he made me dig out the tub and fill in the hole. i tell you i have to wirk prety hard. apr. . brite and fair. today old man thirsten medos father came to the house and told mother someone had pluged roten eggs at his barn. mother dident know what to say for a minit for she dident want to tell about fathers falling into the geese pond, so she said she was very sure i hadent done it but she wood speak to father about it, so when father got home old man thirsten came up to the house and said george that cussid boy of yours has been pluging roten eggs at my barn and father said this time kimball, his name is kimball, he dident do it for he was with me all the evening til he went to bed. so father and old man thirsten went down to see the barn and it was all spatered with yellow. then old man thirsten said he wood give a dolar to know who the scowndril was whitch pluged those eggs, and father said i wish you cood kimball, it is a outrage, and father looked auful funny, jest as he did when he scart old ike shute that time on the high school steps. when we went home father kept laffing, and when he told mother she said it was a shame and he aught to make it rite with him, and so father bought a sawhoss of him, he sells sawhosses, and i have got to use it. somehow i always get the wirst of it. apr. , - it raned like time last nite but it was brite and fair when i got up. what do you think, me and beany are going to by a horse of old nat mason. he lives down stratam road and he has a old troter that can go like time. apr. . brite and fair. me and beany saw old nat today. we aint got enny chink. if i hadent paid that money to those hampton falls men for pluging roten eggs at there cows i should have sum. all i can rase is thirty five cents and beany can rase fifteen cents. fatty gilman most always has lots of chink. apr. . me and beany saw fatty today. he wants to go in with us becaus he says his folks want to use old chub so mutch that he dont get enny chance to use him. but fatty he hasent got enny chink eether. enny way we are going to see old nat tomorrow and peraps he will let us have it on tick. apr. . brite and fair. today was saterday and this afternoon me and beany and fatty went down to see old nat. he was in a old house smoking a old pipe made out of a corn cob. so fatty he asked him to show us his old plug, only fatty dident say old plug but said mister mason can we see your troting horse, and old nat he got up and went to a little barn and opened the door and holered get up lady clara and she tride to get up and coodent, and old nat swoar and kicked her and then she coodent get up, and then he clim over her and puled her head up into the rack and then he took a stick and hit her sum more and swoar sum more and then she got up. then beany he asked old nat what made her not get up and he said that troting horses most never laid down more than once or twict a weak and sum of the best troters never laid down. he said dexter and flora tempel never was knowed to lay down. then fatty asked him to let us see her trot and he hiched her into a buggy and we set on the fence and old nat he drove of most walking. bimeby we herd the old wagon ratling and old nat he came down the street just fluking. i never saw a horse go so fast. i tell you old nat he had to pull to stop her. she breethed prety hard and jerky, but nat he said it was hickups becaus she had et too mutch. fatty he asked how old she was and old nat he said she was bout but that she wood be good til she was . then we asked how mutch he wood sell her for and he said he wanted dolers for her but he wood let us have her for dolars and fifty cents and we could have the wagon for dolars and fifty cents two, and he wood throw in the harnes. but we dident have the money and so we tride to swap and bimeby he said if i wood give him my gun and fatty wood give him his silver pensil case and beany give him his bladed nife he wood trust us for a month. so we give him the things and he give us the horse. only we coodent take her then becaus we have got to find a place to keep her. none of us dass to tell our folks about it. we woodent let fatty know about it if we hadent suposed he had plenty of chink. apr. . brite and fair. after church today we went round to see if we cood get a place to keep our horse. we asked noot crumet but noot he said he dident have enny place to put her unles he give her his room and he told us to go to bucher haly and see if we coodent get a chanse to put her in his smoke house for we cood keep her longer there than enny where else and so we went to him and he chased us out of his yard. then we went to charles flanders but he dident have but one room and his shed wasent big enuf to keep a gote, and then we went over to old jethrow simpsons and jethrow he said if we wood help him haul wood enuf to fill his shed we cood keep her in his barn as long as we wanted to and have enuf hay two. may . it was may day today and we dident have enny school. so me and beany went up to fattys and got him and we went down to old nats. we wood have run all the way only fatty got tukered out. when we got there old nat made us promise to give him a hat or a pair of old boots becaus he kept lady clara over sunday. fatty he said they was lots of old hats at home and so we went way back and got a old tall bever hat and then old nat hiched up lady clara and we piled in. fatty he drove ferst becaus he said we coodent have got her unless he had got the old tall bever. so fatty he drove up as fur as ass brook and then beany he drove as fur as the old brick meeting house and then i drove as fur as the hall place where jethrow lives. we all had to stand up when we drove becaus the ranes is two short. when we got there old jethrow was there and he had a dingel cart and we hiched lady clara into it and went up to jady hill for sum wood. we wirked till oh clock and then we run home to dinner and run back agen. i took all the meal i had for my hens most quarts and i fed her. it is fattys tirn next to get meal for her. then we wirked til six oh clock and we were allmost ded we were so tired. well when we asked old jethrow whitch stal we shood put her in he told us to take our old plug and get out or he wood lick us. jest think of that. well we dident know what to do. so we waited til most dark and then beany said we had beter go to the next house becaus they was a big shed there. so i said i wood ring if fatty wood ask and so i rung the bell and a woman came to the door and fatty told her all about it and she said old jethrow was a meen old skin flint and we cood put our horse in her shed and cood keep her their as long as we wanted to. so she give us a lantern and we went out and they was a buly place and we made a stal with boards and put a lot of saw dust under her and give her a pale of water only we dident have enny hay. well bimeby beany said that he cood see the hay sticking out of the cracks in old jethrows barn, and we went over and looked and we cood see plenty of hay there. so fatty he said we had ernt that hay and we aught to have it, and beany said so two, and fatty said he woodent steal ennything but this hay was ours and we had ernt it. so fatty and beany puled out a board and held it open while i puled out enuf hay and then we fed lady clara and went home. ennyway the hay was ours and it wasent stealing to take it. may . brite and fair. this morning i got up erly and went over to the barn. beany he was there and fatty he came after i had got there. lady clara was laying down and woodent get up. i gess she was prety tired. so we fed her and fatty brogt some otes. so we curred her down as far as we cood reech and brushed her and then we went home. at brekfast mother asked me what made me smel so barny and i said i had been helping fatty curry his horse. at noon we fed her agen and tonite we got her up and curred her other side. we dident drive her today. may . rany as time. we cant drive lady clara today. we curred her times. may . tonite we drove lady clara. we went down newmarket road. we took tirns driving. one of the wheals come of and we had to get out and walk home holding on the wheal. may . ed adams give us a nut and we fixed the wheal. we had a ride tonite. i tell you lady clara can go. we beat gim lovering tonite. he dident know who we was becaus it was two dark but we knowed him. we beat him and then we waited for him to come up and then we beat him agen. we did that times, and gim he was mad. may . my hens dont lay enny now. i gess i dont give them enuf to eat. it is prety hard to keep a horse and hens two. we dident drive tonite becaus it raned. it was brite and fair yesterday. may . today was sunday and we coodent drive lady clara. tomorrow nite we are going to lay for old man churchil with his troter. i bet we can beat him. may . i have missed in my lesons most every day, and so has fatty and beany. today i swaped a hen for a buchel of meal for lady clara. we drove her tonite but we dident find ennyone to race. may . brite and fair. if beany dont shell out more meal he wont drive lady clara agen. may . beany got a peck of meal today at old si smiths. he charged it to his father. may . we had a buly ride tonite we raced fellers and beat them. may . brite and fair. tonite we coodent get lady clara up. we are going to try agen tomorrow and drive her in the day time. may . rany agen. we got lady clara up this morning. beany and fatty pulled in front and i licked behind. this afternoon one of our wheals broak down. ed adams give us a nother wheal. it went on all rite only it isent as big as the other wheals and it makes the wagon go one sided a little. we had a good ride today. we have to be pretty careful in tirning around a corner becaus the wagon is one sided. may . today was sunday. father told me if i smelt so of the barn he woodent let me go up to fattys agen. i bet he wood be mad if he knowed i oned a horse. may . there was a fite in school today. i dont care mutch about fites now. i had ruther race horses. tonite we raced with a big white horse and beat him esy. we all had to pull on the ranes to stop lady clara. may . brite and fair. beany is behind feeds and me and fatty had to make it up. last nite lady clara lost a shue. so this morning before school we walked every where we drove last nite and beany found the shue way down to long meter dows on hamton road. beany he said if we wood call it square about the feeds he wood get gim elerson to nale on the shue. so we did and beany got gim to nale on the shue. beany he raked up gims front yard to pay him. beany is a prety good feller. fatty had company to his house and we dident go to ride tonite. it was two bad. may . rany as time. we coodent go to ride today. it always ranes jest when a feller wants to do some thing. may . it raned all yesterday and last nite and today. i bet it will rane a week. we are having prety tuf luck. may . at last it has stoped raning. i thaught i never shood wright brite and fair agen. we had a buly ride tonite after we had tide up the bridle with sum rope. lady clara fell down and we had to unharnes her and get her up. she broak the bridle and skined her gnees and we put on sum wheal greese. beany was standing up driving when she fell down and it draged him rite over the dasher and on top of lady clara. tomorow they is going to be a ministers meeting in the upper church and there aint enny school tomorow. so we are going to drive all day. after school we washed the harness and got a load of sawdust at the hub mill, and curred lady clara. we have got most all the hay we can reech. when we cant reech enny more i dont know where we can get enny more unless fatty can get sum. may . brite and fair. i had a feerful day yesterday. i feel so bad i cant hardly wright ennything. but i will try to wright it all down. in the morning me and beany and fatty we hiched up lady clara and drove round town. sum of the fellers holered at us but we dident care. they was lots of ministers in town. they was mostly long tailers with white necktis. so in the afternoon we hiched up agen and drove up to the depot. old woodbridge odlin was there wating for the oh clock trane. he had a baruch with a driver and his new span of black horses with cliped tails. and he had on his long tailed black coat and a shiny bever hat. well we dident wate for the trane but we drove through winter street and out to front street. when we came to lincoln street old woodbridge odlin came along with his baruch filled with old ministers with bever hats and specks and white necktis, and the driver hit the horses and away they went lickity larup. well beany he was driving and he leened over and hit lady clara a paist with the whip and she went after them like chane litening, and we all began to yell and the black horses went faster. well they was rods ahead and when we got to whackers house we was most up to there hind wheel, and when we got to doctor gorams office we was jest even. the old ministers was bouncing around and holding on to the sides, and old woodbridge had lost his hat and was standing up yelling sumthing at the driver, and his whiskers were blowing way behind him. it makes me most die to think of him but i dont feel mutch like laffin. well when we got to elliott street we were ahead of them and then the driver began to pull up his horses becaus all the people was yelling and waving there hats like time. well lady clara was breething so she sounded like a big sawmill saw, and when we tride to stop her she woodent stop so we all tride together but we coodent pull her in a mite she had her tail sticking rite up in the air and the more we pulled the faster she went, when we went thru the square fatty holered to run her over string brige and up factory hill so we cood stop her, and we pulled as hard as we cood but when she came to the corner she tirned around into water street and over went the wagon and we came out jest fluking. well we want hurt mutch and we run after her as fast as we cood. we found pieces of the wagon and harnes all over the street and when we got to the barn she was there all rite. lots of people came to see about it, but when they found that nobody was hurt they went away. they wasent ennything of the harnes left but the bridle and the wagon was everywhere along the street. well when father came home somebody had told him about it and he made me tell him all about it, where we got her and how we fed her and everything, and when i told him about the hay i thought he was going to lick time out of me he was so mad, and he said he never knowed i cood steal, and i said i only hooked it and he said what is the diference and i said stealing is taking sumthing that you know belongs to sumbody else, and hooking is taking sumthing that belongs to you and sumbody else wont let you have. i suposed everybody knowed that. well he dident lick me, but after super he got mister watson, beanys father and we all went over to see lady clara and what do you think, when we got there she was ded. i gess she had broak something inside of her. i tell you me and beany felt prety bad and fatty did when we told him. well then father and mister watson beanys father told us to go home and go to bed and so we went. so tonite i herd father telling mother about it and he said he give old jethrow a dresing down that wood tech him not to cheet a boy agen. he said if jethrow hadent been a old man he wood have nocked his head of. may . brite and fair. i shal never own a horse agen. may , - brite and fair. my hens are laying buly now. i gess they dident have very good cair when me and beany and fatty was keeping lady clara. i tell you a feller witch keeps a horse cant pay mutch atention to ennything else. may . brite and fair. tonite me and father went down to old man collins. he wants to sell father his cow. he says she gives quats of milk a day. father says the milk we get of the milk man is all chork and water. may . rany as time. father ofered dolars for old man collins cow. he wants dolars. she has got auful long horns. old man collins said she had auful big milk vanes. father said they was varrycose vanes and she want wirth dolars but he wood give it to help out a old man. old man collins he said if she kep on giving milk the way she was a giving it they wood have to milk her in a tub. then father he said he gessed she give so mutch milk that it want good for ennything and old man collins he said you cood take the creem up by one corner and lift it out like a old pair of linen britches. they dident trade tonite. may . brite and fair. tonite me and father went down to old man collins agen. father said he was going to trade for that cow only i must shet up and not say ennything. he said you jest wach me and you will lern sumthing about trading. so i wached him. well we went down and father said well mister collins how do you feel about trading tonite. and old man collins he said, i gess you are two late george fer i have sold her to a man in hamton falls. and father said what did you get for her and old man collins he said i told him he cood have her for dolars and he ofered me dolars and cents and i said the first man whitch ofers me dolars gets her, and i gess he will be up tomorow morning. then father he said have you made the trade and old man collins he said he hadent made enny trade but he had kind of let the man understand he cood have her for dolars. then father he said he wood give dolars and old man collins he said he dident know about selling her xcept to the hamton falls man but if father wood give him dolars he cood give the hamton falls man dolars if he came up and was disapointed. so father he give old man collins dolars and we got a roap and tide it round her horns and led her home. when we got home we tried to get her in the barn, father he went ahead and she folowed him in and all of a suddin she backed out lively and father came out jest fluking, holding on to the roap and taking feerful long stradles. he looked so mad that i dident dass to laff. well father held on like a good feller and bimeby she stoped. then father said so so and held out sum meal in a pail and got her in the barn and tide her to a post. then he give her sum hay and we went in and he told mother she had beter make sum araingments to sell sum milk for we was going to have quats every day. then mother she said if the cow gives milk like my hens lade egs they woodent be mutch milk to sell, and father said you jest wait til morning. then we went down to old gechels store and father he bougt the bigest milk pail he cood find. may . brite and fair. this morning me and father got up erly and we went out to feed the cow and i piched down the hay and father he set down and begun to milk her, he brougt out the big pail and a little one to use after he had filled the big one. well the ferst thing he did was to aim a streem rite in my eye. then he milked in the pail and it made a funy sound, well he kep milking and bimeby it stoped coming, and he squeazed away as hard as he cood and he coodent get a drop and bimeby he give up and said he gessed it was becaus she was in a new place and was loansum. when we went into the house and straned it thrugh a siv they wasent quite quats. mother she laffed and asked what he had done with the other quats and father he said you wait til tonite. then he et his brekfast and went to boston and i et mine and drove the old cow to pasture. i found a robins nest in a pine tree and took one eg. it is all rite to take one becaus the old bird cant count. may , - brite and fair. last nite after super father milked the old cow again. he only got quats and a half. he was prety mad and he said he wood get even with old man collins sum day. tonite he met old man collins and he asked father if she milked esy and father said yes and he asked father how mutch she give and father said she give more than he wanted. that want a lie for father dont like milk. i bet father will get even with him sum day. nothing else today but church. may . brite and fair. i have to go to pasture times every day. i like to go in the woods but i dont like to have to go. today i found a nest in the barn with hens egs. i gess mother wont say mutch about my hens now. may . rany. beany has gone to bideford to see tom cleves. i hope tom will come with him when beany comes home. i went up to whacker chadwicks tonite. beany has been sick he et two mutch pork. may . today it was hot and we had a thunder shower. it raned when i was driving the old cow from pasture and i made her run from old nat gordons way home. sam dire said she wood give bludy milk, so when father milked her i wached and it want a bit red. so i gess she is all rite. june . brite and fair. today we had a great time at brekfast. father was home becaus sumtimes he gets tired. we had boiled egs for brekfast and mother she boiled the egs i found in the nest. well we set down to the table and father he helped us to egs and bisket and he took up a eg and held it over his glass and hit it a paist with his spoon and it went off jest like a pop pistol and father he said thunder joey the infernal thing is roten and we all held our nose and ran away from the table and you never smelt such a auful smel. well mother she made me take the egs all out behine the barn and throw them away and i did and when i got there i had sum fun pluging them at j. albert clarks big apple tree and i hit it most every time and every time i hit it the eg popped like a pistol. then i went in to brekfast and mother was burning some coffy in a duspan to take away the smel of the roten eg. well while we was eating brekfast j. albert clark he came in and said i had beter come out and clean of his apple tree and burn a rag and father made me take a pail of hot water and clean it of. j. albert needent have been so fusy for it wood have all dride in a little while. june . brite and fair. i wish that old cow was ded. beany hasent got back yet. june . brite and fair. i am in bed. i aint sick only i havent got enny close to wair. tonite after father had milked the old cow i thougt i wood try it. so i got a tin diper and went out and set down and began to squeaze and she kicked me rite thrugh the barn door and rite into the manure pile. when i got up i was all covered and aunt clark was in her back garden and she saw me and asked me if i was hurt and i said i wasent and she said for mersy sakes dont come near me but go round to the pump. well i went round to the pump and mother and aunt sarah and aunt clark pumped on me and threw pails of water on me and scraped me with peaces of shingle, and when they had got me prety clean mother made me go in the barn and take of my close and then she put me in a tub in the kichen and washed me in warm water and soped my head and then sent me to bed. i have got to wair my best close tomorow and i cant go out of the yard. i wish that old cow was ded. father said it sirved me jest rite. june . brite and fair. beany has got back. tonite he came over and told me about the fun he had at bideford. we was going to ring doorbells tonite but i had to stay in the yard and it was sunday two. june . brite and fair. today scotty brigam let me take his bugle and i lerned to make notes. my mouth was all sweled up and my face aked. it aint so esy as a tin whissle but i can make more noise on it. i gess i shall never get that cornet. june , - i have to pay all the money i can ern to get corn for my hens. june . brite and fair in the morning and clowdy but no rane in the afternoon. tonite me and beany rung doorbells. we dident get cougt but we came prety near it. june . rany. tonite the old cow kicked father and nocked him rite of the stool and spilt about a quat of milk all over him. buly. i wanted to tell him it sirved him rite but i dident dass to. june . clowdy but no rane. father has sold the old cow to eben garland the bucher. buly. aunt sarah asked mother what she gessed he wood have next and mother she said she gessed he wood by a gristly bear for he had bougt most everything but that. he says he gesses he will have sum sheap for they cant bite or kick and dont eat mutch. june . brite and fair. the baby had the croop last nite. the minit he coffed croopy father and mother jumped out of bed and father he fell over a chair and that waked us all up. then he tride to lite a lamp and he coodent find the maches and he swoar round feerful. well mother she lit the lamp and they all went tearing round and they got sum hot water and made the baby eat some eg and sugar and put hot close on his neck and prety soon he was all rite. then they give me the rest of the eg and sugar. then we all went to bed and i lay and laffed to think of father tumbling over the chair and swaring. ennyway the baby is all rite. june . i hate to go to church. we have all got to be vaxinated. sum peeple in the next town have got the small pocks. beany has been and pewt two. beany says the doctor takes a nife and cuts a hole in your arm and then puts on a big scab whitch has come of somebodys arm whitch has been vaxinated, and that stops the blud. but he says that if the scab dont fit you bleed to deth. so i asked father about it tonite and he said that beany lied about it, but he says if you are vaxinated with the scab of a redheaded person your hair will turn red, and if he has warts or frekles you will have warts two and frekles. father said once when he was a boy he knew a feller whitch was vaxinated with a scab of a cock-eyed man and bimeby the feller began to squint and he kep on squinting wirse and wirse and bimeby he was cock-eyed two. and father he said he knew another feller whitch had a wooden leg and he sent his scab to another feller to be vaxinated and that feller began to limp and he always walked stifleged. i gess father was fooling. ennyway i hope i shant be vaxinated with skinny bruces scab, becaus he is redheaded. father he said he was going to get a scab of horis cobb for me and perhaps i wood have a little fat on me and not be so spindel shanked. i wish i cood get a scab of gim erly or tady finton and i cood lick time out of pewt. june . brite and fair. beany has a auful sore arm. he dont dass to rassle or fite or do ennything. june . brite and fair. pewt has got one two. tomorrow nite the doctor is coming. june . brite and fair. last nite after super the doctor come and he went into the parlor and father and mother and cele and keene and me and georgie and annie and frank and the baby was all in the setting room. well ferst father went in and he was only in there a few minits and he dident holler enny and then he come out laffing, and i asked him whose scab he had and he said he dident know but it must have been from sum minister becaus he had been thanking the lord it was all over. then mother she went in and father told her he had got the scab of old mike casey for her. mother is english and she dont like the irish and father said it to plage her. well she went in and then aunt sarah went in and keene and cele and they dident holler eether. then my tern came and i went in and it dident hurt a bit only sort of smarted tickly like. i asked the doctor whose scab i had and he said bruce brigams. buly. bruce brigam is the best cornet player in town. i bet i can play like time if i ever get a cornet. then the rest of them went in and none of them hollered xcept the baby and he always hollers when ennything is the matter. father told cele that he got old nigger tashs scab for her and he gessed she wood begin to turn prety dark culored before a week or . aunt sarah told cele he was fooling. june , - brite and fair. my arm is all rite. june . rany and thunderry. my arm begins to ich a little only i cant scrach it. june . still rany. all our arms begin to ich. annies arm is the wirst. we dident go to church today. that is one good thing. i never knew it to rane before on sunday. june . brite and fair. every one of us is cross as time. i took hold of georgies arm today and she began to ball and said i did it purpose. i keep hiting my arm agenst things all the time. somehow i never hit the well one. that is always the way with things. june . brite and fair. father is cross two. last nite he grabed me by the arm to shake me and it hurt so i hollered like time, and then he let me go and said he forgot about my arm. june . brite and fair. annie is in bed sick with her arm. she always has things the wirst xcept mother, only mother says she hasent enny time to be sick. june . brite and fair. my arm is still auful sore and the wirst of it is becaus i cant go in swimming. june . brite and fair. all our arms is better. john johnson who rings the town bell has gone away for a week and beanys father is going to ring it. he has to ring it at oh clock in the morning and at oh clock in the afternoon and at oh clock in the nite except saturday nites when they ring it at oh clock so that peeple can get there baths before bedtime. me and beany are going to lern to ring it. june . rany. me and beany went up to the church today to see beanys father ring the town bell, he let us pull it a little, it is prety esy. then we went up at oh clock and at oh clock. june . rany again. most of our scabs has come of. i dident go up to see mister watson ring the bell this morning becaus i dident get up in time, it was sunday. beany he dident neether, but we did tonite. beany can ring it prety well. june . brite and fair. jest think, beanys father is going to portsmuth tomorrow and beany is going to ring the bell and he is going to let me help him. beany is a prety good feller. mother sent of the scabs today to peeple whitch wanted them. nobody wanted mine. father said it was becaus i was such a tuf feller. june . brite and fair. gosh if we dident have a auful time today. in the morning me and beany went up to the church and rung the bell, we had a good time and rung it jest so many rings jest as mister watson, beanys father told us to, then me and beany both got kep after school, and when we got out we asked noot crummet what time it was and he said it was jest oh clock and that the town bell had jest struck and then me and beany jest put for the church as tite as we cood hiper, and we was prety near tuckered out when we got there and we both grabed hold of the roap and begun to ring the bell. well we only rung it a few times before we herd sumone holler fire, and then more peeple begun to holler and we looked out and we saw charles fifield and charly batcheldor and chick randall and jimmy josie jest putting it for the ingine house, and beany said buly they is a fire, and we begun to ring the bell as hard as we cood and holler fire. then the methydist bell begun to ring and then the upper house bell, and charles tolls horses came galoping down to the fountain ingine house with mat sleeper driving. and mager blakes horses went by jest lickety larup for the torrent ingine house with old brown driving, and then flunk ham came piling into the church and said, give me that roap and he puled like time, then sum peeple came runing in and said where is the fire, and flunk he said we dident know, and then we herd the ingine and went out and they was the torrent and the fountain and lots of men, and they said where in hel is the fire and nobody knowed where it was. and then chick randall he asked flunk what he was ringing the bell for and flunk he said he found me and beany ringing it. then they asked us what we was ringing it for and we said we was ringing it for mister watson beanys father, because he was going to ring it for mister johnson, and he had to go to portsmuth and so he told beany to ring it, and then old brown he said us was fools and asked us if we dident know enuf to tell time and he said it was only minits past oh clock when the bell begun to ring, and some of the peeple was mad and said we had aught to be arested, and then we said that noot crummet told us it was oh clock and then sum of them begun to laff and said it was a good one. ennyway me and beany run home as quick as we cood and the peeple went of two. well tonite father said if he had got into so many scrapes when he was a boy as me and beany did he wood have been in jale. and aunt sarah laffed and said she gessed she cood tell a few things if she wanted to and father he said he cood two but he gessed he woodent. ennyway he said gim melcher and charles talor led him into a good many scrapes and aunt sarah she said she gessed me and beany and pewt want a sercumstance to father and gim melcher and charles talor. june . brite and fair. it is most fourth of july again. they is going to be a band concert on the square. i shant have as mutch money as last year. ennyway i bet i will have a good time. i went in swiming times today. i coodent go in while my arm was sore. annie is most well but cross as time. june . brite and fair. i went in swiming times today. tomorow me and pewt is going pikerilling. pewt is a good feller to fish. fourth of july is coming next week. june . today me and pewt went fishing. we got charles flanders little blew bote. it is the esiest bote to row i ever rowd. pewt cougt pikeril and kivies and pirch. i cougt pikeril and kivies and pirch and sucker. we cougt sum minnies and shiners for bate but we dident call them ennything. we div of the bank at the eddy, once pewt sliped and come down all guts, it nocked the wind all out of him. july . brite and fair. today is the first day of july, and we had my fish fride for brekfast. july . brite and fair. i bougt bunches of snapcrackers and bunches of canon crackers and sum slow mach and put them in a box in my room. tomorow is the nite before fourth. pewt is going to have a pistol and beany a canon. father he says if he hears of me fooling with a gun he will lick me and send me to bed for a week. ennyway he dident say ennything about a pistol or a canon. july . gosh i was scart today. this morning i went up to my room to look at my snap crackers. i got the box on the floor and was counting them when i looked out of the window. i saw old miss hartnett hanging out sum close on the line, i thougt i cood make her gump and i wanted to try jest one canon cracker to see if they was good ones. well i lit one and pluged it down behind her, and jest as she was reaching up with her mouth full of close pins it went of bang, and she hollered love of god and went rite over backwards. i thougt i shood die and jest then one went of bang rite in the room and then they all begun to go of bang bang bang and i grabed the box up and pluged it out of the window and mother came up jest hipering and the room was full of smoke and i was stamping out the burning paper. well when i got it out she was prety mad with me and made me clean the room and wash the floor and windows. ferst i went out and picked up my snapcrackers. they were all rite but all the canon crackers but had went of. mother she asked me how they got afire and i said i was fooling with them and they got on fire and i had to plug them out of the window. then she said that was what fritened miss hartnett so and i said was she fritened and she said she was so fritened that she fell over backwards and i said is that so. mother dont know i did it on purpose whitch is prety good luck for me, so she only made me keep my snapcrackers in the yard. so i put them in a hole in the apple tree. gosh, you aught to hear miss hartnett tell about it. july , - brite and fair. i have been in bed days. on the fourth i got bloan up with pewts canon. i had fired all my snapcrackers but bunches whitch i had saved for nite, so me and pewt we was fixing the canon, ferst we wood put in sum powder and then we wood put in sum wet paper for a wod and then we wood put in sum grass and then put in the ramrod and pound it down with a rock. then we wood put a fuze of a snap cracker in the tuch hole and lite it and put for the other side of the street and it wood make an auful bang and tern or sumersets. well we had lots of fun and bimeby i was poaring out sum powder out of the powder horn and all of a suddin they was a flash of litening and the next i knew i was in bed and father and mother and cele and keene and docter perry and aunt sarah and aunt clark and georgie was in the room, and i said what is the matter and mother began to laff and then to cry and docter perry he said you had better take her out and let her lie down, but mother she said she wood be all rite and docter he said you needent wurry missis shute, you coodent kill this boy with brik. well my eyes smarted and i felt like the room was spinning round but it dident hurt enny. well that nite i coodent go to the band concert but they pushed my bed up to the window and i cood hear it prety good. the next day i had sum buly gelly and oranges and cele and keene read to me and in the afternoon beany came in to see me. beany he burnt his hand on the fourth and pewt he burnt of one eyebrow and so we all had a prety good fourth. yesterday boog and puzzy came down and fit for me until mother came up. i am all rite now and tomorow i can go in swiming. it was the babys berthday today. he was just year old. he is a auful fat little baby, when i was sick mother wood let him sit on the bed. july . brite and fair. i went in swimming today. the water was jest as warm as if it came out of the kittle. next monday i am going bull froging with cawcaw harding. july . brite and fair, nothing today but church. july . me and cawcaw had a prety good time today. we cougt dozen bull frogs legs. we got sum old busters. it is auful funny to catch them. they will bite a bare hook, so we swing the hook by them and they gump for it and then they kick and almost tern rong side out trying to get of of the hook. then we grab them by the legs and whak their heads over the side of the bote and their inside comes out and sumtimes lots of hard water snales comes ratling out and sumtimes they has fishes and sumtimes other bull frogs or stripers. then we cut of there legs. me and cawcaw always kill them ferst. sum fellers cut of there legs ferst, that is prety cruil i think. cawcaw he thinks so two. july . brite and fair. today i went in swiming up to sandy bottum. whack and boog and puzzy were there and got to pluging green apples. whack got behind a tree and jest as he peeked out boog pluged a hard one and took whack rite in the mouth. then whack got mad and said he cood lick boog and puzzy together, so boog and puzzy piched in and had a good fite and punched time out of whack. while i was waching them fite, sumbody tide gnots in my shert sleavs so tite that i coodent get them out so i had to go home without my shert on. it was prety lucky i had my jaket on. july . today i went up to whacks and we et sum green currents with shugar on them and then et sum green apples and then we went in swimming down to sandy bottum. i dont feel very well tonite, i have got a bely ake. july . i have been sick all day, mother made me take a big spoon full of caster oil. july . i am beter today, it raned all day and tonite they was a thunder shower, it struck a tree in gilman field. july . i went up to whacks agen today. i dident eat enny green apples or green currents you bet. whack and boog and puzzy did and they give little willie sum. they never have the bely ake. i never see such fellers. july . i have got a velosipede, it ways pounds. i have got so i can ride it down hill, last nite i was riding it up by gim odlins and it ran rite into a tree and i came of rite over it and scrached my hands and nocked the skin of my gnees. today was sunday and i coodent ride it but i set on it. july . hot as time today. docter gerrish and docter perry and j. albert clark have all got buly velossipedes, they have spring backs but mine is solid iron back and when i go over a bump or a stone it most ratles my teeth out. beany he can ride two, but pewt cant. july . feerful hot. july , - we fellers is going to have a swiming mach. they is going to be prises for the feller whitch can dive the best and for the feller whitch can swim the fastest and for the feller whitch can swim the furtherest under water and for the feller whitch can flote the best without wigling his arms and legs. i bet i will beat sum of the fellers. most of the fellers can beat me rassling or nocking of hats or running or gumping but i bet i will show them sumthing when we come to race in swiming. i practised today diving until my head aked feerful. july . the race is to be next wensday. they is pewt and beany and fatty gilman and fatty melcher. boog and whack and puzzy was going to race but they wanted to have it at sandy bottum and we fellers wanted to have the diving mach at the oak and the swiming under water at the gravil becaus it is wider there, and so they was mad and woodent come in. ennyway sandy bottum isent wide enuf and you cant tell whether a feller is swiming one foot on bottum. today i went in times. ferst i practised swiming fast bullfrog fashion. next i practised side stroak next i practised swiming under water. i swum times acros at the gravil. then i practised floteing, but i cant flote without keeping my hands moving. ferst my feet sink and when i get straight up and down my head goes under. then i div until my head aked like time agen. i feel prety tired tonite. july . rany as time. i only went in swiming times today and i dident dive enny. i only practised swiming fast and floteing. i coodent flote. in every boys book of sports and amuzements it says throw yourself on your back and throw your head back and hold your breth and you will not drownd until asistance reeches you. so i tride it today but i coodent hold my breth more than minit and as soon as i let out my breth down i went unless i kep my hands moving. so what the man whitch rote that book said aint so unless asistance comes in minit. july . brite and fair and hot as time. pewt thinks he is going to beat me swiming. i gess he will find out. july . today was sunday and i coodent practise swiming or diving, darn it. july . brite and fair. i only went in swiming times today, once this morning and once this afternoon, but i staid in all the morning and all the afternoon so i coodent go in more then times. the race is day after tomorow. july . brite and fair. today we went up to pewts and we aranged about the prises. pewt was to give the prises. the prise for swiming fast was a bag of erly apples from pewts garden. the prise for swiming under water was a gewsharp and the prise for the best diver was a cain fishing pole and the prise for floteing was a arrow rifle. we all give cents eech to buy the cain pole. the gewsharp was one whitch pewt had and the arrow rifle pewt had made. so pewt he said as long as he give of the prises he was to have the say about whitch beat. july . brite and fair. the fellers plaid a meen trick on me today. the meenist i ever see. i wont ever speak to enny of them agen. this morning we had the race. ferst we had the fast race. we started at the oak and swum down to the gravil. i was as far as from here to beanys house ahead. so i got the apples. fatty melcher was next and pewt was next and beany and fatty gilman got tired and went ashore. next we had the floteing mach. fatty gilman floted the longest and then beany becaus he was fat two and then pewt and then fatty melcher and then me. i was the wirst and the fellers all howled at me. so fatty gilman he got the arrow rifle. i dont cair. then we went back to the oak to have the diving mach. after we had div beany and fatty melcher they said i div the best and pewt and fatty gilman said pewt div the best. then pewt giv himself the prise becaus he had the say. i was prety mad. then we went down to the gravil to have the swiming under water mach so i went ferst and i swum from the going in place on moltons field to the elm tree on old nat gilmans side and when i come up and looked round they wasent enny feller ennywhere. so i swum back prety lively and my close was gone and the apples and the gewsharp and the fellers two. so i dident know what to do. i thougt they had hid the close and i hunted in the buches but i dident find them. so i wated a long time and bimeby i heard sum oars and i looked and i saw a bote with a feller and girls, so i coodent holler and i hid behind a tree. so they went by and then i come out and i walked back to the oak and when i got there i found sum girls picking dasies and i lay down behind the fence and just then a hornet stung me times and i yelled and gumped rite up and danced round before i thougt and then i see them and i hipered back to the gravil, they hipered two the other way you bet. well i set there in the shade for a long time until i got kind of cold and then i set in the sun. i thougt sum of the fellers wood come in swiming, but nobody come. i knowed if i wated til dark i cood get home all rite, only i wood get a licking for scaring the folks most to deth for they wood think i was drownded. well jest then i heard sum fellers talking up by the oak and i went up and there was potter goram and chick chickering. they had been fishing and had cougt sum buly pikeril. well i holered to them and they come down where i was and i told them about the meen trick the fellers had plaid on me and potter he said he wood go home for sum close and he give me his jaket and then he hipered acres the field and me and chick began to fish and i cougt a pirch and a eal and chick he cougt roach. then potter he come back with my best close and so i coodent fish enny more. so i went home in my best close. when i went by pewts he holered plupy has got on his best close. i dident say ennything. so when i got home mother asked me about it and i told her, it want telltaily eether. so mother she told me to go up to pewts for my close and i said if pewt took them he cood bring them back and beany and fatty two. so at super father he asked me why i had got on my best close and i told him and he said if pewt dident bring those close back in about minits he wood go up and boot him down to our house and back agen and jest then mister purington came into the yard holding pewt by the ear. pewt he had the close and mister purington he nocked at the door and he asked for me and when i come to the door he made pewt give me the close and then he told pewt to tell me he was sorry for what he had done and pewt he dident want to say it but mister purington most lifted pewt of the ground by the ear and then pewt he said he was sorry kind of mad like and mister purington lifted him up agen til pewt he stood on his tip toes and his face was all onesided and his eyes all squinty and then he had to say it over agen polite. and then mister purington he led pewt home all the way by the ear. i thougt i shood die. it sirved pewt jest rite. father laffed when i told him how the hornet stung me and how the girls hipered. july . brite and fair. pewt cant go out of the yard today. i dident speak to beany. july . brite and fair. i am going with potter and chick chickering instead of pewt and beany. we went butterflying today. july . brite and fair. nothing to wright today. july . thunder storm rite after church. i wish it had been rite before. july . tonite a man come down to see father and said i had gumped up behind a fence without my close on and scart his girls. he was stoping at the beach and they come up to mager blakes hotel. well father called me in and i told the man all about it and bimeby he begun to laff and he said it was a prety meen trick on me and he shook hands with me and he was glad i dident do it a purpose only he was sorry i got stung. aug. . me and potter and chick went fishing. chick fell of little river brige with his close on. potter caugt a whacking snaping tirtle. he gave it to sam dire and he cut his head of after it was cut of it wood bite a stick. sam says it wont die til the sun goes down. he says that if you cut a snake in peaces it will come together agen and heel up and be as good as ever. me and potter is going to try it. aug. . big thunder shower last nite. we all got up and lit lamps and set round in our nite sherts. we lit all the lamps we cood find so we coodent see the litening. father kept telling funny stories, but mother and aunt sarah was scart and told him he hadent aught to joke when enny minit he mite be struck by litening. father he said he dident beleave the litening wood strike him enny quicker for not being scart of it then it wood if he gumped and holered o lord every time it litened. well after a while it only litened way of and we went to bed. aug. . i havent spoke to beany yet or to pewt eether. aug. . this morning it was friday. we have fish chowder fridays. i dont like it and so i drink milk and father wanted the milkman to go down celler to try some of his vinegar. mother hangs the wash boiler and the tin pans and iron kittles in the celler way and when ennyone whitch is tall goes down celler he has to stupe down so not to nock down the pans and kittles. so father he was down celler and he holered for the milkman to come down and when he went down he hit his head aginst the boiler and nocked it down and all the kittles and pans tumbled down on his head and went banging down into the celler and you never heard such a feerful noise. father was mad as time, but after the milkman was gone we all laffed as if we wood die. mother and aunt sarah had to set down they laffed so. mother said it made more noise then the thunder did last nite. aug. . me and cawcaw harding has got a new way of fishing for pikeril when we are in a bote. one of us padles the bote and the other skips for pikeril. when you try to pull a pikeril into a bote most half of the time he goes over the bote into the water, so when me and cawcaw fishes when the feller which is skiping gets a bite he lets him have it a minit and the feller whitch is padling the bote padles towards the shore and then the feller whitch is skiping gumps rite out as soon as the water aint over his head and gives a big yank, and the pikeril goes saling into the field. sumtimes when it is woods the line gets tangled all up in a tree and we have to shin up the tree or cut it down to get the pikeril. we get prety wet but we dont cair. we always ring out our close when we get done fishing and they is most dry when we get home. today the bigest pikeril we caugt got up in a tree and we coodent shin up the tree and we coodent plug him down with rocks so we had to leeve him there. we got pikeril. we are going monday. aug. . brite and fair. today after sunday school beany he came over and we made up. this was the longest time i ever was mad with beany. i am glad we aint mad enny more. father let me go to ride with mister watson and beany this afternoon. we went down to the beach and took our lunchun. when we was coming home me and beany got most asleep and our legs got asleep two, so mister watson he told us to get out and walk a little and we wood be all rite and when we got out he whiped up his horse and drove of lively and made me and beany walk most a mile. we kep awake after that you bet. i had a good time. aug. , - clowdy but no rane. me and cawcaw went fishing agen today in the bote ferst i padled and he skiped and then he padeled and i skiped. when we got up by the cove i got a bite and cawcaw he padled the bote towards the shore and i gumped out lively and gumped into a deep place and went down way under. when i came up cawcaw was nearly ded he laffed so. well i held onto my pole and swum to the shore it was only stroaks and i sloshed up the bank and yanked that pikeril way into the buches. he was a big one. cawcaw did it purpose. sumtime i am going to rock the bote sudding when cawcaw is standing up skiping and he will go into the river kerswash. aug. . hot as time. me and beany rung sum more doorbells tonite. we dident get cougt. aug. . brite and fair. potter goram can stuf birds, so they look jest like they was alive. he stufed a red winged blackbird so good that the cat et it and dide. and then potter he skun the cat and stufed her. i can skin the cat on the horizondle bar, that is another way. aug. . me and beany rung sum more doorbells tonite. we rung old heads doorbell and then we tiptode round by the side of his house into gim ellersons yard and laid down behind the current bushes. well jest as old head come piling out mad as time pewt and fatty melcher come rite by and old head grabed for them and fatty he run and pewt got cougt and old head he jest lammed pewt with his cain and pewt holered he dident do it and old head said he did and then he give pewt sum good bats and sent him home balling. me and beany most dide only we dident dass to laff out loud. jest then father come out to see what pewt was holering about and he said what is the matter orrin and mister head he said sum cussid boy has been ringing my door bell most every nite and i cougt him tonite and licked him good. and father he said who was it, and mister head he said it was brad puringtons boy, and father said i am glad it wasent my boy and mister head he said i am glad two but i gess your boy woodent be meen enuf to ring doorbells and father he said i gess he woodent eether and then they went in and me and beany we tiptode up maple street and down town and then back home jest as if we had been down town all the time. that was a good one on pewt. it made me think of the time mister watson beanys father licked beany when we rung his doorbell and he came to the door with a lamp and the wind blowed the lamp out and mister watson he bumped his head on the door. aug. . brite and fair. i cant help laffing every time i think of pewt getting licked. it is a good one on pewt. aug. . brite and fair. tonite me and beany tride the same trick on nipper. we saw nip go down town and we rung bill greenleefs bell times before nip come back. we hid in old ike shutes porch and peeked out of a little window. bill he come out and run round the side of the house and then he run up street and looked behind trees and fences and swoar terible. me and beany near dide. he was so mad that he staid up til nearly oh clock waching. we cood see him peeking out of the window and we dident dass to go home til after oh clock and i got licked for being late. if nipper had only come home when he had aught to bill wood have cougt him and licked him and we wood have got home all rite. we will pay nip for this. aug. . brite and fair. nothing but church today. aug. . brite and fair. i coodent go out of the yard today. beany he come over and we are going to ring old man hobbses door bell tomorow nite. old man hobbs is prisils uncle. aug. . brite and fair, and hot as time. tonite we rung old man hobbses door bell times. it was auful funny. the ferst time he come out kind of slow with a lamp. me and beany were rite on the other side of the street laying down in the long grass. well he looked all round and walked out to the end of the piaza and then he went in mutering. bimeby we rung it agen and out he come prety lively but he dident catch us. if he was as lively as bill greenleef he wood have cougt us. well he went round the house and then old missis hobbs she came to the door and said what is it william, and he said it is some more of that purington boys deviltry, and she said i wood speek to his father and old hobbs he said he wood and then they went in. jest as we was going to ring the bell agen a man come walking quick down the street and went up to the door and rung the bell and jest as the bell rung old hobbs opened the door quick and gumped out and grabed the man and said you rascul i have got you and the man said you old fool are you crasy and then old hobbs he said i thougt it was that purinton boy ringing my door bell and then the man went in the house and we wated til they had shet the door and we put for home and made sum sweet firn segars. tomorow old hobbs is going to tell pewts father. i never had so much fun in my life. aug. . brite and fair. today pewt come down to the house and said where was you last nite and i said me and beany was making sweet firn segars over to beanys and i gave him segars. then pewt he said that old hobbs come down to his house today and told his father he rung his doorbell times and pewt said he dident and his father said he dident beleeve him and was going to lick time out of him if he had and he did it. pewt was prety mad and i was prety surprized you bet. this afternoon they was a thunder storm. after it was over we went fishing but dident get a bite. aug. . brite and fair. went up to whacks this morning and boog and puzzy had fites. neether licked becaus old miss finton come out and stoped them. boog got a bludy nose the second fite. in the afternoon i went fishing with cawcaw. i dident get a chance to tip him over but we cougt pikeril. tomorow nite me and beany are going to ring sum doorbells. aug. . clowdy but no rane. jest the rite day to go fishing. i was going with cawcaw but he was sick becaus he et to many apples up to whacks. tonite beany coodent go out of the yard becaus he dident split sum kindlings so we dident ring enny doorbells. it was a prety meen day. all the fun i had was going in swiming. aug. . prety hot today. i went in swiming times. sumthing is the matter with my eyes i keep winking them all the time. father keeps saying stop batting your eyes. i gess it is becaus i keep opening my eyes under water to see things on bottum. father says if i dont stop it i shant go in swiming enny more. aug. . it raned this morning so hard that i dident have to go to church. buly. aug. . brite and fair. tonite me and beany rung old missis sawyers bell. when she come out with the lamp we run into pewts yard and then into nat weeks. she went in and come out agen with a shorl on and went rite over to mister purintons and nocked at the door. we was near enuf to hear evrything. when pewts father come to the door she said i think things has come to a prety pass if peeple cant keep there boy from trubling there nabors. and then mr. purinton pewts father said what is the matter and missis sawyer she said your boy has been ringing my doorbell and pewts father he said how do you know he did it and missis sawyer she said i see him run rite into your yard. and so pewts father he come out and went round the yard but coodent find ennybody. so he said praps it was the watson boy or the shute boy and she said praps it was becaus she had heard they was prety bad boys. then pewts father said it was a mersy if they dident both get into jale and she said she gessed the shute boy was a trial to his father and mother and pewts father he said he gessed the watson boy was two. then he said if he was her he wood go rite down and see there fathers. when me and beany heard that we clim over nat weeks fence esy and put for home. when we got there they was nobody in beanys kichen and we went in esy and got the sweet firn and begun to make sweet firn segars. bimeby we heard old missis sawyer blabing to beanys mother and she said she wood go in and see if elly was in and when she come in beany said mother jest see how many segars me and plupy has made and he held up a lot that we made last week and she said you boys must have wirked a long time and beany he said it takes a good deal of time to make so many and she went back looking prety pleased becaus she thougt beany dident ring the old doorbell and she told old missis sawyer that we had been making sweet firn segars all the evening in the kitchin. so old missis sawyer went home kind of mad becaus it wasent me and beany whitch rung her doorbell ennyway she thougt it wasent. aug. . brite and fair. aug. . brite and fair. tonite me and pewt and beany and fatty gilman and fatty melcher and billy swett and gim erly and lots of the fellers come up and plaid i spy the bull. one feller lays it and he shets his eyes at the gool and counts fifty and the rest of the fellers go and hide and when he has counted fifty he trys to find the fellers and tag his gool before they do. they is a stick leening agenst the gool and if one of the fellers can get to the gool ferst he can plug the stick as far as he can and the feller whitch is laying it has to run and get the stick and go back to the gool and leeve the stick there before he can find enny more fellers and if enny fellers has been cougt they can hide agen. so tonite we plaid it til nine oh clock and i had laid it most an hour when pewt pluged the stick and hit old bill morril rite in the head jest as he came round the corner and he was mad as time and we put for home jest lively. pewt dident meen to do it. bill hadent aught to have been coming round the corner jest then ennyway. bill told father they was the tufest set of boys in the naborhood he ever see. i was behind the current buches when bill told father this and he showed father his old plug hat whitch was all dented in. father he said well bill we usted to make things prety lively when we was boys. then he told bill that he usted to ask his father if he cood go over and sleep with gim melcher and his father wood say yes, and gim melcher he wood ask his father if he cood go over and sleep with father and gims father wood say yes, and they wood stay out all nite and raise time, and gims father he wood think gim was over to fathers house, and fathers father wood think father was over to gims house and so they woodent get cougt. that wood be a prety good trick for me and beany to try only father wood know two mutch. i gess that is the reason father finds out so mutch about me becaus he was prety tuf when he was a boy. i gess that is the reson why ministers boys is most always tuf becaus there fathers dont know how to find out what tuf things they do. i wish i was a ministers son so i cood be tuf and not get found out, only i wood have to go to church times evry sunday. aug. . brite and fair. i wish i was ded. a feller might as well be ded as to be getting licked all time for nuthing. tonite me and beany wated till it was dark and we saw bill greenlef go down town. then we tide a string to his doorbell and hiched the other end to old printer smiths door on the other side of the street and hauled it tite. bimeby bill he come back and went in the side door. then a man came by driving a horse and when the horse run agenst the string both doorbells rung before the string broak and out come bill and old printer smith. when they found they wasent ennyone there they was prety mad. bill he run round looking behind fences and trees and old printer he swoar terible and went through miss sulivans and over to nipper browns and all round. me and beany was hiding in ike shutes porch. bimeby they come back and talked. bill said they must be of them and old printer he said it was about time this thing was stoped and he was going to find out who did it if it took him all summer. well bimeby they went in to wate and see if ennyone rung there doorbells sum more. bill he said he wood leeve his door open jest a little and old printer smith he said he wood leeve his open jest a little two so he cood gump out and lam time out of the feller whitch rung his bell. well bimeby me and beany crep out esy and hunted round til we found the string and we tide it agen as tite as we cood and then we crep back into the porch and peeked through the window. bimeby old mister lyford come up the sidewalk and when he come to the string it gerked his old plug hat of and he picked it up and brushed it and then went of. bimeby a hack came by and when it hit the string both door bells gingled feerful and bill and old printer smith came hipering out as if they was hiched to the string. bill went to gump of the side of the steps and he got the string round his leg and went fluking and then holered to old printer smith that they was a string tide to his door bell and printer he holered back that they was one tide to his two. then they swoar and talked sum and jest then pewts father come out and they said it was pewt and old missis sawyer she come out and she said it was pewt two. well then they begun to hunt and look behind trees and into doorways and me and beany got prety scart and bimeby we opened the door esy and hipered round ikes house and ran rite into old printer and he grabed us both by the neck and holered i have got the misable cusses and he draged us out to the lite and bill and brad said it is george shutes boy and irv watsons boy and they shook us up lively. well old missis sawyer wanted them to take us to jale but pewts father and bill and printer said to take us down to our fathers and so printer held us by the neck and marched us down the street and pewts father and bill come along two and old missis sawyer she came taging along talking all the time that we was the wirst boys in town. we went down to fathers ferst and he come out and bill he went over and called mister watson. well he come over and they all went into the back yard and they told father about it and missis sawyer said she was going to have us arested and father he said if she wanted to arest me all rite but he wood get a lawyer and carry the case to the circus coart if it took evry cent he had and mister watson he said so two. and father he said he woodent have his boy distirbing his nabors and he wood lick me and make me beg evrybodys pardon, but it wasent merder or hyway robery to ring doorbells and if they wanted to arest me to sale rite in, and mister watson he said so two. then father and mister watson marched us up to old hobbs and made us beg his pardon and old hobbs told father we was the wirst boys in town and father aught to whale the life out of us, and then we went down to pewts and had to beg his pardon for getting him a licking and then we went over to mister heads and begged his pardon two. then father took me into the kichin and give me a licking for eech doorbell that we rung. he give me a good one for missis sawyer becaus she was a woman and he said we dident have enny bizness to plage a woman, and he give me a prety good one for bill becaus bill was a prety good feller, and he only hit me one lick for old hobbs becaus he was mad at what old hobbs said and he dident hit me a lick for mister head becaus pewt got licked for it and he said pewt had aught to have been licked so many times when he dident that one licking one way or the other woodent make much diference. the wirst was when i had to beg pewts pardon. i wood rather get lickings. aug. , - brite and fair. tonite i asked father about him and gim melcher staying out all nite and he laffed and said it was trew. then i asked him how menny times he did it and he said all the times he wanted to becaus his father thougt he was a beter boy then he was. well i asked him if i cood stay out all nite sum time and he said no. then he said i woodent dass to and i said i bet i wood. then he said i cood if i wanted to and then mother she said george are you crasy and he said no but he gessed after i had been out a while i wood be homesick. so after super i asked beany and beany he asked his father and he told his father what father said and bimeby mister watson beanys father he said beany cood stay out if i cood. so we are going to stay out monday nite. aug. . brite and fair. nothing but church. aug. . rany as time. jest the luck. i coodent sleep enny last nite thinking about staying out all nite. ennyway i dident go to sleep til most morning and when i woke up it was raning hard, and it raned hard all day. it has stoped now. they wasent enny fun today. aug. . brite and fair. i am wrighting this in the morning becaus i shall be to bizzy tonite to wright ennything. i bet me and beany will have sum fun. last nite father said they was a tiger got out of a circus and he kind of thougt it was somewhere in the eddy woods. i aint afrade. beany aint neether. aug. . brite and fair. i gess i wont try to stay out all nite agen. it aint enny fun. yesterday afternoon mother made me go to bed so i woodent be sleepy at nite and beanys mother she did two. i coodent sleep and bimeby i got up and stuck my head out of the window and looked over to beanys house and beany he was looking out of his window and bimeby potter and cawcaw went by with their fish poles and you bet i wanted to go two, but i had to stay in my room. so beany and i begun to holler acrost to each other and i made up this poitry about beany, fat pork and beens thats what it meens that beanys got the belyake from fat pork and beens. and then beany he made up this poitry about me, plupy shute is meener than pewt and he is a prety meen galoot. then mother made me go in a room on the other side of the house, but i coodent sleep and she let me get up at super time. when father come home he said the tiger had carrid of and et up a bull over to kingston and he gessed he was coming this way, but i wasent scart. well after super i split my kindlings and me and beany went down town. we went to doctor derborns store and got sum soda water and beany he paid for it. then we got sum goozeberries of old si smiths and i paid for them and then we went over to beanys and got a lot of sweet firn segars and then we went down town agen. we went into stores and looked at things and we went down to the warf and then we went acrost to the raceway and went in swiming. it was kind of cold and we dident stay in very long. then it began to be dark and we went back to water street and staid in the stores til the nine oh clock bell rung and then we went back home. the folks was all setting on the front steps. so me and beany set down two and bimeby the folks said they must go in and they all went in and shet the door. it made me feel lonesum when i herd them lock the door. it must be prety tuf on fellers whitch havent got enny home. then me and beany went over to his house and set on the steps til his folks went in and shet the door and then we set on the fence under the gas lite and we herd nat weeks come home and mister gewell and bimeby si smith shet up his store and then it begun to be loansum. so we went down as fer as the swamscot house and they was a lite in sum of the rooms and we set down on old kellogs steps and talked. bimeby old straton the gas man come round with a little ladder and clim up and put out the gas and then it was prety dark. then beany he said less go up to pewts and yowl like cats. so we went up into pewts garden and we begun to yowl feerful like cats and bimeby pewts father opened a window and holered scat you devils and jest then nat weeks he stuck his head out and he holered scat two. and then we kep still a minit and pewts father said i wish there wasent a cussid cat alive and nat weeks he said so two and then they went to bed agen. bimeby we begun to yowl agen and then we yowled jest like cats fiting and pewts father opened the window agen and pluged a club out into the yard and holered scat and then we kep still and we herd him tell nat weeks that he had got his gun loded and if he herd it go of he needent be sirprized. so you bet we dident yowl agen. so after pewts father and nat weeks had gone to bed agen we clim over the fence esy and went of up towards gilmans barn. beany stumped me to go as fer as the barn and we was going there when i thougt of the tiger and told beany about it. we wasent afrade but they wasent enny fun in going down to the barn so we went back down towards the high school yard and it was prety dark there and so we dident go down to set on the steps. bimeby it struck eleven oh clock. ferst the town clock and jest after it the factory bell an then we cood hear clocks striking in the houses on the street. i tell you it made me feel loansum. we coodent see enny lites in the houses, so we set on the steps and told stories and talked about the fellers and the girls. beany said he gessed he wood mary lizzie tole, ed toles sister sum day. i bet he wont. then beany he said when he was a man he wood by the club stable and have all the horses he wanted to drive, and i cood wirk for him if i dident get drunk [curiously enough, the first two statements in this prophecy came true] like most of the hostlers. i told him that i wasent going to wirk for ennybody for i was going to play in the band like bruce brigam, scotty brigams brother. bimeby we herd sum real cats yowling and it sounded sort of feerful. cele read us a story when we was sick with the scarlet fever about a man whitch had a black cat and he got mad with her and cut out one eye. then he got mad with his wife and cut her throte and stuck her up in the chimny in the celler and pluged up the hole. bimeby the polisemen come to find out where his wife was and they hunted evry where in the house and stable and hen koop and evrywhere and bimeby they wanted to go into his celler. so the man he said all rite fellers come rite down and so the polisemen went down celler with him and he showed them all over the celler and they looked evrywhere and coodent find ennything and jest as they was going out they herd a feerful yowl and they stoped and lissened and it kept on yowling in the chimny and when they took a pickax and wanted to dig a hole in the chimny the man whitch killed his wife said they wasent ennything in the chimny for it hadent been opened for hundred years, but they cut open the chimny and what do you gess they found. well they found his wife with her throte cut and a old black cat with eye out setting on her showlder yowling. so they grabed the man and punched time out of him and they hung him to a lampost. well when cele read that story to us we all was wirse for days and annie never got over it and when i hear a cat yowl i think of what the polisemen found in the chimny. so when i herd the cat yowling i told beany that story and beany he dident want to go of of my steps enny more. bimeby the town clock struck oh clock and so it was morning and so we tost up to see whether beany shood wait til i got in my house or i shood go over to beanys to wait til beany got into his house ferst. i lost jest as i always do and so i had to go over to beanys and he tride the door and it was unlocked and so beany he went in and i hipered acrost the road as quick as i cood and went in the back way. i wasent afrade only i wasent going to have beany beat me in geting into bed. i went up stairs as esy as i cood but when i went by mothers room she said is that you harry and i said yes and she said are you going out agen and i said no it is morning now and i am going to bed and she laffed and said good mornin. then i piled into bed and dident wake up til oh clock. beany dident get up til oh clock. father saved a mans life today in boston. he was a old man whitch tride to get on a train whitch had started and father saw he was going to tumble of and get killed and he run and grabed him and the old man tride to pull away and holered and the trane was going faster and father had to run and push the old man and he grabed him by the seet of his britches and give him a hist and piched him rite into the door of the car and then father he gumped of. evrybody said the old man wood be killed if it hadent been for father. aug. . i bet beanys father never saved a mans life. i bet pewts never did neether. i asked father if he xpected the old man to give him a good deel of mony for it or a gold wach, and father he said the conscenceless of having did a noble act is enuf reward. gosh if i had saved a old mans life i wood have made him pay me. i wood have grabed him and said old man pay me dolars or of goes your hind legs. i realy woodent let him drop but i wood have scart him til he give me dolars. father he said that wood be hyway robery. i dont care. sept. . brite and fair. they was a peace in the boston paper today about father. it said heroik rescu of a old man and it told about father saving the old mans life. lots of peeple spoke to father about it. father walked down town tonite times. he most never goes down. father is going to take me to boston tomorow if i behaive myself and dont do as i did before. sept. , - i had to get up feerful erly this morning. after brekfast me and father rode up to the depo in joe parmers hack. while we was wating for the trane charles talor and charles gray and all the fellers began to pich into father jest fun like and father got the best of them evry time. you cood here them holler about a mile. then the trane come and we piled in. evrybody knowed father and called him george and evrybody piched into him and he ansered back so that he made evrybody laff. that was the way it was all the way to boston. when we got to boston we went into a bird store and staid a while and then father took me out to see a house with a canon ball in it where the british had fired it in the revolution. then we went down to the custum house where father wirks and father took of his coat and put on a thin coat and put on sum cuffs made of pastbord and then he took out sum big books and begun to wright. he give me a sheet of yellow paper and a pensil and told me i cood draw sum pictures. when he come in one man holered hullo george what are you going to do with the boy, drownd him, and father he said no but i wood if he dident amount to more then you have, and then that man he shet up and a nother man he holered george have you saved enny more peeple and father he said no i had a chanse to but his name was mudge and i let them hang him, and then that man he shet up. his name was mudge two. bimeby a man come in with specks and side wiskers and sum papers and a squint eye, and he come up to fathers desk and father took the papers and wile he was wrighting i drawd the man with his specks and his old side wiskers and his squint eye. when father had fixed his papers the man said is that your boy mister shute and he said yes and the man said can he draw and father said yes and he took the paper before i cood grab it and give it to the man and the man looked at it and begun to look mad and father said what is it and he showed it to father and then tore it up and went of mad. and father tirned red and asked me if i dident know more then that. then father he picked up all the peaces and we paisted them together and he showed it to the men and they all laffed and said i was a buster. bimeby a man come in and said that the naval oficer wanted to see father and father took the picture and went in. bimeby he came back and said the naval oficer jawed him and then he looked at the picture and laffed and said he wanted the picture and he took it and told father he had better shet that boy up. then it was dinner time and we went out and et dinner at a resterrant. i had meat and bread and coffy. after dinner we went back to the offise and a man come in and asked who was mister shute and father said he was and the man said are you the man whitch put a old man on the trane at the depo and father said yes and i thougt the man wood give father a hundred dolars or a gold wach and father looked as if he thougt the man wood say noble man you have saved my fathers life, but the man looked mad and said well sir you did a prety smart thing to throw a helpless old man on to the rong trane and send him of miles away from home and scart all his peeple most to deth becaus they thougt he was merdered and cost him dolars to telegraf and stay all nite and if you dont know more then that you had beter soke your head. father he said what was the old fool trying to get on the trane for if he dident want to go on it, and the man he said he was trying to get of the trane and you woodent let him and the man holered so loud that evrybody cood hear him and shook his fist and went of swaring feerful. then mr. pope he said o what a fall was there my countrymen just like what was in the fourth reader and mr. davis he said immortal seezer ded and tirned to clay, that is in the fourth reader two. then all the men laffed and said the treat is on you george and father he laffed two and said he wood be cussed, and he said that is what a man got by not tending to his own bizness. tonites paper had a peace in it about father and said the old man whitch father put on the rong trane was going to be marrid and his girl got mad becaus he dident come and marrid another man whitch was there and the old man was going to sew father for braking up the mach. father said he bet ben ridwill and jaky howe rote it for the paper and he wood fix them. sept. . brite and fair. sunday today but father dident go to walk. he was prety cross two. beany got sent out of sunday school for raising time. after he went out he clim up to the window and made up feerful faces at us. mister erl the suprintendunt was jest going to make a prayer and see us laffin and see beany before beany cood gump down and he grabed his cane and run out of the sunday school and chased beany down to gim elersons. beany cant come agen. i wish i was beany. sept. . clowdy but no rane. school begins today, gosh. none the heart of una sackville by mrs george de horne vaizey ________________________________________________________________ this book is not really in the same league as pixie, but it certainly is a well-written story about the inner life of a young woman in search of a wooer and future husband in the months and years after she leaves school. all the characters, men and women, boys and girls, are well-drawn, and the book is an enjoyable read, which we would recommend, particularly to the fairer sex. dated in , it contains contains a good deal of local and historical colour, and is worth reading for the insight into the social background of girls of the professional middle classes of those days. ________________________________________________________________ "the heart of una sackville" a tale of a young woman's search for the future love of her life by mrs. george de horne vaizey chapter one. _may th, _. lena streatham gave me this diary. i can't think what possessed her, for she has been simply hateful to me sometimes this last term. perhaps it was remorse, because it's awfully handsome, with just the sort of back i like--soft russia leather, with my initials in the corner, and a clasp with a dear little key, so that you can leave it about without other people seeing what is inside. i always intended to keep a diary when i left school and things began to happen, and i suppose i must have said so some day; i generally do blurt out what is in my mind, and lena heard and remembered. she's not a bad girl, except for her temper, but i've noticed the hasty ones are generally the most generous. there are hundreds and hundreds of leaves in it, and i expect it will be years before it's finished. i'm not going to write things every day--that's silly! i'll just keep it for times when i want to talk, and lorna is not near to confide in. it's quite exciting to think all that will be written in these empty pages! what fun it would be if i could read them now and see what is going to happen! about half way through i shall be engaged, and in the last page of all i'll scribble a few words in my wedding-dress before i go on to church, for that will be the end of una sackville, and there will be nothing more to write after that. it's very nice to be married, of course, but stodgy--there's no more excitement. there has been plenty of excitement to-day, at any rate. i always thought it would be lovely when the time came for leaving school, and having nothing to do but enjoy oneself, but i've cried simply bucketfuls, and my head aches like fury. all the girls were so fearfully nice. i'd no idea they liked me so much. irene may began crying at breakfast-time, and one or another of them has been at it the whole day long. maddie made me walk with her in the crocodile, and said, "croyez bien, ma cherie, que votre maddie ne vous oubliera jamais." it's all very well, but she's been a perfect pig to me many times over about the irregular verbs! she gave me her photograph in a gilt frame--not half bad; you would think she was quite nice-looking. the kiddies joined together and gave me a purse--awfully decent of the poor little souls--and i've got simply dozens of books and ornaments and little picture things for my room. we had cake for tea, but half the girls wouldn't touch it. florence said it was sickening to gorge when your heart was breaking. she is going to ask her mother to let her leave next term, for she says she simply cannot stand our bedroom after i'm gone. she and lorna don't get on a bit, and i was always having to keep the peace. i promised faithfully i would write sheets upon sheets to them every single week, because my leaving at half term makes it harder for them than if they were going home too. "we shall be so flat and dull without you, circle!" myra said. she calls me "circle" because i'm fat--not awfully, you know, but just a little bit, and she's so thin herself. "i think i'll turn over a new leaf and go in for work. i don't seem to have any heart for getting into scrapes by myself!" "well, we _have_ kept them going, haven't we!" i said. "do you remember," and then we talked over the hairbreadth escapes we had had, and groaned to think that the good times were passed. "i will say this for una," said florence, "however stupid she may be at lessons, i never met a girl who was cleverer at scenting a joke!" when florence says a thing, she _means_ it, so it was an awful compliment, and i was just trying to look humble when mary came in to say miss martin wanted me in the drawing-room. i did feel bad, because i knew it would be our last real talk, and she looked simply sweet in her new blue dress and her sunday afternoon expression. she can look as fierce as anything and snap your head off if you vex her, but she's a darling all the same, and i adore her. she's been perfectly sweet to me these three years, and we have had lovely talks sometimes--serious talks, i mean--when i was going to be confirmed, and when father was ill, and when i've been homesick. she's so good, but not a bit goody, and she makes you long to be good too. she's just the right person to have a girls' school, for she understands how girls feel, and that it isn't natural for them to be solemn, unless of course they are prigs, and they don't count. i sat down beside her and we talked for an hour. i wish i could remember all the things she said, and put them down here to be my rules for life, but it's so difficult to remember. she said my gaiety and lightness of heart had been a great help to them all, and like sunshine in the school. of course, it had led me into scrapes at times, but they had been innocent and kindly, and so she had not been hard upon me. but now i was grown up and going out into the battle of life, and everything was different. "you know, dear, the gifts which god gives us are our equipments for that fight, and i feel sure your bright, happy disposition has been given to you to help you in some special needs of life." i didn't quite like her saying that! it made me feel creepy, as if horrid things were going to happen, and i should need my spirit to help me through. i want to be happy and have a good time. i never can understand how people can bear troubles, and illnesses, and being poor, and all those awful things. i should die at once if they happened to me. she went on to say that i must make up my mind from the first not to live for myself; that it was often a very trying time when a girl first left school and found little or nothing to occupy her energies at home, but that there were so many sad and lonely people in the world that no one need ever feel any lack of a purpose in life, and she advised me not to look at charity from a general standpoint, but to narrow it down till it came within my own grasp. "don't think vaguely of the poor all over the world; think of one person at your own gate, and brighten that life. i once heard a very good man say that the only way he could reconcile himself to the seeming injustice between the lots of the poor and the rich was by believing that each of the latter was deputed by god to look after his poorer brother, and was _responsible_ for his welfare. find someone whom you can take to your heart as your poor sister in god's great family, and help her in every way you can. it will keep you from growing selfish and worldly. in your parents' position you will, of course, go a great deal into society and be admired and made much of, as a bright, pretty girl. it is only natural that you should enjoy the experience, but don't let it turn your head. try to keep your frank, unaffected manners, and be honest in words and actions. be especially careful not to be led away by greed of power and admiration. it is the best thing that can happen to any woman to win the love of a good, true man, but it is cruel to wreck his happiness to gratify a foolish vanity. i hope that none of my girls may be so forgetful of all that is true and womanly." she looked awfully solemn. i wonder if she flirted when she was young, and he was furious and went away and left her! we always wondered why she didn't marry. there's a photograph of a man on her writing-table, and florence said she is sure that was him, for he is in such a lovely frame, and she puts the best flowers beside him like a shrine. florence is awfully clever at making up tales. she used to tell us them in bed, (like that creature with the name in the _arabian nights_). we used to say: "now then, florence, go on--tell us fraulein's love-story!" and she would clear her throat, and cough, and say--"it was a glorious summer afternoon in the little village of eisenach, and the sunshine peering down through the leaves turned to gold the tresses of young elsa behrend as she sat knitting under the trees." it was just like a book, and so true too, for fraulein is always knitting! the romance de mademoiselle was awfully exciting. there was a duel in it, and one man was killed and the other had to run away, so she got neither of them, and it was that that soured her temper. i really must go to bed--lorna keeps calling and calling--and florence is crying still--i can hear her sniffing beneath the clothes. we shall be perfect wrecks in the morning, and mother won't like it if i go home a fright. heigho! the very last night in this dear old room! i hate the last of anything--even nasty things--and except when we've quarrelled we've had jolly times. it's awful to think i shall never be a school-girl any more! i don't believe i shall sleep a wink all night. i feel wretched. ps--fancy calling me pretty! i'm so pleased. i shall look nicer still in my new home clothes. chapter two. bed-time; my own room. may th. it is different from school! my room is simply sweet, all newly done up as a surprise for me on my return. white paint and blue walls, and little bookcases in the corners, and comfy chairs and cushions, and a writing-table, and such lovely artistic curtains--dragons making faces at fleur-de-lys on a dull blue background. i'm awfully well off, and they are all so good to me, i ought to be the happiest girl in the world, but i feel sort of achey and strange, and a little bit lonely, though i wouldn't say so for the world. i miss the girls. it was awful this morning--positively awful. i should think there was a flood after i left--all the girls howled so, and i was sticking my head out of the carriage window all the journey to get my face cool before i arrived. father met me at the station, and we spanked up together in the dog-cart. that was scrumptious. i do love rushing through the air behind a horse like firefly, and father is such an old love, and always understands how you feel. he is very quiet and shy, and when anyone else is there he hardly speaks a word, but we chatter like anything when we are together. i have a kind of idea that he likes me best, though spencer and vere are the show members of the family. spencer is the heir, and is almost always away because he is a soldier, and vere is away a lot too, because she hates the country, and likes visiting about and having a good time. she's awfully pretty, but--no! i won't say it. i hereby solemnly vow and declare that i shall never say nasty things of anyone in this book, only, of course, if they do nasty things, i shall have to tell, or it won't be true. she isn't much with father, anyway, and he likes to be made a fuss of, because he's so quiet himself. isn't it funny how people are like that! you'd think they'd like you to be prim and quiet too, but they don't a bit, and the more you plague them the better they're pleased. "back again, my girl, are you? a finished young lady, eh?" said father, flicking his whip. "very glad of it, i can tell you. i'm getting old, and need someone to look after me a bit." he looked me up and down, with a sort of anxious look, as if he wanted to see if i were changed. "we had good times together when you were a youngster and used to trot round with me every morning to see the dogs and the horses, but i suppose you won't care for that sort of thing now. it will be all dresses and running about from one excitement to another. you won't care for tramping about in thick boots with the old father!" i laughed, and pinched him in his arm. "don't fish! you know very well i'll like it better than anything else. of course, i shall like pretty dresses too, and as much fun as i can get, but i don't think i shall ever grow up properly, father--enough to walk instead of run, and smile sweetly instead of shrieking with laughter as we do at school. it will be a delightful way of letting off steam to go off with you for some long country rambles, and have some of our nice old talks." he turned and stared at me quite hard, and for a long time. he has such a lot of wrinkles round his eyes, and they look so tired. i never noticed it before. he looked sort of sad, and as if he wanted something. i wonder if he has been lonely while i was away. poor old dad! i'll be a perfect angel to him. i'll never neglect him for my own amusement like resolution number one! sentence can't be finished. "how old are you, child?" father said at last, turning away with a sigh and flicking firefly gently with the whip, and i sat up straight and said proudly-- "nearly nineteen. i begged to stay on another half year, you know, because of the exam, but i failed again in that hateful arithmetic: i'm a perfect dunce over figures, father; i hope you don't mind. i can sing very well; my voice was better than any of the other girls, and that will give you more pleasure than if i could do all the sums in the world. they tried to teach me algebra, too. such a joke; i once got an equation right. the teacher nearly had a fit. it was the most awful fluke." "i don't seem to care much about your arithmetical prowess," father said, smiling. "i shall not ask you to help me with my accounts, but it will be a pleasure to hear you sing, especially if you will indulge me with a ballad now and then which i can really enjoy. you are older than i thought; but keep as young as you can, child. i don't want to lose my little playfellow yet awhile. i've missed her very badly these last years." i liked to hear that. it was sad for him, of course, but i simply love people to love me and feel bad when i'm gone. i was far and away the most popular girl at school, but it wasn't all chance as they seemed to think. i'm sure i worked hard enough for the position. if a girl didn't like me i was so fearfully nice to her that she was simply forced to come round. i said something like that to lorna once, and she was quite shocked, and called it self-seeking and greed for admiration, and all sorts of horrid names. i don't see it at all; i call it a most amiable weakness. it makes you pleasant and kind even if you feel horrid, and that must be nice. i felt all bubbling over with good resolutions when father said that, and begged him to let me be not only his playmate but his helper also, and to tell me at once what i could do. he smiled again in that sad sort of way grown-up people have, which seems to say that they know such a lot more than you, and are sorry for your ignorance. "nothing definite, darling," he said; "an infinite variety of things indefinite! love me, and remember me sometimes among the new distractions--that's about the best you can do;" and i laughed, and pinched him again. "you silly old dear! as if i could ever forget!" and just at that moment we drove up to the porch. if it had been another girl's mother, she would have been waiting at the door to receive me. i've been home with friends, so i know; but my mother is different. i don't think i should like it if she did come! it doesn't fit into my idea of her, some way. mother is like a queen-- everyone waits upon her, and goes up to her presence like a throne-room. i peeped into the mirror in the hall as i passed, and tucked back some ends of hair, and straightened my tie, and then the door opened, and there she stood--the darling!--holding out her arms to welcome me, with her eyes all soft and tender, as they used to be when she came to say "good night." mother is not demonstrative as a rule, so you simply love it when she is. she looks quite young, and she was the beauty of the county when she was a girl, and i never did see in all my life anybody so immaculately perfect in appearance! her dresses fit as if she had been melted into them; her skirts stand out, and go crinkling in and out into folds just exactly like the fashion-plates; her hair looks as if it had been done a minute before--i don't believe she would have a single loose end if she were out in a tornado. it's the same, morning, noon and night; if she were wrecked on a desert island she would be a vision of elegance. it's the way she was born. i can't think how i came to be her daughter, and i know i'm a trial to her with my untidiness. we hugged each other, and she put her hands on each side of my face, and we kissed and kissed again. she is taller than i am, and very dark, with beautiful aquiline features, and deep brown eyes. she is very slight--i'm sure my waist is about twice as big--and her hands look so pretty with the flashing rings. i'm awfully proud of my mother! "my darling girl! how rejoiced i am to have you back. sit down here and let me see you. how well you look, dear--not any thinner yet, i see! it will be delightful to have you at home for good, for vere is away so much that i have felt quite bereft. sit up, darling--don't stoop! it will be so interesting to have another girl to bring out! there are plenty of young people about here now, so you need not be dull, and i hope we shall be great companions. you were a sad little hoyden in the old days, but now that you have passed eighteen you will be glad to settle down, won't you, dear, and behave like the woman you are. have you no little brooch, darling, to keep that collar straight at the neck? it is all adrift, and looks so untidy. those little things are of such importance. i had such a charming letter from miss martin, full of nice speeches about you. she says you sing so sweetly. you must have some good lessons, for nothing is more taking than a young voice properly trained, and i hope you have no foolish nervousness about singing in public. you must get over it, if you have, for i rely on you to help me when we have visitors." "i want to help you, mother. i will truly try," i said wistfully. i don't know why exactly, but i felt depressed all of a sudden. i wanted her to be so pleased at my return that she didn't notice anything but just me, and it hurt to be called to order so soon. i looked across the room, and caught a glimpse of our two figures reflected in a glass--such a big, fair, tousled creature as i looked beside her, and my heart went down lower then ever. i shall disappoint her, i know i shall! she expects me to be an elegant, accomplished young lady like vere, and i feel a hoyden still, and not a bit a grown-up woman; besides, father said i was to keep young. how am i to please them both, and have time left over to remember miss martin's lessons? it strikes me, una sackville, you have got your work cut out. mother brought me up to see my room. she has looked after it all herself, and taken no end of trouble making the shades. it looked sweet in the sunshine, and i shall love sitting in the little round window writing my adventures in this book; but now that it's dark i miss the girls: i wonder what lorna and florence are doing now? talking of me, i expect, and crying into their pillows. it seems years since we parted, and already i feel such miles apart. it seems almost impossible to believe that last night i was eating thick bread-and-butter for supper and lying down in the middle bed in the bare old dormitory. now already i feel quite grown up and responsible. oh, if i live to be a hundred years old, i shall never, never be at school again! i've been so happy. i wonder, i wonder shall i ever be as happy again? chapter three. _june th_. i've been home a month. i've got tails to my dresses and silk linings, and my hair done up like the people in advertisements, and parasols with frills, and a pearl necklace to wear at nights with real evening dresses. i wear white veils, too, and such sweet hats--i don't mind saying it here where no one will see, but i really do look most awfully nice. i should just simply love to be lolling back in the victoria, all frills and feathers, and the crocodiles to march by. wouldn't they stare! it was always so interesting to see how the girls looked grown up. the weather has been lovely, and i do think ours is the very dearest old house in the world. it is described in the guide-books as "a fine old jacobean mansion," and all sorts of foreign royal creatures have stayed here as a place of refuge in olden days before father's people bought it. it is red brick covered with ivy, and at the right side the walls go out in a great semicircle, with windows all round giving the most lovely view. opposite the door is a beautiful old cedar, which i used to love to climb as a child, and should now if i had my own way. its lower branches dip down to the grass and make the most lovely bridge to the old trunk. on the opposite side of the lawn there's another huge tree; hardly anyone knows what it is, but it's a spanish maple really-- such a lovely thing, all shining silver leaves on dark stems. i used to look from one to the other and think that they looked like youth and age, and summer and winter, and all sorts of poetical things like that. on the south side there is another entrance leading down to the terrace by a long flight of stone stairs, the balustrades of which are covered by a tangle of clematis and roses. when i come walking down those steps and see the peacock strutting about in the park, and the old sundial, and the row of beeches in the distance, i feel a thrill of something that makes me hot and cold and proud and weepy all at the same time. father says he feels just the same, in a man-ey way, of course, and that it is much the same thing as patriotism--love of the soil that has come down to you from generations of ancestors, and that it's a right and natural feeling and ought to be encouraged. i know it is in him, for he will deny himself anything and everything to keep the place in order and give his tenants a good time, but--resolution number two--i, una sackville, solemnly vow to speak the plain truth about my own feelings in this book, and not cover them up with a cloak of fine words--i think there's a big sprinkling of conceit in my feelings. i _do_ like being the squire's daughter, and having people stare at me as i go through the town, and rush about to attend to me when i enter a shop. ours is only a little bit of a town, and there is so little going on that people take an extra special interest in us and our doings. i know some of the girls quite well--the vicar's daughter and the doctor's, and the heywood girls at the grange, and i am always very nice to them, but i feel all the time that i am being nice, and they feel it too, so we never seem to be real friends. is that being a snob, i wonder? if it is, it's as much their fault as mine, because they are quite different to me from what they are to each other--so much more polite and well-behaved. i spend the mornings with father, and the afternoons with mother. at first she had mapped out my whole day for me--practising, reading, driving, etcetera, but i just said straight out that i'd promised to go the rounds with father, and i think she was glad, though very much surprised. "he will be so pleased to have you! it's nice of you, dear, to think of it, and after all it will be exercise, and there's not much going on in the morning." she never seemed to think i should enjoy it, and i suppose it would bore her as much to walk round to the stables and kennels, and talk to the keepers about game, and the steward about new roofs to cottages, and cutting timber, as it does him to go to garden-parties and pay formal calls. it seems strange to live together so long and to be so different. i have not met many strangers as yet, because vere is bringing down a party of visitors for august, and mother is not in a hurry to take me about until i have got all my things; but one morning, when i was out with father, i met such a big, handsome man, quite young, with a brown face and laughing eyes, dressed in the nice country fashion which i love--norfolk jacket, knickerbockers and leggings. father hailed him at once, and they talked together for a moment without taking any notice of me, and then father remembered me suddenly, and said-- "this is my youngest daughter. come home from school to play with me, haven't you, babs?" and the strange man smiled and nodded, and said, "how do, babs?" just as calmly and patronisingly as if i had been two. for a moment i was furious, until i remembered my hockey skirt and cloth cap, and hair done in a door-knocker, with no doubt ends flying about all round my face. i daresay i looked fourteen at the most, and he thought i was home for the holidays. i decided that it would be rather fun to foster the delusion, and behave just as i liked without thinking of what was proper all the time, and then some day he would find out his mistake, and feel properly abashed. his name is will dudley, and he is staying with mr lloyd, the agent for the property which adjoins father's, learning how to look after land, for some day he will inherit a big estate from an uncle, so he likes to get all the experience he can, and to talk to father, and go about with him whenever he has the chance, and father likes to have him--i could tell it by the way he looks and talks. we walked miles that morning, over gates and stiles, and across brooks without dreaming of waiting for the bridges, and i climbed and splashed with the best, and mr dudley twinkled his eyes at me, and said, "well jumped, babs!" and lifted me down from the stiles as if i had been a doll. he must be terrifically strong, for i am no light weight, and he didn't seem to feel me at all. after that morning we were constantly meeting, and we grew to be quite friends. he has thick, crinkly eyebrows, and is clean-shaven, which i like in his case, as his mouth has such a nice expression. he went on treating me as a child, and father seemed to think it was quite natural. he likes to pretend i am young, poor dear, so that i may be his playmate as long as possible. yesterday father went in to see some cottagers, and mr dudley and i sat outside on a log of wood, and talked while we waited for him like this. he--patronisingly-- "i suppose it's a great treat for you to getaway from school for a time. where is your school? town or country? brighton--ugh!" and he made a grimace of disgust. "shops--piers--hotels--an awful place! not a bit of nature left unspoiled; the very sea looks artificial and unlike itself in such unnatural surroundings!" "plenty of crocodiles on the bank, however--that's natural enough!" i said pertly. i thought it was rather smart, too, but he smiled in a superior "i-will-because-i-must," sort of way, and said-- "how thankful you must be to get away from it all to this exquisite calm!" i don't know much about young men, except what i've seen of spencer and his friends, but they would call exquisite calm by a very different name, so i decided at once that mr will dudley must have had a secret trouble which had made him hate the world and long for solitude. perhaps it was a love affair! it would be interesting if he could confide in me, and i could comfort him, so i looked pensive, and said-- "you do get very tired of the glare and the dust! some of the girls wear smoked glasses in summer, and you get so sick of marching up and down the front. do you hate brighton only, or every towny place?" "i hate all towns, and can't understand how anyone can live in them who is not obliged. i have tried it for the last five years, but never again!" he stretched his big shoulders, and drew a long breath of determination. "i've said `good-bye' for ever to a life of trammelled civilisation, with its so-called amusements and artificial manners, and hollow friendships, and"--he put his hand to his flannel collar, and patted it with an air of blissful satisfaction--"and stiff, uncomfortable clothing! it's all over and done with now, thank goodness--a dream of the past!" "and i am just beginning it! and i expect to like it very much," i thought to myself, but i didn't say so to him; and he went on muttering and grumbling all the time he was rolling his cigarette and preparing to smoke. "you don't understand--a child like you. it's a pity you ever should, but in a few years' time you will be so bound round with conventions that you will not dare to follow your own wishes, unless you make a bold stroke for liberty, as i have done, and free yourself once for all; but not many people have the courage to do that--" "i don't think it takes much courage to give up what one dislikes, and to do what one likes best," i said calmly; and he gave a little jump of surprise, and stared at me over the smoke of the match with amused eyes, just as you look at a child who has said a funny thing--rather precocious for its age. "pray, does that wise remark apply to me or to you?" he asked; and i put my chin in the air and said-- "it was a general statement. of course, i can't judge of your actions, and, for myself, i can't tell as yet what i _do_ like. i must try both lives before i can decide." "yes, yes. you must run the gauntlet. poor little babs!" he sighed; and after that we sat for quite an age without speaking a word. he was remembering his secret, no doubt, and i was thinking of myself and wondering if it was really true that i was going to have such a bad time. that reminded me of miss martin and her advice, and it came to me with a shock that i'd been home a whole month, and had been so taken up with my own affairs that i had had no time to think of my "sister." i was in a desperate hurry to find her at once. i always am in a hurry when i remember things, and the sight of the cottages put an idea into my head. "do you know the people who live in these cottages, mr dudley? i knew the old tenants, of course, but these are new people, and i have not seen them. are they old or young, and have they any children?" he puffed out words and smoke in turns. "john williams--_puff_--wife--_puff_--one baby, guaranteed to make as much noise as five--it's a marvel it's quiet now--_puff_. you can generally hear it a mile off--" "is it ill, then, the poor little thing?" "healthiest child in the world to judge from its appearance and the strength of its lungs! natural depravity, nothing else"--_puff_! "and in the next house?" "thompson--oldish man--widower. maiden sister to keep the house in order--thompson, too, i suspect by the look of him. looks very sorry for himself, poor soul!" "what's the matter with him--rheumatism? is he quite crippled or able to get about?" "thompson? splendid workman--agile as a boy. it was his mental condition to which i referred!" "and in the end house of all?" "don't know the name. middle-aged couple, singularly uninteresting, and two big hulking sons--" big--hulking! it was most disappointing! _no one_ was delicate! i twisted about on my seat, and cried irritably-- "are they _all_ well, every one of them? are you quite sure? are there no invalid daughters, or crippled children, nor people like that?" "not that i know of, thank goodness! you don't mean to say you _want_ them to be ill?" he stared at me as if i were mad, and then suddenly his face changed, and he said softly, "oh, i see! you want to look after them! that's nice of you, and it would have been uncommonly nice for them, too; but, never fear, you will find plenty of people to help, if that's what you want. their troubles may not take quite such an obvious form as crutches, but they are in just as much need of sympathy, nevertheless. in this immediate neighbourhood, for instance--" he paused for a moment, and i knew he was going to make fun by the twinkle in his eye and the solemn way he puffed out the smoke. "there's-- myself!" so i just paid him back for his patronage, and led up to the mystery by saying straight out-- "yes, i know! i guessed by what you said about town that you had had some disappointment. i'm dreadfully sorry, and if there's anything at all that i can do--" he simply jumped with surprise and stared at me in dead silence for a moment, and then--horrid creature!--he began to laugh and chuckle as if it was the most amusing thing in the world. "so you have been making up stories about me, eh? am i a blighted creature? am i hiding a broken heart beneath my norfolk jacket? has a lovely lady scorned me and left me in grief to pine--eh, babs? i did not know you were harbouring such unkind thoughts of me. you can't accuse me of showing signs of melancholy this last week, i'm sure, and as to my remarks about town, they were founded on nothing more romantic than my rooted objection to smoke and dust, and bachelor diggings with careless landladies. i assure you i have no tragic secrets to disclose! i'm sorry, as i'm sure you would find me infinitely more interesting with a broken heart." "oh, i'm exceedingly glad, of course; but if you are so happy and contented i don't see how you need my help," i said disagreeably; and just then father came out of the cottage, and we started for home. mr dudley talked to him about business in the most proper fashion, but if he caught my eye, even in the middle of a sentence, he would drop his head on his chest and put on the most absurd expression of misery, and then i would toss my head and smile a scornful smile. some day, when he finds out how old i am, he will be ashamed of treating me like a child. william dudley is the first stranger mentioned in these pages. for that reason i shall always feel a kind of interest in him, but i am disappointed in his character. chapter four. _july th_. to-day i went a round of calls with mother, driving round the country for over twenty miles. it was rather dull in one way and interesting in another, for i do like to see other people's drawing-rooms and how they arrange the things. some are all new and garish, and look as if they were never used except for an hour or two in the evening, and some are grand and stiff like a hotel, and others are all sweet and chintzy and home-like, with lots of plants and a scent of _pot-pourri_ in china vases. that's the sort of room i like. i mean to marry a man who belongs to a very ancient family, so that i may have lots of beautiful old furniture. mother gave me histories of the various hostesses as we drove up to the houses. "a dreadfully trying woman, i do hope she is out." "rather amusing. i should like you to see her." "a most hopeless person--absolutely no conversation. now, darling, take a lesson from her and never, never allow yourself to relapse into monosyllables. it is such a hopeless struggle if all one's remarks are greeted with a `no' or a `yes,' and when girls first come out they are very apt to fall into this habit. make a rule that you will never reply to a question in less than four words, and it is wonderful what a help you will find it. "twist the ends of your veil, dear, they are sticking out... oh dear, dear, she is at home! i do have such shocking bad fortune." she trailed out of the carriage sighing so deeply that i was terrified lest the servant should hear. i shall never call on people unless i want to see them. it does seem such a farce to grumble because they are at home, and then to be sweet and pleasant when you meet. mrs greaves was certainly very silent, but i liked her. she looked worn and tired, but she had beautiful soft brown eyes which looked at you and seemed to say a great deal more than her lips. do you know the kind of feeling when you like people and know they like you in return? i was perfectly certain mrs greaves had taken a fancy to me before she said, "i should like to introduce my daughter to you," and sent a message upstairs by the servant. i wondered what the girl would be like; a young edition of mrs greaves might be pretty, but there was an expression on mother's face which made me uncertain. then she came in, a pale badly dressed girl, with a sweet face and shy awkward manners. her name was rachel, and she took me to see the conservatory, and i wondered what on earth we should find to say. of course she asked first of all-- "are you fond of flowers?" and i remembered mother's rule and replied, "yes, i love them." that was four words, but it didn't seem to take us much further somehow, so i made a terrific effort and added, "but i don't know much about their names, do you?" "yes, i think i do. i feel as if it was a kind of courtesy we owe them for giving us so much pleasure. we take it as a slight if our own friends mispronounce or misspell our own names, and surely flowers deserve as much consideration from us," quoth she. goodness! how frightfully proper and correct. i felt so quelled that there was no more spirit left in me, and i followed her round listening to her learned descriptions and saying, "how pretty!" "oh, really!" in the most feeble manner you can imagine. all the while i was really looking at her more than the flowers, and discovering lots of things. number one--sweet eyes just like her mother's; number two--sweet lips with tiny little white teeth like a child's; number three--a long white throat above that awful collar. quotient--a girl who ought to be quite sweet, but who made herself a fright. i wondered why! did she think it wrong to look nice--but then, if she did, why did she love the flowers just for that very reason? rachel greaves! i thought the name sounded like her somehow--old- fashioned, and prim, and grey; but the next moment i felt ashamed, for, as if she guessed what i was thinking, she turned to me and said suddenly-- "will you tell me your name? i ought to know it to add to my collection, for you are like a flower yourself." wasn't it a pretty compliment? i blushed like anything, and said-- "it must be a wild one, i'm afraid. i look hot-housey this afternoon, for i'm dressed up to pay calls, but really i have just left school, and feel as wild as i can be. you mustn't be shocked if you meet me in a short frock some morning tearing about the fields." she leant back against the stand, staring at me with such big eyes, and then she said the very last thing in the world which i expected to hear. "may i come with you? will you let me come too some day?" come with me! rachel greaves, with her solemn face, and dragged-back hair, and her proper conversation. to tear about the fields! i nearly had a fit. "i suppose you want to botanise?" i asked feebly, and she shook her head and said-- "no; i want to talk to you--i want to do just what you do when you are alone." "scramble through the hedges, and jump the streams, and swing on the gates, and go bird's-nesting in the hedges?" she gave a gulp of dismay, but stuck to her guns. "y-es! at least, i could try--you could teach me. i've learned such a number of things in my life, but i don't know how to play. that part of my education has been neglected." "wherever did you go to school? what a dreadful place it must have been!" "i never went to school; i had governesses at home, and i have no brothers nor sisters; i am very much interested in girls of my own age, especially poor girls, and try to work among them, but i am not very successful. they are afraid of me, and i can't enter into their amusements; but if i could learn to romp and be lively, it might be different." it was such a funny thing to ask, and she looked so terribly in earnest over it, that i was simply obliged to laugh. "do you mean to say you want to learn to be lively, as a lesson--that you are taking it up like wood-carving or poker-work--for the sake of your class and your influence there?" she blinked at me like an owl, and said-- "i think, so far as i can judge of my own motives, that that is a truthful statement of the case! i have often wished i knew someone like you--full of life and spirit; but there are not many girls in this neighbourhood, and i met no one suitable until you came. it is a great deal to ask, but if you would spend a little time with me sometimes i should be infinitely grateful." "oh, don't be grateful, please, until you realise what you have to endure. nothing worth having can be gained without suffering," i said solemnly. "i shall lead you a terrible dance, and you must promise implicit obedience. i'm a terrible bully when i get the chance." i privately determined that i'd teach her other things besides play, and we agreed to meet next morning at eleven o'clock to take our first walk. mother was much amused when i told her of our conversation. "you'll soon grow tired of her, darling; she is impossibly dull, but a good creature who can do you no harm. you can easily drop her if she bores you too much." but i don't expect to be bored, i expect it will be very amusing. _next day_. it was! she was there to meet me with a mushroom hat over her face, looking as solemn as ever, and never in all my life did i see a poor creature work so hard at trying to enjoy herself. she runs like an elephant, and puffs like a grampus; says, "one, two, three," at the edge of the streams, then gives a convulsive leap, and lands right in the middle of the water. she was splashed from head to foot, and quite pink in the cheeks imagining she was going to be drowned, and in the next hedge her hat caught in a branch, and was literally torn from her head. then we sat down to consider the situation, and to collect the fallen hairpins from the ground. she has a great long rope of hair, and she twists and twists and twists it together like a nurse wringing out a fomentation, so i politely offered to fasten it for her, and loosened it out and pulled it up over her forehead, and you wouldn't believe the difference it made. we found some wild strawberries, and ate them for lunch, and i wreathed the leaves round her head, and when her fingers were nicely stained with the juice, and she looked thoroughly disreputable, i held out the little looking-glass on my chatelaine, and gave her a peep at herself, and said-- "that's the result of the first lesson! what do you think of the effect on your appearance?" "i beg your pardon! i'm quite ashamed. what have i been doing?" she cried all in a breath, and up went both hands to drag her hair back, and tear out the leaves, but i caught them in time and held them down. "implicit obedience, remember! i like you better as you are. it's such pretty hair that it's a sin to hide it away in that tight little knot. why shouldn't you look nice if you can?" that began it, and we had quite a solemn discussion, something like this-- rachel, solemnly: "it does not matter how we look, so long as our characters are beautiful!" una: "then why was everything on the earth made so beautiful if we were not intended to be beautiful too? how would you like it if everything was just as useful, but looked ugly instead of pretty? when you have the choice of being one or the other it's very ungrateful to abuse your talent!" "beauty a talent! i have always looked upon it as a snare! how many a woman's life has been spoiled by a lovely face!" "that's the abuse of beauty, not the use!" i said, and felt quite proud of myself, for it sounded so grand. "of course, if you were silly and conceited, it would spoil everything; but if you were nice, you would have far more influence with people. i used to notice that with the pretty girls at school, and, of course, there's mother--everyone adores her, and feels repaid for any amount of trouble if she will just smile and look pleased." "ah, your mother! but there are not many like her. you spoke of having a choice, but in my own case, for instance, how could i--what could i do?" "you could look fifty thousand times nicer if you took the trouble. i thought so the first time i saw you, and now i know it. look in the glass again; would you know yourself for the same girl?" she peered at herself, and gave a pleased little smirk just like a human being. "it's the enjoyment lesson, and the red cheeks--but oh, i couldn't--i really couldn't wear my hair like that! it looks so terribly as if i--i _wanted_ to look nice!" "well, so you do, don't you? i do, frightfully! i'd like to be perfectly lovely, and so charming that everyone adored me, and longed to be with me." "ah, that's different," she said softly, and her eyes went shiny and she stared straight ahead at nothing, in the way people do who are thinking nice thoughts of their own which they don't mean you to know. "to be loved is beautiful, but that is different from admiration. we love people for their gifts of mind and heart, not for their appearance." she meandered on for quite a long time, but i really forget all she said, for i was getting tired of moralising, and wondering what excuse i could make to leave her and fly off home across the fields. then suddenly came the sound of footsteps at the other side of the stile, and who should come jumping over just before our very faces but will dudley himself on his way home to lunch. he stared for a moment, hardly recognising the two hat-less, dishevelled mortals squatted on the grass, and then came forward to shake hands. the funny thing was that he came to me first, and said, "how do you do?" and then just shook hands with rachel without ever saying a word. she didn't say anything either, but i could see she was horribly embarrassed, thinking of her hair and the strawberry leaves, and he looked at her and looked again as if he could not understand what had happened. i thought it would be fun to tell him all about it when we reached the cross-roads, and rachel left us alone. i was glad she was going another way, because it's rather a nuisance having a stranger with you when you want to talk, and i knew mr dudley very well by this time. he would be so amused at the idea of the enjoyment lesson. i was looking forward to our talk; but oh, dear, what horrid shocks one does get sometimes! i shall never, never forget my feelings when we got to the corner, and he held out his hand to me--me--una sackville, and walked calmly off with rachel greaves. it was not as if he had been going in her direction; his way home was with me, so why on earth should he choose to go off with her? are they lovers, or friends, or what? why did he take no notice of her at first, then suddenly become so anxious for her society? it's not that i care a scrap, but it seemed so rude! i've been as cross as two sticks all day. nothing annoys me more than to be disappointed in my friends! eleven o'clock. i was comfortably settled in bed when i suddenly remembered resolution number two. the real reason that i am annoyed is that i am conceited enough to think i am nicer than rachel, and to want mr dudley to think so too. how horrid it looks written down! i believe it will do me heaps of good to have to look at plain truths about myself in staring black and white. perhaps lorna is right after all, and i have a greed for admiration! i'll turn over a new leaf and be humble from this day. chapter five. _july th_. i was not in the least interested to know anything about what will dudley and rachel greaves talked about together, but i was anxious to find out if she had said anything to show him that i was really grown- up, instead of the child he thought me; so the next time we met i asked her plump and plain-- "what did you and mr dudley say about me the other morning?" we were walking along a lane together, and she turned her head and stared at me in blank surprise. "about you? the other morning? we--we never spoke of you at all!" then i suppose i looked angry, or red, or something, for she seemed in a tremendous hurry to appease me. "we have a great many interests in common. when we lived in town we belonged to the same societies, and worked for the same charities. it is interesting to remember old days, and tell each other the latest news we have heard about the work and its progress." "then you knew him before he came here? he is not a new friend?" "oh, no--we have known him for years. it was father who got him his present position." "and you like him very much?" "yes," she said quietly. "isn't it lovely to see the hedges covered with the wild roses? i think they are almost my favourite flower--so dainty and delicate." "nasty, prickly things--i hate them!" i cried; for i do detest being snubbed, and she could not have told me more plainly in so many words that she did not choose to speak of will dudley. why not? i wonder. was there some mystery about their friendship? i should not mind talking about anyone i know, and it was really absurd of rachel to be so silent and reserved. i determined not to ask her any more questions, but to tackle mr dudley himself. two days after there was the garden party, where i knew we should meet. he was bound to go, as it was on the estate where he was living, and i was to make my first formal appearance in society, in the prettiest dress and hat you can possibly imagine. mother was quite pleased with me because i let her and johnson fuss as much as they liked, and tie on my white veil three times over to get it in the right folds. then i looked in the glass at my sweeping skirts, and hair all beautifully done up, and laughed to think how different i looked from babs of the morning hours. we drove off in state, and i was quite excited at the prospect of the fray; but i do think garden parties are dreadfully dull affairs! a band plays on the lawn, and people stroll about, and criticise one another's dresses, and look at the flowers. they are very greedy affairs, too, for really and truly we were eating all the time--tea and iced coffee when we arrived; ices, and fruits, and nice things to drink until the moment we came away. i don't mean to say that i ate straight on, of course, but waiters kept walking about with trays, and i noticed particularly what they were like, so as not to take two ices running from the same man. i had a strawberry, and a vanilla, and a lemon--but that was watery, and i didn't like it. i was talking to the hostess, when i saw mr dudley coming towards us, and he looked at me with such a blank, unrecognising stare that i saw at once he had no idea who i was. mrs darcy talked to him for a moment while i kept the brim of my hat tilted over my face, then she said-- "don't you know miss sackville? allow me to introduce mr dudley, dear. do take her to have some refreshment, like a good man. i am sure she has had nothing to eat!" i thought of the coffee, and the ices, and the lemonade and the sandwiches, but said nothing, and we sauntered across the lawn together talking in the usual ridiculous grown-up fashion. "lovely day, isn't it?" "quite charming. so fortunate for mrs darcy." "beautiful garden, isn't it?" "charming! such lovely roses!" "beautiful band, isn't it?" "oh, charming! quite charming!" then he seated me at a little table and provided me with an ice, (number four), and stared furtively at me from the opposite side. it _was_ fun. i crinkled my veil up over my nose and tilted my hat over my forehead, and shot a glance at him every now and then, to find his eyes fixed on me--not recognising at all, but evidently so puzzled and mystified to think who i could be. father had told him only a week before that vere would not be home for a month--and now who was this third miss sackville who had suddenly appeared upon the scene? "you have returned home rather sooner than you intended, haven't you?" he inquired, and i shook my head and said-- "oh, no, i kept to the exact date. i always do! what makes you think otherwise?" "i--er--i thought i heard you were not expected for some time to come. you have been staying with friends?" "oh, a number of friends! quite a huge house party. i feel quite lost without them all." he would have been rather surprised if i had explained that the party consisted of forty women and no man, but that was not his business, and it was perfectly true that i missed them badly. all the rachel greaveses in the world would never make up for lorna and the rest! "but you have your sister!" he said. "i have seen a good deal of your sister in her morning walks with mr sackville. she is a charming child, and most companionable; i am sure she will be a host in herself!" "it's very good of you! i can't tell you how pleased i am to hear you say so!" i said suavely; but do what i would, i could not resist a giggle, and he stared at me harder than ever, and looked so confused. i was so afraid that he would find me out and spoil the fun that i determined not to try to keep up the delusion any longer. he was going to cross-question me, i could see it quite plainly, so i lay back in my chair, smoothed out my veil, and smiled at him in my most fascinating manner. "i'm so pleased that you have formed such a good opinion of me, mr dudley! i was really afraid you had forgotten me altogether, for you seemed hardly to recognise me a few minutes ago." he leant both arms on the table so that his face was quite near to mine. "_who are you_?" he asked, and i laughed, and nodded in reply. "i'm babs--una sackville is my name--england is my nation, branfield is my dwelling--" "don't joke, please. i want to understand. _you--are--babs_! have you been deliberately deceiving me, then? pray, what has been your object in posing as a child all these weeks!" that made me furious, and i cried hotly-- "i never posed at all--i never deceived you! father treats me as a child, and you followed his example as a matter of course, and i was very pleased to be friends in a sensible manner without any nonsense. if i had said, `please, i'm nineteen--i've left school, and am coming out--this is a hockey skirt, but i wear tails in the evening,' you would have been proper, and stiff, and have talked about the weather, and we should have had no fun. if anyone is to blame, it is you, for not seeing how really old i was!" he smiled at that, and went on staring, staring at my face, my hair, my long white gloves, the muslin flounces lying on the ground round my feet. "so very old!" he said. "nineteen, is it? and i put you down as-- fourteen or fifteen, at the most! and so babs has disappeared. exit babs! i'm sorry. she was a nice child; i enjoyed meeting her very much. i think we should have been real good friends." "she has not disappeared at all. you will meet her to-morrow morning. there is nothing to prevent us being as good friends as ever," i declared, but he shook his head in a mysterious fashion. "i think there is! there's a third person on the scene now who will make it difficult--for me, at least--to go back to the same footing. there's una!" he said, and looked at me with his bright grey eyes, up and down, down and up again, in a grave, quiet sort of way which i had never seen before. it made me feel nice, but rather uncomfortable, and i was glad when he brightened up again, and said gaily-- "i owe a hundred apologies for my lack of ceremony to this fine, this very fine, this super-fine young lady! i'll turn over a new leaf for the future, and treat you with becoming ceremony. i can quite imagine the disgust of the budding _debutante_ at my cavalier ways. confess now that your dignity was sorely wounded?" his eyes were twinkling again. they are grey, and his face is so brown that they look lighter than the skin. i never saw anyone's eyes look like that before, but it is awfully nice. i thought there was a splendid opening, so i said-- "no; i was never vexed but once. i like being treated sensibly, but that morning when you left me, and went out of your way with rachel greaves--i was sorry then that you did not know that i was grown up." "you thought if i had i would have walked with you instead? why?" i blushed a little, and it seemed to me that he blushed too--his cheeks certainly looked hot. it was a horrid question to answer, and he must have known for himself what i meant. i really and truly don't think many men would go out of their way for rachel greaves. i answered by another question--it was the easiest way. "i didn't know then that you were old friends. i suppose you get to like her better when you know her well?" "naturally. that is always the case with the best people." "and she is--" "the best woman i have ever met, and the most selfless!" he said solemnly. "have you spoken to rachel about me? what has she told you? i should like you to know the truth, though it is not yet general property. you can keep it to yourself for awhile?" i nodded. i didn't want to speak, for i felt a big, hard lump swelling in my throat, and my heart thumped. i knew quite well what he was going to say, and i hated it beforehand. "we are engaged to be married. it will probably be an engagement for years, for rachel feels her present duty is at home, and i am content to wait her pleasure. i don't go up to the house very often, as the old gentleman is an invalid, and dislikes visitors, but we understand one another, and are too sensible to fret because we cannot always be together. only when an opportunity occurs, as it did the other morning-- why--you understand?" "yes, i understand," i said slowly. i was thinking it over, and wondering, if i were ever engaged, if i should like my _fiance_ to be content and sensible, and quite resigned to see me seldom, and to wait for years before we could be married. i think i would rather he were in a hurry! oh, i wish i were selfless, too! i wish i could be glad for them without thinking of myself; but i do feel so lonely and out in the cold. i'm thankful that vere is coming home next week, and the house will be filled with visitors. engaged people are no use--they are always thinking about each other! chapter six. _july th_. rachel was surprised when i told her that i knew her secret, and i don't think she was pleased. "will told you! will told you himself!" she repeated, and stared at me in a puzzled, curious fashion, as if she wondered why on earth he should have chosen to make a confidante of me. "it is hardly a regular engagement, for father will not hear of my leaving home, and the waiting may be so long that i have told will it is not fair to bind him. he says he is content to wait, but we agreed to speak about it as little as possible for some time to come." "oh, well, i'll keep the secret. you need not be afraid that i shall gossip about you," i told her. she wears no ring on her engagement finger, but always, always--morning, noon and night--there is a little diamond anchor pinned in the front of her dress. i suppose he has given her that instead, as a symbol of hope--hope that in ten or a dozen years, when she is an old thing over thirty, they may possibly be married! well, i can imagine rachel waiting twenty years, if it comes to that, and keeping quite happy and serene meantime; but will dudley is different--so quick and energetic and keen. i could not have imagined him so patient. yesterday vere came home, bringing her friends with her, and already rachel and her love affair seems far away, and we live in such a bustle and confusion that there is no time to think. i'm rather glad, for i was getting quite dull and mopey. they arrived about five in the afternoon, and came trooping into the hall, where tea was waiting. two girls and three men, and vere herself, prettier than ever, but with just the old, aggravating, condescending way. "hallo, babs! is that you transformed into a young lady in long dresses, and your hair done up? you dear, fat thing, how ridiculous you look!" she cried, holding me out at arm's length, and laughing as if it were the funniest joke in the world, while those three strange men stood by staring, and i grew magenta with embarrassment. one of the men was tall and handsome, with a long, narrow face, and small, narrow eyes; he laughed with her, and i hated him for it, and for having so little sympathy with a poor girl's feelings. another was small, with a strong, square-set figure, and he looked sorry for me; and the third looked on the floor, and frowned as if something had hurt his feelings. he was the oldest and gravest-looking of the three, and i knew before he had been ten minutes in the room that he adored vere with his heart, and disapproved of her with his conscience, and was miserable every time she did or said a thoughtless thing. "i told you i had a smaller sister at home--here she is! rather bigger than i expected, but not much changed in other respects. don't be shy, babs! shake hands nicely, and be friends!" vere cried laughingly, taking me by the shoulders and pushing me gently towards where the men stood; but, just as i was fuming with rage at being treated as if i were two, father came suddenly from behind, and said in his most grand seigneur manner-- "allow me, vere! if an introduction is made at all, it is best to make it properly. captain grantly, mr nash, mr carstairs, i have the honour of introducing you to my second daughter, miss una sackville." the change of expression on the men's faces was comical to behold. captain grantly, the narrow-faced one, bowed as if i had been the queen, and the nice little man smiled at me as if he were pleased--he was mr nash, and poor mr carstairs flushed as if he had been snubbed himself; i was quite sorry for him. the girls were very lively and bright, spoke in loud voices, and behaved as if they had lived in the house all their lives, which is supposed to be good manners nowadays. margot sanders is tall and fair, and wears eye-glasses, and mary eversley, who is "lady mary," would have been considered very unladylike indeed at our polite seminary. it seems to be fashionable nowadays for a girl to behave as much like a man as possible, and to smoke and shout, and stand with her arms behind her back, and lounge about anyhow on her chair. well, i won't! i don't care if it's fashionable or not! i'd rather have been a boy if i'd had the choice, but as i am a girl i'll make the best of it, and be as nice a specimen as i can. lorna says a girl ought to be like a flower-- sweet, modest and fragrant; she's a bit sentimental when you get her alone, but i agree with the idea, though i should not have expressed it in the same way. if i were a man i should hate to marry a girl who smelt of tobacco and shrieked like a steam whistle. i'd like a dear, dainty thing with a soft voice and pretty, womanly ways. i hereby vow and declare that i will stick to my colours, and set an example to those old things who ought to know better. lady mary must be twenty-five if she is a day. i don't expect she will ever be married now. with the clear-sighted gaze of youth, i can see that she is hiding a broken heart beneath the mask of mirth. life is frightfully exciting when you have the gift of penetrating below the surface. will dudley came to dinner; he was the only stranger, as he made the number even. i wore my new white chiffon, and thought i looked very fine till i went downstairs and saw the others. they were smart, and vere looked lovely, and did the honours so charmingly that even mother seemed to make way for her. poor mother! she looked so happy; she dotes on vere, and is so proud of her; it does seem hard she doesn't have more of her society! i felt sad somehow, and sort of lonely as i watched them together--vere fussing round and saying pretty, flattering little speeches, and mother smiling at her so tenderly. i feel nice things, too, but i can't say them to order; my lips seem all tight and horrid, as if they wouldn't move. i felt like the elder brother in the parable, because i really have denied myself, and been bored fearfully sometimes these last weeks doing fancy-work with mother, and driving about shut up in a horrid, close carriage, while vere has been gadding about and enjoying herself; and then the moment she comes home i am nowhere beside her! injustices like this sear the heart, and make one old before one's time. i suppose i looked sad, for will dudley crossed over the room to talk to me. "aren't you well?" he asked, and his eyes looked so anxious and worried that it quite comforted me. "i have rather a headache," i began, without thinking of what i was saying, and then, (somehow i never can help telling him exactly how i feel), i stopped, and contradicted myself flat. "i'm perfectly well, but i think i'm jealous. i have been the only child for so long, and now my poor little nose is out of joint, and i don't like it a bit. it aches." i thought he would sympathise and protest that i could never be superseded, in his opinion at least, but he just sighed, and said slowly-- "yes, she is very lovely! it must be a great responsibility to have a face as beautiful as hers, with all the influence over others that is its accompaniment!" and looked straight across the room to where vere stood beneath the shaded lamp. she was not looking in our direction; but, as if she felt his gaze without seeing it, she turned her head slowly round and raised her eyes to his, and so they stood while you could have counted ten, staring, staring, straight into each other's eyes, and i saw the colour fade gradually out of vere's face, as though she were frightened by what she saw. that is the way people fall in love! i've read about it in books. they sort of recognise each other when they meet, even if they are perfect strangers, and lorna says it is the soul recognising its mate. but i know well enough that vere would never satisfy will dudley, and, besides, there is rachel--poor patient rachel, who trusts him so faithfully. i looked up quickly to see if he had turned pale also. he was rather white, but there was a curious little smile about the corners of his lips which quietened my fears. i should not have liked that smile if i had been vere. there was something contemptuous in it despite its admiration, and a sort of defiance, too, as if he were quite, quite sure of himself and secure from all temptation; but then they do begin like that sometimes, and the siren weaves on them her spells, and they succumb. i wonder how it will end with vere and will dudley! chapter seven. it is rather jolly having a house full of people; and father and mother and vere are so clever at entertaining. there is never any fuss nor effort, and people are allowed to go their own way, but there is always something to do if they choose to do it. i must say that, for grown-up people, these visitors are very frivolous, and play about together as if they were children. mr nash began showing me tricks with pennies after breakfast the first morning, and i was so interested learning how to do them that it was half-past ten before i thought of joining father at the stables. it was too late then, and i wasn't altogether sorry, for it was livelier going about with these new people, and it wasn't my fault, for i should have gone if i'd remembered. i was extra nice to father at lunch to make up, and he didn't seem a bit vexed, so i needn't trouble another day. really, i think it is my duty to help vere all i can. she questioned me about will dudley the first time we were alone. i knew she would, and decided to tell her of his engagement. i had been told not to speak of it generally; but to my own sister it was different, and i had a feeling that she ought to know. "who is that mr dudley?" she asked, and when i told her all i knew, she smiled and dropped her eyes in the slow, self-confident fashion which other people think so fascinating but which always make me long to shake her. "really, quite an acquisition!" she drawled. "a vast improvement on the native one generally meets in these wilds. we must cultivate him, babs! he makes our number even, so we can afford to spoil him a little bit, as it is a convenience to ourselves at the same time. it will be a godsend for him to meet some decent people." "as a matter of fact, he came to live in the country because he was sick of society and society people. he is not a country bumpkin, vere, and won't be a bit grateful for your patronage. in fact, i don't believe he will come oftener than once or twice. when a man is engaged it's a bore to him to have to--" "engaged!" she cried. "mr dudley! who told you he was engaged? i don't believe a word of it. some stupid local gossip! who told you that nonsense?" "he told me himself!" "he did? my dear babs, he was having a joke! no man would confide such a thing to a child like you!" "you are mistaken there. he has told me heaps of things besides this, and i know the girl, and have spoken to her about it. you know her, too. rachel greaves, who lives at `the clift'." "rach-el greaves! oh! oh!" cried vere, and put her hands to her sides in peals of derisive laughter. "oh, this is too killing! and you _believed_ it? you dear, sweet innocent! that man and--rachel greaves! my dear, have you seen her hair? have you seen her hat? could you really imagine for one moment that any man could be engaged to a creature like that?" "i don't imagine--i know! they have been engaged for years. it will be years more before they are married, for old mr greaves won't give his consent. and rachel won't leave home without it; but mr dudley is quite willing to wait. he says she is the best woman in the world." "oh, i daresay! she is frumpy enough for anything; and you call that an engagement? my dear, he will no more marry her than he'll marry the moon. it's just a stupid platonic friendship, and as he has not known anything else he thinks it is love. imagine being in love with that solemn creature! imagine making pretty speeches and listening to her correct copy-book replies! wait! i should think she may wait! she'll have a surprise one of these days when he meets the right girl, and bids rachel greaves a fond farewell!" "he'll do nothing of the sort," i said hotly. "i do hate you, vere, when you sneer like that, and make out that everyone is worldly and horrible, like yourself! will dudley is a good man, and he wants a good woman for his wife--not a doll. he'd rather have rachel's little finger than a dozen empty-headed fashion-plates like the girls you admire. but you don't understand. your friends are all so different that you cannot understand an honest man when you meet him." "can't i? what a pity! don't get into a rage, dear, it's so unnecessary. i'm sorry i'm so obtuse; but at least i can learn. i'll make it my business to understand mr dudley thoroughly during the autumn. it will be quite an occupation," replied vere, with her head in the air and her eyes glittering at me in a nasty, horrid, cold, calculating "you-wait-and-see" kind of way which made me ill! it was just like tennyson's lady clara vere de vere, who "sought to break a country heart for pastime ere she went to town," for vere would never be content to marry will dudley, even if she succeeded in winning him from rachel. poor rachel! i felt so sorry for her; she has so little, and she's so sweet and content, and so innocent that a serpent has entered into her eden. it sounds rather horrid to call your own sister a serpent, but circumstances alter cases, and it really is appropriate. i think vere expected me to fly into another rage, but i didn't feel angry at all, only sorry and ashamed, and anxious to know what i could do to baulk her dark designs. "i'm thankful i'm not a beauty!" i said at last, and she stared for a moment, and then laughed and said-- "because of the terrible temptations which you escape? dear little innocent! don't be too modest, however; you really have improved marvellously these past few months. if you could hear what the men said about you last night--" "i don't want to hear, thank you," i returned icily; and that was one temptation overcome, anyhow, for i just died to know every single remark! it's awful to care so much about what people think about you, as i do. after she went away i sat down and reviewed the situation, as they say in books, and mapped out a plan of action. i wanted to feel that i was doing some good to someone, so i decided then and there to be a guardian angel to will and rachel. it's wonderful what you can do, even if you are only nineteen and a girl, if you set your mind to it, and determine to succeed. they have both been kind to me, and i am their friend, and mean to help them. i'd rather be flayed alive than say so to a living soul, but i can now confess to these pages that i was jealous of rachel myself when i first heard of the engagement, and i wondered, if will had never seen her, if perhaps he--oh, a lot of silly, idiotic things; for he is so different from the other men you meet that you simply can't help liking him. so now it will be a discipline for me to have to forget myself, and try to keep them together. perhaps when they are married they will know all, and bless my memory, and call one of their children after me, and i shall be content to witness their happiness from afar. i've read of things like that, but i always thought i'd be the married one, not the other. you do when you are young, but it's awful what sorrows there are in the world. i am not twenty yet, and already my life is blighted, and my fondest hopes laid in the dust... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ such ripping fun! we are all going for a moonlight party up the river, with hampers full of good things to eat at supper on the bank above the lock. we are taking rugs to spread on the grass, and japanese lanterns to make it look festive, and not a single servant, so that we shall do everything ourselves. we girls are all delighted, but i think the men-- captain grantly especially--think it's rather mad to go to so much trouble when you might have your dinner comfortably at home. male creatures are like that, so practical and commonplace, not a bit enthusiastic and sensible like school-girls. we used to keep awake until one o'clock in the morning, and sit shivering in dressing-gowns, eating custard, tarts and sardines, and thought it was splendid fun. i think a picnic where servants make the fire and pack away the dishes is too contemptible for words. vere wanted will dudley to come with us, so i went round to the "the clift" that very afternoon and invited rachel to come too. i am as much at liberty to invite my friends as she is to ask hers, and this was meant to be a checkmate to her plans; but rachel was too stupid for words, and wouldn't be induced to accept. "i always play a game with father in the evening," she said. "he would miss it if i went out." "but he can't expect you never to go out! he would appreciate you all the more if you did leave him alone sometimes," i said, talking to myself as much as to her, for it was four days since i had been a walk with my father, and my horrid old conscience was beginning to prick. "do come, rachel. i want you particularly," but she went on refusing, so then i thought i would try what jealousy would do. "we shall be such a merry party; vere is prettier and livelier than ever, and her friends are very amusing. lady mary is very handsome, and she sings and plays on the mandoline. she is going to take it with her to-night. it will be so pretty, the sound of singing on the water, and she will look so picturesque under the japanese lamps." she looked wistful and longing, but not a bit perturbed. "i wish i could come! it sounds charming. i've hardly ever been on the river, never in the evening; but i should be worrying about father all the time. he is old, you see, una, and he has such bad pain, and his days seem so long. it must be so sad to be ill and know that you will never get any better, and to have nothing to look forward to." her face lit up suddenly, and i knew she was thinking of the time, years ahead, when what she was looking forward to would come true. "i really could not neglect father for my own amusement." "but you have someone else to think of!" i reminded her cunningly. "i told you who was coming. you ought to think of his pleasure." "oh, he will enjoy it in any case! he loves being on the water; i am so glad you asked him!" she cried, quite flushed with delight, if you please, at the thought that will was coming without her. i did feel a worm! never, no, never could i be like that. if i were engaged to a man and couldn't go anywhere, i should like him to stay at home too, and think of me, and not dare to enjoy himself with other girls; but rachel is not like that. sometimes i wish she were just a wee, tiny bit less sensible and composed. i could love her better if she were. we all went down to the boat-house at eight o'clock, we girls with long coats over our light dresses, because it's silly to catch cold, and so unbecoming, and on the way i told will about rachel. he came at once and walked beside me, and gave me such a nice look as he thanked me for thinking of it. "that was kind of you! she would be pleased to be remembered, but this sort of thing is out of her line. she will be happier at home!" poor rachel! that's the worst of being chronically unselfish; in the end people cease to give you any credit for it, and virtue has to be its own reward, for you don't get any other. i did think it was hard that even will should misjudge her so, and be so complacent about it into the bargain, but it was hardly my place to defend her to him, of all people in the world. "you will come into my boat, of course," he said in his masterful way when we drew near the ferry; but i had seen vere divide parties before now, and i knew very well i should not be allowed to go where i chose. it was as good as a play to see how she did it, seeming to ponder and consider, and change her mind half a dozen times, and to be so spontaneous and natural, when all the time her plans had been made from the very beginning. finally, she and will took possession of the first boat, with lady mary and captain grantly, who were always together, and were too much taken up with their own society to have eyes for anyone else. miss talbot, mr nash, mr carstairs and i went into the second boat--miss talbot furious because she felt it a slight to be put with a child like me--mr carstairs depressed as he generally was, poor man!--i with a heavy weight inside me, feeling all of a sudden as if i hated parties and everything about them, and dear little mr nash, happy and complacent, cracking jokes to which no one deigned to listen. isn't it funny to think how miserable you can be when you are supposed to be enjoying yourself? i dare say if you only knew it, lots of people have aching hearts when you envy them for being so happy. the people on the banks looked longingly at us, but three out of the four in our boat were as cross and dissatisfied as they could be; and it made it worse to hear them enjoying themselves in the other boat; vere's trills of laughter, and lady mary's gentlemanly "ha, ha!" ringing out in response to the murmur of the men's voices. when you are on land with the wrong people there is always the chance of a change, but you _do_ feel so "fixed" in a boat! i simply longed to reach the lock, and felt as cross as two sticks, until suddenly i met mr carstairs' eyes, looking, oh, so sad and hopeless, and i felt so sorry that i simply had to rouse up to cheer him. he must know perfectly well that vere doesn't care for him, but he seems as if he could not help caring for her, and staying on and on, though he is miserable all the time, i like him! he has a good look in his face, and talks sensibly about interesting things, instead of everlastingly chaffing or paying compliments, which seems to be the fashion nowadays. i think i shall favour his suit, and try to help him. i talked, and he looked first bored, and then amused, and in the end quite interested and happy, so that we drew up by the bank to join the others in quite a cheerful mood, much to my relief. it is humiliating to look left out in the cold, however much you may feel it. vere was flushed, and unlike herself somehow. she fussed over the laying out of the supper, and it wasn't like vere to fuss, and whenever she wanted anything done she always turned first of all to will dudley, and half the time he was looking the other way and never noticed what she ask, when poor mr carstairs did it at once and got snubbed for his pains. i was the youngest, and had to do all the uninteresting things, such as unpacking the spoons and forks, and taking the paper wrappings off the tumblers, while the others laid out the provisions and quarrelled over the best arrangement. but it was fun when we all sat down and began to eat. the japanese lanterns were tied to the trees overhead, and made everything look bright and cheery, for the moon had hidden itself behind the clouds, and it had been just a wee bit cheerless the last half-hour. we heated the soup over a little spirit-lamp, and had lobster salad on dainty little paper plates, and cold chicken and cutlets, and all sorts of delicious sweets and fruit, and we all ate a lot, and groaned and said how ill we should be in the morning, and then ate some more and didn't care a bit. it was almost as good as a feast in the dormitory. then we told funny stories, and asked riddles, and lady mary sang coon songs to her mandoline, and i was enjoying myself simply awfully when someone said--it was mr nash, and i shall never forgive him for it-- "now it's your turn, miss una! your father is always talking of your singing, yet we never seem to hear you. too bad, you know! you can't refuse to-night, when we are all doing our best to amuse each other. now, then, what is it to be?" i was horrified! i love singing, but it seemed so formidable with no accompaniment, and no piano behind which to hide my blushes, but the more i protested, the more they implored, until vere said quite sharply-- "for goodness' sake, child, do your best, and don't make a fuss! nobody expects you to be a professional!" "start ahead, and i'll vamp an accompaniment. it will be better than nothing," said lady mary kindly, and will whispered low in my ear: "don't be nervous. do your best. astonish them, babs!" and i did. that whisper inspired me somehow, and i sang "the vale of avoca," father's favourite ballad, pronouncing the words distinctly, as the singing mistress always made us do at school. i love the words, and the air is so sweet, and just suits my voice. i always feel quite worked up and choky when i come to the last verse, but i try not to show it, for it looks so silly to cry at yourself. there was quite a burst of applause when i finished. the men clapped and called out "bravo! bravo!" lady mary said, "you little wretch! you do take the wind out of my sails. fancy having to be bothered to sing with a voice like that! gracious! i should never leave off!" and vere laughed, and said in her sweetest tones, "but, for pity's sake, don't turn sentimental, babs! it's so absurdly out of keeping! stick to something lively and stirring--something from the comic operas! that would be far more in your line, don't you think so, mr dudley?" will was leaning back on his elbow, resting his head on his hand. "it's a question of taste," he said lazily. "some people are fond of comic operas. personally, i detest them; but i don't profess to be a judge. i only know what i like." "a sentimental ballad, for example?" "occasionally. not always, by any means." he seemed determined not to give a straight-forward answer, and vere turned aside with a shrug and began to talk to mr carstairs. she always takes refuge with him when other people fail her. i felt all hot and churned up with the excitement of singing, and then with rage at being snubbed in that public fashion. it spoiled all the pleasure and made me wonder if i had really made an exhibition of myself, and they were only pretending to be pleased. the others were chattering like magpies; only will dudley and i were silent. i felt his eyes watching me, but i wouldn't look at him for quite a long time, till at last i simply had to turn round, when he smiled, such a kind nice smile, and said-- "well, better now? got the better of the little temper?" "i don't know; partly, i suppose, but i do hate to be snubbed. i didn't want to sing. i did it to be polite; and it's horrid to think i made an idiot of myself." silence. it was no use. i _had_ to ask him-- "did i make an idiot of myself?" "you know you didn't." "did you--did you think it was nice?" "yes." that was all. not another word could i get out of him, but i felt better, for it sounded as if he really meant it, and i cared for his opinion most of all. chapter eight. _august th_. it is three weeks since the moonlight picnic, and so many things have happened since then, such awful, terrible things, that i don't know how to begin to tell them. i didn't think when i began this diary how thrilling it was going to be before i'd got half way through; but you never know what is going to happen in this world. it's awful how suddenly things come. i don't think i can ever again feel confident and easy-going, as i used to do. you read in books sometimes, "she was no longer a girl, she was a woman," and it is like that with me. everything seems different and more solemn, and i don't think i can ever frivol again in quite the same whole-hearted way. to begin at the beginning: we had a very lively time for the next week, and i grew quite fond of vere's friends, even lady mary, whom i hated at first, and they all made a fuss of me, and made me sing every night till i felt quite proud. i invited rachel over and over again, but she would never accept our invitations; but will came often, either to dinner or lunch, or for an odd call, and vere neglected everyone for him, and was so fascinating that i was in terror all the time. he admired her, of course; he would have been blind if he hadn't, but i could not decide if he liked her or not. sometimes i saw him smiling to himself in the queer, half-scornful way he had done when they first met, and then i was sure he did not; but at other times he would watch her about the room, following every movement as if he couldn't help himself, and that's a bad sign. lorna has a sister who is married, and she knew the man was going to propose, because he looked like that. somehow i never had a chance of a quiet talk, when i could have given him a hint, and it was thinking about that and wondering how i could see him alone which made me suddenly remember that it was a whole week and more since i had been a walk with father. i went hot all over at the thought. it was ghastly to remember how i had planned and promised to be his companion, and to care for him first of all, and then to realise how i had forsaken him at the very first temptation! he was so sweet about it, too, never complaining or seeming a bit vexed. parents are really angels. it must be awful to have a child, and take such trouble with it all its life, and then to be neglected for strangers. i hadn't the heart to write in my diary that night. i was too ashamed. i was worse than vere, for i had posed as being so good and dutiful. i won't make any more vows, but i confess here with that i am a selfish pig, and i am ashamed of myself. the next morning i could hardly wait until breakfast was over, i was so anxious to be off. i got my cap and ran down to the stable and slipped my arm in father's as he stood talking to vixen. he gave a little start of surprise--it hurt me, that start!--looked down at me and said, smiling-- "well, dear, what is it?" "nothing. i'm coming with you!" i said, and he squeezed my hand against his side. "thank you, dear, but i'm going a long round. i won't be back until lunch. better not leave your friends for so long." "vere is with them, father. i want to come." "what's the matter? not had a quarrel, have you? has vere been--" "no, no, she hasn't! _nothing_ is the matter, except that i want you, and nobody else. oh, father, don't be so horribly kind! scold me--call me a selfish wretch! i know i have neglected you, dear. there was always something to do, and i--forgot, but really and truly i remembered all the time. it isn't nonsense, father, it's true. can you understand?" "i've been nineteen myself, babs; i understand. don't worry, darling. i missed you, but i was glad that you were happy, and i knew your heart was in the right place. we won't say anything more about it, but have a jolly walk and enjoy ourselves." oh, it is good to have someone who understands! if he had scolded or been reproachful i should have felt inclined to make excuses, but when he was so sweet and good i just loved him with all my heart, and prayed to be a better daughter to him all my life. we had lovely walks after that, and on the third morning we met will dudley, and once again he and i sat on a log waiting for father while he interviewed a tenant. my heart quite thumped with agitation as i thought that now was the time to lead the conversation skilfully round to vere, and insinuate delicately that she had a mania for making people fall in love with her, and that it didn't always mean as much as it seemed when she was sweet and gushing. it wasn't exactly an easy thing to do, but you can't be a guardian angel without a little trouble. "so you have torn yourself away from your friends this morning," he said at last. "how is it that you were allowed to escape? what is the special campaign for killing time to-day, if one may ask?" "you may ask, but it's rude to be sarcastic. you are often lazy yourself, though in a different fashion. you love to lie on your back on the grass and do nothing but browse and stare up at the sky. you have told me so many times." "ah, but what of my thoughts? under a semblance of ease i am in reality working out the most abstruse problems. i did not mean to be sarcastic; i inquired in all seriousness how your valuable company could be spared." "for the best of all reasons--because nobody wanted it! captain grantly wants lady mary, lady mary wants captain grantly. miss talbot wants someone she can't get, but it doesn't happen to be me; the rest all want vere, and have no thought for anyone else. men always do want to be with vere. wherever she goes they fall in love with her and follow her about. she is so lovely, and she--she likes to be liked. everyone says she is so charming and irresistible--they have told her so since she was a child--and she likes to prove that it was true. if--if anyone seems to like anyone else better it--sort of--worries her, and makes her feel neglected." "i see." "then, of course, she is extra specially nice, and seems to be more interested in him than anyone else." "pleasant for him!" "it is, for a time. but if he trusted to it and believed that she was really in earnest, he might get to care himself, and then, when he found out, he would be disappointed." "naturally so." "it has happened like that before, several times, and sometimes there are other people to be considered--i mean there might be another girl whom the man had liked before, and when he had given her up, and found that-that--" "that he had given up the substance and grasped the shadow--" "yes; then, of course, they would both be miserable, and it would be worse than ever." "naturally it would be." he spoke in the same cool, half-jeering tone, then suddenly turned round and bent his head down to mine, staring at me with bright grey eyes. "why not be honest, babs, and not beat about the bush? you think that my peace is threatened and want to warn me of it, isn't that it, now? you are my very good friend, and i am grateful for your interest. did you think i was in danger?" "sometimes--once or twice! don't be angry. i know you would be true and loyal, but sometimes--i saw you watching her--" "she is very lovely, babs; the loveliest woman i have ever seen. there was some excuse for that." "i know, i feel it myself, and it was just because i could understand a little that i spoke. i thought quite likely that you might be angry at first, but it was better that you should be that than wretched in the end." "quite so; but i am not angry at all, only very grateful for your bravery in tackling a difficult subject. i have a pretty good opinion of myself, but i am only a man, and other men have imagined themselves secure and found out their mistake before now. forewarned is forearmed. thank you for the warning," and he smiled at me with a sudden flash of the eyes which left me hot and breathless. was i in time? had he really begun to care for vere so soon as this? i longed to say more, but dared not. all my courage had gone, and i was thankful when father came out of the cottage and put an end to our _tete-a-tete_. i thought there would be a difference after this, but there wasn't--not a bit. when will came to the house he was as nice as ever to vere, and seemed quite willing to be monopolised as much as she liked. if he avoided anyone it was me, and i was not a bit surprised. people may say what they like, but they do bear you a grudge for giving them good advice. i sat in a corner and made cynical reflections to myself, and nobody took any notice of me, and i felt more cynical than ever, and went to my bedroom and banged about the furniture to relieve my feelings. vere came into my room soon after, and stood by the window talking while i brushed my hair. the blind was up, for it was moonlight and i hate to shut it out. her dress was of some soft silvery stuff, and, standing there in the pale blue light, she looked oh, so lovely, more like a fairy than a human creature! i am so glad i admired her then; i'm glad i told her that i did; i'm glad, glad, glad that i was nice and loving as a sister ought to be, and that we kissed and put our arms round each other when we said good night. "sleep well, little girl, you look tired. we can't let you lose your bonny colour," she said, in her, pretty caressing way; nobody can be as sweet as vere when she likes. i was tired, but i sat by the window for quite a long time after she left, thinking, thinking, thinking. i can't tell what i thought exactly, so many things passed through my head, and when i said my prayers i hardly said any words at all; i just put down my head and trusted god to understand me better than i did myself. i had so much to make me happy, but i was not happy somehow. i had so much to make me content, yet there was something missing that made everything else seem blank. i wanted to be good, and such horrid, envious feelings rose up in my heart. in my dear little room, at my own dear little table, i asked god to help me, and to take care of me whatever happened. and he did, but it was not in the way i expected. at last the moon disappeared behind the clouds which had been gathering for some time, and i went to bed and fell fast asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow, as i always do, no matter how agitated i am. i suppose it's being nineteen and in such good health. "how long i slept i cannot tell," as they say in ghost stories, but suddenly i woke up with a start and a sort of horrid feeling that something was wrong. the room felt close and heavy, and there was a curious noise coming from outside the door, a sort of buzzing, crackling noise. i didn't get up at once, for i felt stupid and heavy; it was a minute or two before i seemed really able to think, and then--oh, i shall never forget that moment!--i knew what it was. i felt it! i went cold all over, and my legs shook under me as i stepped on to the floor. the air was thick, and it smelt. my door was the nearest to the staircase, and when i opened it a great cloud of smoke rolled in my face. for a moment it was all cloud and darkness, then a light shot up from below, and the crackling noise was repeated. it was true, quite true. the house was on fire, and already the staircase was ablaze! chapter nine. _august th_. we used to wonder at school sometimes how we should behave if we suddenly found ourselves in a position of great danger. i always said i should scream and hide my face, and faint if i possibly could, but i am thankful to remember that, when it came to the point, i did nothing of the sort. my heart gave one big, sickening throb, and then i felt suddenly quite calm and cold and self-possessed, almost as if i didn't care. i went back into my room, put on my dressing-gown and slippers, took up a big brass bell which one of the girls had given me, and, shutting the door carefully behind me, ran along the corridor, ringing it as loudly as i could, and knocking at each door as i passed. i didn't call out "fire!"--it was too terrifying; besides, i knew the others would guess what was wrong as soon as they heard the bell and smelt the smoke, and, in less than two minutes, every door was open, and the occupants of the different rooms first peeped and then rushed out on to the landing in dressing-gowns and shawls, and all sorts of quaint- looking wraps. one light was always left burning all night long, so we could see each other, even when the smoke hid that other horrible lurid light, and it is wonderful how brave we all were on the whole. mother came forward wrapped in her long blue gown, and found a chair for madge talbot, who was the only one who showed signs of breaking down, just as quietly and graciously as if she had been entertaining her in the drawing-room. father and the men consulted rapidly together, and vere put her arm round me, and leant on my shoulder. i could feel her trembling, but she shut her lips tight, and tried hard to smile encouragingly at poor madge, and all the time the smoke grew thicker, and the horrid crackling louder and nearer. "the drawing-room!" we heard father say. "the servants have been careless in putting out the lights, and something has smouldered and finally caught the curtains--that's the most probable explanation. if that is the case, i fear the back stairs will be impassable; they are even nearer than these." he turned and ran quickly down the passage, followed by captain grantly and mr nash. mr carstairs came and stood by vere's side, as if he could not bear to leave her unprotected, and she looked up at him and smiled a white little smile, as if she were glad to have him there. a moment later the men came back, and, as father turned and closed the heavy oak door which divided one wing from another, we knew without asking that the other staircase was also cut off. madge began to sob hysterically, but father stopped her with a wave of his hand, and said sharply, addressing us all-- "the back staircase is impracticable, but if we keep our senses, there is no real danger to fear. i have rung the alarm bell, and the men will soon be round with ropes and ladders. the best thing you can do is to go back to your rooms, dress rapidly, and collect a few valuables which can be lowered from the window. you can have five minutes--no longer. i will ring a bell at the end of that time, and we will all meet in my room, which is the centre position, and therefore the farthest from the fire. now, girls, quick! there is no time to lose!" we ran. some time--in a long, long time to come--we shall laugh to think what curious costumes we made! it was just the first thing that came to hand. i was decently clothed in two minutes, seized a dressing- bag, put in my pearl necklace, a few odd trinkets, this diary, and the old bible i have had since i was ten years old, and rushed along to mother's room to see if i could help. she was putting on a long dark coat, and had a lace scarf tied over her hair. even then, in the middle of the night, she looked dignified and beautiful, and her eyes melted in the tender way they have at great moments as she saw me. "ready, daughter?" she said smiling, and then came up and took me into her arms. "good girl! brave girl! we must help the others, una. you and i have no time to be afraid." "thank you, mother darling!" i said, gratefully, for i had been, oh, terribly afraid, and it was just the best thing she could have said to calm me and give me courage; and, while we clung together, father came hurrying in. he hardly seemed to notice me, babs, his pet daughter!--he looked only at mother, and spoke to her. "are you warm, carina? are you suitably dressed? you must have no train--nothing to make movement difficult. that's all right. don't trust yourself to anyone but me, sweet-heart! i'll come to you in good time!" "yes, boy, yes! i'll come with you," said mother softly. they went out of the room arm-in-arm, never once looking at me. it seemed as if at the first touch of danger they had gone back to the old days when they were lovers, and no difference of interest had arisen to draw them apart. it made the tears come to my eyes to see them, and i was glad to be forgotten. the women servants were all awake by now, and, finding their own staircase in flames, came swarming down the corridor to escape by the main way; when they found this also was impracticable, they began to shriek and moan, and to implore us to save them, and it was hard work to get them into one room and keep them quiet. the men crowded at the window, looking for help, and shouting directions to the coachmen and gardeners when at last they came running towards the house. they flew off, some to get ropes and ladders, some to alarm the neighbourhood, and bring help from the nearest fire office. it was three miles off, and in the country firemen are scattered about in outlying cottages, and there would be all the way to come back. it made one sick to think how long it might be before the engine arrived; and meantime the fire was steadily spreading on the ground floor. when father bent forward to shout to the men, the light on his face was dreadful to see. i had a horrible longing to scream, and i think i should have done it if i hadn't been so occupied with annie, the kitchen-maid, who was literally almost mad with fright. it seemed to soothe her to hold my arm, poor little soul. respect for "the gentry" had been so instilled into her from her earliest years that i honestly believe she imagined the very flames would hesitate to touch the squire's "darter!" it seemed ages before william and james came back--without the ladders! they were kept locked up by father's special orders, as so many jewel burglaries had taken place in the neighbourhood, the thieves using ladders to get into a bedroom while dinner was going on downstairs. now, in the usual contrary way of things, the man who had the key had ridden away, forgetting all about it in his haste to bring help. father stamped with impatience while the men were reporting their failure and asking further instructions. it was getting more and more difficult to hear, with that horrid roar coming up from below, and mr carstairs said suddenly-- "we can't waste time like this! these men have lost their heads. grantly, you and i are strongest. we must get down and break in the door. come to the back of the house; there must surely be some way of dropping down on an out-house." "the blue room--over the larder. it's a deep drop, but safe enough for fellows like you. i'll show you!" cried father promptly, and led the way forward. it was no time to protest or to make polite speeches. something had to be done, and done at once. i watched them go and envied them. it's hardest of all to be a woman and have to wait. i would rather a hundred times have faced that drop than have sat in that room listening to the noise, seeing vere growing whiter and whiter, and mother's face grow old and lined. if the worst came to the worst, i would go and sit beside them, but for the present i held annie's hand and stroked it, and wondered if it could be true that life was really going to end like this. only nineteen, and just home from school--it seemed so young to die! i remembered will, and wondered if he would be sorry, and if he and rachel would talk of me when they were married. then i forgot everything, and lust shut my eyes and prayed, prayed, prayed. a great shout of relief and joy! father and mr nash were leaning out of the window waving their hands to the other men, who were carrying the ladders across the lawn. we all sobbed with relief, for it seemed as if escape must be easy now, but the ladders were not long enough, they had to be tied together, and by this time the flames were leaping out of the window below; we could see the light dancing up and down, and it seemed a dreadful prospect to have to pass them on an open ladder. i looked at mother--mother who never walked a step outside the grounds, who was waited upon hand and foot, and spent half her time lying on the sofa. it seemed impossible that she could attempt such a feat! the moment the ladder was fixed father turned round and called to us to come forward, but we all hung back silent and trembling. then he stamped his foot, and his eyes flashed. "are you going to turn cowards and risk other lives besides your own? there is not a moment to lose. every moment will make it more formidable. mary, you are a brave girl! will you lead the way?" she walked forward without a word. i did admire her! father lifted her up; a pair of arms were thrust out to receive her from the midst of the clouds of smoke. we all held our breath for what seemed an age, but was only a few minutes, i suppose, and then came another cheer, and we knew she was safe. the servants rushed forward at that, but when they looked down and saw the flames licking the very side of the ladder, they shrieked again and fell back; so madge went next, and then father walked up to mother and took her by the hand. she looked up at him and shook her head. "not yet, dear, not yet. the girls first!" she said, but he wouldn't listen to that. "the girls wouldn't go before you. you can't stand this any longer. i am going to carry you down and come back for them. come, sweetheart!" she rose then without a word, and we saw him lift her in one arm like a baby and let himself down slowly, slowly with the other hand. oh, the awfulness of that moment when they both disappeared and we were left alone! with father gone it seemed as if there were no one left to keep order or inspire us with any show of courage. i think we all went mad or something like it, and, before we knew what was happening, one of the servants had opened the door and flown shrieking along the passage. another great gust of smoke rushed into the room; we could hardly see each other; we were all rushing about, jostling together, fighting like wild things for air and freedom. "vere, vere!" i shouted, and she clutched at my arm, and we ran together down the corridor, to the head of the servants' stairs, back again faster than ever into the blue room where the men had let themselves down to the roof of the larder. there seemed just a chance that we might be able to do the same. it was the only chance i could think of, and vere was clinging to me, begging me to save her, and not let her be burnt. "i can't die, babs--i can't! i've never thought of it. i'm frightened! oh, babs, babs, think of something--think of a way--save me! save me!" "i'll try, vere, but you must help, you must be quiet! the heat is not so bad here, and if we get on the roof and call, someone may hear us. they will come to look if they find we have gone. oh, we should never have left that room! father trusted us to wait for him, but it is too late now... look, here's a sheet: we must tear it into strips and make a rope. it will be easier that way." but when they tell you in books to make ropes of sheets, they forget that it's almost impossible to tear strong new sheets, and that one cannot always find scissors in a strange room in the middle of the night. in the end, we could only knot the two together, and tie one end to the rail of the washstand. it was not long enough then, but i scrambled out and let myself down to the end, and then dropped, and by good providence managed to steady myself on the roof beneath. it was not so very sloping as roofs go, and the gutter was deep, and made a kind of little wall round the edge. i called to vere to follow, and promised to catch her, but it took, oh, ages of coaxing and scolding before she would venture, and it was only by a miracle that we didn't both fall to the ground, for she let go so suddenly and clutched at me in such frantic terror when i stretched up to catch her. we didn't fall, however, but cowered down together on the roof with our feet fixed firmly against the projecting gutter, and i, for one, felt in a worse position than ever. we were still too far from the ground to jump down without hurting ourselves on the hard paving stones, and no one was in sight, no one heard our calls for help. to make things worse, in getting nearer the ground we had come nearer to the fire itself, for some of the windows on the ground floor had fallen in, and it was just like looking into the heart of a furnace. there is nothing more awful than the speed with which fire travels. one feels so utterly helpless before it. the tiles on which we sat were hot. i don't know if it was fancy, but every now and then i seemed to feel a movement beneath us as if something might give way. i think now that it really was nervousness, for the roof was left practically unhurt, but at the time anything seemed possible, and i was terrified. we called and called again, but no one came, and it seemed as if hours passed by, and the fire came creeping nearer and nearer. sometimes vere would be frantic with excitement; sometimes she would cover her face with her hands and moan; sometimes she would be on the brink of fainting. i began to see that if something was not done at once she would faint, and then we would probably both fall to the ground together and be killed outright. something had to be done, and i had to do it. i went creepy cold all down my spine, for i knew what it was i had to do, and was in mortal terror of facing it. somehow or other, if vere were to be saved in time, i must get up from my cramped seat, lower myself over the edge of the roof, hang at full length from the coping and drop on to the flags beneath. the men had done it, but they were men, and it was a big drop even for them, and they haven't got nerves like girls, or skirts, or slippers with heels. i was frightened out of my wits, but i knew that every moment i thought about it i should be more frightened still, so i just told vere what i was going to do--and did it! i can't write about it; it makes me feel queer even now! the awful moment when you get over and swing into space; and the feeling that you must look down, the ache in your hands as you cling on, and the terror of leaving go! mental pain is worse than physical, so it was really a relief to reach the ground, even though one foot did go over, and a pain like a red-hot poker shot up the leg. i thought i had broken the foot to pieces, but it was only the ankle that was sprained, and i could limp along, in a fashion, though so slowly that it took ages to get round to the front of the house. at another time i suppose i should have sat still and howled; but you don't think of pain when it is a case of life and death, and i knew there was no time to spare. it could not really have been very long since we left father's room, but already the scene was quite changed. the alarm bell had roused the neighbourhood, and there was quite a little crowd on the lawn. i saw at a glance how it was that we had not been missed. the servants had rushed upstairs to the third storey, and were grouped together at a window there screaming and calling for help, while the poor men worked hard at lengthening the ladders. at a distance, and through the clouds of smoke, it was impossible to distinguish one figure from another, and everyone had taken for granted that we were there with the rest. nobody noticed me hobbling forward till i got close up to the workers, and saw a well-known grey figure busy with the ropes. i pulled at his arm, and he lifted a white face, then leapt to his feet and seized me by both hands. "you, una! here! thank god! how is it possible? which way did you come?" "out of a window--but, oh, don't talk--you must save vere first! round at the back--now--at once! i'll show you the way, but i can't walk, my foot is hurt--" i felt as if i could not keep up a moment longer, but will picked me up in his arms as if i had been a baby, and said soothingly-- "there! now think quietly for one moment, and tell me what we shall want! where is she--high up? shall i get some of these men to help." "she's on an outhouse roof. i dropped down, but it hurt me, you see, and vere daren't attempt it. a ladder would do, just one ladder. there's mr carstairs--he'll come! i'll tell him where to go." i did tell him, and the poor fellow's face of mingled rapture and fear was touching to see; then will went on in front, still carrying me in his arms, while the others followed with ladders and sheets and all kinds of things that might be needed. i was moaning to myself all the time, and will put down his head and said tenderly-- "does it hurt so much, poor little girl?" but it was my heart which hurt; i was so terrified of what we were going to find. she was still there. i lifted my head as we came round the corner of the house, and i could see her. she was not sitting as when i had left, but half standing, half crouching forward, her hands stretched out, her hair loose over her shoulders. she looked like a mad woman; she _was_ mad, poor vere, and the sight of us in the distance seemed to excite her more than ever. we called to her; we begged her to be calm, to sit still for one moment--just one moment longer. the men ran forward to reassure her, but she didn't understand--she seemed past understanding. just as help was within reach she threw out her arms with a dreadful cry and jumped, and her foot caught in the coping as she fell. oh, i can't write about it! i must forget, or i shall go mad myself!... chapter ten. _august th_. they picked her up, poor vere! the man who loved her, and the servants who had known her since she was a child; picked her up and laid her on a board which did duty for a stretcher, rolled up a pillow for her head, and drew her golden hair back from her face. mr carstairs took off his coat and laid it over her as she lay. his face was as white as hers, and all drawn with pain, while hers was quite still and quiet. so still! i was afraid to look at her, or to ask any questions. will put me down in a corner, and i sat there trembling and sick at heart, watching the little procession go round the corner of the house. i thought they had forgotten me, and i didn't care. i was past caring! the pain and the shock and excitement were making me quite faint and rambly in the head, when someone spoke to me suddenly, and put an arm round my neck. "it's all over, darling! we have come to take you home. all your troubles are over now," said a soft voice, and i looked up and saw a face looking down at me inside a close-fitting hood. for a moment i did not recognise her; i thought it was a nun or someone like that sprung out of a hazy dream, but when she smiled i knew it was rachel, and somehow i began to cry at once, not because i was sorry, but because now that she was there i could afford to give way. she would look after vere. "yes, cry, dear, it will do you good; but you mustn't stay here any longer. we have brought a chair, and are going to put you in it, and carry you home to the grange. we are your nearest neighbours, so you must give us the pleasure of looking after you for a time. they are taking your sister on ahead, and a man has ridden off for a doctor. he will look after that poor foot of yours presently. i am afraid it will be painful for you to be moved, but we will be very careful. the servants are preparing rooms in case they are needed. you shall get straight to bed." "and mother and father?" "your mother was taken to the lodge. she is well, but very exhausted. they want to keep her quiet to-night. your father knows you are safe. he is very thankful, but he will not leave his post until the servants are safe. now here is the chair, and here are will and the coach-man waiting to carry you. are you ready to be moved?" i set my teeth and said "yes," and they hoisted me up and carried me down the path after that other dreadful procession. oh, my foot! i never knew what pain was like before that. how do people go on bearing it day after day, week after week, year after year? i couldn't! i should go mad. i would have shrieked then, but my pride wouldn't let me before will and rachel, when they kept praising me, and saying how brave i was. i was carried straight to a room and put to bed. rachel bathed and bandaged my ankle, and then hurried away, and no one came near me for an age. i knew why. they were all with vere; my ankle was a trifle compared with her injuries. when at last the doctor did appear, he could tell me very little about her. the great thing was to keep her quiet until the next day, when he would be able to make an examination. i summoned courage to ask if she were in danger, and he answered me rather strangely-- "in danger--of death, do you mean? certainly not, so far as i can tell." what other danger could there be? i lay and pondered over it all through that hot, aching night; but i have learnt since then that there are many things which may seem, oh, far, far harder than death to a young, beautiful girl. i have never had a great dread of death, i am thankful to say. why should one fear it? if you really and truly are a christian, and believe what you pretend, it's unreasonable to dread going to a life which is a thousand times better and happier; and as for dying itself, i've talked to hospital nurses when i was ill at school, and they say that most people know nothing about it, but are only very, very tired, and fall asleep. of course, there are exceptions. it would have been dreadful to have been burnt alive! i did sleep towards morning, and it was so odd waking up in that strange room, which i had hardly noticed in the pain and confusion of the night before. i smiled a little even then as i looked round. it was so racheley! lots of nice things badly arranged, so different from my dear little room! oh, my dear little room; should i ever, ever see it again? someone was sitting behind the curtains, and as i moved he bent forward and took hold of my hand. it was father, looking so white and old that the tears came to my eyes to see him; but he was alive and safe, that was the great thing, and able to tell me that all the servants had been saved, and to give a good report of mother. "very weak and shaken, but nothing more than that, thank god! good old mrs rogers is very happy helping terese to nurse her. she sent you her love." "and, oh, father, the house, the dear old home? is it quite ruined, or did you manage to put out the fire before it went too far? what happened after we left?" his face set, but he said calmly-- "the lower rooms are more or less destroyed, but the second storey is little injured, except by smoke and, of course, water. the engines worked well, and we had more help than we could use. the people turned out nobly. the home itself can be saved, babs; it will take months to repair, but it can be done, and we shall be thankful to keep the old roof above our heads." "but it will never look the same. the ivy that has been growing for hundreds of years will be dead, and all the beautiful creepers! i can't imagine `the moat' with bare walls. and inside--oh, poor father, all your treasures gone! the silver and the china, and the cases of curios, and the old family portraits! you were so proud of them. doesn't it break your heart to lose them all?" "no," he said quietly, "i cannot think of such things to-day. i am too filled with thankfulness that out of all that big household not a life has been lost, and that my three darlings are with me still. those things you speak of are precious in their way, but i have no room for regret for them in my heart when a still greater treasure is in danger, vere--" "oh, father, tell me about vere! tell me the truth. i am not a child, and i ought to know. how has she hurt herself?" "truthfully, dear, no one knows. she cannot move, and there is evidently some serious injury, but what it is cannot be decided until after an examination. they fear some spinal trouble." spinal! i had a horrid vision of plaster jackets and invalid couches, and those long flat, dreadful-looking chairs which you meet being wheeled about at bournemouth. it seemed impossible to connect such things with vere! "it can't be so bad! it can't be really serious," i cried vehemently. "it was all over in such a second, and we were there at once; everything was done for her! vere is easily upset, and she feels stiff and strained. i do myself, but she will be better soon, father--they must make her better! she could not bear to be ill." he sighed so heavily, poor father, and leant his head against the wall as if he were worn out, body and mind. "poor vere, poor darling! i often wondered how her discipline would come. pray god it may not be this way; but if it does come thus we must help her through it as bravely as may be. it will be hard for us as well as for her; terribly hard for your mother especially. we shall look to you, babs, to cheer us up; you are young and lighthearted, and if our fears come true you will have a great work before you." but i didn't feel that i could promise at all. after he had gone i lay thinking it all over and feeling perfectly wretched at the idea of being cheerful under such circumstances. i can be as lively as a grig, (what is a grig, by the way?) when things go smoothly, and other people are cheerful, too, but to keep lively when they are in the depths of woe, and you have to keep things going all by yourself and there is no excitement or variety, is a very different thing. i am quelled at once by sighs, and tears, and solemn faces. it's my nature, i can't help it. i'm so sensitive. miss bruce once said that that word "sensitive" was often used when "selfish" would be much more applicable. i thought it horrid of her at the time, but i expect, like most hard things, it is true. now if you didn't think of yourself at all but only and wholly of others, it would be your one aim through life to make them happy, and no effort would be too difficult if it succeeded in doing that. then people would talk about you and say you were "the sunshine of the home," and your parents would bless you with their latest breath, and people who had misjudged you would flock round and sit at your knee, and profit by your example. i should like to be like that. it would be so lovely and so soothing to the feelings. the doctor came at noon and allowed me to be lifted on to the sofa and wheeled into the next room. it made a change, but it was a very long day, all the same, and i thought the afternoon would never come to an end. rachel came in and out the room, but could never settle down, for as soon as she sat down, rat-tat came to the door, someone said, "miss rachel, please," and off she flew to do something else. mrs greaves brought some sewing and sat beside me, but she can't talk, poor dear; she can only make remarks at intervals and sigh between them, and it isn't cheerful. at tea-time mr greaves appeared, and--well, he _is_ a curious creature! i have always been taught that it is mean to accept hospitality, "eat salt," as the proverb has it, and then speak unkindly of your host, and, of course, i wouldn't to anyone else, but to you, o diary, i must confess that i'm truly and devoutly thankful he is not my father. he has a great big face, and a great big voice, and very little manners, and i believe he enjoys, really thoroughly enjoys, bullying other people, and seeing them miserable. he was quite nice to me in the way of sympathising with my foot, and saying that he was pleased to see me; but i felt inclined to shake him when he went on to speak of "the moat," and of all we had done that we should not have done, and left undone that we should have done, and of what _he_ would have done in our place; making out, if you please, that the fire was all our fault, and that we deserved it if we _were_ burnt out of house and home! rachel poured tea on the troubled waters, and he snubbed her for her pains and called his wife "madam," and wished to know if she had nothing fit to eat to offer to her guest. there were about ten different things on the table already; it was only rage which kept me from eating, but he chose to pretend that everything was bad, and we had a lively time of it, while he ate some of the cakes on every plate in turns and took a second helping and finished it to the last crumb, and then declared that it wasn't fit for human consumption. all the while poor mrs greaves sat like a mute at a funeral, hanging her head and never saying so much as "bo!" in self-defence; and rachel smiled as if she were listening to a string of compliments, and said-- "try the toast, then, father dear. it is nice and crisp, just as you like it. if you don't like those cakes, we won't have them again. ready for some more tea, dear? it is stronger now that it has stood a little while." "it might easily be that. hot water bewitched--that's what i call your tea, young lady. waste of good cream and sugar--" so it went on--grumble, grumble, grumble, grum-- and that rachel actually put her arm round his neck and kissed his cross red face. "it is not the tea that is bad, dear, it is your poor old foot. cheer up! it will be better to-morrow. this new medicine is said to work wonders." then he exploded for another half hour about doctors and medicines, abusing them both as hard as he could, and at the end pointed to my face, which, to judge from my feelings, must have been chalky green, and wanted to know if they called themselves nurses, and if they wished to kill me outright, for if they did they had better say so at once, and let him know what was in store. he had borne enough in the last twenty- five years, goodness knew! i was carried back to bed and cried surreptitiously beneath the clothes while rachel tidied up. "dear father," she said fondly; "he is a martyr to gout. it is so sad for him to have an illness which depresses his spirits and spoils his enjoyment. there are so few pleasures left to him in life now, but he bears it wonderfully well." i peeped at her over the sheet, but her face was quite grave and serious. she meant it, every word! chapter eleven. _august th_. i was wheeled into the library every day, and lay in state upon the sofa, receiving callers. mother drove over each afternoon for a short visit. will came in often, and brought mr carstairs with him. the other members of vere's house-party had returned home, but this poor, good fellow could not tear himself away from the neighbourhood until the doctor had come to some more definite conclusion about vere. a specialist had been down from town, and he pronounced the spine injured by the fall, but hoped that, with complete rest, recovery was possible in the future. how long would she have to rest? it was impossible to say. if he said a year, it would probably be exciting false hopes; it might be two years, or even three. and at the end of that time, even of the longest time, was there any certainty? it was impossible to be certain in such cases, but the probabilities made for improvement. miss sackville had youth on her side, and a good constitution. it was a mistake to look on the dark side. "hope, my dear sir, hope is a more powerful medicine than people realise! fifty guineas, please--thank you! train leaves at two o'clock, i think you said?" i was thankful i had not to tell vere the verdict. father broke it to her, and said she "took it calmly," but he looked miserable, and every time he went to see her he looked still more wretched and _baffled_. there is no other word to express it. he seems impatient for me to see her, and when at last i could hobble to the door of her room, went with me and whispered urgently, "try what you can make of her! don't avoid the subject. it is better sometimes to speak out," and i went in, feeling almost as anxious as he was himself. vere was lying in bed, with her hair twisted loosely on the top of her head, and wearing one of her pretty blue jackets, all ribbons and frilly-willies. in a way she looked just the same; in a way so different that i might never have seen her before. the features were the same, but the expression was new; it was not that she looked troubled, or miserable, or cross, or anything like that; you could not tell what she felt; it was just as if a mask covered everything that you wanted to see, and left only the mere bare outline. she spoke first. "well, una! so your foot is better, and you can get about? i was so sorry to hear it was bad. i suppose you are not able to get out yet?" "oh, no! this is my longest walk. i am afraid of attempting the stairs. the greaves are very kind. i believe they like having us here." "having you, you mean. i am sure you must make a delightful break in the monotony. as for me,"--she thrust out her hands with an expressive little grimace--"i have been rather a nuisance to everybody while these stupid doctors have been debating over the case. it's a comfort that they have made up their minds at last, and that i can be moved as soon as there is a place ready for me. father is ordering a spinal carriage from london with the latest conveniences, like the suburban villas. i believe you lie on a mattress or something of the sort, which can be lifted and put down in the carriage. such a saving of trouble! it is wonderful how cleverly they manage things nowadays." just the old, light, airy voice; just the same society drawl. she might have been talking of a new ball dress for any sign of emotion to be seen, and yet i know well that vere--the old vere--could have faced no fate more bitter than this! i stared at her, and she stared back with a fixed, unchanging smile. i knew by that smile that it was not resignation she felt; not anything like that lovely willing way in which really good people accept trouble--crippled old women in cottages, who will tell you how good god has been to them, when they are as poor as mice, and have never been out of one room for years; and other people who lose everybody they love best, and spend their lives trying to make other people happy, instead of glumping alone. i have really and truly known people like that, but their faces looked sweet and radiant. vere's was very different. i knew now what father had been worrying about the last few days, and what he meant by advising me to speak openly, but it was not easy to do so. i was afraid of her with that new look! "we are both cripples for the time being, but if i get strong before you do, i'll do everything i can to help you, dear, and make the time pass quickly," i was beginning feebly, when she caught me up at once, as if she did not want to hear any more. "oh, thanks; but i love lazing. i am quite an adept in the art of doing nothing, and you will have quite enough on your hands. it's a capital thing for you, my being out of the running. you would never have taken your proper place unless you were really forced into it. now you will have to be miss sackville, and you must keep up my reputation and do credit to your training." "i shall never take your place, vere," i said sadly, and then something--i don't know what--reminded me suddenly of mr carstairs, and i asked if she knew he was staying with will. "oh, yes. he writes to me frequently--sheets upon sheets. he has made up his mind to stay until he can see me again, and realise that i am still in the flesh, so he will have the pleasure of seeing me in my new chair. i must send him an invitation to join me on my first expedition. he really deserves some reward for his devotion." i had a vision of them as they would look. vere stretched at full length, flat on her back, on that horrid-looking chair, and mr carstairs towering above her, with his face a-quiver with grief and pity, as i had seen it several times during the last week. if it had been me, i should have hated appearing before a lover in such a guise, and i am only an ordinary-looking girl, whereas vere is a beauty, and has been accustomed to think of her own appearance before anything in the world. i could not understand her. "i like jim carstairs," i said sturdily. "i hope some day i may have someone to care for me as he does for you, vere. it must be a lovely feeling. he has been in such distress about you, and on that night-- that awful night--i shall never forget his face--" "ah, you have an inconvenient memory, babs! it was always your failing. for my part i mean to forget all about it as soon as possible. you were very good and brave, by the way, and, i am afraid, hurt your foot in trying to save me. i would rather not return to the subject, so i will just thank you once and for all, and express my gratitude. you practically saved my life. think of it! if it had not been for you i should not have had a chance of lying here now, or riding about in my fine new chair!" "vere, _don't_! don't sneer!" i cried hotly, for the mask had slipped for a moment, and i had caught a glimpse of the bitter rebellion hidden beneath the smile. "it is awful for you--we are all wretched about it; but there is hope still, and the doctor says you will get better if only you will give yourself a chance. why do you pretend? why smile and make fun when all the time--oh, i know it, i know it quite well--your heart is breaking!" her lip trembled. i thought she was going to break down, but in a moment she was composed again, saying in the same light, jeering tones-- "would you prefer me to weep and wail? you have known me all your life; can you imagine me--vere sackville--lying about with red eyes and a swollen face, posing as an object of pity? can you imagine me allowing myself to be pitied?" "not pitied, perhaps--no one likes that; but if people love you, and sympathise--" "bah!" she flicked her eyelids impatiently. i realised at that moment that she could not move her head, and it gave me a keener realisation of her state than i had had before. "bah! it is all the same. i want nothing from my friends now that they did not give me a month ago. if i have to be on my back instead of walking about, it is no affair of theirs. i neither ask nor desire their commiseration. the kindest thing they can do is to leave me alone." i thought of the old days when she was well and strong, and could run about as she liked, and how bored she was after a few days of quiet home life. how could she bear the long weeks and months stretched out motionless on a couch, with none of her merry friends to cheer her and distract her thoughts. the old vere could not have borne it, but this was a new vere whom i had never seen before. i felt in the dark concerning her and her actions. we talked it over at tea that afternoon, rachel and will and i. he came to call, so mr greaves sent up a polite message that he preferred to remain in his own room, and, of course, his poor wife had to stay, too, so for once we young people were alone. i was a little embarrassed at being number three with a pair of lovers, as any nice-minded person would be. i did all i could for them--i pretended to be tired, and said i thought i'd better be wheeled back to my room, and i made faces at rachel behind will's back to show what i meant, but she only smiled, and he said-- "i can see you, babs, and it's not becoming! we have no secrets to talk about, and would much rather have you with us, wouldn't we, rachel?" "of course you are to stay, una dear; don't say another word about it," rachel answered kindly, but that wasn't exactly answering his question. she was too honest to say that she would rather have me there, and i don't think she quite liked his saying so, either, for she was even quieter than usual for the next five minutes. then will began to talk about vere, and of mr carstairs' anxiety, and father's distress about her state of mind. he seemed to think that she did not realise what was before her, but rachel and i knew better than that, and assured him that he need fear no rude awakening. "vere is not one of the people who deceive themselves for good or bad. she is very shrewd and far-seeing, and, though she may not say anything about it, i know she has thought of every single little difficulty and trouble that will have to be faced. when it comes to the point, you will see that she has her own ideas and suggestions, which will be better than any others. she will order us about, and tell us what clothes to choose, how to lift her, and where to take her. and she will do it just as she is doing things now, as calmly and coolly as if she had been accustomed to it all her life." "extraordinary!" cried will. he put down his cup and paced up and down the floor, frowning till his eyebrows met. "marvellous composure! i should not have believed it possible. a lovely girl like that to have her life wrecked in a moment; to look forward to being a hopeless invalid for years--perhaps for ever. it is enough to unhinge the strongest brain, and she bears it without a murmur, you say; realises it all and still keeps calm? you women are wonderful creatures. you teach us many lessons in submission." rachel and i looked at each other and were silent, but i knew that she knew, and i had a longing to hear what will would say. somehow, ever since knowing him i have always felt more satisfied when i knew his opinion on any subject. so i told him all about it. i said-- "i'll tell you something, but you mustn't speak of it to mr carstairs, or father, or anybody; just think over it yourself, and try if you can help her. rachel knows--she found out for herself, as i did. vere is not brave nor submissive, nor anything that you think; it is only a pretence, for in reality she is broken-hearted. she won't allow herself to give in like other people, so she has determined to brave it out, and pretend that she doesn't care. she has always been admired and envied, and would hate it if people pitied her now, and i think there is another reason. she is angry! angry that this should have happened to her, and that it should have happened just now when she was enjoying herself so much, and was so young and pretty. she feels that she has been ill- used, and it makes her cold and bitter. i've felt the same myself when things went wrong. it isn't right, of course: one ought to be sweet and submissive, but--can't you understand?" "yes," said will, quickly. he stopped in his pacings to and fro, and stood thinking it over with his head leant forward on his chest. his face looked so kind, and troubled, and sorry. "oh, yes," he said, "i understand only too well. poor girl, poor child! it's awfully sad, for it is going to make it all so much more difficult for her. she doesn't see it, of course, but what she is trying to do is to accept the burden and refuse the consolation which comes with it." "i must say i fail to see much consolation in an injured spine," i said hastily, and he looked across the room, opening his eyes with that quick, twinkling light which i loved to see. "ask rachel," he said, "ask rachel! if she broke her back to-morrow she would have at least twenty good reasons for congratulation with which to edify me for the first time we met. wouldn't you, dear? i am quite sure you would accept it as a blessing in disguise." "if i broke my back i should die, will. it is always fatal, i believe!" quoth rachel the literal, blushing with pleasure at his praise, but talking as primly and properly as if she were addressing a class in a school. she is a queer girl to be engaged to! i saw will's eyebrows give just one little twitch on their own account, as if he thought so himself, but the next moment he sat down beside her and said gently-- "but if you were in miss sackville's place, how would you feel? how would you face the truth?" she leant back in her chair and stared before her with big, rapt eyes, her fingers clasping and unclasping themselves on her knee. "there is only one way--to look to god for help and courage. pride and anger can never carry her through the long days and nights that will be so hard to bear. they must fail her in the end, and leave her more helpless than before. the consolations are there, if she will open her eyes to see them, and afterwards--afterwards she will have learnt her lesson!" we sat quiet for quite a long time, and then came the inevitable summons, and rachel went away and left us alone. "i told you she was the best woman in the world!" will said, smiling at me proudly. i didn't feel inclined to smile at all, but the tears came suddenly to my eyes, and i began to sob like a baby. "oh, yes, yes, but i am not, and vere is my sister, and she was so pretty and gay. i can't be resigned for her! i can't bear to see her lying flat on her back; i can't bear to think of that awful chair. how can i talk to her of submission when i'm rebellious myself? i'm all hot, and sore, and miserable, and i want to know why, why, why? why was our dear old home burnt when other houses are safe and sound? why should we be crippled and made sad and gloomy just when we thought it was going to be so nice? all my school life i have looked forward to coming home, and now it's all spoiled! i'm not made like rachel. i can't sit down and be quiet. it doesn't come natural to me to be resigned; i want to argue and understand the meaning of things. i have to fight it through every inch of the way." "i, too, babs," he said sadly. "i'm afraid i have kicked very hard against the pricks several times in my life. every now and then--very rarely--one meets a sweet soul like rachel who knows nothing of these struggles; they are born saints, and appear to rise superior to temptations, but most of us are continually fighting. there's this consolation, that the hour of victory can never be so sweet as when it comes after a struggle." "and vere--will she win too? i can think of no one but her just now. we used often to quarrel, and i've been jealous of her hundreds of times. i never knew i loved her so much till we were in danger, but now i'd give my life to save her, and help her through this terrible time!" "and you will do it, too. vere will win her battle, but not with her own weapons, as rachel says. pride and anger won't carry her very far down the road she has to travel, poor child. it will be a gentler weapon." "you mean--?" will turned his back to me, and stood staring out of the window. he looked so big and strong himself, as if no weakness could touch him. "i mean--love," he said softly. i wondered what he meant. i wondered why he turned his face from me as he spoke. i wondered if the thought of vere lying there all broken and lovely was too much for his composure, and if he was longing to save her himself. but then there was rachel. he could never be false to poor trusting rachel! chapter twelve. _august th_. it is lovely to be able to go out again into the sweet summer land, and drive about with father and mother, and have our nice, homely talks again. the greaves' are perfect angels of kindness, and what we should have done without their hospitality i'm sure i can't tell, but every family has its own little ways, and, of course, you like your own the best. the greaves' way is always to say exactly precisely whatever they mean and nothing beyond, and to think you rather mad if you do anything else. our way is to have little jokes and allusions, and a great deal of chatter about nothing in particular, and to think other people bores if they don't do the same. we call our belongings by proper names. my umbrella is "jane," because she is a plain, domestic-looking creature, and mother's, with the tortoiseshell and gold, is "mirabella," and our cat is "miss davis," after a singing-mistress who squalled, and the new laundry-maid is "monkey-brand," because she can't wash clothes. it's silly, perhaps, but it _does_ help your spirits! when i go out on a wet day and say to my maid "bring `jane,' please," the sight of her face always sends me off in good spirits. she tries so hard not to laugh. father and i just make plain, straightforward jokes, like everyone else, but mother jokes daintily, as she does everything else. it's lovely to listen to her when she is in a frisky mood! we are all depressed enough just now, goodness knows, but it cheers us up a little to be together, and, in comparison with the greaves' conversation, ours sounds frisky. yesterday we drove up to see the dear home, at which dozens of men are already at work. it was at once better and worse than i expected. the ivy is still green in places, and they don't think it is all destroyed, so that the first view from the bottom of the drive was a relief. near at hand we saw the terrible damage done, and, when i went inside for a few minutes, the smell was still so strong that i had to hurry back into the air. it will take months to put things right, and meantime father has taken a furnished house four miles off, where we go as soon as vere can be moved, and stay until she is strong enough to travel to the sea, or to some warm, sunny place for the winter. we shall probably be away for ages. no balls, una! no dissipations, and partners, and admiration, and pretty new frocks, as you expected. furnished houses and hospital nurses, and a long, anxious illness to watch. those are your portion, my dear! i am a wretch to think of myself at all. rachel wouldn't; but i do, and it's no use pretending i don't. i'm horribly, horribly disappointed! one part of me feels cross and injured; the other part of me longs to be good and unselfish, and to cheer and help the others. i haven't had far to look for my sister. while i was searching the neighbourhood for someone to befriend, the opportunity was preparing inside our very own walls! now then, una sackville, brace up! show what you are made of! you are fond enough of talking--now let us see what you can do! _august th_. the spinal chair arrived yesterday when i was at the lodge. father cried when he saw it. i hate to see a man cry, and got out of the way as soon as possible, and, when i came back, mother and he were sitting hand in hand in the little parlour, looking quite calm, and kind of sadly happy. i think bearing things together has brought them nearer than they have been for years, so they certainly have found their compensation. the doctor says vere is to live out of doors, so this morning she was carried out on her mattress, laid flat on the chair, and wheeled to a corner of the lawn. as i had prophesied, she arranged all details herself. she wore a soft, white serge dressing-gown sort of arrangement, which was loose and comfortable, and a long lace scarf put loosely over her head, and tied under the chin, instead of a hat. everything was as simple as it could be. vere had too much good taste to choose unsuitable fineries, but, as she lay with the sunlight flickering down at her beneath the screen of leaves, she looked so touchingly frail and lovely that it broke your heart to see her. her hair lay in little gold rings on her forehead, the face inside the lace hood had shrunk to such a tiny oval. one had not realised, seeing her in bed, how thin she had grown during these last few weeks! we all waited on her hand and foot, and walked in procession beside her, gulping hard, and blinking our eyes to keep back the tears whenever we had a quiet chance, and she laughed and admired the trees, and said really it was the quaintest sensation staring straight up at the sky; she felt just like "johnny head in air" in the dear old picture-book! it was a delightful couch--most comfortable! what a lazy summer she should have! if there was one thing she loved more than another, it was having meals in the open air--all in the same high, artificial note which she had used ever since her accident. we all agreed and gushed, and said, "yes, darling," "isn't it, darling?" "so you shall, darling," and we had tea under a big beech-tree, and anyone might have thought we were quite jolly; but i could see father's lip quiver under his moustache, and mother looked old. i hate to see mother look old! just as we had finished tea a servant came up to tell father that will and mr carstairs had called to see him. they had too much good feeling to join us where we were, but vere lifted her languid eyes and said "stupid men! what are they afraid of? tell them to come here at once." and no one dared to oppose her. i shall never forget that scene. it was like treading on sacred ground to be there when mr carstairs went forward to take vere's hand, yet, of course, it would not have done to leave them alone. his face was set, poor fellow, and he couldn't speak. i could see the pulse above his ear beating like a hammer, and was terrified lest he should break down altogether. vere would never have forgiven that! she thanked him in her pretty society way for all his "favaws," the flowers, and the books, and the letters, all "so amusing, don't you know!" (as if his poor letters could have been amusing!) and behaved really and truly as if they had just met in a ball-room, after an ordinary separation. "it's quite an age since i saw you; and now, i suppose, it is a case of `how do you do, and good-bye,'" she said lightly. "you must be longing to get away from this dull place, to pay some of your postponed visits." "they will have to be postponed a little longer. dudley is good enough to say he can put me up another week or two, and i should like to see you settled at bylands. there--there might be something i could do for you," returned the poor man wistfully, but she would not acknowledge any need of help. "dearie me! have you turned furniture remover? are you proposing to pack me with the rest of our belongings?" she cried, lifting her chin about a quarter of an inch in feeble imitation of her old scornful tilt. it was very pitiful to see her do it, and mr carstairs' lip twitched again, and he turned and began talking to mother, leaving the coast clear for will dudley. he looked flushed, but his eyes were curiously bright and determined. "i am so thankful to see you out again, miss sackville," he said. "that's the first step forward in your convalescence, and i hope the others may follow quickly!" that was his cue! he was not going to allow vere to ignore her illness talking to him; he had determined to make her face it naturally and simply, but the flash in her eyes showed that it would not be too easy. she stared up into his face with a look of cold displeasure, and he stared straight back and said-- "are you as comfortable as possible? i think that light is rather dazzling to your eyes. let me move you just a few inches." "i am perfectly happy, thank you. pray don't trouble. i prefer to stay where i am." "i'll move you back again if you don't like it," he said coolly. "there! now that branch screens you nicely. the sun has moved since you first came out, i expect. confess, now, that is more comfortable!" she would not confess, and she could not deny, so she simply dropped her eyelids and refused to answer; but a little thing like that would not daunt will dudley, and he went on talking as if she had thanked him as graciously as possible. presently, however, the hospital nurse gave us a private signal that vere was getting tired and ought to rest, so we all strolled away and left them alone together beneath the tree. we had only three days more at the grange, and during them rachel devoted herself as much as possible to vere, trotting between the house and the beech-trees on everlasting missions, and reading aloud for hours together from stupid novels, which i am sure bored her to extinction. vere herself did not seem to listen very attentively, but i think the sweet, rather monotonous voice had a soothing effect on her nerves; she was relieved to be spared talking, and also intent on studying this strange specimen of human nature. "oh, admirable but dullest of rachels, she absolutely delights in doing what she dislikes! it was as good as a play to watch her face yesterday while she read aloud the reflections of the worldly lady peggy! they evidently gave her nerves a severe shock, but as for omitting a passage, as for even skipping an objectionable word, no! not if her life depended upon it. `it is my duty, and i will.' that is her motto in life. how boring people are who do their duty!" drawled vere languidly on the last afternoon, as poor rachel left her to go back to the other invalid, who was no doubt growling like a bear in his den as he waited for her return. everyone seemed to take rachel's help for granted, and to think it superfluous to thank her. even will himself is far less attentive to her wants than my _fiance_ shall be when i have one. i simply couldn't stand being treated like a favourite aunt, and really and truly he behaves far more as if she were that, than his future wife. he is never in the least tiny bit excited or agitated about seeing her. i wouldn't admit this to vere for a thousand pounds, but i felt cross all the same, and said snappishly-- "it's a pity she wasted her time, since you were only jeering at her for her pains. i don't know about enjoying what she hates, but she certainly loves trying to help other people, and i admire her for it. i wish to goodness i were like her!" at this she smiled more provokingly than ever. "yes. i've noticed the imitation. it's amusing. all the more so that it is so poor a success. your temper is not of the quality to be kept persistently in the background, my dear." it isn't. but i _had_ tried hard to keep patient and gentle the last few weeks, even when vere aggravated me most. i had been so achingly sorry for her that i would have cut off my right hand to help her, so it hurt when she gibed at me like that. "i'm sorry i was impatient! i wanted so badly to help you, dear. you must forgive me if i was cross." "babs, _don't_!" she gasped, and her face was convulsed with emotion. for one breathless moment, as we clutched hands and drew close together, i thought the breakdown had come at last, but she fought down her sobs, crying in tones of piteous entreaty-- "don't let me cry! stop me! oh, babs, don't let me do it. if i once begin i can never stop!" "but wouldn't it be a relief to you, darling? everyone has been terrified lest you were putting too great a strain on yourself. if you gave way once to me--it doesn't matter for me--it might do you good. cry, darling, if you want, and i'll cry with you!" but she protested more vigorously than ever. "no, no, i daren't! i can't face it! be cross with me--be neglectful--leave me to myself, but for pity's sake don't be so patient, babs! it makes me silly, and i must keep up, whatever happens. say something now to make me stop-- quickly!" "i expect the men will be here any moment. you'll look hideous with red eyes," i said gruffly. it was the only thing i could think of, and perhaps it did as well as anything else, for she calmed down by degrees, and there was no more sign of a breakdown that night. after that day we seemed to understand each other better, and when i saw danger signals i was snappy on purpose, and felt like a martyr when will and mr carstairs glared at me, and thought what a wretch i was. we wanted vere to be resigned and natural about her illness, but we dreaded and feared a hysterical breakdown, which must leave her weaker than ever, and she had said herself that if she once began to cry she could never leave off. chapter thirteen. _september th_. four days later we left the grange and came to our new home, a furnished house four miles away. it is a big, square, prosaic-looking building, but comfortable, with a nice big garden, so we are fortunate to have found such a place in the neighbourhood. we told each other gushingly how fortunate we had been, every time that we discovered anything that we hated more than usual, and were obtrusively gay all that first horrid evening. vere's two rooms had been made home-like and pretty with treasures saved from the moat, and new curtains and cushions and odds and ends like that; but we left the other rooms as they were, and pretended that we liked sitting on crimson satin chairs with gold legs. father is lost without his nice gunny, sporty sanctum. mother looks pathetically out of place in the bald, ugly rooms, and i feel a pelican in the wilderness without my belongings but when you have come through great big troubles you are ashamed to fuss over little things like these. also, to tell the truth, we are thankful to be together in a place of our own again. mrs greaves and rachel had been sweet to us, but they had one invalid on their hands already, and we could not help feeling that we gave a great deal of trouble. they said they were sorry to lose us, and that we had been an interest in their quiet lives, and i do think that was true. vere, with her beauty and her tragedy, her lovely clothes and dainty ways, was as good as a three-volume novel to people who wear blue serge the whole year round, do their hair neatly in knobs like walnuts, and never indulge in anything more exciting than a garden party. then there was the romantic figure of poor jim carstairs hovering in the background, ready at any moment to do desperate deeds, if thereby he could win a smile of approval, so different from that other complacent lover, who was "content to wait" and never knew the semblance of a qualm! i used to watch rachel watch jim, and thought somehow that she felt the difference, and was not so serene as she had been when i first knew her. her face looked sad sometimes, but not for long, for she had so little time to think of herself. i agree with will that she is the best woman in the world, and the sweetest and most unselfish. the house where will lives is nearer "the clift" than the old home, and the two men come over often to see us. they had reconnoitred the grounds before we arrived, and knew just the nicest portions for vere's chair for each part of the day, and jim had noticed how she started at the sudden appearance of a newcomer, and had hit on a clever way of giving her warning of an approach. lying quite flat as she does, with her face turned stiffly upwards, it had been impossible to see anyone till he was close at hand, but now he has suspended a slip of mirror from the branches of the favourite trees in such a position that they reflect the whole stretch of lawn. it is quite pretty to look up and see the figures moving about; the maids bringing out tea, or father playing with the dogs. vere can even watch a game of tennis or croquet without turning her head. we were all delighted, and gushed with admiration at his ingenuity, and vere said, "thank you, jim," and smiled at him, and that was worth all the praise in the world. he told us that he was going home at the end of the week, and one day i listened to a conversation which i never should have heard, but it wasn't my fault. vere and i were alone, and when we saw jim coming she got into a state of excitement, and made me vow and declare that i would not leave her. i couldn't possibly refuse, for she isn't allowed to be excited, but i twisted my chair as far away as i dared, humped up my shoulders and buried myself in my book. jim knew i would do my best for him, but it's disgusting how difficult it is to fix your attention on one thing, and close your ears to something still more interesting. i honestly did try, and the jargon that the book and the conversation made together was something too ridiculous. it was like this-- "maud was sitting gazing out of the window at the unending stream of traffic." "this is our last talk! i told dudley not to come, for there's so much to say." "it was her first visit to london, and to the innocent country mind--" "don't put me off, dear! i must speak to-day, or wait here till i do." "innocent country mind--innocent country mind." "no matter if it does pain me. i will take the risk. i just wish you to know." "innocent country mind it seemed as if--" but it was no use; my eyes travelled steadily down the page, but to this moment i can't tell you what maud's innocent country mind made of it. i could hear nothing but jim's deep, earnest voice. "i don't ask anything from you. you never encouraged me when you were well, and i won't take advantage of your weakness. i just want you to realise that i am yours, as absolutely and truly as though we were formally engaged. you are free as air to do in every respect as you will, but you cannot alter my position. i cannot alter it myself. the thing has grown beyond my control. you are my life; for weal or woe i must be faithful to you. i make only one claim--that when you need a friend you will send for me. when there is any service, however small, which i can render, you will let me do it. it isn't much to ask, is it, sweetheart?" there was a moment's pause--i tried desperately and unsuccessfully to get interested in maud, and then vere's voice said gently--more gently than i had ever heard her speak-- "dear old jim, you are so good always! it's a very unfair arrangement, and it would be horribly selfish to agree. i'd like well enough to have you coming down; it would be a distraction, and help to pass the time. i expect we shall be terribly quiet here, and i have always been accustomed to having some man to fly round and wait upon me. there is no one i would like better than you--wait a moment--no one i would like better while i am ill! i can trust you, and you are so thoughtful and kind. but if i get well again? what then? it is best to be honest, isn't it, jim? you used to bore me sometimes when i was well, and you might bore me again. it isn't fair!" "it is perfectly fair, for i am asking no promises. if i can be of the least use or comfort to you now, that is all i ask. i know i am a dull, heavy fellow. it isn't likely you could be bothered with me when you were well." silence. i would not look, but i could imagine how they looked. jim bending over her with his strong brown features a-quiver with emotion. vere with the lace scarf tied under her chin, her lovely white little face gazing up at him in unwonted gentleness. "i wonder," she said slowly, "i wonder what there is in me to attract you, jim! you are not like other men. you would not care for appearances only, yet, apart from my face and figure--my poor figure of which i was so proud--there is nothing left which could really please you. i have been a vain, empty-headed girl all my life. i cared for myself more than anything on earth. i do now! you think i am brave and uncomplaining, but it is all a sham. i am too proud to whine, but in reality i am seething with bitterness and rebellion. i am longing to get well, not to lead a self-sacrificing life like rachel greaves, but to feel fit again, and wear pretty clothes, and dance, and flirt, and be admired--that's what i want most, jim; that's _all_ i want!" he put out his hands and took hers. i don't know how i knew it, but i did, though maud was still staring out of the window, and i was still staring at maud. "poor darling!" he said huskily. "poor darling!" he didn't preach a bit, though it was a splendid opening if he had wanted one, but i think the sorrow and regret in his voice was better than words. vere knew what he meant, and why he was sorry. i heard a little gasping sound, and then a rapid, broken whispering. "i know--i know! i ought to feel differently! sometimes in the night-- oh, the long, long nights, jim!--the pain is so bad, and it seems as if light would never come, and i lie awake staring into the darkness, and a fear comes over me... i feel all alone in a new world that is strange and terrible, where the things i cared for most don't matter at all, and the things i neglected take up all the room. and i'm frightened, jim! i'm frightened! i've lost my footing, and it's all blackness and confusion. is it because i am so wicked that i am afraid to be alone with my thoughts? i was so well and strong before this. i slept so soundly that i never seemed to have time to think." "perhaps that's the reason of it, sweetheart. you needed the time, and it has been given to you this way, and when you have found yourself the need will be over, and you will be well again." "found myself!" she repeated musingly. "is there a real self that i know nothing of hidden away somewhere? that must be the self you care for, jim. tell me! i want to know--what is there in me which made you care so much? you acknowledge that i am vain?" "y-es!" "and selfish?" he wouldn't say "yes," and couldn't deny it, so just sat silently and refused to answer. "and a flirt?" "yes." "and very cruel to you sometimes, jim?" said vere in that new, sweet, gentle voice. "you didn't mean it, darling. it was only thoughtlessness." "no, no! i did mean it! it was dreadful of me, but i liked to experiment and feel my power. you had better know the truth once for all; it will help you to forget all about such a wretched girl." "nothing can make me forget. you could tell me what you like about yourself, it would make no difference; i am past all that. you are the one woman in the world for me. at first it was your beauty which attracted me, but that stage was over long ago. it makes no difference to me now how you look. nothing makes any difference. if you were never to leave that couch--" but she called out at that, interrupting him sharply-- "don't say it! don't suggest for a moment that it is possible! oh, jim, you don't believe it! you don't really think i could be like this all my life? i will be very good, and do all they say, and keep quiet and not excite myself. i will do anything--anything--but i must get better in the end! i could not bear a life like this!" "the doctors all tell us you will recover in time, darling, but it's a terribly hard waiting. i wish i could bear the pain for you; but you will let me do what i can, won't you, vere? i am a dull stick. no one knows it better than i do myself, but make use of me just now; let me fetch and carry for you; let me run down every few weeks to see you, and give you the news. it will bind you to nothing in the future. whatever happens, i should be grateful to you all my life for giving me so much happiness." "dear old jim! you are too good for me. how could i possibly say `no' to such a request?" sighed vere softly. i think she was very nearly crying just then, but i made another desperate effort to interest myself in maud, and soon afterwards he went away. vere looked at me curiously when i returned to the seat by her side, and i told her the truth. "i tried to read, i did, honestly, but i heard a good deal! it was your own fault. you wouldn't let me go away." "then you know something you may not have known before--how a good man can love! i have treated jim carstairs like a dog, and this is how he behaves in return. i don't deserve such devotion." "nobody does. but i envy you, vere. i envy you even now, with all your pain. it must be the best thing in the world to be loved like that." "sentimental child!" she said, smiling; but it was a real smile, not a sneer; and when mother came up a few minutes later, vere looked at her anxiously, noticing for the very first time how ill and worn she looked. "you looked fagged, mother dear. do sit still and rest," she said, in her old, caressing manner. mother flushed, and looked ten years younger on the spot. chapter fourteen. _september th_. i expected vere to be quite different after this--to give up being cold and defiant, and be her own old self. i thought it was a kind of crisis, and that she would go on getting better and better--morally, i mean. but she doesn't! at least, if she does, it is only by fits and starts. sometimes she is quite angelic for a whole day, and the next morning is so crotchety and aggravating that it nearly drives one wild. i suppose no one gets patient and long-suffering all at once; it is like convalescence after an illness--up and down, up and down, all the time; but it's disappointing to the nurses. she does try, poor dear, but it must be difficult to go on trying when one day is exactly like the last, and you do nothing but lie still, and your back aches, aches, aches. jim is not always present to lavish his devotion upon her, and now that the first agitation is over we onlookers are getting used to seeing her ill, and are less frantically attentive than at first, which, of course, must be trying, too; but one cannot always live at high pressure. i believe one would get callous about earthquakes if they only happened often enough. summer is passing away and autumn coming on, and it grows damp and mouldy, and we have to sit indoors for most of the day. when i have any time to think of myself i feel so tired; and one day vere said abruptly-- "babs, you are thin! upon my word, child, i can see your cheek-bones. what have you been doing to yourself?" thin! blessed word! i leapt from my seat and rushed to the nearest glass, and it was true! i stared, and stared, and wondered where my eyes had been these last weeks. my cheeks had sunk till they were oval instead of round. i looked altogether about half the old size. what would the girls say if they could behold their old "circle" now? it used to be my ambition to be described as a "tall, slim girl," and now i turned, and twisted, and attitudinised before that glass, and, honestly, that was just exactly what i looked! i took hold of my dress, and it bagged! i put my fingers inside my belt, and the whole hand slipped through! my face of rapture made vere laugh with almost the old trill. "you goose! you look as if you had come into a fortune! i don't deny that it is an improvement, but you mustn't overdo it. it would be too hard luck for mother if we were both ill at the same time. all this anxiety has been too much for you. i had better turn nurse, and let you be patient for a little time, and i'll prescribe a little change and excitement. firstly, a becoming new toilette for dinner to-night, in which you can do justice to your charms." vere never dines with us now, as the evenings are her worst time, and she spends them entirely in her own little sitting-room. i am always with her to read aloud, or play games, or talk, just as she prefers; but this night there were actually some people coming to dinner for the first time since the pre-historic ages before the fire. the people around had been very kind and attentive, and mother thought it our duty to ask a few of them; so four couples were coming, and will dudley to pair with me. it was quite an excitement after our quiet days; and vere called her maid, and sent her to bring down one or two evening dresses which had been rescued uninjured from a hanging cupboard and left untouched until now, in the box in which they had been packed. "miss una is so much thinner, i believe she could get into them now, terese; and i have a fancy to dress her up to-night and see what we can make of her," she said, smiling; and terese beamed with delight, not so much at the thought of dressing me, as in joy at hearing her beloved mistress take an interest in anything again. she adores vere, as all servants do. it's because she makes pretty speeches to them and praises them when they do things well, instead of treating them like machines, as most people do. in my superior moments i used to think that she was hypocritical, while i myself was honest and outspoken; but i am beginning to see that praise is sometimes more powerful than blame. i am really becoming awfully grown-up and judicious. i hardly know myself sometimes. well, terese brought in three dresses, and i tried them on in succession, and vere decided which was most becoming, and directed little alterations, and said what flowers i was to wear, and how my hair was to be done, just exactly as if i were a new doll which made an amusing plaything. i had to be dressed in her room, too, and she lay watching me with her big wan eyes, issuing directions to terese, and saying pretty things to me. it was one of her very, very nicest days, and i did love her. when the last touch was given i surveyed myself in the long mirror and "blushed at my own reflection," like the girl in books who is going to her first ball. i really did look my very, very nicest, and so grown up, and sort of fragile and interesting, instead of the big, hulking schoolgirl of a year ago. the lovely moonshiny dress would have suited anyone, and terese had made my hair look just about twice as thick as when i do it myself. i can't think how she manages! i did feel pleased, and thought it sweet of vere to be pleased too, for it was not in girl nature to avoid feeling lone and lorn at being left alone, stretched on that horrid couch. she tried to smile bravely as i left her to go downstairs, but her lips trembled a little, and she said in a wistful way-- "perhaps, if i feel well enough, you might bring mr dudley up to see me for a few minutes after dinner. terese will let you know how i am." i had to promise, of course, but i didn't like doing it. it didn't seem fair either to rachel or to jim carstairs to let these two see too much of each other, or to vere herself, for that matter; for i always have a kind of dread that this time it may not be all pretence on her side. she seems a little different when will is there, less absolutely confident and sure of herself. the four couples arrived in good time. how uninteresting middle-aged couples are! one always wondered why they married each other, for they seem so prosy and matter-of-fact. when i am a middle-aged couple, or half of one, i shall be like father and mother, and carry about with me the breath of eternal romance, as lorna would say, and i shall "bant," and never allow myself to grow stout, and simply annihilate my husband if he dares to call me "my dear." fancy coming down to being a "my dear" in a cap! i had gone into the conservatory to show some plants to funny old bald mr farrer, and when he toddled out to show a bloom to his wife i came face to face with will, standing in the entrance by himself, looking so handsome and bored. he gave a quick step forward as he saw me and exclaimed first "babs!" and then, with a sudden change of voice and manner, almost as if he were startled-- "una!" he didn't shake hands with me, and i felt a little bit scared and shy, for it is only very, very rarely that he calls me by my name, and i have a kind of feeling that when he does he likes me more than usual. it was vere's dress, of course; perhaps it made me look like her. we went back into the drawing-room, and stood in a corner like dummies until dinner was announced. i thought it would have been such fun, but it wasn't. will was dull and distrait, and he hardly looked at me once, and talked about sensible impersonal things the whole time. of course, i like sensible conversation; one feels humiliated if a man does nothing but frivol, but there is a happy medium. when you are nineteen and looking your best, you don't care to be treated as if you were a hundred and fifty, and a fright at that. will and i have always been good friends, and being engaged as he is, i expect him to be perfectly frank and out-spoken. i tried to be lively and keep the conversation going, but it was such an effort that i grew tired, and i really think i am rather delicate for once in my life, for what with the exertion and the depression, i felt quite ill by the time dessert was on the table. all the ladies said how pale i was in the drawing-room, and mother puckered her eyebrows when she looked at me. dear, sweet mother! it was horrid of me to be pleased at anything which worried her, but when you have been of no account, and all the attention has been lavished on someone else, it is really rather soothing to have people think of you for a change. terese met me coming out of the dining-room, and said that vere was well enough to see mr dudley, so i took him upstairs as soon as he appeared. passing through the hall, i saw a letter addressed to me in lorna's handwriting, on the table, and carried it up with me to read while they were talking. they wouldn't want me, and it would be a comfort to remember that lorna did. i was just in the mood to be a martyr, so when i had seen will seated beside the couch, and noticed that vere had been arrayed for the occasion in her prettiest wrap, with frilled cushion covers to match, i went right off to the end of the room and sat down on the most uncomfortable chair i could find. when one feels low it is comical what a relief it is to punish oneself still further. when i thought myself ill-used as a child, i used always to refuse tart and cream, which i loved, and eat rice pudding, which i hated. the uncomfortable chair was the rice pudding in this instance, but i soon forgot all about it, and even about vere and will, in the excitement of reading that letter. "my own maggie,--(on the second day after we met at school lorna and i decided to call each other `maggie'--short for `magnetic attraction'-- but we only do it when we write, otherwise it excites curiosity, and that is horrid in matters of the heart!)--my own maggie,--it is ages since i heard from you, darling. why didn't you answer my letter last week? but i know how occupied you are, poor angel, and won't scold you as you deserve. i think of you every moment of the day, and do so long to be able to help you to bear your heavy burden. how little we thought when you went home how soon the smiling future would turn into a frown! we both seem to have left our careless youth far behind, for i have my own trials too, though nothing to yours, my precious darling. "i have heaps to tell you. i decided to have the blue dress, after all, and the dressmaker has made it sweetly, with dozens of little tucks. i wore it at an afternoon `at home' yesterday, and it looked lovely. lots of people were there. wallace took me. he is at home helping with the practice. maggie, my darling, i am really writing to ask you the most awful favour. would you, could you, come down to stay with us for a few weeks? i do long for you so. there is no one on earth but you to whom i can speak my utmost thoughts, and i feel all bottled up, for there are some things one can't write. i know you feel this, too, dearest, for there is a change in the tone of your letters, and i read between the lines that you have lots to tell me. we could have great sport with wallace to take us about, and the people around are very hospitable, and always ask us out when we have a visitor. wallace saw your photograph one day, and said you were `ripping,' and he is quite keen on your coming, though, as a rule, he doesn't care for girls. mother will write to mrs sackville if you think there is the slightest chance that you can be spared. of course, darling, if you feel it your duty to stay at home i won't persuade you to come. you remember how we vowed to urge each other to do our best and noblest, but perhaps if you had a little change you would go back refreshed and able to help your people better than you can at present. anyway, write soon, darling, and put me out of my suspense. i sha'n't sleep a wink till i hear. oh, the bliss of having you all to myself! how we would talk! "your own maggie." yes, it would indeed be bliss! i longed for lorna, but it did not seem possible to go away and enjoy myself, and leave vere so helpless and sad. i decided not to say a word about the invitation, but i couldn't help thinking about it. lorna lived in a big town house in the middle of a street; her father is a busy doctor, and is not at all rich, but very jolly. she is the only unmarried girl, and has half-a-dozen brothers in all stages, from twelve up to wallace, who is a doctor, and thinks my photograph is "ripping!" it all seemed so tempting, and so refreshingly different from anything i have known. i began imagining it all--the journey, meeting lorna at the station, and tearing about with all those funny, merry boys, instead of tiptoeing about a sick-room; wallace being nice and attentive to me, instead of in love with someone else, as all the men at home seem to be, and lorna creeping into my bed at night, with her hair in a funny, tight little pigtail, and talking, talking, talking for hour after hour. oh, i did want to go so badly! the tears came to my eyes for very longing. my resolution did not waver one bit, but i was dreadfully sorry for myself, all the same. suddenly i became aware that there was a dead silence in the room. how long it had lasted i can't tell, but when i looked up there were vere and will staring at me, and looking as if they had been staring for an age, and couldn't understand what on earth was the matter. i jumped and got red, and blinked away the tears, and vere said-- "what is the matter, child? have you had bad news? you look as if your heart was broken!" "oh, no--there's no news at all. i am tired, i think, and stupid, and wasn't thinking of what i was doing." "you seemed to be thinking of something pretty deeply; and what business have you to be tired--a baby like you? i have been prescribing for her to-day, mr dudley. have you noticed how thin she has grown? she hadn't discovered it herself until i told her, wonderful to relate." "i don't think she has thought of herself at all these last few months," said will, quietly. he only just gave one glance at me, and then looked away, and i was thankful, for every drop of blood in my body seemed to fly to my face in the joy of hearing him praise me like that. vere did not speak for a moment or two, and then she just asked who the letter was from. "lorna forbes. she writes every week. i haven't written to her for an age--nearly a month." they both knew about lorna, and teased me about her when i quoted her opinion, and now, to my surprise, will lifted his eyes from the carpet, and said, looking me full in the face-- "and she wants you to pay her a visit, and you think you ought not to go?" how could he guess? i was so taken aback that at first i could only gasp and stare. "how in the world did you know?" i asked at last, and he smiled and said-- "your face was very eloquent. it was very easy to read, wasn't it, miss sackville?" "i did not find it so transparent as you seem to have done; i suppose i am dense," vere replied, with a laugh that sounded a little bit strained. "is it true, babs? has mr dudley read the signs correctly?" i had to confess, making as light of it as possible, but they weren't deceived a bit. "you hardly looked as if you didn't `care,'" will remarked drily, and vere said quite quickly and eagerly-- "you must go, babs--of course you must go! it is the very thing you need. you have been a ministering angel to me, and i'm very grateful, but i don't want the responsibility of making you ill. change and the beloved lorna will soon bring back your roses, and it will be amusing to hear of your escapades when you return. don't think of me! it is good for me to be quiet, and there are plenty of friends who will come in for an hour or two if i feel the need of society. you will take pity on me, won't you, mr dudley? you will come sometimes and have tea with mother and me?" "i shall be delighted," said will, gravely. as for me, i didn't know whether to be most pleased or depressed. i should pay my visit to lorna, that was practically settled from the moment vere approved of the proposal, which was one nice thing; and another was her remark that i had been an angel; but it seemed as if i could be very easily spared, and i had grown to think myself indispensable these last few weeks. we talked a little more about it, and then will and i went downstairs. he didn't speak until we were nearly at the drawing-room door, when he said abruptly-- "you are very eager to get away! are you so tired of this neighbourhood and all the people it contains?" "oh, so tired! so utterly, utterly tired!" i cried earnestly. it sounded rude, perhaps, but at the moment i really felt it. i had reached the stage of tiredness when i had a perfect craving for a change. he didn't say a word, but stalked straight forward, and never spoke to me again except to say good-night. it doesn't concern me, of course, but i do hope for rachel's sake that he hasn't a sulky nature. heigh-ho for lorna! i am going at the end of next week. i am positively bursting with delight! chapter fifteen. _october th_. here i am! it is not a bit as i imagined, but ever so much nicer. lorna looks sweet in grown-up things, and she thinks i look sweet in mine. she comes into my bed at nights, and we talk for hours. the house is right in the middle of the town, in a dingy old square, where the trees look more black than green. it is ugly and shabby, but there is plenty of room, which is a good thing, for i am sure it is needed. the doctor sits in his consulting-room all the morning seeing patients, who wait their turn in the dining-room, and if there are a great many you have to be late for lunch, but, as lorna says, "that means another guinea, so we mustn't grumble!" they are not at all rich, because the six boys cost so much to educate. they are all away at school and college, except the oldest and the youngest, of whom more anon. dr forbes is an old love. he has shaggy grey hair, and merry eyes, and the funniest way of talking aloud to himself without knowing what he is saying. at lunch he will keep up a running conversation like this: "nasty case--yes, nasty case! poor woman, poor woman! very little chance--little chance--very good steak, my dear--an admirable dinner you have given me! am-pu-ta-tion at eleven--mustn't forget the medicine. three times a day. a little custard, if you please," and so on, and so on, and the others never take any notice, but eat away as if no one were speaking. mrs forbes is large and kind, and shakes when she laughs. i don't think she is clever, exactly, but she's an admirable mother, and lets them do exactly as they like. wallace isn't bad. he is twenty-four, and fairly good-looking, and not as conceited as men generally are at that age. personally, i prefer them older, but he evidently approves of me, and that is soothing to the feelings. julias, surnamed "midas," is only twelve, and a most amusing character. i asked lorna and wallace how he got his nickname, as we sat together over a fire in the old schoolroom the first night. they laughed, and wallace said--(of course, i call him dr wallace, really, but i can't be bothered to write it here)-- "because everything he touches turns to gold, or, to speak more correctly, copper! he has a genius for accumulating money, and has what we consider quite a vast sum deposited in the savings bank. my father expects him to develop into a great financier, and we hope he may pension off all his brothers and sister, to keep them from the workhouse. to do midas justice, he is not mean in a good cause, and i believe he will do the straight thing." "but how can he make money? he is only twelve. i don't see how it is to be done," i cried. and they laughed and said-- "it began years ago--when he shed his front teeth. mother used to offer us sixpence a tooth when they grew waggly, and we pulled them out without any fuss. we each earned sixpences in our turn, and all went well; but when midas once began he was not content to stop, and worked away at sound, new double teeth, until he actually got out two in one afternoon. then mother took alarm, and the pay was stopped. there was an interregnum after that, and what came next? let me see--it must have been the sleeping sickness. midas grew very rapidly, miss sackville, and it was very difficult to get him to bed at nights, so as the mater thought he was suffering from the want of sleep, she promised him threepence an hour for every hour he spent in bed before nine o'clock. after that he retired regularly every night at seven, and on half- holidays it's a solemn fact that he was in bed at four o'clock, issuing instructions as to the viands which were to be brought up for his refreshment! the mater stood it for a time, but the family finances wouldn't bear the strain, so she limited the hours and reduced the fee, and midas returned to his old ways. what came after that, lorna?" "i don't know--i forget! of course there was biggs--" "ah, yes, miss biggs! miss biggs, you must know, miss sackville, is an ancient friend of the family, whom we consider it a duty to invite for a yearly visit. she is an admirable old soul, but very deaf, very slow, and incredibly boring. her favourite occupation is to bring down sheaves of letters from other maiden ladies, and insist upon reading them aloud to the assembled family. `i have just had a letter from louisa gibbings; i am sure you will like to hear it,' she will say calmly, when the poor old parents are enjoying a quiet read after dinner, and we youngsters are in the middle of a game. none of us have the remotest idea who louisa gibbings may be, and don't want to know, but we are bound to listen to three sheets of uninteresting information as to how `my brother in china contemplates a visit home next year.' `my garden is looking charming, but the peas are very poor this season.' `you will be grieved to hear that our good mary still suffers acutely from the old complaint,' etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. last time she paid her visit when midas had his easter holidays, and one day, seeing mother quite exhausted by her efforts at entertainment, he made the brilliant proposal that he should take miss biggs off her hands for the sum of fourpence an hour. mother agreed with enthusiasm, and midas made quite a fortune in the next fortnight, with equal satisfaction to all concerned. in the morning he took miss biggs out walking to see the sights, and gave her his advice in the purchase of new caps. in the afternoon the wily young wretch cajoled her into giving him an hour's coaching in french, and in the evening he challenged her to draughts and dominoes, and made a point of allowing her to win. mother had a chance of attending to her work; father could read in peace; midas was in a condition of such complacent good nature that he declared miss biggs was a `ripping old girl,' and she on her part gave him the credit for being `the most gentlemanly youth she had ever encountered.' i believe she is really attached to him, and should not wonder if she remembers him substantially in her will. then midas will have scored a double triumph!" wallace and lorna laughed as heartily as i did over these histories. they really are a most good-natured family, and wallace treats lorna as politely as if she were someone else, and not his own sister, which is very different from some young men i could mention. i had put on my blue dress, and i knew quite well that he admired it and me, and that put me in such good spirits that i was quite sparkling and witty. he stayed talking to us until after nine, when he had to go downstairs to write some letters. "thank goodness! i thought he would never go. what a bore he is!" lorna said, when the door closed behind him. i didn't feel like that at all, but i disguised my feelings, and told her the details and the adventures of the last three months, and about vere, and the house, and my own private tribulations, and she sympathised and looked at everything from my point of view, in the nice, unprejudiced way friends have. it was very soothing, and i could have gone on for a long time, but it was only polite to return the compliment, so i said-- "now we must talk about you! you said in your last letter that you had many troubles of which you could not write. poor, sweet thing, tell me about them! begin at the beginning. what do you consider your very greatest trial?" lorna pondered. she is dark and slight, and wears her hair parted in the middle, and puffed out at the sides in a quaint fashion that just suits her style. she wrinkled her brows, and stared into space in a rapt, melancholy fashion. "i think," she said, slowly, at last, "i think it is the drawing-room!" i was surprised, but still not surprised, for the drawing-room is awful! big and square, and filled with heavy furniture, and a perfect shopful of ugly ornaments and bead mats, and little tables, and milking-stools, and tambourines, and bannerettes, and all the kind of things that were considered lovely ages ago, but which no self-respecting girl of our age could possibly endure. lorna told me thrilling tales of her experience with that room. "when i first came home, mother saw that i didn't like it, so she said she knew quite well that she was old-fashioned and behind the times, and now that she had a grown-up daughter she would leave the arrangement of such things to her, and i could alter the room as much as ever i liked. so, my dear, i made mary bring the biggest tray in the house, and i filled it three times over with gimcracks of all descriptions, and sent them up to the box-room cupboard. i kept about three tables instead of seven, with really nice things on them, and left a good sweep of floor on which you could walk about without knocking things down. i pulled out the piano from the wall, and lowered the pictures, and gathered all the old china together, and put it on the chimney-piece, and--and--oh, i can't tell you all the alterations, but you would hardly have known it for the same room! it looked quite decent. when all was finished, i sent for mother, and she came in and sat down, and, my dear, she turned quite white! she kept looking round and round, searching for things where she had been accustomed to find them, and she looked as if something hurt her. i asked her if she didn't like it, and she said-- "`oh, yes, it looks much more--more modern. yes, dear, you have been very clever. it is quite--smart! a little bare, isn't it--just a little bare, don't you think?' "`no, mother,' i said sternly, `not the least little bit in the world! it seems so to you because you have had it so crowded that there was no room to move, but you will soon get accustomed to the room as it is, and like it far better.' "`yes, dear,' she said meekly, `of--of course. i'm sure you are quite right,' and will you believe it, una, she went straight into her own room, and cried! i know she did, for i saw the marks on her face later on, and taxed her with it. she was very apologetic, but she said the little table with the gold legs had been father's first gift to her after they were married, and she couldn't bear to have it put aside; and the ivory basket under the glass shade had come from the first french exhibition, and she had worked those bead bannerettes herself when i was teething, and threatened with convulsions, and she did not dare to leave the house. of course, i felt a wretch, and hugged her, and said-- "`why didn't you say so before? we will bring them back at once, and put them where they were; but you have not tender associations with all the things. you did not work that hideous patchwork cushion, for instance, and--' "`no, but aunt mary ryley did,' she cried eagerly, `and it is made out of pieces of all the dresses we wore when we were girls together. i often look at it and remember the happy times i had in the grey poplin and the puce silk.' "so, of course, the cushion had to come back too, and by the end of a week every single thing was taken out of the cupboard, and put in its former place! they _all_ had memories, and mother loved the memories, and cared nothing for the appearance. i was sweet about it. i wouldn't say so to anyone but you, una, but i really was quite angelic, until one day when amy reeve came to call. she was staying with some friends a few miles off, and drove in to see me. you know how inquisitive amy is, and how she stares, and takes in everything, and quizzes it afterwards? well, my dear, she sat there, and her eyes simply roved round and round the whole time, until she must have known the furniture by heart. i suffered," sighed lorna plaintively, "i suffered _anguish_! i wouldn't have minded anyone else so much--but amy!" i said, (properly), that amy was a snob and an idiot, and that it mattered less than nothing what she thought, but all the time i knew that i should have felt humiliated myself, and lorna knew it, too, but was not vexed with me for pretending the contrary, for it is only right to set a good example. "of course," she said, "one ought to be above such petty trials. if a friendship hangs upon chiffoniers and bead mats, it can't be worth keeping. i have told myself so ever since, but human nature is hard to kill, and i _should_ have liked the house to look nice when amy called! i despise myself for it, but i foresee that that room is going to be a continual trial. its ugliness weighs upon me, and i feel self-conscious and uncomfortable every time my friends come to call, but i am not going to attempt any more changes. i wouldn't make the dear old mother cry again for fifty drawing-rooms!" i thought it was sweet of her to talk like that, and wanted so badly to find a way out of the difficulty. i always feel there must be a way, and if one only thinks long enough it can generally be found. i sat plunged in thought, and at last the inspiration came. "didn't you say this room was your own to do with as you liked?" "yes; mother said i could have it for my den. nobody uses it now; but, una, it is hideous, too!" "but it might be made pretty! it is small, and wouldn't take much furnishing. you could pick up a few odds and ends from other rooms that would not be missed." "oh, yes, mother wouldn't mind that, and the green felting on the floor is quite nice and new; but the paint, and the paper-saffron roses--and gold skriggles--and a light oak door! how could you possibly make anything look artistic against such a background?" "you couldn't, and it wouldn't be much fun if you could. i've thought of something far more exciting. lorna, let us paper and paint it ourselves! let us go to town to-morrow, and choose the very, very most artistic and up-to-date paper that can be bought, and buy some tins of enamel, and turn workmen every morning. oh, do! i should love it; and you were saying only an hour ago that you did not know how to amuse me in the mornings. if we did the room together you would always associate me with it, and i should feel as if it were partly mine, and be able to imagine just where you were sitting. oh, do, lorna! it would be such ripping sport!" she didn't speak for a good half-minute, but just sat staring up in ecstasy of joy. "you angel!" she cried at last. "you simple duck! how can you think of such lovely plans? oh, una, how have i lived without you all these months? of course, i'll do it. i'd love to! i am never happier than when i am wrapped up in an apron with a brush in my hand. i've enamelled things before now, but never hung a paper. do you really think we could?" "of course! if the british workman can do it, there can't be much skill required, and we with our trained intelligence will soon overcome any difficulty," i said grandiloquently. "all we want is a pot of paste, and a pair of big scissors, and a table to lay the strips of paper on. i've seen it done scores of times." "so have i," said lorna. "and doesn't the paste smell! i expect, what with that and the enamel, we shall have no appetites left. it will spoil our complexions, too, very likely, and make us pale and sallow, but that doesn't matter." i thought it mattered a good deal. it was all very well for her, but she wasn't staying with a friend who had an interesting grown-up brother. even the finest natures can be inconsiderate sometimes. chapter sixteen. _september rd_. the next morning we went to a paperhanger's shop and asked to see the very newest and most artistic designs in stock. there were lots of lovely things, but after great discussion we decided on a thick white paper, perfectly plain, except in each corner of the room, where there was a sort of conventional rose tree, growing up about seven feet high, with outstanding branches laden with the most exquisite pink roses. the white of the background was partly tinged with blue, with here and there a soft, irregular blue like a cloud. looking up suddenly, you might imagine you were in the open air in the midst of a rose garden, and that would be a very pleasant delusion in onslow square. the salesman asked how many pieces he should send, and whether we wished it hung at once. when i said we intended to hang it ourselves, he said-- "oh, indeed, madam!" and looked unutterable things. we were so quelled that we did not dare to ask him about the enamel and paste as we intended, but bought those at a modest little shop further on, and went home rejoicing. mrs forbes had laughed and shaken all over in the most jovial manner when we told her of our plans, but she didn't approve of the white paper and paint, because, forsooth, it would get soiled. of course it would get soiled! things always do sooner or later. old people are so dreadfully prudent that they get no pleasure out of life. when this paper is shabby lorna can get a new one, or she may be married, or dead, or half a dozen different things. it's absurd to plan years ahead. i cheered up poor lorna, who is of a sensitive nature and easily depressed, and when she recovered asked what she thought we ought to do next. "the first thing to settle," she said decidedly, "is midas! he can help us in a dozen ways if he will, for he is really wonderfully handy for a boy of his age. he will do nothing unless we consult him formally, and make a definite business arrangement, but it pleases him and won't hurt us, as it will be only a few coppers. he is saving up for a motor-car at the present moment, and wallace says that by steady attention to business he really believes he will get one by the time he is sixty." we called midas in and consulted him professionally. he is tall and lanky, and has pale blue eyes with long light eyelashes. you would think to look at him that he was a gentle, unworldly creature, addicted to poetry, but he isn't! he sat astride the table and viewed the landscape o'er. "the first thing will be to take every stick of furniture out of the room, and have the carpet up. i know what girls are when they do jobs of this kind. you will be up to your eyes in paste, and it won't be safe to leave anything within touching distance. the furniture must be removed and stored. i'll store it for you in my room. then you'll need a ladder, and some planks for the lengths of paper to lie on, while you paste 'em. i'll hire you the old shutter from the drawing-room." "the shutters are as much mine as yours," said lorna. "i don't need to hire them; i can have them if i want!" "that's where you show your ignorance, my dear. they are in my possession, and i won't give them up without compensation. then you'll need a man to assist in the hanging!" "say a boy at once, and name your price, and be done with it. you are a regular shylock!" midas grinned as if pleased with the compliment, drew a pocket-book and a stubby end of a pencil from his pocket, and began alternately stroking his chin and jotting down words and figures. lorna grimaced at me behind his back, but kept a stern expression for his benefit. i suppose she knew that if he saw her smile prices would go up. presently he drew a line, tore the leaf out of the book and handed it across with a bow. "my estimate, ladies! it is always more satisfactory to have an agreement beforehand." i peeped over lorna's shoulder and read-- estimate for proposed renovations. +==========================================+=+=+ |to removal of furniture | | | +------------------------------------------+-+-+ |storage of same at rate of pence per day| | | +------------------------------------------+-+-+ |restoration of same | | | +------------------------------------------+-+-+ |impliments | | | +------------------------------------------+-+-+ |man's time | | | +------------------------------------------+-+-+ |sundrys | | | +------------------------------------------+-+-+ | | | | +==========================================+=+=+ it was quite a formidable total, but lorna was evidently accustomed to extortionate demands, and began beating him down without delay. "well, of all the outrageous pieces of impudence! seven and ninepence, indeed! you must have taken leave of your senses. if you think i am going to pay you four or five shillings for carrying a few odds and ends of furniture along the passage, you are mightily mistaken! and we should have to help you, too, for you couldn't manage alone. if we asked wallace he'd do it at once, without any pay at all." "drink to me only with thine eyes!" chanted the little wretch, folding his arms and gazing fixedly at me with a life-like assumption of wallace's attitude and expression, which sent lorna into fits of laughter, and made me magenta with embarrassment. "if you like to wait until wallace has time to run your errands and see you through your difficulties, you will get your room finished by christmas--with luck! i am sorry you think my charges high, but i'm afraid i don't see my way to reduce 'em." "midas, don't be a goose! we will pay you twopence an hour for your time, and twopence a day for storage--that's the limit. that disposes of the first four items. as for the rest, we had better understand each other before we go any further. kindly distinguish between implements and sundries." "is this an oxford local, or is it a conversation between a brother and sister?" midas demanded, throwing back his head, and mutely appealing to an unseen arbiter in the corner of the ceiling. "if you can't understand a simple thing like that, it doesn't say much for your education. it is easily seen _you_ were never a plumber! i thought we were going to come to a friendly agreement, but you are so close and grasping, there is no dealing with you. look here, will you give me half-a-crown for the job?" i gasped with surprise at this sudden and sweeping reduction of terms, but lorna said calmly-- "done! a halfpenny discount if paid within the hour!" and they shook hands with mutual satisfaction. "cheap at the price!" was lorna's comment, as the contractor left the room, and before the next few days were over i heartily agreed with this opinion. midas was an ideal workman, grudging neither time nor pains to accomplish his task in a satisfactory manner. his long arms and strong wrists made light of what would have been heavy tasks for us, and the dirtier he grew the more he enjoyed it. it must be dreadful to live in a town! lorna assured me plaintively that the room had been thoroughly spring-cleaned at easter, but i should have thought it had happened nearer the flood. i swallowed pecks of dust, and my hands grew raw with washing before we began to paint. i thought we should never have finished enamelling that room. the first coat made hardly any impression on the background, and we had to go over it again and again before we got anything like a good effect. to a casual observer it looked really very nice, but we knew where to look for shortcomings, and i grew hot whenever anyone looked at a certain panel in the door. then we set to work on the paper. first you cut it into lengths. it seems quite easy, but it isn't, because you waste yards making the patterns meet, and then you haven't enough, and you go into town to buy more, and they haven't it in stock, and it has to be ordered, and you sit and champ, and can't get any further. then you make the paste. it smells horrid, and do what you will, cover yourself as best you can, it gets up to the eyes! we wore two old holland skirts of lorna's, quite short and trig, and washing shirts, and huge print wrappers; but before we had been working for an hour our fingers were glued together; then we yawned or sneezed and put our hands to our faces, and _they_ were stickied. then bits of hair--"tendrils" as they call them in books--fell down, and we fastened them up, and our hair got as bad. we were spectacles! a kettle was kept on the hob, and we were continually bathing our hands in hot water, for, of course, we dared not touch the outside of the paper unless they were quite clean, and the table wanted washing before each fresh strip was laid down, as the paste had always oozed off the edges of the last piece. there is one thing sure and certain: i shall never take up paper-hanging as a profession. the hanging itself is really rather exciting. midas climbed to the top of the ladder and held the top of the strip in position; lorna crouched beneath, and guided it in the way it should go, so as to meet the edge of the one before, and i stood on a chair and smoothed it down and down with a clean white cloth. doing it with great care like this, we got no wrinkles at all, and when the first side of the room was finished, it looked so professional that we danced--literally danced--for joy. by the end of the afternoon it was done, and so were we! simply so tired we could hardly stand, but mentally we were full of triumph, for that room was a picture to behold. we ran out into the passage and brought in everyone we could find, servants and charwoman included. then they made remarks, and we stood and listened. the cook said, "my, miss lorna, wouldn't the pattern go round?" the charwoman said, "i like a bit of gilding meself. it looks 'andsome." the parlourmaid said, "how will the furniture look against it, miss?" which was really the nastiest hit of all; only the little tweeny stared and flushed, and rolled her hands in her apron, and said, "all them roses on the wall! it would be like a bank-'oliday to sit aside 'em!" tweeny has the soul of a poet. i bought her some flowers the very next time i went out. wallace came in and twiddled his moustache, and said-- "by jove, is it really done! aren't you dead beat? i say, miss sackville, don't do any more to-day. it's too bad of lorna to work you like this. i shall interfere in my professional capacity." he was far too much engrossed in una sackville to have any eyes for the paper. mrs forbes thought, like the cook, that it was a pity that the pattern didn't go round; and the dear old doctor tip-toed up and down, jingled the money in his pockets, and said-- "eh, what? eh, what? something quite novel, eh! didn't go in for things of this sort in my young days. very smart indeed, my dear, very smart! now i suppose you will be wanting some new fixings," (his hand came slowly out of his waistcoat pocket, and my hopes ran mountains high). "mustn't spoil the ship for a penn'orth of tar, you know. there, that will help to buy a few odds and ends." he put something into lorna's hand; she looked at it, flushed red with delight, and hugged him rapturously round the neck. after he had gone she showed it to me with an air of triumph, and it was--half-a- sovereign! i expected several pounds, and had hard work not to show my disappointment, but i suppose ten shillings means as much to lorna as ten pounds to me. well, i am not at all sure that you don't get more fun out of planning and contriving to make a little money go a long way, than in simply going to a shop and ordering what you want. lorna's worldly wealth amounted, with the half-sovereign, to seventeen and six- pence, and with this lordly sum for capital we set to work to transform the room. chapter seventeen. i have told all our experiences in papering the room together, because they seemed to come better that way; but, of course, lots of other things have been happening at the same time. one evening we went to a concert, and another time some friends came in after dinner, and we played games and had music. i sang a great deal, and everyone seemed to like listening, and my dress was the prettiest in the room, and all the men wanted to talk to me, and it was most agreeable. on sunday we went to an ugly town church, but the vicar had a fine, good face, and i liked his sermon. he seemed to believe in you, and expect you to do great things, and that is always inspiring. some clergymen keep telling you how bad you are, and personally that puts my back up, and i begin to think i am not half so black as i am painted; but when this dear man took for granted that you were unselfish and diligent, and deeply in earnest about good things, i felt first ashamed, and then eager to try again, and fight the sins that do so terribly easily beset me. i sang the last hymn in a sort of fervour, and came out into the cool night air, positively longing for a battle in which i could win my spurs, and oh dear, dear, in ten minutes' time, before we were half-way home, i was flirting with wallace, and talking of frivolous worldly subjects, as if i had never had a serious thought in my life! it's so terribly hard to remember, and keep on remembering when one is young, but god must surely understand. i don't think he will be angry. he knows that deep, deep down i want most of all to be good! wallace is nice and kind and clever, and i like him to like me, but i could never by any possibility like him--seriously, i mean! i can't tell why; it's just one of the mysterious things that comes by instinct when you grow up to be a woman. there is a great gulf thousands of miles wide between the man you just like and the man you could love; but sometimes the man you could love doesn't want you, and it is wrong even to think of him, and then it's a temptation to be extra nice to the other one, because his devotion soothes your wounded feelings. i suppose miss bruce would call it love of admiration, and wish me to snub the poor fellow, and keep him at arm's length, but i don't see why i should. it would be conceited to take for granted that he was seriously in love, and i don't see why i shouldn't enjoy myself when i get a chance. it's only fun, of course, but i do enjoy playing off little experiments upon wallace, to test my power over him, and then to watch the result! for example, at lunch-time i express a casual wish for a certain thing, and before four o'clock it is in my possession; or i show an interest in an entertainment, and tickets appear as if by magic. it is quite exciting. i feel as if i were playing a thrilling new game. the room is almost furnished, and it looks sweet. one can hardly believe it is the same dreary little den that i saw on that first evening. we stole, (by kind permission), one or two chairs, a writing- table, and a dear little indian cabinet from the overcrowded drawing- room, and with some help from midas manufactured the most scrumptious cosy-corner out of old packing-cases and cushions covered with rose- coloured brocade. we put a deep frill of the same material, mounted on a thin brass rail, on the wall above the mantelpiece, and arranged lorna's best ornaments and nick-nacks against this becoming background. it did not seem quite appropriate to the garden idea to hang pictures on the walls, which is just as well, as she hasn't got any, but i bought her a tall green pedestal and flower-pot and a big branching palm as my contribution to the room, and as she says, "it gives the final touch of luxury to the whole." i could wish for a new fender and fire-irons, and a few decent rugs, but you can't have everything in this wicked world, and really, at night when the lamp-light sends a rosy glow through the newly-covered shade, (only muslin, but it looks like silk!) you could not wish to see a prettier room. lorna is awfully sweet about it. she said to me, "it was your idea, una. i shall always feel that it was your gift, and every pleasant hour i spend here will be another link in the chain which binds us together. this visit of yours will be memorable, in more ways than one!" and she looked at me in a meaning fashion which i hated. how more ways than one, pray? i hope to goodness she is not getting any foolish notions in her head. she might know me better by this time. i don't know why it is, but i am always depressed after a letter from home. mother reports that there is no improvement in vere's health, and that her spirits are variable--sometimes low, sometimes quite bright and hopeful. mr dudley is very good in coming to see her, and his visits always cheer her up. he asked after me last time, hoped that i was enjoying myself and would not hurry back. i am not wanted there apparently, and here they all love having me, and implore me to stay on. i wasn't sure if i wanted to, but i've decided that i will since that last letter arrived. i told mrs forbes this morning that i would stay a fortnight longer, and she kissed me and looked quite unreasonably relieved. i can't see how it matters much to her! such a curious thing happened that night, when wallace and i were talking about books, and discussing the heroine in a novel which he had given me to read. "did she remind you of anyone?" he asked, and when i said "no," "why, she is you to the life! appearance, manner, character--everything. it might have been meant for a portrait," he declared. "i was reading it over last night, and the likeness is extraordinary." i privately determined to read the book over again on the first opportunity to discover what i seemed like to other people. the heroine is supposed to be very pretty and charming, but personally i had thought her rather silly, so i did not know whether to feel complimented or not. i determined to introduce the subject to lorna, and see if she could throw any light upon it, and she did! more light than i appreciated! "oh, i liked nan very well," she said, "but not nearly so much as wallace did. he simply raved about her and declared that if he ever met a girl like that in real life he should fall desperately in love with her on the spot. she is his ideal of everything that a girl should be." "oh!" i said blankly. for a moment i felt inclined to tell lorna everything, but something stopped me, and i am thankful that it did. it would be so horrid to feel she was watching all the time. for once in my life i was glad when she went away, and i was left alone to think. "desperately in love!" can wallace really be that, and with me? it makes me go hot and cold just to think of it, and my heart thumps with agitation. i don't feel happy exactly, but very excited and important. i have such a lonely feeling sometimes, and i do so long for someone to love me best of all. at home, though they are all kind enough, i am always second fiddle, if not third, and it is nice to be appreciated! i could never care for wallace in that way, but i like him to like me. it makes things interesting, and i was feeling very flat and dejected, and in need of something to cheer me up. of course, i don't want to do anything wrong, but wallace is so young, only twenty-four, and has no money, so he couldn't think of being married or anything silly like that; besides, i've heard it is good for boys to have a fancy for a nice girl--it keeps them steady. in any case, i have promised to stay on for another fortnight, and i couldn't alter my mind and go away now without making a fuss, and if i stay i can't be disagreeable, so i must just behave as if lorna had never repeated that stupid remark. i dare say, if the truth were known, wallace has fancied himself in love with half-a-dozen girls before now, and it would be ridiculous of me to imagine anything serious. anyway, i don't care. i have thought of nothing but other people for months back, and they don't seem to miss me a bit, but only hope i won't hurry back. i'm tired of it. now i am going to enjoy myself, and i don't care what happens! chapter eighteen. it is ten days since i wrote anything in this diary, and to-night, when i opened it in my misery, hoping to find some comfort in writing down my thoughts, the first thing that met my eyes were those dreadful words, "i am going to enjoy myself, and i don't care what happens." enjoy myself, indeed! i have never been so miserable in my life. i never knew before what misery meant, even on that awful night of the fire, when we didn't know whether vere would live or die. troubles with which one has nothing to do, which come, as it were, straight from god, can never make one feel like this. there is no remorse in them, and no guilt, and no burning, intolerable shame. what would miss bruce think of her pupil now? what would father think? what would rachel--"the best woman in the world"--think of me to-night? i am going to make myself write it all down, and then, if i ever try to gloss it over to myself or others in the future, this written account will be here to give me the lie. here it is, then, bold and plain-- "i have broken a man's heart for the sake of a little fun and excitement for myself, and as a sop to my wounded vanity!" it makes me shiver to read the words, for i did not realise the full meanness of what i was doing until the end came, and i woke with a shock to see myself as i really am. all these last ten days i have been acting a part to myself as well as to others, pretending to be unconscious of danger, but i knew--oh, i knew perfectly well! i think a girl must always know when a man loves her. i knew it by the tone of wallace's voice, by the light in his eyes, by the change which came over his looks and manner the moment i appeared. it was like a game, a horrible new game which fascinated me against my will, and i could not bear to end it. every night when i said my prayers i determined to turn over a new leaf next day, but when the next day came i put on my prettiest clothes and did my hair the way he liked it best, and sang his favourite songs, and was all smiles and sweetness. oh, what a pharisee i am! in this very book i have denounced vere for her flirtations and greed of admiration, and then i have succumbed to the very first temptation, without so much as a struggle. i shall never, never be able to hold up my head again. i feel too contemptible to live. last night things came to a crisis. wallace and lorna and i went to a party given by some intimate family friends. wallace had asked me in the morning what colour i was going to wear, and just before dinner he came into the drawing-room and presented me with a spray of the most lovely pink roses. i think he expected to find me alone, but the whole family was assembled, and it was most embarrassing to see how seriously they took it. at home we have loads of flowers in the conservatories, but sometimes one of vere's admirers sends her a lot of early violets, or lilies of the valley, great huge boxes which must cost a small fortune, but no one thinks anything of it, or pays any attention beyond a casual remark. here, however, it was different. "roses!" ejaculated lorna, in a tone of awe-stricken astonishment. midas whistled softly, and mrs forbes looked first at wallace and then at me--in a wistful, anxious kind of way, which made me feel inclined to run home on the spot. i determined to make some excuse and depart suddenly some day soon, while wallace was out on his rounds, but it was too late. i was not allowed to escape so easily as that. during the evening wallace took me into the conservatory to see the flowers, and it was not my fault that everyone went out and left us alone. i tried to be cold and chilling, but that only made him anxious to discover what was wrong. "it is my fault! i know quite well it is my fault," he cried, bending over me, his face so drawn and puckered with anxiety that he looked quite old. "i am a stupid, blundering fellow, and you have been an angel to be so sweet and forbearing. i am not fit to come near you, but i would rather cut off my right hand than hurt you in any way. you know that, don't you, una?" he had never called me una before, and he looked so different from the calm, complacent youth i had known a few weeks before--so much older and more formidable, that it was difficult to believe it could be the same person. i was frightened, but tried hard to appear cool and self- possessed. "i am not vexed at all. on the contrary, i am enjoying myself very much. the flowers are lovely. i always--" it was no use. he seized my hand, and cried pleadingly-- "don't put me off, una; don't trifle with me. it's too serious for that. you are cold to me to-night, and it has come to this, that i cannot live when you are not kind. what has changed you since this afternoon? were you vexed with me for bringing you those roses?" "not in the least, so far as i am concerned; but your people seemed astonished. it made me feel a little awkward." he looked at once relieved and puzzled. "but they know!" he cried. "they know quite well. they would not be astonished at my giving you anything. has lorna never told you that she knows?" "i really fail to understand what there is to know," i said, sitting up very straight and stiff, looking as haughty and unapproachable as i possibly could. it was coming very close. i knew it, though i never had the experience before, and i would have given anything in the world to escape. oh, how can girls like to have proposals from men whom they don't mean to accept? how can they bring themselves to boast of them as if they were a triumph and a pride? i never felt so humiliated in my life as i did when i sat there and listened to wallace's wild words. "what is there to know? only that i love you with all my heart and strength--that i have loved you ever since the moment i first saw your sweet face. you did not seem like a stranger, for i had been waiting for you all my life. oh, una, these few weeks have been like a dream of happiness. i never knew what it was to live before. you are so--" i haven't the heart to repeat all the praises the poor fellow lavished upon me while i sat listening in an agony of shame, feeling more and more miserable every moment, as i realised that, in spite of his agitation, he was by no means despondent as to the result of his wooing. he seemed more anxious to assure me of his devotion than to question me about mine, as if he imagined that my coldness was caused by pique or jealousy. i drew away my hands, and tried to stop him by vague murmurs of dissent, but it was no use, he only became more eager and determined. "we all love you, una. my mother thinks you the most charming girl she has ever met. she was speaking of you to me only last night; she feels naturally a little sad, poor mother! to know that she is no longer the first consideration to her boy, but she quite understands. and the pater, too--he is in love with you himself. who could help it, darling?" "oh, stop, stop! i can't bear it. you must not talk like that," i cried desperately. "you are taking everything for granted, and it is impossible, quite impossible. i don't want to marry anyone. i'm too young. i must wait for years before i can even think of such a thing." he looked actually relieved, instead of disappointed, as my words evidently removed one big difficulty from his path. "i couldn't ask you to marry me yet, dearest. i have my way to make, and could not provide a home that would be worthy of you for some years to come; but as you say, we are both young, and can afford to wait; and oh, una, i could work like ten men with such a prospect to inspire me. i will get on for your sake; it is in me, i know it is--i shall succeed!" "i hope you may, i'm sure," i said, nearly crying with agitation and misery. "but you must not think of me. i have nothing to do with it. i like you very much, but i couldn't marry you now or ever--i never thought of such a thing--it's quite impossible. you must, please, please, never speak of it again!" even then he wouldn't understand, but preferred to think that i was shy, nervous, coy--anything rather than simply and absolutely truthful. he began again in a humble, pleading voice, which tore my heart. "i know it seems presumption to ask so much. i am an insignificant nobody, and you might marry anyone you liked. in every sense of the word but one i am a wretched match for you, but love counts for something, and you will never find anyone to love you more. i'd give my very life to serve you, and i will give it, if you will trust yourself to me! my father was no older than i am when he became engaged, and he told me only the other day that he looked back on that hour as the beginning of his success. he would be glad to see me engaged also." "have you spoken about me to him, then, as well as to your mother?" i demanded testily. i felt so guilty about my own conduct that it was a relief to be able to find fault with someone else, and i worked myself up into quite a show of indignation. "you must have made very sure of my answer to be ready to discuss me in such a general fashion. it would have been more courteous to wait until you had my permission. you have placed us both in a most awkward position, for, as i said before, i could never marry you. it is quite impossible. i like you very much, but not in that way. let us be friends, and forget everything else. we were so happy as we were--it is such a pity to spoil it all like this." "spoil it!" he repeated blankly. he had grown quite white while i was speaking, and his eyes had a dazed, startled expression. "does it spoil things for you, una, to know that i love you? but you have known that for a long time--everyone in the house found it out, and you could not have helped seeing it, too. you say i have made too sure of you. forgive me, darling, but if i have done so it is only because i know you are too sweet and good to encourage a man when there was no hope. i am more sorry than i can say if i have annoyed you by speaking to my parents, but the mater naturally spoke to me when she saw how things were going, and i had to consult my father about ways and means. una, darling, you don't mean it. you can't mean to break my heart after leading me on all these weeks?" "i never led you on!" i cried vainly. "i was only nice to you as i would have been to anyone else. i knew you liked me; but everyone who is kind and attentive does not want to marry one as a matter of course. it would be horrid to expect it. lorna is my friend, and you are her brother, so of course--" he looked me full in the face and said slowly-- "it will be difficult to believe--but if you will tell me just once quite simply and plainly, i will take your word, una. don't protest, please--tell me truthfully, once for all: did you, or did you not, know i loved you with all my heart?" i wanted to say "no." in a sense i could have said it truthfully enough, for i had no definite knowledge, but i remembered what lorna had told me about the heroine in the novel; i remembered mrs forbes's wistful manner, and oh, a dozen little incidents too small to be written down, when wallace's own manner had told the truth only too plainly. he was staring at me, poor boy, with his wan, miserable eyes, and i could not tell a lie. i began to cry in a feeble, helpless kind of way, and faltered out, "i--i thought you did, but i couldn't be sure. you know i couldn't be sure, and it was only for a little while! i am going home so soon that i didn't think it could matter." he leant forward, leaning his head on his hands. "shall i tell you how much it matters?" he asked huskily. "it matters just this, that you have spoilt my life! there was not a happier, more contented fellow living than i was--before you came. i loved my work, and loved my home. i intended to succeed in my profession, and the future was full of interest. i would not have changed places with any man on earth. now!" he held out his right hand and snapped his fingers expressively, "it is over; the zest is out of it all if you are not there. if i had met you anywhere else it might have been easier, but you have come right into the middle of my life, and if i would i shall not be able to forget you. every morning when i come down to breakfast i shall look across the table and imagine you sitting facing me; i shall see you wherever i go--like a ghost--in every room in the house, in everything i do. that is the price i have to pay for your amusement. you have made a fool of me, you whom i thought the type of everything that was true and womanly. you knew that i loved you, but it didn't matter to you what i suffered. you were going home soon--you would not see it. it didn't matter!" "no, no, no!" i cried in agony. "it isn't true. i am bad enough, but not a heartless monster. i will tell you the whole truth. i was miserable myself when i came here; ill and tired out, and sore because-- because they didn't care for me at home as much as i wanted. i always want people to like me. i did at school--lorna will tell you that i did; and when you were nice to me it cheered me up, and made me happy again. i never dreamt that it was serious until a little time ago--last week--and even then i did not think you could possibly want to marry me--you were too young--you had no home--" "no, that is true. i am no match for miss sackville. i was a fool to forget it. thank you for reminding me," he interrupted bitterly. poor boy--oh, poor boy, he looked so miserable--it made me ache to see his white, changed face. he looked so handsome, too; so much more of a man than he had ever done before. i looked at him and wondered why it was that i could not care for him as he wished. had i been too hasty in deciding that it was impossible? he wanted me, and no one else did; and it would be nice to be engaged and have someone to love me best of all. perhaps i should grow to love him too; i always do like people who like me; and lorna would be so pleased. she would be my real sister, and could come and stay with me in my own home. i was so upset and miserable, so stung by wallace's taunt about his poverty, that i was just in the mind to be reckless. his hand lay limply by his side, and in a sudden gush of tenderness and pity i slid my arm beneath it and said softly, "don't be cross with me! i never thought for one moment if you were poor or rich. that doesn't matter a bit. if i have made you miserable, i am miserable too. if you want me to be engaged to you--i will, and i'll try to like you. please, please do not look like that! if i promise it will be all right, and you will forgive me for being so thoughtless, won't you, wallace?" he turned his head and stared at me steadily. the anger died out of his face, but he looked dreadfully sad. "poor una," he said, "how little you understand! do you think i am such a cad as to accept such an offer as that? i love you and want you to be happy, not miserable as you would certainly be if you were engaged to a man you had to `try to like.' thank you for the offer all the same. it will comfort me a little to remember that at any rate you felt kindly towards me. it is no use saying any more. my dream is over, and i shall have to bear the awakening as well as i can. a fellow cannot expect to have everything his own way. i don't want to whine. shall we go back to the house?" "in a minute--one minute--only tell me first that you forgive me, and if there is nothing at all that i can do to help you, and show how wretchedly, wretchedly sorry i am!" "forgive you?" he repeated sadly. "i love you, una. i can forgive you, i expect, a good deal more easily than you will forgive yourself. yes, there is something you can do--if you ever discover that another poor fellow is in love with you--and you are the sort of girl whom men will love--remember me and spare him this experience. don't go on being `nice' to him. that kind of niceness is the worst form of cruelty." i hung my head and could not answer. to think that "that boy," as i had contemptuously called him, should have behaved in such a manly, generous fashion! i felt utterly ashamed and despicable. it was he who is a thousand times too good for me! chapter nineteen. we were very silent driving home in the brougham, and i refused to go into lorna's room, as i always did before going to bed, saying that i was too tired to talk. she looked anxious, but did not try to persuade me. i afterwards learnt that she went to wallace instead, and sat up with him for the greater part of the night. i lay wide awake tossing and crying until five o'clock, when i fell asleep, and did not wake until nine. lorna did not come to see me, and, though i dreaded her coming, i felt miserable because she stayed away. every single morning she had come into my room and hugged and kissed me, and we had walked down to breakfast arm-in-arm. she must have been very, very angry to omit that ceremony! i took a long time to dress, for i wanted wallace to be safely started on his rounds before appearing downstairs, and at last, just as i was feeling that i could not respectably linger another moment, the door opened, and there, at last, stood lorna. she had been crying dreadfully. i could see that at a glance, for the eyelids were swollen and puffy, just as they used to be the first morning after our return to school. mine were swollen, too, and we stood staring miserably at each other, but not approaching a step nearer, until at last she said coldly-- "mother sent me upstairs to ask if you would prefer to have your breakfast in bed. she thought you were not up." "oh, yes, i have been waiting. lorna, don't look at me like that!" i cried desperately. "i'm miserable too, and you ought not to turn against me--you are my friend." "wallace is my brother," said lorna simply. her lip quivered. "i sat up with him until four o'clock this morning. he has always been such a happy, cheerful boy. i did not know he could be so miserable. if you could have seen and heard him talk, you would have felt broken-hearted for him--even you!" "even you!" i repeated reproachfully. "am i a monster, lorna, that you talk to me like that? can't you understand that i feel a hundred times worse than you can possibly do? i never, never thought that when i was in trouble you would be the first person to turn against me." "neither did i. i have been too fond of you, una. i admired you so much, and was so proud of having you for my friend that i have been unjust to other people for your sake. i often took your part at school when i knew you were in the wrong, simply because i was afraid of making you angry. it was cowardly of me, and this is my reward! oh, una, you say you are sorry, but you knew it was coming! you are too clever not to have seen it long ago. if it had been another man i should have spoken out, but a brother is almost like oneself, so one can't interfere. but i hinted--you know i hinted, una--and i saw by your face that you understood. if you didn't care for him, why didn't you go home when it was first arranged? we all took it as a good sign when you agreed to stay on, and wallace was so happy about it. poor boy! he will never be happy again. he says he will go abroad, and father has been looking forward all these years to his help. it will break his heart if he loses wallace!" everyone was broken-hearted, it seemed, and they all blamed me, and said it was my fault. i felt inclined to jump out of the window, and put an end to it at once. i did turn towards it, and i must have looked pretty desperate, for lorna came forward quickly, and took hold of me by the arm. "come down and talk to mother. she is all alone, and she is old and will understand better than i do. oh, una, i shall always love you! i shan't be able to help it, whatever you have done. i didn't mean to be unkind, but i am--so--miserable!" i gripped her hand, but couldn't speak; we were both struggling not to cry all the way downstairs, and i couldn't eat any breakfast; i felt as if i could never eat again. mrs forbes came into the room just as i left the table, and lorna went out at once, as if by a previous arrangement. it was awful! mrs forbes looked so old and ill and worried, and she was so kind. i could have borne it better if she had been cross to me. "sit down, dear. come close to the fire, your hands feel cold," she said, pushing me gently into an easy chair, and poking the coals into a blaze. "you and i want a little talk to each other, i think, and we shall be quite uninterrupted here. my poor boy has told me of his disappointment, but, indeed, he did not need to tell me. i could see what had happened by his face. i am very disappointed, too. i thought he would have very different news to tell me, and i should have been very happy to welcome you as a daughter. we have known you by name for so many years that you did not seem like a stranger even when you first arrived, and we have been very happy together these five weeks--" "oh, very happy! i have had a lovely time. i shall never forget how happy i have been." she looked at me anxiously, her eyebrows knitted together. "then if you have been so happy, i do not see why-- let us speak out, dear, and understand each other thoroughly. my boy and i have always been close friends, and if i am to be of help or comfort to him now i must understand how this trouble has come about. wallace is not conceited--he has a very modest estimation of his own merits, but he seems to have expected a different answer. sometimes in these affairs young people misunderstand each other, and little sorenesses arise, which a few outspoken words can smooth away. if i could act as peacemaker between you two, i should be very thankful. my children's happiness is my first consideration nowadays. if there is anything i can do, just tell me honestly. speak out as you would to your own mother." but i had nothing to tell. i shook my head, and faltered nervously-- "no, there is nothing--we have had no quarrels. i like wallace very much, oh, very much indeed, but not--i could never--i couldn't be anything more than his friend." "is there then someone else whom you care for?" there were several people, but i couldn't exactly say so to her--it seemed so rude. wallace was a nice, kind boy, but he couldn't compare for interest with--jim carstairs, for instance, dear, silent, loyal, patient jim, who gives all, and asks nothing in return, or even jolly little mr nash, who is always happy and smiling, and trying to make other people happy. i like them both better than wallace, to say nothing of-- and then a picture rose before me of a tall, lean figure dressed in a tweed shooting-suit, of a sunburnt face, out of which looked blue eyes, which at one moment would twinkle with laughter, and at the next grow stern and grave and cold. they could soften, too, and look wonderfully tender. i had seen them like that just once or twice when he looked at me, and said, "una!" and at the remembrance, for some stupid reason the blood rushed to my face, and there i sat blushing, blushing, blushing, until my very ears tingled with heat. i said nothing, and mrs forbes said nothing, but looking up at the end of a horrid silence, i saw that her face had entirely changed in expression since i had seen it last. all the softness had left it; she looked the image of wounded dignity. "i understand! there is nothing more to say, then, except that if you were so very sure of your own feelings, i cannot understand how it is that you have allowed the matter to get this length. i am thankful to know that my boy's principles are strong enough to prevent his disappointment doing him any real harm. it might have been very different with many young men. at the best it is a hard thing for us to see his young life clouded, and you will understand that it is our duty to protect him from further suffering. you will not think me inhospitable if i suggest that your visit had better come to an end at once." my cheeks burnt. it was humiliation indeed to be told to go in that summary fashion, but i knew i deserved it, and i should have been thankful to leave that very moment. "i will go to-day. there is a train at one o'clock. i can send a telegram from the station, and tell mother i am coming. i will go up- stairs now and pack," i cried, and she never protested a bit, but said quite quietly that she would order a cab to take me to the station. talk about feeling small! i simply cringed as i went out of that room. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ the carriage was waiting for me at the station at the end of a miserable journey, but no one was in it. i had hoped that father would come to meet me. i could have spoken to him, and he would have understood. john said he was out for the day with a shooting-party, and when i reached the house another disappointment awaited me, for i was met by an announcement that mother also had been obliged to go out to keep an engagement. "she hopes to be home by five o'clock," said the servant. "miss vere and lady mary are in the blue sitting-room. mr dudley has just come to call." i had forgotten that lady mary was staying at the house, and it made me feel as if i were more superfluous than ever, for vere would not need me when she had her best friend at hand, and, somehow or other, will dudley was just the last person in the world i wanted to see just then. there was nothing for it, however; i had to go upstairs and stand the horrible ordeal of being cross-questioned about my unexpected return. "don't tell me it is an outbreak of small-pox!" cried lady mary, huddling back in her chair, and pretending to shudder at my approach. "that's the worst of staying in a doctor's house--you simply court infection! if it's anything interesting and becoming, you may kiss me as usual, but if it's small-pox or mumps, i implore you to keep at the other end of the room! i'm not sure that mumps wouldn't be the worse of the two. i can't endure to look fat!" "has lorna turned out a villain in disguise? have you quarrelled and bidden each other a tragic farewell?" asked vere laughingly. she looked thinner than ever, but her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes as bright as stars. as for will dudley, he stared at the pattern of the carpet, and his eyebrows twitched in the impatient way i know so well. i think he saw that i was really in trouble, and was vexed with the girls for teasing me. "thank you, everyone was quite well when i left. you need not be afraid of infection, and lorna is nicer than ever. we have certainly not quarrelled." "then why this thusness?" asked lady mary, and vere burst into a laugh. "scalps, babs, scalps! i see it all! my mind misgave me as soon as i heard of the fascinating wallace. and was it really so serious that you had to fly at a moment's notice?" i simply got up and marched out of the room. it was too much to bear. i sat in my own room all alone for over an hour, and hated everybody. oh, i _was_ miserable! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _ pm._ i have been thinking seriously over things, and have decided to put away this diary, and not write in it any more for six months or a year. it will be better so, for at present i am in such a wretched, unsettled state of mind that what i write would not be edifying, but only painful to read in time to come. i've been reading over the first few pages to-night, and they seem written by quite a different person--a happy, self-confident, complacent una, who felt perfectly satisfied of coming triumphantly through any and every situation. this una is a very crestfallen, humble-minded creature, who knows she has failed, and dreads failing again; but i want to be good, through it all i long to be good! o dear god, who loves me, and understands, take pity on me, and show me the way! chapter twenty. _june th._ to-day the first roses have opened in the garden, the rose-garden at the moat; for we came home two months ago, and are still luxuriating in the old haunts and the new rooms, which are as beautiful as money and mother's beautiful taste can make them. i felt a sort of rush of happiness as i buried my face in the cool, fragrant leaves, and, somehow or other, a longing came over me to unearth this old diary, and write the history of the year. it has been a long, long winter. we spent three months in bournemouth for vere's sake, taking her to london to see the specialist on our way home. he examined her carefully, and said that spinal troubles were slow affairs, that it was a great thing to keep up the general health, that he was glad we had been to bournemouth, and that no doubt the change home would also be beneficial. fresh air, fresh air--live as much in the fresh open air as possible during the summer-- then he stopped, and vere looked at him steadily, and said-- "you mean that i am worse?" "my dear young lady, you must not be despondent. hope on, hope ever! you can do more for yourself than any doctor. these things take time. one never knows when the turn may come," he said, reeling off the old phrases which we all knew so well--oh, so drearily well--by this time. vere closed her eyes and turned her head aside with the saddest, most pitiful little smile. she has been very good on the whole, poor dear, during the winter--less cynical and hard in manner, though she still refuses to speak of her illness, and shrinks with horror from anything like pity. the night after that doctor's visit i heard a muffled sound from her room next door to mine, and crept in to see what was wrong. she was sobbing to herself, great, gasping, heart-broken sobs, the sound of which haunt me to this day, and when i put my arms round her, instead of shaking me off, she clung to me with the energy of despair. "what is it, darling?" i asked, and she panted out broken sentences. "the doctor! i have been longing to see him; i thought i was better, that he would be pleased with my progress, but it's no use--i can see it is no use! he has no hope. i shall be like this all my life. babs, _think_ of it! i am twenty-three, and i may live until i am seventy-- upon this couch! oh, i shall go mad--i am going mad--i can't bear it a moment longer. the last ten months have seemed like a life-time, but if it goes on year after year; oh, babs, year after year until i am old--an old, old woman with grey hair and a wizened face, left alone, with no one to care for me! oh, yes, yes, i know what you would say, but father and mother will be dead, and you will be married in a home of your own, and spencer very likely at the other end of the world, and--" "and jim?" i asked quietly. "ah, poor jim! he must marry, too; it isn't fair to let him wreck his life. he does love me, poor fellow, but no one else does nowadays. men don't like invalids. they are sorry for them, and pity them. will dudley, for instance--he only comes to see me as a charity--because i am ill, and need amusing--" "he is engaged to another girl, vere. surely you don't want him to come for love?" she flushed a little, but her face set in the old defiant fashion, and she said obstinately-- "he would have loved me if i had been well! rachel greaves will never satisfy him. he cares for her as a sister rather than as a wife. if i were well again, and gay and bright as i used to be--" "he would care for you less than he does now. you don't understand, vere; but i am certain that mr dudley will never desert rachel for another girl. he may not be passionately in love with her, perhaps it is not his nature to be demonstrative, but he has an intense admiration for her character, and would rather die than disappoint her in any way." "you seem to know a great deal about it. how can you be sure that you understand him better than i do?" she asked sharply, and i could only say in reply-- "i don't know; but i _am_ sure! i think one understands some people by instinct, and he and i were friends from the moment we met. besides, i know rachel better than you do, and had more opportunity of watching her life at home. i say her life, but she has practically no life of her own--it is entirely given up for others. think what she gives up, vere! she could have been married years ago, and had a happy home of her own, but she won't leave her father, though he is so cross and disagreeable that most people would be thankful to get away. she has the dullest, most monotonous time one can imagine, and hardly ever sees will alone; but she is quite happy--not resigned, not forbearing nor any pretence like that, but really and truly and honestly happy. i call it splendid! there are lots of people in the world who have hard things to bear, and who bear them bravely enough, but they are not _happy_ in doing it. rachel is--that's the wonderful thing about her!" "i wonder if she could make me happy. i wonder if she could tell me how to like lying here!" said poor vere with a sob, and the idea must have grown in her mind, for a week after our return home she said suddenly, "i want to see rachel greaves!" and nothing would satisfy her but that she must be invited forthwith. rachel came. i had not seen her for some months, and i thought she looked thin and pale. as we went upstairs together our two figures were reflected in the big mirror on the first landing--one all grey and brown, the other all white, and pink, and gold. i felt ashamed and uncomfortable at the contrast in our appearance, but rachel didn't; not a bit! she just looked round at me, and beamed in the sweetest way, and said-- "you are more like a flower than ever, una! it _is_ nice to see you again!" and she meant it, every word. she really is too good to live! i took her to vere's room, and was going to leave them alone, but vere called me back, and made me stay. she said afterwards that she wanted me to hear what was said, so that i could remind her of anything which she forgot. there was only half an hour before tea, so vere lost no time in stupid trivialities. "i sent for you to come to see me, rachel, because i wanted particularly to ask you a question. i have been ill nearly a year now, and i get no better. i am beginning to fear i shall never get better, but have to be like this all my life. i have lain here with that thought to keep me company until i can bear it no longer. i feel sometimes as if i am going out of my senses. i must find something to help me, or it may really come to that in the end. i keep up pretty well during the day, for i hate being pitied, and that keeps me from breaking down in public; but the nights--the long, long endless nights! nobody knows what i endure in the nights! you are so good--everyone says you are so good-- tell me how to bear it and not mind! tell me what i am to do to grow patient and resigned!" "dear vere, i have never been tried as you are. i have had only one or two short illnesses in my life--i have never known the weariness and disappointment--" "no, but you have other trials. you have so much to bear, and it is so dull and wretched for you all the time," interrupted vere quickly, too much engrossed in her own affairs to realise that it was not the most polite thing in the world to denounce another girl's surroundings. as for rachel, she opened her eyes in purest amazement that anyone should imagine she needed pity. "i? oh, you are mistaken--quite, quite mistaken. i have the most happy home. everyone is good and kind to me; i have no troubles, except seeing dear father's sufferings; and so many blessings--so much to be thankful for!" "you mean your engagement? mr dudley is charming, and i am sure you are fond of him, but you can't be married while your father lives, and-- and--one never knows what may happen. suppose--changes came--" vere stopped short in the middle of her sentence, and, by a curious impulse, rachel turned suddenly and looked at me. our eyes met, and the expression in hers--the piteous, shrinking look--made me rush hotly into the breach. "you are talking nonsense, vere! you don't know mr dudley as rachel does. you don't understand his character." "no," said rachel proudly, "you don't understand. it is quite possible that we may never marry--many things might happen to prevent that, but will would never do anything that was mean and unworthy. the changes, whatever they were, could not affect my love for him, and it is that that makes my happiness--" "loving him! not his loving you! rachel, are you sure?" "oh, quite sure. think just for a moment, and you will see that it must be so. it is pleasant to be loved, but if you do not love in return you must still feel lonely and dissatisfied at heart. if you love, you care so much, so very, very much for the other's welfare, that there is simply no time left to remember yourself; or, if you did, what does it matter? what would anything matter so long as he were well and happy?" her face glowed with earnestness and enthusiasm--what a contrast from vere's fretful, restless expression, which always seems asking for something more, something she has not got, something she cannot even understand. even vere realised the difference, and her fingers closed over rachel's hand with an eloquent pressure. vere never does things by halves, and even her apologies are graceful and pretty. "ah, rachel," she said, "i see how foolish i was to expect you to answer my question in a few short words. we speak different languages, you and i, and i can't even understand your meaning. i wish i could, rachel--i wish i could! the old life is out of reach, and there is nothing left to take its place. can't you teach me your secret to help me along?" rachel flushed all over her face and neck. now that she was asked a direct question she was obliged to answer, but her voice was very shy and quiet, as if the subject were almost too sacred to be discussed. "i think the secret lies in the way we look at life--whether we want our own way, or are content to accept what god sends. if we love and trust him, we know that what he chooses must be best, and with that knowledge comes rest, and the end of the struggle--" "ah," sighed vere, "but it's not the end with me! i believe it, too, with my head, but when the pain comes on, and the sleepless nights, and the unbearable restlessness that is worst of all--i forget! i can't rest, i _can't_ trust, it is all blackness and darkness. i must be very wicked, for even when i try hardest i fail." "dear vere," said rachel softly, "don't be too hard on yourself! when people are tired and worn with suffering they are not responsible for all they say and do. i know that with my own dear father. when he is cross and unreasonable we are not angry, we understand and pity, and try to comfort him, and if we feel like that, poor imperfect creatures as we are, what must god be, who is the very heart of love! he is your kindest judge, dear, for he knows how hard it is to bear." "thank you!" whispered vere brokenly. she put her hand up to her face, and i could see her tremble. she could not bear any more agitation just then, so i signalled to rachel, and we gradually turned the conversation to ordinary topics. eventually will arrived, and we had tea and some rather strained small talk, for vere was quiet and absent-minded, and somehow or other will rarely speaks to me directly nowadays. he is always perfectly nice and polite, but he does avoid me. i don't think he likes me half as much as he did at first. how suddenly things happen in life! at the moment when you expect it least, the scene changes, and the whole future is changed. as we were sipping our tea and eating cakes, burrows, the parlourmaid, opened the door, and announced in her usual expressionless voice-- "if you please, marm, a messenger has come to request miss greaves to return home at once. mr greaves has had a sudden stroke--" we all stood up quickly, all save poor vere, who has to be still whatever happens. rachel turned very white, and will went up to her, and took her hand in his. he looked at me, and i guessed what he meant, and said quickly-- "the motor-car! it shall come round at once, and you will be home in five minutes. i'll go round to the stables!" i rushed off, thankful to be able to help, and to put off thinking as long as possible, but even as i ran the thought flew through my head. a stroke! that was serious--very serious in mr greaves's weakened condition. i could tell from burrows' manner that the message had been urgent. perhaps even now the end of the long suffering _was_ at hand-- the end of something else, too; of what had seemed an hour ago a practically hopeless engagement! chapter twenty one. _august th._ it is a long time since i opened this diary, for i have grown out of the habit of writing, and it is difficult to get into it again. mr greaves died the very night of his seizure, and immediately after his funeral mrs greaves collapsed and has been an invalid ever since. it seemed as if she had kept up to the very limit of her endurance, for as soon as the strain was over her nerves gave way in a rush, and instead of the gentle, self-controlled creature which she has been all her life, she is now just a bundle of fancies, tears and repinings. it is hard on rachel, but she bears it like an angel, and is always patient and amiable. i wondered at first if she and will would marry soon and take mrs greaves to live with them; i asked rachel about it one day when we were having a quiet chat, and she answered quite openly: "will wished it. he thought he could help me to cheer mother, but she won't hear of it for the next twelve months at least, and, of course, i must do as she prefers. we have waited so long that another year cannot make much difference." i wondered if will were of the same opinion, but did not dare to ask him. as i said before, he avoids me nowadays and does not seem to care to talk to me alone. perhaps it is better so, but i can't help being sorry. i have wondered sometimes if the dull, aching feeling which i have when he passes me by is anything like what poor wallace forbes felt about me. if it is, i am even more sorry for wallace than before. of course, i am not in love with will--i couldn't be, for he is engaged to rachel, and i have known it from the first, but i can't help thinking about him, and watching for him, and feeling happy if he comes, and wretched if he stays away. and i know his face by heart and just how it looks on every occasion. his eyes don't twinkle nearly so much as they did; he is graver altogether, except sometimes when i have a mad mood and set myself to make him frisky too. i can always succeed, but i don't try often, for i fancy rachel doesn't like it. she can't frisk herself, poor dear, and it must feel horrid to feel left out in the cold by your very own _fiance_. i should hate it myself. at the beginning of this month i had a great treat. lorna came to stay with me for three days. she was visiting a friend twenty miles off, and came here in the middle of her visit just for that short time, so that there need be no necessity for wallace to know anything about it. of course, she came with her parents' consent and approval, and oh, how thankful i was to see her and to look upon her coming as a sign that they were beginning to forgive me. of course we talked shoals about wallace, for i just longed to know how he was faring. "my dear, it was awful after you left--positively awful!" lorna said. "wallace went about looking like a ghost, and mother cried, and father was worried to death. wallace declared at first that he would go abroad, but father told him that it was cowardly to throw up his work for the sake of a disappointment, however bitter, and mother asked if he really cared so little for his parents that he could forsake them in their old age for the sake of a girl whom he had only known a month. he gave way at last, as i knew he would, and set to work harder than ever. he was very brave, poor old boy, and never broke down nor made any fuss, but he was so silent! you would not have known him. he never seemed to laugh, nor to joke, nor take any interest in what was going on, and the whole winter long he never once entered my little den, where we had had such happy times. i suppose it reminded him too much of you. this spring, however, he has been brighter. i insisted on his taking me to the tennis club as usual, and though he went at first for my sake he enjoys it now for his own. we meet so many friends, and he can't help being happy out in the sunshine with a lot of happy boys and girls all round. he was quite keen about the tournament, and had such a pretty partner. he always walked home with her after the matches." "how nice!" i said, and tried to be pleased and relieved, and succeeded only in feeling irritated and rubbed the wrong way. how mean it sounds! how selfish, and small, and contemptible! i just intend to _make_ myself feel glad, and to hope that wallace may see more and more of that pretty girl, and like her far better than me, and be right down thankful that i refused him. so now, una sackville, you know what is expected of you! vere liked lorna, and was amused to see us frisking about together. the afternoon before lorna left we were chasing each other round the room in some mad freak when, turning towards vere's couch, i thought i saw her head raised an inch or so from the pillow in her effort to follow our movements. my heart gave a great thud of excitement, but i couldn't be sure, so i took no notice, but took care to retire still further into the corner. then i looked round again, and, yes! it was perfectly true, her head was a good three inches from the couch, and she was smiling all the time, evidently quite free from pain. "oh, vere!" i cried; "oh, darling, darling vere!" and suddenly the tears rolled down my cheeks, and i trembled so that i could hardly stand. lorna could not think what had happened, neither could vere herself, and i tried hard to calm myself so as not to excite her too much. "you raised your head, vere! oh, ever so high you raised it! you were watching us, and forgot all about yourself, and it didn't hurt you a bit--you smiled all the time. try again if you don't believe me--try, darling. you can do it, if you like!" her breath came short with nervousness and agitation, but she clenched her hands and with a sudden effort her head and neck lifted themselves one, two, a good three or four inches from their support. oh, her face! the sight of it at that moment was almost enough to make up for those long months of anxiety. it was illuminated; it shone! all the weary lines and hollows disappeared, the colour rushed to her cheeks; it was the old, lovely, radiant vere, whom we had thought never to see again. i can't describe what we did next. mother came in and cried, father came in and clapped his hands, and asked mother what on earth she meant by crying, while the tears were rolling down his own dear old nose in the most barefaced manner all the time. i danced about the house and kissed everyone i met, and the servants cried and laughed, and the old family doctor was sent for and came in beaming and rubbing his hands with delight. he said it was a wonderful improvement, and the best possible augury of complete recovery, and that now the first step had been taken we could look forward to continuous improvement. oh, how happy we were! i don't think any of us slept much that night; we just lay awake and thanked god, and gloated over the glad news. all the next day vere's face shone with the same wonderful incredulous joy. hope had been very nearly dead for the last few months, and the sudden change from despair to practical certainty was too great to realise. it seemed as if she did not know how to be thankful enough. she said to me once-- "i am going to get well, babs, but i must never forget this experience! as long as i live i shall keep this couch in my bedroom, and when i have been selfish and worldly i shall lay down straight on my back as i have done all these months and stay there for an hour or two, just to make myself remember how much i have been spared, and how humble i ought to be. and if you ever see me forgetting and going back to the old thoughtless ways, you must remind me, babs; you must speak straight out and stop me in time. i want to look back on this illness and feel that it has been the turning-point in my life." later on the same day she said suddenly-- "i want jim! please send for jim." and when he came, rushing on the wings of the express next day, she was so sweet and kind to him that the poor fellow did not know whether he was standing on his head or his heels. it was characteristic of jim that when recovery seemed certain he should say no more about his own hopes. he had been anxious enough to offer his love in the dark days of uncertainty, and all the year long a day had never passed without bringing vere some sign of his remembrance--a letter, or a book, or a magazine, or flowers, or scent, or chocolates. the second post never once came in without bringing a message of love and cheer. he came down to see us, too, once a month at least, and sometimes got very little thanks for his pains, but that made no difference to his devotion. now for the first time he was silent and said not one word of love. vere told me all about it afterwards, not the nice private little bits, of course, but a general outline of the scene between them, and i could imagine how pretty it must have been. vere is bewitching when she is saucy, and it is, oh, so good to see her saucy again! "there sat jim like a monument of propriety," she said, dimpling with amusement at the remembrance, "and do what i would i could not get him on to personal topics. i gave him half a dozen leads, but the wretch always drifted on to the weather, or politics, or books, and i could not corner him. then at last i said mournfully, `haven't you brought me a _cadeau_, jim? i looked forward to a _cadeau_. is there nothing you want to give me?' he apologised profusely, said there had been no time before catching the train, but if there was anything at all that i fancied when he went back to town he would be only too charmed. i looked down and twiddled my fingers, and said bashfully, `well, jim, i should like--a ring--!'" dear old jim! dear old loyal, faithful jim! how i should have loved to see his face at that moment! chapter twenty two. _september th._ every day vere seems to improve. it is simply wonderful how she has bounded ahead after the first start. hope and happiness have a great deal to do with it, the doctor says, and the expectation of being better, which has taken the place of the old despair. she looks deliciously happy, and satisfied, and at rest, while as for jim--he is ten years younger at the very least, and can hardly believe that his good fortune is true, and not a dream. needless to say he bought the ring at once--such a beauty! a great big pearl surrounded with diamonds. i mean to have the twin of it when i am engaged myself. vere wears it hung on a chain round her neck for the present, but as soon as she can walk it is to go on her finger, and the engagement will be announced. she has been propped up on her couch higher and higher every day, and yesterday she actually sat on a chair for half an hour, and felt none the worse. we are all so happy that we don't know what to do--at least, i am miserable enough sometimes when i am alone, and begin thinking of myself. when vere marries and goes away i shall be horribly dull, and when rachel marries i wonder where they will live--the dudleys, i mean! _the dudleys_! will is heir to an old bachelor uncle who has a place in the north. that's the reason why he is learning to be an agent here, so that he may know how to manage his own land when he gets it. i think, on the whole, i would rather he and rachel went quite away, but how flat and uninteresting everything would be! i shall have to go about with father more than ever, but we shall never meet will striding about in his tweed suit and deerstalker cap; he will never join us any more and have nice long talks. oh, dear! why do people want to marry other people in this world? why can't they all go on as they are, being friends and having a good time together? captain grantly married lady mary at easter, and i suppose wallace will marry the pretty girl next, and lorna will write to say she is engaged, and can't be bothered with me any more. i shall never marry. i could never induce myself to accept a second- best as vere has done. that sounds horrid, and, of course, she declares now that she never cared for another man, but i know better! she was in love with will at one time, but she knew it was hopeless, and jim's devotion during all those weary months was enough to melt a heart of stone. vere wished rachel to be told of her engagement at once, and despatched me to the grange to carry the news, and, as will dudley happened to be there at the time, he was really obliged to walk home with me, so far, at least, as our paths lay together. it was the first time we had been really alone for an age, and we were both rather silent for the first part of the walk. then we began talking of the engagement, and got on better. will had been a little uncertain in his congratulations, and he explained why. "carstairs is a splendid fellow. i admire him immensely, and there is no doubt about his feelings. he has adored your sister for years, but-- she never appeared to me to appreciate his devotion!" i smiled to myself, recalling vere's rhapsodies of an hour ago. "by her own account she has never thought of anyone else, nor cared for anyone else, nor wished for anyone else, but has adored him all the time she was snubbing him and flirting with other men. curious, isn't it? the funny part of it is she really and truly believes that it is true." "for the moment--yes. i can understand that. she is altogether in a highly nervous, exalted condition, and feels that the first act of convalescence ought to be to reward his long waiting. my only fear is that when she gets back to a normal condition she may realise that what she feels is more gratitude and affection than love." "i don't think so, and you wouldn't either if you saw them together. i detest lovers as a rule, they are so dull and self-engrossed; but it is pretty to watch vere and jim. she is so saucy and domineering, and he is so blissfully happy to be bullied. oh, yes, i am sure it is all right! i am sure they will be happy." "god grant it!" he said solemnly. "everything depends upon the truth of their feelings for each other. if that is right, nothing else will have power to hurt them seriously. if it is not--" he broke off, looking so serious that i felt frightened, and said nervously: "but, surely--even at the worst, gratitude and affection would be a good foundation!" "for everything else, but not for marriage. it is a ghastly mistake to imagine that they can ever take the place of love. never fall into that error, babs, however much you may be tempted. never let any impulse of gratitude or pity induce you to promise to marry a man if you have no warmer feeling. it would be the most cruel thing you could do, not only for yourself, but for him!" "i have fallen into it once already, but he would not have me," i said, recalling my hasty speech to wallace forbes, and at that will's face lit up with sudden animation, and he cried eagerly: "was that the explanation? i guessed, of course, that something had happened while you were away last autumn. you remember i was calling on your sister at the time of your unexpected return, and you have never been quite the same since? whatever happened then has changed you from a girl into a woman." i sighed, as i always did when i recalled that miserable incident. "i am glad you think so. i want to be changed. please don't think me the heroine of an interesting romance. i was a selfish wretch, and amused myself by flirting without thinking of anything but my own amusement. i was very down on my luck just then, and had got it into my head that no one cared for me, and when--he--_did_, it cheered and soothed my feelings, so i let things drift until it was too late. do you despise me altogether, or can you understand that, bad as it was, it wasn't so hopelessly bad as it sounds?" "i understand better than you think, perhaps. and you repented in sackcloth and ashes, and were ready to make a sacrifice of yourself by way of reparation? thank heaven he was man enough to refuse that offer! whatever happens to the rest of us, you, at least, must be happy. you were meant for happiness, and must not throw it aside. i shall probably leave this place soon, and we may seldom meet in the future, but i should like to think of you in the sunshine. promise me to be happy, babs! promise me that you will be happy!" he turned towards me with a violence of voice and manner so unlike his usual composed, half-quizzical manner, that i was quite aghast, and did not know how to reply. for the first time a doubt of his own happiness sprang into my mind, and once there it seemed to grow bigger and bigger with every moment that passed. he did not speak like a happy man; he did not look like a man whose heart was at rest. looking at him closely, i saw a network of lines about his mouth, which i had never noticed before; his eyes looked tired and sunken. he has changed since i saw him first a year ago, and yet there seems nothing to account for it, for his circumstances are all the same. is he depressed because rachel still puts off their marriage? oh, if i were in her place i could not endure to see him looking ill and sad, and still leave him alone! nothing should keep me away! i'd jump over the moon to get to his side! we stood still in the middle of the quiet path and stared at each other. i don't know what he was thinking, but my own thoughts made me blush and change the subject hurriedly. "oh, i mean to be happy! i have had so much anxiety and trouble this last year that i'm just bubbling over with pent-up spirits. this engagement has put the finishing touch to my self-control, and i must do something at once to let off steam. did you hear me ask rachel to go over to farnham with us to-morrow? father and mother and i are going to do it in record time in the new motor, and rachel is coming, too. she has never been in a motor, and is eager to see what it is like. it's quite a triumph to get her to accept an invitation, isn't it? you can come, too, if you like; there's room for another, and the more the merrier. do come, and let us all be happy together! we could have such a merry day!" he hesitated for a moment, then laughed in a sort of reckless way, and cried loudly: "yes, let us be happy! it is only for one day. let us throw care to the winds, and think of nothing but our own enjoyment. oh, yes, i'll come! we will have a happy day, babs--a happy day together!" so now it is all arranged, and i am longing for the time to come. we three will sit together on the back seat and talk all the time, and, as will says, i shall just forget everything in the world i don't care to remember, and enjoy every minute of the time. chapter twenty three. _september th, pm._ here i am back in my own room; at least, i suppose it is me. i have been staring at myself in the glass, and i look much the same. no one who didn't know would guess what had happened to me during the last few hours, and that to myself i feel all new and strange--a una sackville who was never really alive until to-day. i ought to be desperately miserable, and i am, but i am happy, too; half the time i am so happy that i forget all about the past and the future, and remember only the present. to-morrow morning, i suppose, i shall begin worrying and fighting against fate, but for to-night i am content--so utterly, perfectly content that there is no room to want anything more. i'll begin at the beginning, and tell it straight through to the end. we started off for our ride at twelve o'clock this morning in the highest of spirits, for the sun was shining, the sky was a deep cloudless blue, and, better than all, vere had taken her first walk across the floor, supported by father on one side, and jim on the other, and had managed far better than any of us had expected. she and jim had arranged to have lunch together in the garden, and she waved her hand to us at parting, and cried airily: "perhaps i may stroll down to the lodge to meet you on your return!" father and mother looked at one another when they were outside the door, so happy, poor dears, that they hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry, and then out we went into the sunshine, where the motor was throbbing and bumping as if it were impatient to be off. when i invent a motor i'll make one that can be quiet when it stands. i'm not a bit nervous when once we are started, but i hate it while we are waiting, and the stupid thing behaves as if it were going to blow up every moment. rachel was waiting for us, and flushed to the loveliest pink when will appeared and she discovered that he was to be one of the party. father, mother and the chauffeur sat on the front seat, rachel and i on the one behind, with will in the middle, and the luncheon-baskets were packed away behind. i had a mad turn, and was quite "fey," as the scotch say. i kept them laughing the whole time, and was quite surprised at my own wit. it seemed as if someone else was talking through my lips, for i said the things almost before i thought of them. we rushed along through beautiful country lanes, through dear, sleepy little villages, and along the banks of the river. the motor behaved beautifully, and neither smelt nor shook; it was quite intoxicating to fly through the air without any feeling of exertion, and rachel herself grew almost frisky in time. at two o'clock we camped out, and had a delicious luncheon; then off we started again, to take a further circuit of the country, and have tea at a quaint old inn on the way home. all went well until about four o'clock, when we began to descend a long, steep hill leading to a riverside village. father told the chauffeur to take it as slowly as possible, but we had not covered a quarter of the way when--something happened! suddenly, without the slightest warning, the machine seemed to leap forward like an arrow from a bow, and rush down the hill, more and more quickly with every second that passed. we all called out in alarm, and the chauffeur turned a bleached face to father, and said shakily: "it's gone, sir! the brake has gone. i can't hold her!" "gone? broken? are you sure--perfectly sure?" "quite sure, sir. what shall i do? run through the village and chance the river, or turn up the bank?" we knew the village--one long, narrow street crowded with excursionists, with vehicles of all descriptions, with little children playing about. at the end the road gave a sharp turn close to the water's edge. on the other hand the bank was high and steep, and in some places covered with flints. father looked round, and his face whitened, but he said firmly: "we will not risk other lives besides our own. if that is the choice, run her up the bank, johnson!" "right, sir!" said the chauffeur. it all happened in a moment, but it seemed like hours and hours. the machine shook and quivered, and turned unwillingly to the side. the bank seemed to rush at us--to grow steeper and steeper; to tower above our heads like a mountain. my heart seemed to stop beating; a far-away voice said clearly in my brain, "_this is death_!" and a great wave of despair rolled over me. i turned instinctively towards will, and at the same moment he turned towards me, and his eyes were bright and shining. "una, una!" he cried, and his arms opened wide and clasped me in a tight, protecting embrace. there was a crash and a roar, a feeling of mounting upwards to the skies, and then--darkness! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ the next thing was waking up feeling heavy and dazed, staring stupidly at my coat-sleeve, and wondering what it was, and how i came to be wearing such an extraordinary night-gown. then i tried to move the arm, and it was heavy and painful; and suddenly i remembered! i was not dead at all, not even, it appeared, seriously hurt. but the others? i sat up and glanced fearfully around. the motor lay half-way up the bank, a shattered mass. father was on his knees beside mother, who was moaning in a low, unconscious fashion. will was slowly scrambling to his feet, holding one hand to his back. rachel lay white and still as death, but her eyes were open, and she was evidently fully conscious. the chauffeur was dreadful to look at, with the blood pouring from his head, but he, too, moaned, and moved his limbs. nobody was dead! it was almost too wonderful to be believed. i dragged myself across to mother, and she opened her eyes and smiled faintly at the sight of our anxious faces. her dear hands were terribly cut; she winced with pain as she sat up, and was evidently badly bruised, but it was such bliss to see her move and hear her speak that these seemed but light things. father rushed to the motor, managed to extricate a flask from the scattered contents, and went round administering doses of brandy to us all in turns. he had ricked his knee, and hobbled about like an old man. will had a bad pain in his back, and a cut on his forehead. my left arm was useless. rachel seemed utterly stunned, and unable to speak or move, and the poor chauffeur was unconscious, having fallen on his head on a mass of flints. by this time the accident had become known, and the village people came trooping up the hill, bringing stretchers with them, for, as they afterwards explained, they expected to find us all dead. the chauffeur and rachel were carried in front, but the rest of us preferred to hobble along on our own feet, mother leaning on father's arm, will and i, one on each side, never once glancing in the other's face. it was awful to be alive, and to remember that last moment when we had forgotten everything in the world but our two selves. i felt like a murderess when i looked at rachel's still face, and hated myself for what i had done. yet how could i help it? when you face death at the distance of a few seconds, all pretence dies away, and you act unconsciously as the heart dictates. i wanted will--and--_will wanted me_! oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to think of! all these months when he has avoided me, and i thought he liked me less, has he really been loving me, and trying to get over it in loyalty to poor, dear rachel? and was that what it meant when he called me "una!" and his voice lingered over the word? looking back now, i can understand lots of things which puzzled and worried me at the time. i think he began to love me almost at the very first, as i did him. but oh, rachel, rachel--dear, sweet, unselfish rachel! i'd rather die than steal your happiness from you! did she hear, i wonder? did she _see_? father and mother were too much engrossed in themselves to know anything about it--perhaps she, too, was too excited to notice. yet, surely in that awful moment she would turn to will for comfort, and when she saw him absorbed in me, forgetting her very existence, she must understand. oh, she must! i was terrified to meet her eyes when at last we reached the parlour of the inn, and the doctor came to attend to us all in turns. she was lying on the sofa, and when i made myself go over to speak to her, my heart gave a great throb of thankfulness, for she smiled at me, very feebly, but as sweetly as ever, and pressed my hand between hers. she shook her head when i asked her a question, and seemed as if she could not bear to talk. the doctor was puzzled by her condition; he could find no real injuries, but said she was evidently suffering from shock, and must be kept as quiet as possible until she recovered her nerve. we were sponged, bandaged, plastered, and fortified with tea, and a wretched livid-looking party we were! no one could possibly have recognised us as the same people who had set out so gaily four hours before. the doctor was anxious that we should telegraph home, and spend the night at the inn, but we had two more invalids to consider--mrs greaves and vere, neither of whom were fit to be left alone in suspense, so we chartered a big covered omnibus, borrowed dozens of pillows and cushions, and set out to drive the remaining ten miles, leaving the chauffeur to be taken to the village hospital. mother, rachel and i lay full length along the seats, the two men banked themselves up with pillows, and endured the shaking as best they could, and so at last we reached our separate homes. i have been sitting here by my desk thinking, thinking, thinking for over an hour, and it all comes to the same thing. i have made one man unhappy through my selfish vanity; i will not ruin a woman's life into the bargain. rachel is my friend, and i will be truly and utterly loyal to her. so far my conscience is clear of offence where she is concerned, for if i have loved will it has been unconsciously, and without realising what i was doing. i have never, never tried to attract him nor take him from her in any way. i have looked upon him as much out of my reach as if he had been a married man, but after this things will be different. i know the danger that is before us both, and shall have to watch myself sternly every minute of the time. i suppose i shall be an old maid now, for i can't imagine caring for anyone after will. father and mother will be glad, and i'll try to be a comfort to them, but it will be dreadful getting old, and ugly, and tired and ill, and never having a real home of my own, and someone to like me _best_. preachey people would say that it is wrong of me to want to be first, and that i should be quite content to take a lower place, but i can't think that can be true where love is concerned, else why did god put this longing in women's hearts? anyway, i've found out that love--the _best_ kind of love--is his gift, and if it comes to me at all it shall _be_ as his gift. i won't steal it! poor, darling, unselfish rachel, for your sake i must guard my thoughts as well as my deeds. i think perhaps i'd better not write any more in this diary for a time. it would be difficult to write of just ordinary things without referring to the one great subject, and that is just what i must not do. my business is to forget, not to remember. i must not allow myself to think! chapter twenty four. _january st._ i must begin to write again in my poor, neglected diary, for things are happening so fast that if i do not keep a record of them as they pass i shall forget half that i want to remember. the last entry was written on the evening after the motor accident, nearly four months ago, so i must go back to that day and tell what happened in the interval. we were all invalided more or less for a few weeks, but providentially there were no serious developments; even the poor chauffeur recovered and seemed as well as ever. rachel was the longest in gaining strength, and the doctor was worried about her, for she seemed listless and uninterested in what was going on, so different from her usual happy self. he said she had evidently had a severe nervous shock, and that that sort of thing was often more difficult to overcome than more tangible injuries. a nurse came down from london to look after her and her mother, and finally they went off to bournemouth, where they intend to remain until the worst of the winter is over. i was relieved to feel convinced that rachel knew nothing of what had occurred at that last dreadful moment, for her ignorance seemed proved by the fact that she was absolutely the same in manner both to will and myself! in fact, if anything, i think she was more affectionate to me than she had ever been before. i _was_ thankful! it would have been dreadful to feel that we had any part in bringing about her illness. as for will, i kept carefully out of his way, and hoped we need never, never refer to what had passed; but he evidently felt differently, and one day when he knew where i was bound he deliberately waylaid me and had it out. i never lifted my eyes from the ground, so i don't know how he looked, but his voice told plainly enough how agitated he was feeling. "there is something i have to say, and the sooner it is said the better for both of us," he began. "i owe you an explanation for what occurred--that day. i should like you to understand that i hardly knew what i was about. it seemed as if it might be the last moment of life, and i turned instinctively to you. otherwise i would never, never--" "oh, i know!" i cried brokenly. "i understand it all, and if there is any blame it is mine as much as yours, for i forgot, too. we must never refer to it again, and we had better see each other as seldom as possible. it will be easier that way." he was silent for a moment or two, then he sighed heavily and said: "it will not be easy any way, una, but it must be done. i can't blame myself altogether for what has happened. our hearts are not always in our own keeping, and mine went out to you from the first. i did not realise it for a time, but when i did, i did not trifle with temptation. i kept out of your way, as you must have noticed. all last winter i fought a hard fight. it would have been harder still if i had guessed that--you cared! the trouble began in mistaking friendship for love, but until i met you i was quite content. i had no idea that anything was lacking." "and you will be happy again. rachel is better than i am in every possible way, and is more worthy of you. i am a selfish, discontented wretch. if you knew what i was really like, you would wonder how you could ever have cared for me at all, and when you leave this place it will be easy to forget--" "i shall never forget," he said shortly. "una, i must tell you all that is in my mind. i believe in honesty in love as in all other matters, and if circumstances were different i should go straight to rachel and tell her. how, unconsciously to myself, my heart had gone out to you, and that in that supreme moment we turned instinctively to each other, and i knew that my love was returned, and i would ask her for my liberty. in nine out of ten cases i am sure that would be the right thing to do, but--this is the tenth! rachel has had years of trouble and anxiety, and now her own health is broken. i could not put another burden upon her. through these last days of misery and uncertainty what has comforted me most has been to realise that she has no idea of what happened. she must have been taken up with her own thoughts--praying, no doubt, for our safety, not her own. rachel never thinks of herself, so i must think for her. with her father gone, her mother invalided, she has no one left but me, and i can't desert her." "i should hate you if you did!" i cried eagerly. "i, too, have been thankful that she knows nothing, and she must never know, you must never let her guess. there could be no happiness for us if we broke her heart. you used to call her the best woman in the world, and she is so sweet and gentle that you could not possibly live with her and remain unhappy. in years to come you will be thankful it has happened like this." "in any case it is the right thing to do," he said, sighing. "as you say, we should only suffer if we thought of ourselves first. if one tries to grasp happiness at the expense of another's suffering it only collapses like a bubble, and leaves one more wretched than before. you and i are not unprincipled, una, though we did forget ourselves for that one moment, and the remembrance of rachel would poison everything. perhaps, after all, it is as well that we know our danger, for we shall be more careful to keep out of temptation. i shall try to persuade her to marry me as soon as possible, and after that we shall live near my uncle. i shall have a busy, active life, and, as you say, one of the sweetest women in the world for my wife. she has been faithful to me for so many years that i should be a scoundrel if i did not make her happy." i did not say anything--i couldn't! i seemed to see it all stretched out before me--will being married, and going to live far, far away, and settling down with his wife and children, and forgetting that there was a una in the world. i tried to be glad at the thought; i tried _hard_, but i was just one big ache, and my heart felt as if it would burst. honestly and truly, if by lifting up a little finger at that moment i could have hindered their happiness, nothing would have induced me to do it, but it is difficult to do right _cheerfully_. we stood silently for a long time, until will said brokenly: "and what will--you do, una?" "oh, i shall do nothing. i shall stay at home--like the little pig," i said, trying to laugh, and succeeding very badly. "i shall help vere with her marriage preparations, and visit her in her new home, and take care of the parents in their old age. father says there ought always to be one unmarried woman in every family to play aunt mary in time of need. i shall be the sackville aunt mary." he turned and walked up and down the path. i stole a glance at him and saw that he was battling with some strong emotion, then our eyes met, and he came forward hastily and stood before me. "oh, it is hard that i should have brought this upon you! i who would give my right hand to ensure your happiness. have i spoilt your life, una? will you think hardly of me some day, and wish that we had never met?" then at last i looked full in his face. "no, will," i said; "that day will never come. i have known a good man, and i am proud that he has loved me, and prouder still that he is true to his word. don't worry about me. i shall try to be happy and brave, and make the most of my life. it will be easier after you have left. we must not meet like this again. i could not bear that." "no, we must not meet. i could not bear it either, but i am glad that we have spoken out this once. god bless you, dear, for your sweet words. they will be a comfort to remember. good-bye!" we did not even shake hands; he just took off his cap and--went! i had a horrible impulse to run after him, take him by the arm, and make him stay a little longer, only five minutes longer, but i didn't. i just stood perfectly still and heard his footsteps crunch down the path. then the sound died away, and it seemed as if everything else died with them. i did not feel brave at that moment. there seemed nothing left in the whole wide world that was worth having. chapter twenty five. about the middle of september will went away to pay a visit to his uncle. he called to say good-bye when he knew i was out, so we did not meet again, and no one had any idea of what had happened. isn't it strange how far away you feel at times from even your nearest relations? "not e'en the dearest heart and next our own, knows half the reason why we smile or sigh!" as it says in the "christian year." a girl's parents think: "she has a comfortable home, and nice food and clothes, and we are always thinking of her; she ought to be happy, and if she isn't she is a naughty, ungrateful child!" they don't remember that the child is a woman, and wants her very own life! and other people say: "she is a well-off girl, that una sackville, she has everything that money can buy!" but money can't take the ache out of your heart. and your sister thinks that you should be so excited and eager at the prospect of being her bridesmaid, that your cup of happiness ought to simply pour over on the spot. ah, well, perhaps it's just as well to keep your troubles to yourself! the old uncle was weak and failing, so will stayed on with him until christmas. i suppose he was glad of the excuse. he never wrote, but rachel sent me a note now and then, and mentioned that he had been down to bournemouth several times, but she is a poor correspondent at the best of times, and her letters seemed emptier than ever. when lorna writes, you feel as if she were speaking, and she tells you all the nice, interesting little things you most want to hear, but rachel's letters are just a dull repetition of your own. "dearest una,--i am so glad to hear you are keeping well, and feeling happier about your sister's health. it is very nice to know that dear mrs sackville is so much stronger this winter, and that your father is full of health and vigour. so you are expecting a visit from your soldier brother, and are all greatly excited at the prospect of seeing him after so many years, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera." what is one to do with people who write like that? just at the end she would say, "will paid us a flying visit last week, and promised to come again next saturday. believe me, dear una..." her letters left me as hungry and dissatisfied as when they arrived, but they brought all the news i had for three long months. at home the atmosphere was very bright and cheery, for vere improved so quickly that she and jim actually began to talk of marriage in the summer. the old doctor came up and croaked warnings when he heard of it. he said that vere would need care for a long time to come, and that in his opinion it would be wiser to wait until she was perfectly strong--say a matter of two or three years longer; but jim just laughed in his face, and said he flattered himself that he could take better care of his wife than anyone else could possibly do. so it was settled, and the astounding marvel has come to pass that vere is so engrossed in thinking about jim and their future life together, that she is comparatively indifferent to clothes. when i sounded her as to bridesmaids' costume, she said: "oh, settle it yourself, dear. i don't mind, so long as you are pleased!" two years ago she would have insisted on my wearing saffron, if it had been the fashionable colour, and have worried the whole household into fits about the shape of the sleeves! she is so loving and sweet to mother, too, not only in words, but in a hundred taking-pains kind of ways, and she never jeers or hurts my feelings as she used to do. jim is going to have a very nice wife, and he deserves it, dear old patient thing! in november, just as it was all settled about the wedding, spencer came home from malta, and stayed for a month. we were all simply bursting with pride over him, and the whole neighbourhood came up in batches to do obeisance. why one should be prouder of a soldier who has never even seen a fight than of a nice, hard-working clerk, i can't think, but the fact remains that you _are_, and i did wish it were the fashion for spencer to wear his lovely uniform, instead of a dull grey tweed suit like anybody else! the whole family was busy and happy and engrossed in the present. nobody guessed what years those weeks seemed to me. i was quite bright all day long, but when i got to bed... so the time went on, one day after another. spencer went back to malta, and jim came down to stay for christmas, also lady mary and her husband, and i sat up in my room making presents, and trying to live in the present and not look ahead. then christmas morning came, and among a stack of cards was a letter from rachel--an extraordinary letter! "i am quite well again," she wrote, "but mother is very frail, and takes cold at every change in the weather. even this sheltered place seems too bleak for her, and we are seriously contemplating going abroad--not to the continent, but a much longer journey--to south africa itself! you may have heard that mother spent her early life at the cape, and now that father has gone it is only natural that she should wish to spend her last years near her brothers and sisters. it will be a wrench for me to leave england, and all the dear friends who have been so kind to me, but i feel more and more strongly that it is the right thing to do. we shall try to sell the grange, but shall, of course, come back for a few weeks after the new year to pack up and make final arrangements, if, as i think probable, our plans are settled by that time." the letter went on to discuss other subjects, but i could not bring my mind to attend to them. i just sat staring at that one paragraph, and reading it over again and again and again. going to the cape! to spend her mother's last days! mrs greaves was not an old woman. she might easily live for another ten or fifteen years. did rachel seriously mean to imply that she herself was going to remain in south africa all that time? and what about will? was he supposed to wait patiently until she returned, or to expatriate himself in order to join her? i felt utterly bewildered, and the worst of it was that there was no one near who could throw any light on the subject, or answer one of my questions. at one moment i felt indignant with rachel for making no mention of will's interest; at the next i marvelled how a mother, so kind and devoted as mrs greaves, could possibly demand such a sacrifice of her daughter. what would will say when the project was unfolded to him? after his long waiting he would be quite justified in taking a strong position and refusing to be put aside any longer. from what i knew of him, i fancied that he would do so--i hoped he would. nothing could be more trying and dangerous for him or for me than a long, dragging engagement, with rachel at the other side of the world--an engagement which held him bound, yet left him practically free. i knew that will was to spend christmas at bournemouth, and wondered if he would call on us on his return to discuss the astonishing news, but though father met him once or twice, he never came near the house until this morning, this wonderful never-to-be-forgotten morning when bennett came to me as i was writing in the library and said that mr dudley had called to see me, and was waiting in the drawing-room. to see me! not mother, nor father, nor vere, but me! my heart gave a great leap of excitement, and i trembled so violently that i could hardly walk across the floor. it must be something extraordinary indeed which brought will on a special mission to me! he was standing by the fireplace as i entered the room, and the moment he saw me he darted forward and seized my hands in both his. the last time we had met he would not even shake hands at parting. i remembered that with another thrill of excitement; then he drew me towards the fireplace and began speaking in quick, excited tones-- "una, it is all over! rachel has set me free! it is her own doing, entirely her own wish. i had no idea of it until christmas eve, when she sent me a letter telling me that she was going to south africa with her mother, and could not continue our engagement. she asked me not to come to bournemouth as arranged, but i went all the same. i could not accept a written word after all these years. i wanted to satisfy myself that she was in earnest." "and was she?" "absolutely! i could not touch her decision--sweet and gentle and kindly as ever, but perfectly determined to end it once for all." "do you think that mrs greaves--" "no, she has had nothing to do with it. the decision was as great a surprise to her as to me. she told me that she would never have consented to the south african scheme if rachel had not first confided in her that she wished to break her engagement, and would be glad to be out of england. i think she is genuinely sorry. she and i were always good friends." "then why--why--why--" "a matter of feeling entirely. stay, i will give you her letter to read. it will explain better than i can, and there is nothing that she could mind your seeing." he took an envelope from his coat pocket, unfolded the sheet of paper which it contained, and held it before me. i was so shaky and trembling that i don't think i could have held it myself. it was dated december rd, and on the first page rachel spoke of the proposed journey in almost the same words which she had used in her letter to me, written on the same date. then came the surprise. "you will wonder, dear will, if i am altogether forgetting you and your claims in the making of these plans; indeed, i never can be indifferent to anything which concerns your happiness, but i have something to say to you to-night which cannot longer be delayed. i am going to ask you to set me free from our engagement. i have come to the conclusion that i have been mistaken in many things, and that it would not be a right thing for me to become your wife. please don't imagine that i am disappointed in you, or have any sins to lay to your charge. i am thankful to say that my affection and esteem are greater now than on the day when we were engaged, and i should be deeply grieved if i thought there could ever be anything approaching a quarrel between us. i want to be good, true friends, dear will, but only friends--not lovers. i see now that i should never have allowed anything else, but you must be generous, dear, and forgive me, as you have already forgiven so many failings. "don't try to dissuade me. you know i am not given to rash decisions, and i have thought over nothing else than this step for some weeks past. i know i am right, and in the future you will see it too, however strangely it strikes you now. it would perhaps be better if you did not come here to-morrow as arranged--" the rest of the letter i knew already, so i did not trouble to look at it, but turned back and read the last paragraphs for the second time, "i have been mistaken in many things!" "my affection is greater than on the day when we were engaged." "i have thought over nothing else for some weeks past." those three sentences seemed to stand out from the rest, and to print themselves on my brain. i looked anxiously in will's face, and saw in it joy, agitation, a wonderful tenderness, but no shadow of the suspicion which was tearing at my own heart. how blind men are sometimes, especially when they don't care to see! "she has never loved me!" he declared. "she had, as she says, an affection for me as she might have had for a friend, a brother--an affection such as i had for her, but she does not know--we neither of us knew the meaning of--love!" i looked at the carpet, and there rose before me a vision of rachel's face when will appeared unexpectedly on the scene; when she heard the tones of his voice in the distance; when she watched him out of sight after he had said "good-bye." in his actual presence she was quiet and precise, but at these moments her eyes would shine with a deep glow of happiness, her lips would tremble, and her cheeks turn suddenly from white to pink. not love him--rachel not love will! why, she adored him! he was more to her than anything and everybody in the world put together. she might be able to deceive him, but nothing could make me believe that she had broken off the engagement for her own happiness. she was thinking of someone else, not herself. who was it? ah, that was the question. her mother, or will, will and perhaps--me! was it possible that she had been conscious of what had happened on the afternoon of the motor accident, and that, in consideration of our feelings, she had kept her own counsel until a sufficient time had elapsed to enable her to end her engagement in a natural manner? anyone who knew rachel as i do would realise in a flash that it was just exactly what she would do in the circumstances. then, if this were indeed the case, the nervous shock which prostrated her for so long was not physical, but mental. oh, poor rachel! yet you could smile at me, and be sweet and gentle in the first moments of your agony! it was all i could do to keep back the tears, as i thought of what she must have endured during these last three months; but through all my agitation one determination remained unshaken: i must not let will see my suspicions; rachel's secret must be loyally guarded. he was talking incessantly--a quick, excited stream of words. i came back from my dreams to pick up a half-finished sentence-- "too good to be true. she has filled so large a place in my life. i have such a strong admiration for her that it would have been a real pain to have parted coldly. but to keep her as my friend, to know that her affection is unchanged, and yet to be free to seek my own happiness is such a marvellous unravelling of the skein that i can hardly realise my good fortune. i came back last night, and could hardly wait until this morning to tell you my news. una, you understand! i ask nothing of you to-day, it is not the time to speak of ourselves. i shall go back to my uncle, and stay with him for the next few months. he is very frail, and my place seems to be with him at present, but in the spring, if i come back in the spring, will you see me then? will you let me tell you--" i moved away from him hurriedly. "no, no--don't say it! say nothing to-day, but just `good-bye.' i don't want to think of the future--it's too soon. you said we must not think of ourselves." "i did. you are quite right, but sometimes it is difficult to be consistent. you are not angry with me for coming to-day?" he held out his hand as he spoke, and--i was inconsistent, too! i laid mine in it, and we stood with clasped fingers, quite still and silent for a long, long time, but i think we said many things to each other, all the same. then will went away--my will!--and i came upstairs to my room, and sat down all alone. no, that is not true--i can never fed alone now as long as i live! chapter twenty six. _january th_. mrs greaves and rachel came home after the new year and set to work at once to break up the old home. all the furniture is to be sold by auction, and the house is to be sold too, or let upon a very long lease. i wanted to see rachel, but dreaded seeing her, at the same time, so at last i sent a letter asking when i might come, and she wrote back a dear little affectionate note fixing the very next afternoon. when i arrived she took me upstairs to the sitting-room where i used to spend my days when my ankle was bad, and fussed over me in just the same old way. she looked--different! just as sweet, just as calm, but--oh, i can't describe it, as if something had gone which had been the mainspring of it all. i should never have dared to mention will, but she began almost at once to speak of the broken engagement, quite calmly and quietly, repeating that it was the best thing for both, and that she should be perfectly content if she were satisfied about will's future. "nothing will give me greater pleasure than to hear that will is happily married and settled down. he has been too long alone, and would so thoroughly appreciate a home of his own. i have done him a great injustice by condemning him to so many lonely years, but our engagement need be no hindrance now. it was known to very few people, and,"--she smiled a little sadly--"even those who did know refused to take it seriously. they saw at once what i was so slow in discovering--that we were unsuited to each other. we were thrown together at a time when he was depressed and lonely, otherwise the engagement could never have happened. it was a great mistake, but it is over now, and he must not suffer from its consequences. i am going away, but i shall wait to hear of his happiness, and i hope it may come soon." our eyes met. i looked at her steadily, and the colour rose in her cheeks and spread up to the roots of her hair. she shrank back in her chair and put up her hands as if to ward me off, but i just sank on my knees before them and held them tightly in mine. "oh, rachel!" i cried. "i know, i know! you can't deceive me, dear. you have done this for our sakes, not your own. oh, i hoped you had been too much engrossed to notice what happened that day. when you said nothing about it, i was so relieved and thankful, for truly, rachel, it was only an impulse. nothing of the sort had ever happened before--not a word or a look to which you could have objected. you believe that, don't you, dear? say you believe it." her fingers tightened round mine. "indeed, indeed, i do! you have been all that is true and loyal, and so has will. there is no one to blame but myself. i knew from the first that he was attracted to you, and that you suited him better than i could ever do; but i shut my eyes--i did not want to see. don't be sorry for what happened; it is a great blessing for us all that i was not allowed to deceive myself any longer. you say it was only an impulse. ah, una, but the impulse which made him turn to you and forget me is too clear a warning to be neglected. it showed how his heart lay better than any deliberate action." i could not deny it. i did not want to deny it, deeply as i felt for her suffering. i laid my head in her lap, so that she should not see my face, and begged her to forgive me. "i feel such a wretch to take my happiness at the expense of yours. you are an angel, rachel, to be so sweet and forgiving. i should be a fury of rage and jealousy if i were in your place, but you give it all up without a murmur." she smiled at that--such a sad little smile. "i have nothing to give. it was yours all the time. when i found that out, i could not be mean enough to hold an empty claim. i never meant you to know my real reason, but since you have found it out for yourself, you must promise me not to let it interfere with will's happiness. don't let me feel that he has to suffer any more because of me. never let him suspect the truth. he has such a tender heart that it would trouble him sorely if he knew that i had discovered his secret, and i don't want any shadow on our friendship. promise me, una, that you will never let him know." "i promise, rachel. i had made up my mind about that long ago." i did not tell her that in making my decision i had considered her feelings, not his. i had imagined that for her pride's sake she would not wish him to know her real reasons for breaking off the engagement. but rachel herself had no thought of her pride; her anxiety was simply and wholly for will's comfort. i looked up at her in a passion of admiration, and in that moment a question which had tormented me for weeks past seemed to find its solution. "rachel," i cried, "i know now why this has happened! i have been wondering how anyone so good and unselfish as you could be allowed to have such a trouble as this, and how it could be for the best that you are passed over for a creature like me, but i can understand now. you are too valuable to be shut up in just one home; so many people need you--you can help so wonderfully all round that you are kept free for the general good. the world needs you. you belong to the world." her face lit up with happiness. "oh, una, what a lovely thought! i shall remember that, and it will be such a comfort. kiss me, dear. i am so glad that it is you. i am so thankful that will has chosen someone whom i can love." we talked a good deal more, and she said a lot of lovely things that i shall remember all my life. it was as though she were giving over the charge of will into my hands, and they are such hasty incapable hands that they need all the guiding they can get. she told, me all about him as she had known him all these years--his good qualities, which i was to encourage; his weaknesses, which i was to discourage; his faults, (ah! will dear, they were nothing compared to mine), which i was to help him to fight. she looked upon it all so seriously, that marriage seemed to become a terrible as well as a beautiful thing. can it really be true that i have such wonderful power to influence will for good or evil? oh, i must be good, i must, i must, for his welfare is fifty thousand times dearer to me than my own! after this i was constantly at the grange, and worked like a charwoman helping to pack, and getting ready for the sale. i think i was really of use, for rachel has not much taste, and i re-arranged things so that they looked ever so much more attractive, and so brought bigger prices. we had very happy times together, and were quite merry, sometimes sitting down to tea on the top of boxes, with our dresses pinned up and covered with aprons, but we never spoke of will again. that was finished. the last two nights they were in england mrs greaves and rachel spent in our home, and i drove down and saw them off at the station. i knew who was going to meet them at the other end, but even then we did not mention him. rachel just clung tightly to me, and whispered "_remember_!" and that said everything. then the train puffed slowly out of the station, and i caught one glimpse of her white, white face through the window. oh! if i live to be a hundred i shall never, never forget her, and i shall love her more than anyone else except my very own people, but i don't think i shall ever see rachel again in this world! _june th_. vere's wedding eve. my poor neglected diary must come out of hiding to hear the record of a time so wonderful to her and to me. i have had very little leisure for thinking of my own affairs since rachel left, for a wedding means a tremendous amount of work and management, when it involves inviting relations from all parts of the world, buying as many clothes as if you were never expected to see a shop again, and choosing and furnishing a brand-new house. neither mother nor vere are strong enough to do much running about, so all the active preparations fell to me, and i had to go up to town to scold dressmakers and hurry up decorators, and threaten cabinet makers, and tell plumbers and ironmongers that they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and match patterns, and choose trimmings, and change things that wouldn't do, until vere said, laughingly, that the wedding seemed far more mine than hers. it kept me so busy that i had no time to dream until i went to bed at nights and then i used to be awake for hours, thinking of rachel away at the other side of the world, happy in her mother's restored health, and, to judge from the tone of her letters, thoroughly enjoying the complete change of scene after the very quiet life she had led these last years; thinking of lorna, my dear old faithful lorna, as good a friend to me as ever, in spite of all the trouble i caused her. it is a year ago now since that wretched affair, and wallace seems almost his old self again, she says, so i hope he will soon have forgotten all about me. i feel hot and cold whenever i think about it. it is _wicked_ to play at being in love! suppose i had accepted wallace out of pique, as i thought of doing for a few mad moments; suppose i had been going to marry him to-morrow--how awful, how perfectly awful i should feel now! how different from vere, whose face looks so sweet and satisfied that it does one good to look at her. i have been slaving all day long arranging flowers and presents, and after tea mother just insisted that i should come up to my room to rest for an hour, so here i am, sitting on the very same chair on which i sat in those far-away pre-historic ages when i began this diary, a silly bit of a girl just home from school. i am not so very ancient now as years go, but i have come through some big experiences, and to-day especially i feel full of all sorts of wonderful thoughts and resolutions, because to-morrow--to-morrow, will is coming, and we shall meet again! i think vere guesses, i am almost sure that she does, for she and jim made such a point of his coming to the wedding, and she gave me his note of acceptance with such a sympathetic little smile. oh, how anxious i had been until that letter arrived, and now that it is all settled i can hardly rest until to-morrow. rest! how can i rest? he arrives late to-night, so we shall meet first of all in church. i shall feel as if, like vere, i am going to meet my bridegroom. it will seem like a double wedding--hers and mine. _the wedding day_. it has all passed off perfectly, without a single hitch or drawback. to begin with, the weather was ideal, just a typical warm june day, with the sky one deep, unclouded blue. as i looked out of my window this morning the lawns looked like stretches of green velvet, bordered with pink and cream, for it is to be a rose wedding, and the date was fixed to have them at their best. the house is full of visitors, and everybody seemed overflowing with sympathy and kindness. it must be horrid to be married in a place where you are not known, or in a big town where a lot of strangers collect to stare at you, as if you were part of a show. this dear little place is, to a man, almost as much interested and excited as we are ourselves; the villagers are all friends, for either we have known them since they were babies, or they have known us since we were babies, which comes to the same thing. the old almshouse women had a tea yesterday, and sat in the gallery in church, and the sunday-school children had a tea to-day, and lined the church path and scattered roses. the mother's meeting was in the gallery, too, and the band of hope somewhere else, and the girls' friendly by the door. the whole place was _en fete_, with penny flags hanging out of the cottage windows, and streamers tied across the high street. it all felt so nice, and kind, and homey. there were eight bridesmaids, and we really _did_ look nice, in white chiffon dresses, shepherdess hats wreathed with roses, and long white staves wreathed with the same. as for vere, she was a vision of loveliness, all pink and white and gold. we walked together downstairs into the hall, where father was waiting to receive us. poor father! the tears came into his eyes as he took her hand, and looked down at her. it must be hard to bring up a child, and go through all the anxiety and care and worry, and then, just when she is old enough to be a real companion, to have to give her up, and see her go away with a "perfect stranger," as spencer says. last night, when i was going to bed, father held me in his arms, and said: "thank heaven, i shall have you left, babs! it will be a long time before i can spare you to another man." and i hugged him, and said nothing, for i knew... ah! well, they did it themselves once on a time, so they can't be surprised! the church was crowded with people, and everybody turned to stare at us as we came in, but i saw only one face--will's face--with the light i most loved shining in his eyes. i stood at vere's side, and heard her repeat her vows in sweet, firm tones, which never faltered, but jim's voice trembled as he made that touching promise of faithfulness "in sickness and in health," and i saw his hand tighten over hers. it was like a dream--the swelling bursts of music, the faces of the clergy; behind all, the great stained window, with the christ looking down... then the wedding march pealed out, we took our places in the carriages, and drove home once more. vere and her husband stood beneath one of the arches of the pergola, to receive the congratulations of their friends, a picture couple, as happy as they were handsome. the sky was like a dome of blue, the scent of roses was in the air, and will came to meet me across the green, green grass. "una!" he cried. "_at last_!" and clasped my hand in his. oh, i am terribly happy! i should like everyone in the world to be as happy as i am to-day! the end. [illustration: illustrated by knoth] with a vengeance by j. b. woodley _keep this in mind in teaching apprentices: they are future journeymen--and even masters!_ october , new san francisco today, at precisely : a.m., kyle became first imperator of terra. his coup was so fantastically direct and facile that i am almost tempted to believe that old cliche "the time was right." well, however badly it can be expressed, i suppose the world _was_ ripe for this sort of thing. i can remember when much the same used to happen in elections. one man would win over another by a tremendous majority, and historians would then set about to show how "the time was right." why do i persist in tormenting myself with that phrase! analytically, i might say i resent this new aristocracy of politics. specifically, i might say i resent kyle. and both are true, both are true. this swing, though, to absolute monarchy, complete with the installation of the kyle dynasty--damn him! this is something which psychologists, not historians, must explain. has the age of the common man, so bravely flaunted for over one hundred years, truly come to nothing? would people really prefer a figurehead and a symbol of undisputed authority? in this instance, one may again conclude that "the time was right." contact with planets like mars and venus undoubtedly had its influence. i must confess that the televised audiences with the mrit of venus and the znam of mars _did_ make terra's president--i should say, late president--look a bit seedy. i daresay there is such a thing as a too common common man. kyle was such, twenty years ago. his name wasn't kyle then, although it was something very like that. i must see if any of the old ledgers are about! i'd like to see what the imperator's name was when his most imperial majesty was an apprenticed nobody! * * * * * october , new san francisco i found it! buried in stacks of dust behind the old printing press that was once the heart of my _beacon-sentinel_. there were others there too. spent a delightful morning with them, reading back through those old account books. i wonder whatever happened to hastings? and drew? best linotype men i ever had. they became pilots, or something, as i recall. too bad, too bad. they could have had such brilliant futures, both of them. why they felt they must ally themselves with the non-thinking, muscle-flexing variety of mankind--of which our ruler is an excellent example--i'll never know. ah, yes, kyle! in those days he was kilmer jones. i don't remember him too well, actually, except for the day i fired him. i suppose he was right in changing his name. we couldn't very well have an imperator named kilmer the first, or jones the first. much too common, not at all in keeping. gawky fellow--that kilmer. when bard brought me a sample of his work--i guess i'll have to call it that--we both had a good laugh over it! atrocious spelling! couldn't follow the proofreader's marks. indeed, i wonder if the fellow could even read! the punctuation! and the grammar! i called the boy to the office that morning--or was it the next day? no matter. i called him in and told him, as kindly as possible, that i thought there were other vocations to which he might be better suited. the irony of it! kilmer jones--kyle i! and he stood there, i remember, with those seventeen-year-old hands that were all knuckles and bone and chapped skin, twisting those hands and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "please, mr. booth," he said, his voice cracking. "i ain't got no other job in mind. i wanna be a noospaper man. i ain't got no--" if not for that "ain't got no," i think i might have relented. but no one is going to ruin the english language as he did! not in my offices! i took him to task severely for his offensive usage, outlined a correct example of what he had attempted to say, gave him a brief lesson in the history of the tongue, and explained why it had been chosen as the official terran speech. i think my conclusion was, "you'll be much better off in a position which requires you to quote neither milton nor shakespeare nor any author save possibly those who write the comic strips." "got no training," he said softly. (i supposed it was to keep his voice from exhibiting its usual adolescent gymnastics.) i shuddered slightly, i remember. "you mean, 'i _have_ no training.'" "yeah ..." softly again. "yeah, mr. booth." "_yes!_" i cried impatiently. "not 'yeah,' but _yes_!" i searched for his severance pay on my desk, wondering who the devil had hired him in the first place. gave him three weeks pay, as i recall it, one more than necessary. unmannerly pup! he just stood there for a minute and then finally left without even a "thank you," or "good-by." and this is the man who is kyle the first, ruler of terra at the age of thirty-seven! i wonder what he is like now.... * * * * * january , new san francisco there is no longer any need to wonder. surprisingly few heads have rolled, but apparently jonesy chooses to exhibit his power in other ways. thanksgiving day, a custom preserved in certain portions of the directorate of north america, is three weeks away--even though it is january. the year one. there used to be some childish joke about the year one. don't remember it just now. thanksgiving harvest in january. christmas celebration in february. spring planting in july! to say nothing of the inconvenience this has caused in my bookkeeping department! i suppose the man will now try to change the weather to suit his new calendar! * * * * * january , new san francisco he can't last! he can't! a dictator is one thing. a monarch is another. but kyle is something else! naturally he had to remove certain persons from his way. and his summer palace in the plains region of america--that's all right, that's all right! an authority of kyle's stature is expected to remove undesirables, and to have a summer palace, and a winter palace, and anything else he wants! of course! but why this? why _this_ of all things! no newspapers! just like that! _he_ waves an edict, and just like that, _no newspapers_! the _beacon-sentinel_ has been a great paper for the last twenty-five years! it was nothing, and i was nothing, and together we became a voice! and now again, we are nothing! oh, i see what's behind it! it's revenge, that's what it is! because he once couldn't become a "noospaper" man, he's taking his vengeance this way. a man as petty as that shall be overthrown! mark my words! and the clumsiness of it! i see what he is! i know him! he's still that pup of seventeen, playing king with the world, twisting his hands in glee over his childish triumph. no subtlety! just a direct pushing over an applecart he couldn't steer! doesn't matter whose apples you destroy, does it, jonesy? just push it over--push it over! * * * * * january , new san francisco closed the _beacon-sentinel_ yesterday. my savings are enough to take care of me for a few years. after that--ah, well, i am no longer a young man. i am glad that elsa is not here to see this. * * * * * february , new san francisco received a letter this morning, requesting me to appear at the chambers of his most imperial majesty, kyle the first, on tuesday of next week. his most imperial majesty can see me between : and : on that morning. ten minutes--rather a brief spell in which to roll another head. i find myself amazed, though. is this man so truly powerful that he needs no police to make his arrests for him? can he really send messages via jetmail and be certain his enemies will not try to escape? i don't want to attempt flight. life without my work is no longer life. * * * * * february , kyleton palace, north america i don't understand. i've gone over it twice, and i don't understand. if only elsa were still with me! i could talk to her. she would help me decipher what it's all about. this morning, at : sharp, i was taken to the public audience chamber in the palace. his majesty was seated behind a desk facing the doors. behind him, on the wall, was his coat of arms. he stood up and walked toward me, waving away the guards. "how are you, mr. booth?" he said. and offered me his hand! i recovered my presence of mind, of course, and replied as was fitting. and then he said it! "i shall be at liberty later this week to discuss more fully the details of these past years." (shades of "ain't got no!") "meanwhile, my secretary will give you a complete dossier on my planned official bulletin." he lighted a cigarette after offering me one. "i should deem it an honor," he continued, "to have a man of your literary versatility and--i must add--your vast practical experience become chief editor of that bulletin. the publication, which i should enjoy christening _the terran beacon-sentinel_--with your permission, sir--shall be more than my official organ. it shall set the standards for the coming newspaper world." he cocked an eyebrow at me and smiled. "i believe we are in perfect accord about certain standards, are we not, mr. booth? the deplorable grammatical practices of some newspapers! well, really, mr. booth! i feel assured of your agreement!" he led me around the desk and pointed to the coat of arms. as he stood silent, i felt obliged to look more closely. i had seen it before, of course, but seeing it now, greatly enlarged, i was able to make out its detail. what i had thought was a mere decorative border, i now realized was a motif i have seen all my life! a tiny lighthouse sending forth a beam! the trademark of my paper! as i stood there, gaping, his majesty laughed softly and said, "that, mr. booth, i felt impelled to include. for, without your most fortuitous termination of my apprenticeship in your organization, i should not have risen to my present position." * * * * * again he took my hand and shook it, warmly. his hair is just a bit gray at the temples, and there are signs of strain on his finely featured face. those awkward hands are now strong and purposeful. he apologized that he must return to his duties, and went with me to the door. "my secretary will fill in further details about your new position. newspapers shall once again be published. no--don't say a word, mr. booth! i know what you are thinking. "your salary," he continued as we stood at the open door, "shall, of course, be commensurate to your high authority in this new field. allow me, now, to thank you most deeply and sincerely for your unwitting aid in my youth. i assure you, mr. booth, i have often thought of that day we talked. and i hope to repay you, in some measure, for what you did." he said more, mostly polite phrases of good-by. and then i was outside after being handed a folder by some man. an official jetmobile took me to my residence--which turned out to be in the east wing. here i am, and i don't understand. i came prepared to suffer heaven only knows what as part of kilmer jones's childish pattern for revenge. instead, here i am, head of the official bulletin, titular ruler and ruler-in-fact of the future journalism of the world! there is something behind this--i keep feeling there is. but what? what? or is he truly generous, to a degree never before known among absolute monarchs? * * * * * february , kyleton palace, north america i am a suspicious and most humble old man. i see now that kyle's generosity amazed me only because i myself would have been incapable of such an action. just now, i fear for his majesty. i was right, before, when i said there was no subtlety in the man. he is too open, too fair, too forgiving. a ruler with such greatness of heart might easily allow some small insignificant person in too far, too close. i fear for him! * * * * * february , kyleton palace, north america tomorrow we begin publication! the pressroom is magnificent! i can hardly wait. it's been a long time since i've felt such exuberance. this afternoon i am to conduct a conference of some eight hundred editors! his majesty's secretary has sent me an outline on journalistic standards, which i shall study after lunch. there was a note attached, in his majesty's handwriting--such beautiful penmanship, too. "a mere formality," it said, "for, of course, you and i know full well what the future of journalism shall be, mr. booth." * * * * * later-- how wrong can one man be in one lifetime? i wonder now _why_ he changed the calendar. i wonder now what poor devil he destroyed then. but _i'll_ cheat him! i'll cheat him yet! * * * * * obituary, _trran bacon-sntinl_, fbruary , th unfortunat and untimly dmis of gorg w. booth is hrby notd with sorrow by thos who knw and lovd him. mr. booth, formr ditor and publishr of th _bacon-sntinl_ of nw san francisco, dirctorat of north amrica, had apparntly bn in poor helth for som tim. it is blivd that worry ovr th succss of his nw policy-stting _trran bacon-sntinl_ was a contributing factor in his suicid lat in th aftrnoon of fbruary . his most imprial majsty kyl th first has ordrd a fitting monumnt to his lat lamntd frind. a simpl shaft of granit shall b rctd in th gardn facing th ast wing of kylton palac, whr mr. booth mad his residnc. on th shaft shall b inscribd th lgnd: "how bautous mankind is! oh brav nw world, that has much peepl in't!" th quotation is from _th tmpst_. mr. booth was a grat admirr of shakspar. an vn mor fitting and long-livd mmorial is xprssd in th dict rlasd through th offics of his majsty on th vry day of mr. booth's dath. it reeds in part: "th nw linguistic policy on trra, as dmonstratd in th _trran bacon-sntinl_, shall hncforth b known as boothtalk." mr. booth bfrindd our imprial rulr in his youngr days, and, as w all know, his majsty nvr forgts a frind. --j. b. woodley transcriber's note: this etext was produced from _galaxy science fiction_ october . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. calendar dates remain as printed, and, based on the narrative, may be intentional. by al haines. the altar fire by arthur christopher benson cecidit autem ignis domini, et voravit holocaustum preface it will perhaps be said, and truly felt, that the following is a morbid book. no doubt the subject is a morbid one, because the book deliberately gives a picture of a diseased spirit. but a pathological treatise, dealing with cancer or paralysis, is not necessarily morbid, though it may be studied in a morbid mood. we have learnt of late years, to our gain and profit, to think and speak of bodily ailments as natural phenomena, not to slur over them and hide them away in attics and bedrooms. we no longer think of insanity as demoniacal possession, and we no longer immure people with diseased brains in the secluded apartments of lovely houses. but we still tend to think of the sufferings of the heart and soul as if they were unreal, imaginary, hypochondriacal things, which could be cured by a little resolution and by intercourse with cheerful society; and by this foolish and secretive reticence we lose both sympathy and help. mrs. proctor, the friend of carlyle and lamb, a brilliant and somewhat stoical lady, is recorded to have said to a youthful relative of a sickly habit, with stern emphasis, "never tell people how you are! they don't want to know." up to a certain point this is shrewd and wholesome advice. one does undoubtedly keep some kinds of suffering in check by resolutely minimising them. but there is a significance in suffering too. it is not all a clumsy error, a well-meaning blunder. it is a deliberate part of the constitution of the world. why should we wish to conceal the fact that we have suffered, that we suffer, that we are likely to suffer to the end? there are abundance of people in like case; the very confession of the fact may help others to endure, because one of the darkest miseries of suffering is the horrible sense of isolation that it brings. and if this book casts the least ray upon the sad problem--a ray of the light that i have learned to recognise is truly there--i shall be more than content. there is no morbidity in suffering, or in confessing that one suffers. morbidity only begins when one acquiesces in suffering as being incurable and inevitable; and the motive of this book is to show that it is at once curative and curable, a very tender part of a wholly loving and fatherly design. a. c. b. magdalene college, cambridge, july , . introduction i had intended to allow the records that follow--the records of a pilgrimage sorely beset and hampered by sorrow and distress--to speak for themselves. let me only say that one who makes public a record so intimate and outspoken incurs, as a rule, a certain responsibility. he has to consider in the first place, or at least he cannot help instinctively considering, what the wishes of the writer would have been on the subject. i do not mean that one who has to decide such a point is bound to be entirely guided by that. he must weigh the possible value of the record to other spirits against what he thinks that the writer himself would have personally desired. a far more important consideration is what living people who play a part in such records feel about their publication. but i cannot help thinking that our whole standard in such matters is a very false and conventional one. supposing, for instance, that a very sacred and intimate record, say, two hundred years old, were to be found among some family papers, it is inconceivable that any one would object to its publication on the ground that the writer of it, or the people mentioned in it, would not have wished it to see the light. we show how weak our faith really is in the continuance of personal identity after death, by allowing the lapse of time to affect the question at all; just as we should consider it a horrible profanation to exhume and exhibit the body of a man who had been buried a few years ago, while we approve of the action of archaeologists who explore egyptian sepulchres, subscribe to their operations, and should consider a man a mere sentimentalist who suggested that the mummies exhibited in museums ought to be sent back for interment in their original tombs. we think vaguely that a man who died a few years ago would in some way be outraged if his body were to be publicly displayed, while we do not for an instant regard the possible feelings of delicate and highly-born egyptian ladies, on whose seemly sepulture such anxious and tender care was expended so many centuries ago. but in this case there is no such responsibility. none of the persons concerned have any objection to the publication of these records, and as for the writer himself he was entirely free from any desire for a fastidious seclusion. his life was a secluded one enough, and he felt strongly that a man has a right to his own personal privacy. but his own words sufficiently prove, if proof were needed, that he felt that to deny the right of others to participate in thoughts and experiences, which might uplift or help a mourner or a sufferer, was a selfish form of individualism with which he had no sympathy whatever. he felt, and i have heard him say, that one has no right to withhold from others any reflections which can console and sustain, and he held it to be the supreme duty of a man to ease, if he could, the burden of another. he knew that there is no sympathy in the world so effective as the sharing of similar experiences, as the power of assuring a sufferer that another has indeed trodden the same dark path and emerged into the light of heaven. i will even venture to say that he deliberately intended that his records should be so used, for purposes of alleviation and consolation, and the bequest that he made of his papers to myself, entrusting them to my absolute discretion, makes it clear to me that i have divined his wishes in the matter. i think, indeed, that his only doubt was a natural diffidence as to whether the record had sufficient importance to justify its publication. in any case, my own duty in the matter is to me absolutely clear. but i think that it will be as well for me to sketch a brief outline of my friend's life and character. i would have preferred to have done this, if it had been possible, by allowing him to speak for himself. but the earlier diaries which exist are nothing but the briefest chronicle of events. he put his earlier confessions into his books, but he was in many ways more interesting than his books, and so i will try and draw a portrait of him as he appeared to one of his earliest friends. i knew him first as an undergraduate, and our friendship was unbroken after that. the diary, written as it is under the shadow of a series of calamities, gives an impression of almost wilful sadness which is far from the truth. the requisite contrast can only be attained by representing him as he appeared to those who knew him. he was the son of a moderately wealthy country solicitor, and was brought up on normal lines. his mother died while he was a boy. he had one brother, younger than himself, and a sister who was younger still. he went to a leading public school, where he was in no way distinguished either in work or athletics. i gathered, when i first knew him, that he had been regarded as a clever, quiet, good-natured, simple-minded boy, with a considerable charm of manner, but decidedly retiring. he was not expected to distinguish himself in any way, and he did not seem to have any particular ambitions. i went up to cambridge at the same time as he, and we formed a very close friendship. we had kindred tastes, and we did not concern ourselves very much with the social life of the place. we read, walked, talked, played games, idled, and amused ourselves together. i was more attached to him, i think, than he was to me; indeed, i do not think that he cared at that time to form particularly close ties. he was frank, engaging, humorous, and observant; but i do not think that he depended very much upon any one; he rather tended to live an interior life of his own, of poetical and fanciful reflection. i think he tended to be pensive rather than high-spirited--at least, i do not often remember any particular ebullition of youthful enthusiasm. he liked congenial company, but he was always ready to be alone. he very seldom went to the rooms of other men, except in response to definite invitations; but he was always disposed to welcome any one who came spontaneously to see him. he was a really diffident and modest fellow, and i do not think it even entered into his head to imagine that he had any social gifts or personal charm. but i gradually came to perceive that his mind was of a very fine quality. he had a mature critical judgment, and, though i used to think that his tastes were somewhat austere, i now see that he had a very sure instinct for alighting upon what was best and finest in books and art alike. he used to write poetry in those days, but he was shy of confessing it, and very conscious of the demerits of what he wrote. i have some of his youthful verses by me, and though they are very unequal and full of lapses, yet he often strikes a firm note and displays a subtle insight. i think that he was more ambitious than i perhaps knew, and had that vague belief in his own powers which is characteristic of able and unambitious men. his was certainly, on the whole, a cold nature in those days. he could take up a friendship where he laid it down, by virtue of an easy frankness and a sympathy that was intellectual rather than emotional. but the suspension of intercourse with a friend never troubled him. i became aware, in the course of a walking tour that i took with him in those days, that he had a deep perception of the beauties of nature; it was not a vague accessibility to picturesque impressions, but a critical discernment of quality. he always said that he cared more for little vignettes, which he could grasp entire, than for wide and majestic prospects; and this was true of his whole mind. i suppose that i tended to idealise him; but he certainly seems to me, in retrospect, to have then been invested with a singular charm. he was pure-minded and fastidious to a fault. he had considerable personal beauty, rather perhaps of expression than of feature. he was one of those people with a natural grace of movement, gesture and speech. he was wholly unembarrassed in manner, but he talked little in a mixed company. no one had fewer enemies or fewer intimate friends. the delightful ears soon came to an end, and one of the few times i ever saw him exhibit strong emotion was on the evening before he left cambridge, when he altogether broke down. i remember his quoting a verse from omar khayyam:-- "yet ah! that spring should vanish with the rose, that youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close," and breaking off in the middle with sudden tears. it was necessary for me to adopt a profession, and i remember envying him greatly when he told me that his father, who, i gathered, rather idolised him, was quite content that he should choose for himself at his leisure. he went abroad for a time; and i met him next in london, where he was proposing to read for the bar; but i discovered that he had really found his metier. he had written a novel, which he showed me, and though it was in some ways an immature performance, it had, i felt, high and unmistakable literary qualities. it was published soon afterwards and met with some success. he thereupon devoted himself to writing, and i was astonished at his industry and eagerness. he had for the first time found a congenial occupation. he lived mostly at home in those days, but he was often in london, where he went a good deal into society. i do not know very much about him at this time, but i gather that he achieved something of a social reputation. he was never a voluble talker; i do not suppose he ever set the table in a roar, but he had a quiet, humorous and sympathetic manner. his physical health was then, as always, perfect. he was never tired or peevish; he was frank, kindly and companionable; he talked little about himself, and had a genuine interest in the study of personality, so that people were apt to feel at their best in his society. meanwhile his books came out one after another--not great books exactly, but full of humour and perception, each an advance on the last. by the age of thirty he was accepted as one of the most promising novelists of the day. then he did what i never expected he would do; he fell wildly and enthusiastically in love with the only daughter of a gloucestershire clergyman, a man of good family and position. she was the only child; her mother had died some years before, and her father died shortly after the marriage. she was a beautiful, vigorous girl, extraordinarily ingenuous, simple-minded, and candid. she was not clever in the common acceptance of the term, and was not the sort of person by whom i should have imagined that my friend would have been attracted. they settled in a pleasant house, which they built in surrey, on the outskirts of a village. three children were born to them--a boy and a girl, and another boy, who survived his birth only a few hours. from this time he almost entirely deserted london, and became, i thought, almost strangely content with a quiet domestic life. i was often with them in those early days, and i do not think i ever saw a happier circle. it was a large and comfortable house, very pleasantly furnished, with a big garden. his father died in the early years of the marriage, and left him a good income; with the proceeds of his books he was a comparatively wealthy man. his wife was one of those people who have a serene and unaffected interest in human beings. she was a religious woman, but her relations with others were rather based on the purest kindliness and sympathy. she knew every one in the place, and, having no touch of shyness, she went in and out among their poorer neighbours, the trusted friend and providence of numerous families; but she had not in the least what is called a parochial mind. she had no touch of the bustling and efficient lady bountiful. the simple people she visited were her friends and neighbours, not her patients and dependents. she was simply an overflowing fountain of goodness, and it was as natural to her to hurry to a scene of sorrow and suffering as it is for most people to desire to stay away. my friend himself had not the same taste; it was always rather an effort to him to accommodate himself to people in a different way of life; but it ought to be said that he was universally liked and respected for his quiet courtesy and simplicity, and fully as much for his own sake as for that of his wife. this fact could hardly be inferred from his diary, and indeed he was wholly unconscious of it himself, because he never realised his natural charm, and indeed was unduly afraid of boring people by his presence. he was not exactly a hard worker, but he was singularly regular; indeed, though he sometimes took a brief holiday after writing a book, he seldom missed a day without writing some few pages. one of the reasons why they paid so few visits was that he tended, as he told me, to feel so much bored away from his work. it was at once his occupation and his recreation. he was not one of those who write fiercely and feverishly, and then fall into exhaustion; he wrote cheerfully and temperately, and never appeared to feel the strain. they lived quietly, but a good many friends came and went. he much preferred to have a single guest, or a husband and wife, at a time, and pursued his work quietly all through. he used to see that one had all one could need, and then withdrew after tea-time, not reappearing until dinner. his wife, it was evident, was devoted to him with an almost passionate adoration. the reason why life went so easily there was that she studied unobtrusively his smallest desires and preferences; and thus there was never any sense of special contrivance or consideration for his wishes: the day was arranged exactly as he liked, without his ever having to insist upon details. he probably did not realise this, for though he liked settled ways, he was sensitively averse to feeling that his own convenience was in any way superseding or overriding the convenience of others. it used to be a great delight and refreshment to stay there. he was fond of rambling about the country, and was an enchanting companion in a tete-a-tete. in the evening he used to expand very much into a genial humour which was very attractive; he had, too, the art of making swift and subtle transitions into an emotional mood; and here his poetical gift of seeing unexpected analogies and delicate characteristics gave his talk a fragrant charm which i have seldom heard equalled. it was indeed a picture of wonderful prosperity, happiness, and delight. the children were engaging, clever, and devotedly affectionate, and indeed the atmosphere of mutual affection seemed to float over the circle like a fresh and scented summer air. one used to feel, as one drove away, that though one's visit had been a pleasure, there would be none of the flatness which sometimes follows the departure of a guest, but that one was leaving them to a home life that was better than sociability, a life that was both sacred and beautiful, full to the brim of affection, yet without any softness or sentimentality. then came my friend's great success. he had written less since his marriage, and his books, i thought, were beginning to flag a little. there was a want of freshness about them; he tended to use the same characters and similar situations; both thought and phraseology became somewhat mannerised. i put this down myself to the belief that life was beginning to be more interesting to him than art. but there suddenly appeared the book which made him famous, a book both masterly and delicate, full of subtle analysis and perception, and with that indescribable sense of actuality which is the best test of art. the style at the same time seemed to have run clear; he had gained a perfect command of his instrument, and i had about this book, what i had never had about any other book of his, the sense that he was producing exactly the effects he meant to produce. the extraordinary merit of the book was instantly recognised by all, i think, but the author. he went abroad for a time after the book was published, and eventually returned; it was at that point of his life that the diary began. i went to see him not long after, and it became rapidly clear to me that something had happened to him. instead of being radiant with success, eager and contented, i found him depressed, anxious, haggard. he told me that he felt unstrung and exhausted, and that his power of writing had deserted him. but i must bear testimony at the same time to the fact which does not emerge in the diary, namely, the extraordinary gallantry and patience of his conduct and demeanour. he struggled visibly and pathetically, from hour to hour, against his depression. he never complained; he never showed, at least in my presence, the smallest touch of irritability. indeed to myself, who had known him as the most equable and good-humoured of men, he seemed to support the trial with a courage little short of heroism. the trial was a sore one, because it deprived him both of motive and occupation. but he made the best of it; he read, he took long walks, and he threw himself with great eagerness into the education of his children--a task for which he was peculiarly qualified. then a series of calamities fell upon him: he lost his boy, a child of wonderful ability and sweetness; he lost his fortune, or the greater part of it. the latter calamity he bore with perfect imperturbability--they let their house and moved into gloucestershire. here a certain measure of happiness seemed to return to him. he made a new friend, as the diary relates, in the person of the squire of the village, a man who, though an invalid, had a strong and almost mystical hold upon life. here he began to interest himself in the people of the place, and tried all sorts of education and social experiments. but his wife fell ill, and died very suddenly; and, not long after, his daughter died too. he was for a time almost wholly broken down. i went abroad with him at his request for a few weeks, but i was myself obliged to return to england to my professional duties. i can only say that i did not expect ever to see him again. he was like a man, the spring of whose life was broken; but at the same time he bore himself with a patience and a gentleness that fairly astonished me. we were together day by day and hour by hour. he made no complaint, and he used to force himself, with what sad effort was only too plain, to converse on all sorts of topics. some time after he drifted back to england; but at first he appeared to be in a very listless and dejected state. then there arrived, almost suddenly, it seemed to me, a change. he had made the sacrifice; he had accepted the situation. there came to him a serenity which was only like his old serenity from the fact that it seemed entirely unaffected; but it was based, i felt, on a very different view of life. he was now content to wait and to believe. it was at this time that the squire died; and not long afterwards, the squire's niece, a woman of great strength and simplicity of character, married a clergyman to whom she had been long attached, both being middle-aged people; and the living soon afterwards falling vacant, her husband accepted it, and the newly-married pair moved into the rectory; while my friend, who had been named as the squire's ultimate heir, a life-interest in the property being secured to the niece, went into the hall. shortly afterwards he adopted a nephew--his sister's son--who, with the consent of all concerned, was brought up as the heir to the estate, and is its present proprietor. my friend lived some fifteen years after that, a quiet, active, and obviously contented life. i was a frequent guest at the hall, and i am sure that i never saw a more attached circle. my friend became a magistrate, and he did a good deal of county business; but his main interest was in the place, where he was the trusted friend and counsellor of every household in the parish. he took a great deal of active exercise in the open air; he read much. he taught his nephew, whom he did not send to school. he regained, in fuller measure than ever, his old delightful charm of conversation, and his humour, which had always been predominant in him, took on a deeper and a richer tinge; but whereas in old days he had been brilliant and epigrammatic, he was now rather poetical and suggestive; and whereas he had formerly been reticent about his emotions and his religion, he now acquired what is to my mind the profoundest conversational charm--the power of making swift and natural transitions into matters of what, for want of a better word, i will call spiritual experience. i remember his once saying to me that he had learnt, from his intercourse with his village neighbours, that the one thing in the world in which every one was interested was religion; "even more," he added, with a smile, "than is the one subject in which sir robert walpole said that every one could join." i do not suppose that his religion was of a particularly orthodox kind; he was impatient of dogmatic definition and of ecclesiastical tendencies; but he cared with all his heart for the vital principles of religion, the love of god and the love of one's neighbour. he lived to see his adopted son grow up to maturity; and i do not think i ever saw anything so beautiful as the confidence and affection that subsisted between them; and then he died one day, as he had often told me he desired to die. he had been ailing for a week, and on rising from his chair in the morning he was seized by a sudden faintness and died within half-an-hour, hardly knowing, i imagine, that he was in any danger. it fell to me to deal with his papers. there was a certain amount of scattered writing, but no completed work; it all dated from before the publication of his great book. it was determined that this diary should eventually see the light, and circumstances into which i need not now enter have rendered its appearance advisable at the present date. the interest of the document is its candour and outspokenness. if the tone of the record, until near the end, is one of unrelieved sadness, it must be borne in mind that all the time he bore himself in the presence of others with a singular courage and simplicity. he said to me once, in an hour of dark despair, that he had drunk the dregs of self-abasement. that he believed that he had no sense of morality, no loyal affection, no love of virtue, no patience or courage. that his only motives had been timidity, personal ambition, love of respectability, love of ease. he added that this had been slowly revealed to him, and that the only way out was a way that he had not as yet strength to tread; the way of utter submission, absolute confidence, entire resignation. he said that there was one comfort, which was, that he knew the worst about himself that it was possible to know. i told him that his view of his character was unjust and exaggerated, but he only shook his head with a smile that went to my heart. it was on that day, i think, that he touched the lowest depth of all; and after that he found the way out, along the path that he had indicated. this is no place for eulogy and panegyric. my task has been just to trace the portrait of my friend as he appeared to others; his own words shall reveal the inner spirit. the beauty of the life to me was that he attained, unconsciously and gradually, to the very virtues which he most desired and in which he felt himself to be most deficient. he had to bear a series of devastating calamities. he had loved the warmth and nearness of his home circle more deeply than most men, and the whole of it was swept away; he had depended for stimulus and occupation alike upon his artistic work, and the power was taken from him at the moment of his highest achievement. his loss of fortune is not to be reckoned among his calamities, because it was no calamity to him. he ended by finding a richer treasure than any that he had set out to obtain; and i remember that he said to me once, not long before his end, that whatever others might feel about their own lives, he could not for a moment doubt that his own had been an education of a deliberate and loving kind, and that the day when he realised that, when he saw that there was not a single incident in his life that had not a deep and an intentional value for him, was one of the happiest days of his whole existence. i do not know that he expected anything or speculated on what might await him hereafter; he put his future, just as he put his past and his present, in the hands of god, to whom he committed himself "as unto a faithful creator." the altar fire september , . we came back yesterday, after a very prosperous time at zermatt; we have been there two entire months. yes, it was certainly prosperous! we had delicious weather, and i have seen a number of pleasant people. i have done a great deal of walking, i have read a lot of novels and old poetry, i have sate about a good deal in the open air; but i do not really like switzerland; there are of course an abundance of noble wide-hung views, but there are few vignettes, little on which the mind and heart dwell with an intimate and familiar satisfaction. those airy pinnacles of toppling rocks, those sheets of slanted snow, those ice-bound crags--there is a sense of fear and mystery about them! one does not know what is going on there, what they are waiting for; they have no human meaning. they do not seem to have any relation to humanity at all. sunday after sunday one used to have sermons in that hot, trim little wooden church--some from quite famous preachers--about the need of rest, the advantage of letting the mind and eye dwell in awe upon the wonderful works of god. of course the mountains are wonderful enough; but they make me feel that humanity plays a very trifling part in the mind and purpose of god. i do not think that if i were a preacher of the gospel, and had a speculative turn, i should care to take a holiday among the mountains. i should be beset by a dreary wonder whether the welfare of humanity was a thing very dear to god at all. i should feel very strongly what the psalmist said, "what is man that thou art mindful of him?" it would take the wind out of my sails, when i came to preach about redemption, because i should be tempted to believe that, after all, human beings were only in the world on sufferance, and that the aching, frozen, barren earth, so inimical to life, was in even more urgent need of redemption. day by day, among the heights, i grew to feel that i wanted some explanation of why the strange panorama of splintered crag and hanging ice-fall was there at all. it certainly is not there with any reference to man--at least it is hard to believe that it is all there that human beings may take a refreshing holiday in the midst of it. when one penetrates switzerland by the green pine-clad valleys, passing through and beneath those delicious upland villages, each clustering round a church with a glittering cupola, the wooden houses with their brown fronts, their big eaves, perched up aloft at such pleasant angles, one thinks of switzerland as an inhabited land of valleys, with screens and backgrounds of peaks and snowfields; but when one goes up higher still, and gets up to the top of one of the peaks, one sees that switzerland is really a region of barren ridges, millions of acres of cold stones and ice, with a few little green cracks among the mountain bases, where men have crept to live; and that man is only tolerated there. one day i was out with a guide on a peak at sunrise. behind the bleak and shadowy ridges there stole a flush of awakening dawn; then came a line of the purest yellow light, touching the crags and snowfields with sharp blue shadows; the lemon-coloured radiance passed into fiery gold, the gold flushed to crimson, and then the sun leapt into sight, and shed the light of day upon the troubled sea of mountains. it was more than that--the hills made, as it were, the rim of a great cold shadowy goblet; and the light was poured into it from the uprushing sun, as bubbling and sparkling wine is poured into a beaker. i found myself thrilled from head to foot with an intense and mysterious rapture. what did it all mean, this awful and resplendent solemnity, full to brim of a solitary and unapproachable holiness? what was the secret of the thing? perhaps every one of those stars that we had seen fade out of the night was ringed round by planets such as ours, peopled by forms undreamed of; doubtless on millions of globes, the daylight of some central sun was coming in glory over the cold ridges, and waking into life sentient beings, in lands outside our ken, each with civilisations and histories and hopes and fears of their own. a stupendous, an overwhelming thought! and yet, in the midst of it, here was i myself, a little consciousness sharply divided from it all, permitted to be a spectator, a partaker of the intolerable and gigantic mystery, and yet so strangely made that the whole of that vast and prodigious complexity of life and law counted for less to me than the touch of weariness that hung, after my long vigil, over limbs and brain. the faculty, the godlike power of knowing and imagining, all actually less to me than my own tiny and fragile sensations. such moods as these are strange things, because they bring with them so intense a desire to know, to perceive, and yet paralyse one with the horror of the darkness in which one moves. one cannot conceive why it is that one is given the power of realising the multiplicity of creation, and yet at the same time left so wholly ignorant of its significance. one longs to leap into the arms of god, to catch some whisper of his voice; and at the same time there falls the shadow of the prison-house; one is driven relentlessly back upon the old limited life, the duties, the labours, the round of meals and sleep, the tiny relations with others as ignorant as ourselves, and, still worse, with the petty spirits who have a complacent explanation of it all. even over love itself the shadow falls. i am as near to my own dear and true maud as it is possible to be; but i can tell her nothing of the mystery, and she can tell me nothing. we are allowed for a time to draw close to each other, to whisper to each other our hopes and fears; but at any moment we can be separated. the children, alec and maggie, dearer to me--i can say it honestly--than life itself, to whom we have given being, whose voices i hear as i write, what of them? they are each of them alone, though they hardly know it yet. the little unnamed son, who opened his eyes upon the world six years ago, to close them in a few hours, where and what is he now? is he somewhere, anywhere? does he know of the joy and sorrow he has brought into our lives? i would fain believe it . . . these are profitless thoughts, of one staring into the abyss. somehow these bright weeks have been to me a dreary time. i am well in health; nothing ails me. it is six months since my last book was published, and i have taken a deliberate holiday; but always before, my mind, the strain of a book once taken off it, has begun to sprout and burgeon with new ideas and schemes: but now, for the first time in my life, my mind and heart remain bare and arid. i seem to have drifted into a dreary silence. it is not that things have been less beautiful, but beauty seems to have had no message, no significance for me. the people that i have seen have come and gone like ghosts and puppets. i have had no curiosity about them, their occupations and thoughts, their hopes and lives; it has not seemed worth while to be interested, in a life which appears so short, and which leads nowhere. it seems morbid to write thus, but i have not been either morbid or depressed. it has been an easy life, the life of the last few months, without effort or dissatisfaction, but without zest. it is a mental tiredness, i suppose. i have written myself out, and the cistern must fill again. yet i have had no feeling of fatigue. it would have been almost better to have had something to bear; but i am richer than i need be, maud and the children have been in perfect health and happiness, i have been well and strong. i shall hope that the familiar scene, the pleasant activities of home-life will bring the desire back. i realise how much the fabric of my life is built upon my writing, and write i must. well, i have said enough; the pleasure of these entries is that one can look back to them, and see the movement of the current of life in a bygone day. i have an immense mass of arrears to make up, in the form of letters and business, but i want to survey the ground; and the survey is not a very happy one this morning; though if i made a list of my benefits and the reverse, like robinson crusoe, the credit side would be full of good things, and the debit side nearly empty. september , . it is certainly very sweet to be at home again; to find oneself in familiar scenes, with all the pretty homely comfortable things waiting patiently for us to return--pictures, books, rooms, tree, kindly people. wright, my excellent gardener, with whom i spent an hour strolling round the garden to-day, touched me by saying that he was glad to see me back, and that it had seemed dull without me; he has done fifty little simple things in our absence, in his tranquil and faithful way, and is pleased to have them noticed. alec, who was with me to-day, delighted me by finding his stolid wooden horse in the summer-house, rather damp and dishevelled, and almost bursting into tears at the pathos of the neglect. "did you think we had forgotten you?" he said as he hugged it. i suggested that he should have a good meal. "i don't think he would care about grass," said alec thoughtfully, "he shall have some leaves and berries for a treat." and this was tenderly executed. maud went off to see some of her old pensioners, and came back glowing with pleasure, with twenty pleasant stories of welcome. two or three people came in to see me on business, and i was glad to feel i was of use. in the afternoon we all went off on a long ramble together, and we were quite surprised to see that everything seemed to be in its place as usual. summer is over, the fields have been reaped; there is a comfortable row of stacks in the rickyard; the pleasant humming of an engine came up the valley, as it sang its homely monotone, now low, now loud. after tea--the evenings have begun to close in--i went off to my study, took out my notebook and looked over my subjects, but i could make nothing of any of them. i could see that there were some good ideas among them; but none of them took shape. often i have found that to glance over my subjects thus, after a holiday, is like blowing soap-bubbles. the idea comes out swelling and eddying from the bowl; a globe swimming with lucent hues, reflecting dim moving shapes of rooms and figures. not so to-day. my mind winked and flapped and rustled like a burnt-out fire; not in a depressed or melancholy way, but phlegmatically and dully. well, the spirit bloweth as it listeth; but it is strange to find my mind so unresponsive, with none of that pleasant stir, that excitement that has a sort of fantastic terror about it, such as happens when a book stretches itself dimly and mysteriously before the mind--when one has a glimpse of a quiet room with people talking, a man riding fiercely on lonely roads, two strolling together in a moonlit garden with the shadows of the cypresses on the turf, and the fragrance of the sleeping flowers blown abroad. they stop to listen to the nightingale in the bush . . . turn to each other . . . the currents of life are intermingled at the meeting of the lips, the warm shudder at the touch of the floating tress of fragrant hair. to-day nothing comes to me; i throw it all aside and go to see the children, am greeted delightfully, and join in some pretty and absurd game. then dinner comes; and i sit afterwards reading, dropping the book to talk, maud working in her corner by the fire--all things moving so tranquilly and easily in this pleasantly ordered home-like house of ours. it is good to be at home; and how pitiful to be hankering thus for something else to fill the mind, which should obliterate all the beloved things so tenderly provided. maud asks about the reception of the latest book, and sparkles with pride at some of the things i tell her. she sees somehow--how do women divine these things?--that there is a little shadow of unrest over me, and she tells me all the comforting things that i dare not say to myself--that it is only that the book took more out of me than i knew, and that the resting-time is not over yet; but that i shall soon settle down again. then i go off to smoke awhile; and then the haunting shadow comes back for a little; till at last i go softly through the sleeping house; and presently lie listening to the quiet breathing of my wife beside me, glad to be at home again, until the thoughts grow blurred, take grotesque shapes, sinking softly into repose. september , . i have spent most of the morning in clearing up business, and dealing with papers and letters. among the accumulations was a big bundle of press-cuttings, all dealing with my last book. it comes home to me that the book has been a success; it began by slaying its thousands, like saul, and now it has slain its tens of thousands. it has brought me hosts of letters, from all sorts of people, some of them very delightful and encouraging, many very pleasant--just grateful and simple letters of thanks--some vulgar and impertinent, some strangely intimate. what is it, i wonder, that makes some people want to tell a writer whom they have never seen all about themselves, their thoughts and histories? in some cases it is an unaffected desire for sympathy from a person whom they think perceptive and sympathetic; in some cases it proceeds, i think, from a hysterical desire to be thought interesting, with a faint hope, i fear, of being possibly put into a book. some of the letters have been simply unintelligible and inconceivable on any hypothesis, except for the human instinct to confess, to bare the heart, to display the secret sorrow. many of these letters are intensely pathetic, affecting, heart-rending; an invalid lady writes to say that she would like to know me, and will i come to the north of england to see her? a man writes a pretentious letter, to ask me to go and stay with him for a week. he has nothing to offer, he says, but plain fare and rather cramped quarters; but he has thought deeply, he adds, on many of the problems on which i touch, and thinks that he could throw light upon some of them. imagine what reserves of interest and wisdom he must consider that he possesses! then there are patronising letters from people who say that i have put into words thoughts which they have always had, and which they never took the trouble to write down; then there are requests for autographs, and "sentiments," and suggestions for new books. a man writes to say that i could do untold good if i would write a book with a purpose, and ventures to propose that i should take up anti-vivisection. there are a few letters worth their weight in gold, from good men and true, writers and critics, who thank me for a book which fulfils its aim and artistic purpose, while on the other hand there are some from people who find fault with my book for not doing what i never even attempted to do. here is one that has given me deep and unmitigated pain; it is from an old friend, who, i am told, is aggrieved because he thinks that i have put him into my book, in the form of an unpleasant character. the worst of it is that there is enough truth in it to make it difficult for me to deny it. my character is, in some superficial ways, habits, and tricks of speech, like reginald. well, on hearing what he felt, i wrote him a letter of apology for my carelessness and thoughtlessness, saying, as frankly as i could, that the character was not in any way drawn from him, but that i undoubtedly had, almost unconsciously, taken an external trait or two from him; adding that i was truly and heartily sorry, and hoped that there would be no ill-feeling; and that i valued his friendship even more than he probably imagined. here is his reply: my dear f----, --if you spit on the head of a man passing in the street, and then write to him a few days after to say that all is forgiven, and that you are sorry your aim was so accurate, you don't mend matters. you express a hope that after what has occurred there may be no ill-feeling between us. well, you have done me what i consider an injury. i have no desire to repay it; if i had a chance of doing you a good turn, i should do it; if i heard you abused, i should stick up for you. i have no intention of making a grievance out of it. but if you ask me to say that i do not feel a sense of wrong, or to express a wish to meet you, or to trust you any longer as i have hitherto trusted you, i must decline saying anything of the kind, because it would not be true. of course i know that there cannot be omelettes without breaking eggs; and i suppose that there cannot be what are called psychological novels, without violating confidences. but you cannot be surprised, when you encourage an old friend to trust you and confide in you, and then draw an ugly caricature of him in a book, if he thinks the worse of you in consequence. i hear that the book is a great success; you must be content with the fact that the yolks are as golden as they are. please do not write to me again on the subject. i will try to forget it, and if i succeed, i will let you know. yours ---- that is the kind of letter that poisons life for a while. while i am aware that i meant no treachery, i am none the less aware that i have contrived to be a traitor. of course one vows one will never write another line; but i do not suppose i shall keep the vow. i reply shortly, eating all the dirt i can collect; and i shall try to forget it too; though it is a shabby end of an old friendship. then i turn to the reviews. i find them gracious, respectful, laudatory. they are to be taken cum grano, of course. when an enthusiastic reviewer says that i have passed at one stride into the very first class of contemporary writers, i do not feel particularly elated, though i am undeniably pleased. i find my conception, my structure, my style, my descriptions, my character-drawing, liberally and generously praised. there is no doubt that the book has been really successful beyond my wildest hopes. if i were in any doubt, the crop of letters from editors and publishers asking me for articles and books of every kind, and offering me incredible terms, would convince me. now what do i honestly feel about all this? i will try for my own benefit to say. of course i am very much pleased, but the odd thing is that i am not more pleased. i can say quite unaffectedly that it does not turn my head in the least. i reflect that if this had happened when i began to write, i should have been beside myself with delight, full of self-confidence, blown out with wind, like the fog in the fable. even now there is a deep satisfaction in having done what one has tried to do. but instead of raking in the credit, i am more inclined to be grateful for my good fortune. i feel as if i had found something valuable rather than made something beautiful; as if i had stumbled on a nugget of gold or a pearl of price. i am very fatalistic about writing; one is given a certain thing to say, and the power to say it; it does not come by effort, but by a pleasant felicity. after all, i reflect, the book is only a good story, well told. i do not feel like a benefactor of the human race, but at the best like a skilful minstrel, who has given some innocent pleasure. what, after all, does it amount to? i have touched to life, perhaps a few gracious, tender, romantic fancies--but, after all, the thoughts and emotions were there to start with, just as the harmonies which the musician awakes are all dormant in his throbbing strings. i have created nothing, only perceived and represented phenomena. i have gained no sensibility, no patience, no wisdom in the process. i know no more of the secret of life and love, than before i wrote my book. i am only like a scientific investigator who has discovered certain delicate processes, subtle laws at work. they were there all the time; the temptation of the investigator and of the writer alike is to yield to the delusion that he has made them, by discerning and naming them. as for the style, which is highly praised, it has not been made by effort. it is myself. i have never written for any other reason than because i liked writing. it has been a pleasure to overcome difficulties, to make my way round obstacles, to learn how to express the vague an intangible thing. but i deserve no credit for this; i should deserve credit if i had made myself a good writer out of a bad one; but i could always write, and i am not a better writer, only a more practised one. there is no satisfaction there. and then, too, i find myself overshadowed by the thought that i do not want to do worse, to go downhill, to decline. i do not feel at all sure that i can write a better book, or so good a one indeed. i should dislike failing far more than i like having succeeded. to have reached a certain standard makes it incumbent on one that one should not fall below that standard; and no amount of taking pains will achieve that. it can only be done through a sort of radiant felicity of mood, which is really not in my power to count upon. i was happy, supremely happy, when i was writing the book. i lighted upon a fine conception, and it was the purest joy to see the metal trickle firmly from the furnace into the mould. can i make such a mould again? can i count upon the ingots piled in the fierce flame? can i reckon upon the same temperamental glow? i do not know--i fear not. here is the net result--that i have become a sort of personage in the world of letters. do i desire it? yes, in a sense i do, but in a sense i do not. i do not want money, i do not wish for public appearances. i have no social ambitions. to be pointed out as the distinguished novelist is distinctly inconvenient. people will demand a certain standard of talk, a certain brilliance, which i am not in the least capable of giving them. i want to sit at my ease at the banquet of life, not to be ushered to the highest rooms. i prefer interesting and pleasant people to important and majestic persons. perhaps if i were more simple-minded, i should not care about the matter at all; just be grateful for the increased warmth and amenity of life--but i am not simple-minded, and i hate not fulfilling other people's expectations. i am not a prodigal, full-blooded, royal sort of person at all. i am not conscious of greatness, but far more of emptiness. i do not wish to seem pretentious. i have got this one faculty; but it has outrun all the rest of me, and i am aware that it has drained the rest of my nature. the curious thing is that this sort of fame is the thing that as a young man i used to covet. i used to think it would be so sustaining and resplendent. now that it has come to me, in far richer measure, i will not say than i hoped, but at all events than i had expected, it does not seem to be a wholly desirable thing. fame is only one of the sauces of life; it is not the food of the spirit at all. the people that praise one are like the courtiers that bow in the anterooms of a king, through whom he passes to the lonely study where his life is lived. i am not feeling ungrateful or ungenerous; but i would give all that i have gained for a new and inspiring friendship, or for the certainty that i should write another book with the same happiness as i wrote my last book. perhaps i ought to feel the responsibility more! i do feel it in a sense, but i have never estimated the moral effectiveness of a writer of fiction very high; one comforts rather than sustains; one diverts rather than feeds. if i could hear of one self-sacrificing action, one generous deed, one tranquil surrender that had been the result of my book, i should be more pleased than i am with all the shower of compliments. of course in a sense praise makes life more interesting; but what i really desire to apprehend is the significance and meaning of life, that strange mixture of pain and pleasure, of commonplace events and raptures; and my book brings me no nearer that. to feel god nearer me, to feel, not by evidence but by instinct, that there is a heart that cares for me, and moulded me from the clay for a purpose--why, i would give all that i have in the world for that! of course maud will be pleased; but that will be because she believes that i deserve everything and anything, and is only surprised that the world has not found out sooner what a marvellous person i am. god knows i do not undervalue her belief in me; but it makes and keeps me humble to feel how far she is from the truth, how far from realising the pitiful weakness and emptiness of her lover and husband. is this, i wonder, how all successful people feel about fame? the greatest of all have often never enjoyed the least touch of it in their lifetime; and they are happier so. some few rich and generous natures, like scott and browning, have neither craved for it nor valued it. some of the greatest have desired it, slaved for it, clung to it. yet when it comes, one realises how small a part of life and thought it fills--unless indeed it brings other desirable things with it; and this is not the case with me, because i have all i want. well, if i can but set to work at another book, all these idle thoughts will die away; but my mind rattles like a shrunken kernel. i must kneel down and pray, as blake and his wife did, when the visions deserted them. september , . here is a social instance of what it means to become "quite a little man," as stevenson used to say. some county people near here, good-natured, pushing persons, who have always been quite civil but nothing more, invited themselves to luncheon here a day or two ago, bringing with them a distinguished visitor. they throw in some nauseous compliments to my book, and say that lord wilburton wishes to make my acquaintance. i do not particularly want to make his, though he is a man of some not. but there was no pretext for declining. such an incursion is a distinct bore; it clouds the morning--one cannot settle down with a tranquil mind to one's work; it fills the afternoon. they came, and it proved not uninteresting. they are pleasant people enough, and lord wilburton is a man who has been everywhere and seen everybody. the fact that he wished to make my acquaintance shows, no doubt, that i have sailed into his ken, and that he wishes to add me to his collection. i felt myself singularly unrewarding. i am not a talker at the best of times, and to feel that i am expected to be witty and suggestive is the last straw. lord wilburton discoursed fluently and agreeably. lady harriet said that she envied me my powers of writing, and asked how i came to think of my last brilliant book, which she had so enjoyed. i did not know what to say, and could not invent anything. they made a great deal of the children. they walked round the garden. they praised everything ingeniously. they could not say the house was big, and so they called in convenient. they could not say that the garden was ample, but lord wilburton said that he had never seen so much ground go to the acre. that was neat enough. they made a great point of visiting my library, and carried away my autograph, written with the very same pen with which i wrote my great book. this they called a privilege. they made us promise to go over to the castle, which i have no great purpose of doing. we parted with mutual goodwill, and with that increase of geniality on my own part which comes on me at the end of a visit. altogether i did not dislike it, though it did not seem to me particularly worth while. to-day my wife tells me that they told the fitzpatricks that it was a great pleasure seeing me, because i was so modest and unaffected. that is a courteous way of concealing their disappointment that i was not more brilliant. but, good heavens, what did they expect? i suppose, indeed i have no doubt, that if i had talked mysteriously about my book, and had described the genesis of it, and my method of working, they would have preferred that. just as in reminiscences of the duke of wellington, the people who saw him in later life seem to have been struck dumb by a sort of tearful admiration at the sight of the duke condescending to eat his dinner, or to light a guest's bedroom candle. perhaps if i had been more simple-minded i should have talked frankly about myself. i don't know; it seems to me all rather vulgar. but my visitors are kindly and courteous people, and felt, i am sure, that they were both receiving and conferring benefits. they will like to describe me and my house, and they will feel that i am pleased at being received on equal terms into county society. i don't put this down at all cynically; but they are not people with whom i have anything in common. i am not of their monde at all. i belong to the middle class, and they are of the upper class. i have a faint desire to indicate that i don't want to cross the border-line, and that what i desire is the society of interesting and congenial people, not the society of my social superior. this is not unworldliness in the least, merely hedonism. feudalism runs in the blood of these people, and they feel, not consciously but quite instinctively, that the confer a benefit by making my acquaintance. "no doubt but ye are the people," as job said, but i do not want to rise in the social scale. it would be the earthen pot and the brazen pot at best. i am quite content with my own class, and life is not long enough to change it, and to learn the habits of another. i have no quarrel with the aristocracy, and do not in the least wish to level them to the ground. i am quite prepared to acknowledge them as the upper class. they are, as a rule, public-spirited, courteous barbarians, with a sense of honour and responsibility. but they take a great many things as matters of course which are to me simply alien. i no more wish to live with them than wright, my self-respecting gardener, wishes to live with me--though so deeply rooted are feudal ideas in the blood of the race, that wright treats me with a shade of increased deference because i have been entertaining a party of lords and ladies; and the vicar's wife said to maud that she heard we had been giving a very grand party, and would soon be quite county people. the poor woman will think more of my books than she has ever thought before. i don't think this is snobbish, because it is so perfectly instinctive and natural. but what i wanted to say was that this is the kind of benefit which is conferred by success; and for a quiet person, who likes familiar and tranquil ways, it is no benefit at all; indeed, rather the reverse; unless it is a benefit that the stationmaster touched his hat to me to-day, which he has never done before. it is a funny little world. meanwhile i have no ideas, and my visitors to-day haven't given me any, though lord wilburton might be a useful figure in a book; so perfectly appointed, so quiet, so deferential, so humorous, so deliciously insincere! october , . i have happened to read lately, in some magazines, certain illustrated interviews with prominent people, which have given me a deep sense of mental and moral nausea. i do not think i am afflicted with a strong sense of the sacredness of a man's home life--at least, if it is sacred at all, it seems to me to be just as much profaned by allowing visitors or strangers to see it and share it as it is by allowing it to be written about in a periodical. if it is sacred in a peculiar sense, then only very intimate friends ought to be allowed to see it, and there should be a tacit sense that they ought not to tell any one outside what it is like; but if i am invited to luncheon with a celebrated man whom i do not know, because i happen to be staying in the neighbourhood, i do not think i violate his privacy by describing my experience to other people. if a man has a beautiful house, a happy interior, a gifted family circle, and if he is himself a remarkable man, it is a privilege to be admitted to it, it does one good to see it; and it seems to me that the more people who realise the beauty and happiness of it the better. the question of numbers has nothing to do with it. suppose, for instance, that i am invited to stay with a great man, and suppose that i have a talent for drawing; i may sketch his house and his rooms, himself and his family, if he does not object--and it seems to me that it would be churlish and affected of him to object--i may write descriptive letters from the place, giving an account of his domestic ways, his wife and family, his rooms, his books, his garden, his talk. i do not see that there is any reasonable objection to my showing those sketches to other people who are interested in the great man, or to the descriptive letters or diary that i write being shown or read to others who do not know him. indeed i think it is a perfectly natural and wholesome desire to know something of the life and habits of great men; i would go further, and say that it is an improving and inspiring sort of knowledge to be acquainted with the pleasant details of the well-ordered, contented, and happy life of a high-minded and effective man. who, for instance, considers it to be a sort of treachery for the world at large to know something of the splendid and affectionate life of the kingsley circle at eversley rectory, or of the tennyson circle at freshwater? to look at pictures of the scene, to hear how the great men looked and moved and spoke? and if it is not profanation to hear and see this in the pages of a biography, why is it a profanation to read and see it in the pages of a magazine? to object to it seems to me to be a species of prudish conventionality. only you must be sure that you get a natural, simple, and unaffected picture of it all; and what i object to in the interviews which i have been reading is that one gets an unnatural, affected, self-conscious, and pompous picture of it all. to go and pose in your favourite seat in a shrubbery or a copse, where you think out your books or poems, in order that an interviewer may take a snap-shot of you--especially if in addition you assume a look of owlish solemnity as though you were the prey of great thoughts--that seems to me to be an infernal piece of posing. but still worse than that is the kind of conversation in which people are tempted to indulge in the presence of an interviewer. a man ought not to say to a wandering journalist whom he has never seen before, in the presence of his own wife, that women are the inspirers and magnetisers of the world, and that he owes all that has made him what he is to the sweet presence and sympathetic tenderness of his bessy. this, it seems to me, is the lowest kind of melodrama. the thing may be perfectly true, the thought may be often in his mind, but he cannot be accustomed to say such things in ordinary life; and one feels that when he says them to an interviewer he does it in a thoroughly self-conscious mood, in order that he may make an impressive figure before the public. the conversations in the interviews i have been reading give me the uncomfortable sense that they have been thought out beforehand from the dramatic point of view; and indeed one earnestly hopes that this is the solution of the situation, because it would make one feel very faint if one thought that remarks of this kind were the habitual utterances of the circle--indeed, it would cure one very effectually of the desire to know anything of the interiors of celebrated people, if one thought that they habitually talked like the heroes of a sunday-school romance. that is why the reading of these interviews is so painful, because, in the first place, one feels sure that one is not realising the daily life of these people at all, but only looking on at a tableau vivant prepared by them for the occasion; and secondly, it makes one very unhappy to think that people of real eminence and effectiveness can condescend to behave in this affected way in order to win the applause of vulgar readers. one vaguely hopes, indeed, that some of the dismal platitudes that they are represented as uttering may have been addressed to them in the form of questions by the interviewer, and that they have merely stammered a shamefaced assent. it makes a real difference, for instance, whether as a matter of fact a celebrated authoress leads her golden-haired children up to an interviewer, and says, "these are my brightest jewels;" or whether, when she tells her children to shake hands, the interviewer says, "no doubt these are your brightest jewels?" a mother is hardly in a position to return an indignant negative to such a question, and if she utters an idiotic affirmative, she is probably credited with the original remark in all its unctuousness! it is a difficult question to decide what is the most simple-minded thing to do, if you are in the unhappy position of being requested to grant an interview for journalistic purposes. my own feeling is that if people really wish to know how i live, what i wear, what i eat and drink, what books i read, what kind of a house i live in, they are perfectly welcome to know. it does not seem to me that it would detract from the sacredness of my home life, if a picture of my dining-room, with the table laid for luncheon in a very cramped perspective, or if a photogravure of the scrap of grass and shrubbery that i call my garden, were to be published in a magazine. all that is to a certain extent public already. i should not wish to have a photograph of myself in bed, or shaving, published in a magazine, because those are not moments when i am inclined to admit visitors. neither do i particularly want my private and informal conversation taken down and reproduced, because that often consists of opinions which are not my deliberate and thought-out utterances. but i hope that i should be able to talk simply and courteously to an interviewer on ordinary topics, in a way that would not discredit me it is was made public; and i hope, too, that decency would restrain me from making inflated and pompous remarks about my inner beliefs and motives, which were not in the least characteristic of my usual method of conversation. the truth is that what spoils these records is the desire on the part of worthy and active people to appear more impressive in ordinary life than they actually are; it is a well-meant sort of hypocrisy, because it is intended, in a way, to influence other people, and to make them think that celebrated people live habitually on a higher tone of intellect and emotion than they do actually live upon. my on experience of meeting great people is that they are, as a rule, disappointingly like ordinary people, both in their tastes and in their conversation. very few men or women, who are extremely effective in practical or artistic lines, have the energy or the vitality to expend themselves very freely in talk or social intercourse. they do not save themselves up for their speeches or their books; but they give their best energies to them, and have little current coin of high thought left for ordinary life. the mischief is that these interviews are generally conducted by inquisitive and rhetorical strangers, not distinguished for social tact or overburdened with good taste; and so the whole occasion tends to wear a melodramatic air, which is fatal both to artistic effect as well as to simple propriety. october , . let me set against my fashionable luncheon-party of a few weeks ago a visit which i owe no less to my success, and which has been a true and deep delight to me. i had a note yesterday from a man whom i hold in great and deep reverence, a man who i have met two or three times, a poet indeed, one of our true and authentic singers. he writes that he is in the neighbourhood; may he come over for a few hours and renew our acquaintance? he came, in the morning. one has only to set eyes upon him to know that one is in the presence of a hero, to feel that his poetry just streams from him like light from the sun; that it is not the central warmth, but the flying rippling radiance of the outward-bound light, falling in momentary beauty on the common things about his path. he is a great big man, carelessly dressed, like a homeric king. i liked everything about him from head to foot, his big carelessly-worn clothes, the bright tie thrust loosely through a cameo ring; his loose shaggy locks, his strong beard. his face, with its delicate pallor, and purely moulded features, had a youthful air of purity and health; yet there was a dim trouble of thought on his brow, over the great, smiling, flashing grey eyes. he came in with a sort of royal greeting, he flung his big limbs on a sofa; he talked easily, quietly, lavishly, saying fine things with no effort, dropping a subject quickly if he thought it did not interest me; sometimes flashing out with a quick gesture of impatience or gusto, enjoying life, every moment and every detail. his quick eyes, roving about, took in each smallest point, not in the weary feverish way in which i apprehend a new scene, but as though he liked everything new and unfamiliar, like an unsated child. he greeted maud and the children with a kind of chivalrous tenderness and intimacy, as though he loved all pretty and tender things, and took joy in their nearness. he held alec between his knees, and played with him while he talked. the children took possession of him, as if they had known him all their lives. and yet there was no touch of pose, no consciousness of greatness or vigour about him. he was as humble, grateful, interested, as though he were a poor stranger dependent on our bounty. i asked him in a quiet moment about his work. "no, i am writing nothing," he said with a smile, "i have said all i have got to say,"--and then with a sudden humorous flash, "though i believe i should be able to write more if i could get decent paper and respectable type to print my work." i ventured to ask if he did not feel any desire to write? "no," he said, "frankly i do not--the world is so full of pleasant things to do and hear and see, that i sometimes think myself almost a fool for having spent so much time in scribbling. do you know," he went on, "a delicious story i picked up the other day? a man was travelling in some god-forsaken out-of-the-way place--i believe it was the andes--and he fell in with an old podgy roman priest who was going everywhere, in a state of perpetual fatigue, taking long expeditions every day, and returning worn-out in the evening, but perfectly content. the man saw a good deal of the priest, and asked him what he was doing. the priest smiled and said, 'well, i will tell you. i had an illness some time ago and believed that i was going to die. one evening--i was half unconscious--i thought i saw some one standing by my bed. i looked, and it was a young man with a beautiful and rather severe face, whom i knew to be an angel, who was gazing at me rather strangely. i thought it was the messenger of death, and--for i was wishing to be gone and have done with it all--i said something to him about being ready to depart--and then added that i was waiting hopefully to see the joys of paradise, the glory of the saints in light. he looked at me rather fixedly, and said, "i do not know why you should say that, and why you should expect to take so much pleasure in the beauty of heaven, when you have taken so little trouble to see anything of the beauty of earth;" and then he left me; and i reflected that i had always been doing my work in a dull humdrum way, in the same place all my life; and i determined that, if i got well, i would go about and see something of the glory that is revealed to us, and not expect only the glory that shall be revealed to us.' it is a fine story," he went on, "and makes a parable for us writers, who are inclined to think too much about our work, and disposed to see that it is very good, like god brooding over the world." he sate for a little, smiling to himself. and then i plied him with questions about his writing, how his thoughts came to him how he worked them out. he told me as if he was talking about some one else, half wondering that there could be anything to care about. i have heard many craftsmen talk about their work, but never one who talked with such detachment. as a rule, writers talk with a secret glee, and with a deprecating humility that deceives no one; but the great man talked, not as if he cared to think about it, but because it happened to interest me. he strolled with me, he lunched; and he thanked us when he went away with an earnest and humble thankfulness, as though we had extended our hospitality to an obscure and unworthy guest. and then his praise of my own books--it was all so natural; not as if he had come there with fine compliments prepared, with incense to burn; but speaking about them as though they were in his mind, and he could not help it. "i read all you write," he said; "ah, you go deep--you are a lucky fellow, to be able to see so far and so minutely, and to bring it all home to our blind souls. he must be a terrible fellow to live with," he said, smiling at my wife. "it must be like being married to a doctor, and feeling that he knows so much more about one than one knows oneself--but he sees what is best and truest, thank god; and says it with the voice of an angel, speaking softly out of his golden cloud." i can't say what words like these have meant to me; but the visit itself, the sight of this strong, equable, good-humoured man, with no feverish ambitions, no hankering after fame or recognition, has done even more. i have heard it said that he is indolent, that he has not sufficient sense of responsibility for his gifts. but the man has done a great work for his generation; he has written poetry of the purest and finest quality. is not that enough? i cannot understand the mere credit we give to work, without any reference to the object of the work, or the spirit in which it is done. we think with respect of the man who makes a fortune, or who fills an official post, the duties of which do nothing in particular for any one. it is a kind of obsession with us practical westerners; of course a man ought to contribute to the necessary work of the world; but many men spend their lives in work which is not necessary; and, after all, we are sent into the world to live, and work is only a part of life. we work to live, we do not live to work. even if we were all socialists, we should, i hope, have the grace to dig the gardens and make the clothes of our poets and prophets, so as to give them the leisure they need. i do not question the instinct of my hero in the matter; he lives eagerly and peacefully; he touches into light the spirits of those who draw near to him; and i admire a man who knows how to stop when he has done his best work, and does not spur and whip his tired mind into producing feebler, limper, duller work of the same kind; how few of our great writers have known when to hold their hand! god be praised for great men! my poet to-day has made me feel that life is a thing to be lived eagerly and high-heartedly; that the world is full of beautiful, generous, kindly things, of free air and sunshine; and that we ought to find leisure to drink it all in, and to send our hearts out in search of love and beauty and god--for these things are all about us, if we could but feel and hear and see them. october , . how absurd it is to say that a writer could not write a large, wise, beautiful book unless he had a great soul--is it almost like saying that an artist could not paint a fine face unless he had a fine face himself. it is all a question of seeing clearly, and having a skilled hand. there is nothing to make one believe that shakespeare had a particularly noble or beautiful character; and some of our greatest writers have been men of unbalanced, childish, immature temperaments, full of vanity and pettiness. of course a man must be interested in what he is describing; but i think that a man of a naturally great, wise, and lofty spirit is so disposed as a rule to feel that his qualities are instinctive, and so ready to credit other people with them, that it does not occur to him to depict those qualities. i am not sure that the best equipment for an artist is not that he should see and admire great and noble and beautiful things, and feel his own deficiency in them acutely, desiring them with the desire of the moth for the star. the best characters in my own books have been, i am sure, the people least like myself, because the creation of a character that one whole-heartedly admires, and that yet is far out of one's reach, is the most restful and delightful thing in the world. if one is unready in speech, thinking of one's epigrams three hours after the occasion for them has arisen, how pleasant to draw the man who says the neat, witty, appropriate, consoling thing! if one suffers from timidity, from meanness, from selfishness, what a delight to depict the man who is brave, generous, unselfish! of course the quality of a man's mind flows into and over his work, but that is rather like the varnish of the picture than its tints--it is the medium rather than the design. the artistic creation of ideal situations is often a sort of refuge to the man who knows that he makes a mess of the beautiful and simple relations of life. the artist is fastidious and moody, feeling the pressure of strained nerves and tired faculties, easily discouraged, disgusted by the superficial defect, the tiny blot that spoils alike the noble character, the charming prospect, the attractive face. he sees, let us say, a person with a beautiful face and an ugly hand. the normal person thinks of the face and forgets the hand. the artist thinks with pain of the hand and forgets the face. he desires an impossible perfection, and flies for safety to the little world that he can make and sway. that is why artists, as a rule, love twilight hours, shaded rooms, half-tones, subdued hues, because what is common, staring, tasteless, is blurred and hidden. men of rich vitality are generally too much occupied with life as it is, its richness, its variety, its colour and fragrance, to think wistfully of life as it might be. the unbridled, sensuous, luxurious strain, that one finds in so many artists, comes from a lack of moral temperance, a snatching at delights. they fear dreariness and ugliness so much that they welcome any intoxication of pleasure. but after all, it is clearness of vision that makes the artist, the power of disentangling the central feature from the surrounding details, the power of subordinating accessories, of seeing which minister to the innermost impression, and which distract and blur. an artist who creates a great character need not necessarily even desire to attain the great qualities which he discerns; he sees them, as he sees the vertebrae of the mountain ridge under pasture and woodland, as he sees the structure of the tree under its mist of green; but to see beauty is not necessarily to desire it; for, as in the mountain and the tree, it may have no ethical significance at all, only a symbolical meaning. the best art is inspired more by an intellectual force than by a vital sympathy. of course to succeed as a novelist in england to-day, one must have a dash of the moralist, because an english audience is far more preoccupied with moral ideals than with either intellectual or artistic ideals. the reading public desires that love should be loyal rather than passionate; it thinks ultimate success a more impressive thing than ultimate failure; it loves sadness as a contrast and preface to laughter. it prefers that the patriarch job should end by having a nice new family of children and abundant flocks, rather than that he should sink into death among the ashes, refusing to curse god for his reverses. its view of existence after death is that dives should join lazarus in abraham's bosom. to succeed, one must compromise with this comfortable feeing, sacrificing, if needs be, the artistic conscience, because the place of the minstrel in england is after the banquet, when the warriors are pleasantly tired, have put off the desire of meat and drink, and the fire roars and crackles in the hearth. when ruskin deserted his clouds and peaks, his sunsets and sunrises, and devoured his soul over the brutalities and uglinesses and sordid inequalities of life, it was all put down to the obscure pressure of mental disease. ophelia does not sob and struggle in the current, but floats dreamily to death in a bed of meadow-flowers. october , . let me try to recollect for my own amusement how it was that my last book grew up and took shape. how well i remember the day and the hour when the first thought came to me! some one was dining here, and told a story about a friend of his, and an unhappy misunderstanding between him and a girl whom he loved, or thought he loved. a figure, two figures, a scene, a conversation, came into my head, absolutely and perfectly life-like. i lay awake half the night, i remember, over it. how did those people come to be in exactly that situation? how would it develop? at first it was just the scene by itself, nothing more; a room which filled itself with furniture. there were doors--where did they lead to? there were windows--where did they look out? the house was full, too, of other people, whose quiet movements i heard. one person entered the room, and then another; and so the story opened out. i saw the wrong word spoken, i saw the mist of doubt and distress that filled the girl's mind; i felt that i would have given anything to intervene, to explain; but instead of speaking out, the girl confided in the wrong person, who had an old grudge against the man, so old that it had become instinctive and irrational. so the thing evolved itself. then at one time the story got entangled and confused. i could go no further. the characters were by this time upon the scene, but they could not speak. i then saw that i had made a mistake somewhere. the scaffolding was all taken down, spar by spar, and still the defect was not revealed. i must go, i saw, backwards; and so i felt my way, like a man groping in the dark, into what had gone before, and suddenly came out into the light. it was a mistake far back in the conception. i righted it, and the story began to evolve itself again; this time with a delicate certainty, that made me feel i was on the track at last. an impressive scene was sacrificed--it was there that my idea had gone wrong! as to the writing of it, i cannot say it was an effort. it wrote itself. i was not creating; i was describing and selecting. there was one scene in particular, a scene which has been praised by all the reviewers. how did i invent it? i do not know. i had no idea what the characters were to say when i began to write it, but one remark grew inevitably and surely out of the one before. i was never at a loss; i never stuck fast; indeed the one temptation which i firmly and constantly resisted was the temptation to write morning, noon, and night. sometimes i had a horrible fear that i might not live to set down what was so clear in my mind; but there is a certain freshness which comes of self-restraint. day after day, as i strolled, and read, and talked, i used to hug myself at the thought of the beloved evening hours that were coming, when i should fling myself upon the book with a passionate zest, and feel it grow under my hand. and then it was done! i remember writing the last words, and the conviction came upon me that it was the end. there was more to be told; the story stretched on into the distance; but it was as though the frame of the picture had suddenly fallen upon the canvas, and i knew that just so much and no more was to be seen. and then, as though to show me plainly that the work was over, the next day came an event which drew my mind off the book. i had had a period of unclouded health and leisure, everything had combined to help me, and then this event, of which i need not speak, came and closed the book at the right moment. what wonder if one grows fatalistic about writing; that one feels that one can only say what is given one to say! and now, dry and arid as my mind is, i would give all i have for a renewal of that beautiful glow, which i cannot recover. it is misery--i can conceive no greater--to be bound hand and foot in this helpless silence. november , . it is a joy to think of the way in which the best, most beautiful, most permanent things have stolen unnoticed into life. i like to think of wordsworth, an obscure, poor, perverse, absurd man, living in the corner of the great house at alfoxden, walking in the moonlight with coleridge, living on milk and eggs, utterly unaccountable and puerile to the sensible man of affairs, while the two planned the lyrical ballads. i like to think of keats, sitting lazily and discontentedly in the villa garden at hampstead, with his illness growing upon him and his money melting away, scribbling the "ode to the nightingale," and caring so little about the fate of it that it was only by chance, as it were, that the pencil scraps were rescued from the book where he had shut them. i love to think of charlotte bronte, in the bare kitchen of the little house in the grey, wind-swept village on the edge of the moorland, penning, in sickness and depression, the scenes of jane eyre, without a thought that she was doing anything unusual or lasting. we surround such scenes with a heavenly halo, born of the afterglow of fame; we think them romantic, beautiful, thrilled and flushed by passionate joy; but there was little that was delightful about them at the time. the most beautiful of all such scenes is the tale of the maiden-wife in the stable at bethlehem, with the pain and horror and shame of the tragic experience, in all its squalid publicity, told in those simple words, which i never hear without a smile that is full of tears, because there was no room for them in the inn. we poor human souls, knowing what that event has meant for the race, make the bare, ugly place seemly and lovely, surrounding the babe with a tapestry of heavenly forms, holy lights, rapturous sounds; taking the terror and the meanness of the scene away, and thereby, by our clumsy handling, losing the divine seal of the great mystery, the fact that hope can spring, in unstained and sublime radiance, from the vilest, lowest, meanest, noisiest conditions that can well be conceived. november , . i wonder aimlessly what it is that makes a book, a picture, a piece of music, a poem, great. when any of these things has become a part of one's mind and soul, utterly and entirely familiar, one is tempted to think that the precise form of them is inevitable. that is a great mistake. here is a tiny instance. i see that in the "lycidas" milton wrote:-- "who would not sing for lycidas? he well knew himself to sing and build the lofty rhyme." the word "well" occurs in two mss., and it seems to have been struck out in the proof. the introduction of the word seems barbarous, unmetrical, an outrage on the beauty of the line. yet milton must have thought that it was needed, and have only decided by an after-thought that it was better away. if it had been printed so, we should equally have thought its omission barbarous and inartistic. and thus, to an artist, there must be many ways of working out a conception. i do not believe in the theory that the form is so inevitable, because what great artist was ever perfectly content with the form? the greater the artist, the more conscious he probably is of the imperfection of his work; and if it could be bettered, how is it then inevitable? it is only our familiarity with it that gives it inevitableness. a beautiful building gains its mellow outline by a hundred accidents of wear and weather, never contemplated by the designer's mind. we love it so, we would not have it otherwise; but we should have loved it just as intensely if it had been otherwise. only a small part, then, of the greatness of artistic work is what we ourselves bring to it; and it becomes great, not only from itself, but from the fact that it fits our minds as the dagger fits the sheath. the greatness of a conception depends largely upon its being near enough to our own conceptions, and yet a little greater, just as the vault of a great church gives one a larger sense of immensity than the sky with its sailing clouds. indeed it is often the very minuteness of a conception rather than its vastness that makes it great. it must not be outside our range. as to the form, it depends upon some curious felicity of hand, and touch, and thought. suppose that a great painter gave a rough pencil-sketch of a picture to a hundred students, and told them all to work it out in colour. some few of the results would be beautiful, the majority would be still uninteresting and tame. thus i am somewhat of a fatalist about art, because it seems to depend upon a lucky union of conception and technical instinct. the saddest proof of which is that many good and even great artists have not improved in greatness as their skill improved. the youthful works of genius are generally the best, their very crudities and stiffnesses adorable. the history of art and literature alike seems to point to the fact that each artistic soul has a flowering period, which generally comes early, rarely comes late; and therefore the supreme artist ought also to know when the bloom is over, when his good work is done. and then, i think, he ought to be ready to abjure his art, to drown his book, like prospero, and set himself to live rather than to produce. but what a sacrifice to demand of a man, and how few attain it! most men cannot do without their work, and go on to the end producing more feeble, more tired, more mannerised work, till they cloud the beauty of their prime by masses of inferior and uninspired production. november , . soft wintry skies, touched with faintest gleams of colour, like a dove's wing, blue plains and heights, over the nearer woodland; everywhere fallen rotting leaf and oozy water-channel; everything, tint and form, restrained, austere, delicate; nature asleep and breathing gently in the cool airs; a tranquil and sober hopefulness abroad. i walked alone in deep woodland lanes, content for once to rest and dream. the country seemed absolutely deserted; such labour as was going forward was being done in barn and byre; beasts being fed, hurdles made. i passed in a solitary road a draggled ugly woman, a tramp, wheeling an old perambulator full of dingy clothes and sordid odds and ends; she looked at me sullenly and suspiciously. where she was going god knows: to camp, i suppose, in some dingle, with ugly company; to beg, to lie, to purloin, perhaps to drink; but by the perambulator walked a little boy, seven or eight years old, grotesquely clothed in patched and clumsy garments; he held on to the rim, dirty, unkempt; but he was happy too; he was with his mother, of whom he had no fear; he had been fed as the birds are fed; he had no anxious thoughts of the future, and as he went, he crooned to himself a soft song, like the piping of a finch in a wayside thicket. what was in his tiny mind and heart? i do not know; but perhaps a little touch of the peace of god. november , . another visitor! i am not sure that his visit is not a more distinguished testimonial than any i have yet received. he is a young don with a very brilliant record indeed. he wrote to ask if he might have the honour of calling, and renewing a very slight acquaintance. he came and conquered. i am still crushed and battered by his visit. i feel like a land that has been harried by an invading army. let me see if, dizzy and unmanned as i am, i call recall some of the incidents of his visit. he has only been gone an hour, yet i feel as though a month had elapsed since he entered the room, since i was a moderately happy man. he is a very pleasant fellow to look at, small, trim, well-appointed, courteous, friendly, with a deferential air. his eyes gleam brightly through his glasses, and he has brisk dexterous gestures. he was genial enough till he settled down upon literature, and since then what waves and storms have gone over me! i have or had a grovelling taste for books; i possess a large number, and i thought i had read them. but i feel now, not so much as if i had read the wrong ones, but as if those i had read were only, so to speak, the anterooms and corridors which led to the really important books--and of them, it seems, i know nothing. epigrams flowed from his tongue, brilliant characterisations, admirable judgments. he had "placed" every one, and literature to him seemed like a great mosaic in which he knew the position of every cube. he knew all the movements and tendencies of literature, and books seemed to him to be important, not because they had a message for the mind and heart, but because they illustrated a tendency, or were a connecting link in a chain. he quoted poems i had never heard of, he named authors i had never read. he did it all modestly and quietly enough, with no parade, (i want to do him full justice) but with an evidently growing disappointment to find that he had fallen among savages. i am sure that his conclusion was that authors of popular novels were very shallow, ill-informed people, and i am sure i wholly agreed with him. good heavens, what a mind the man had, how stored with knowledge! how admirably equipped! nothing that he had ever put away in his memory seemed to have lost its colour or outline; and he knew, moreover, how to lay his hand upon everything. indeed, it seemed to me that his mind was like an emporium, with everything in the world arranged on shelves, all new and varnished and bright, and that he knew precisely the place of everything. i became the prey of hopeless depression; when i tried to join in, i confused writers and dates; he set me right, not patronisingly but paternally. "ah, but you will remember," he said, and "yes, but we must not overlook the fact that"--adding, with admirable humility, "of course these are small points, but it is my business to know them." now i find myself wondering why i disliked knowledge, communicated thus, so much as i did. it may be envy and jealousy, it may be humiliation and despair. but i do not honestly think that it is. i am quite sure i do not want to possess that kind of knowledge. it is the very sharpness and clearness of outline about it all that i dislike. the things that he knows have not become part of his mind in any way: they are stored away there, like walnuts; and i feel that i have been pelted with walnuts, deluged and buried in walnuts. the things which my visitor knows have undergone no change, they have not been fused and blended by his personality; they have not affected his mind, nor has his mind affected them. i don't wish to despise or to decry his knowledge; as a lecturer, he must be invaluable; but he treats literature as a purveyor might--it has not been food to him, but material and stock-in-trade. some of the poetry we talked about--elizabethan lyrics--grow in my mind like flowers in a copse; in his mind they are planted in rows, with their botanical names on tickets. the worst of it is that i do not even feel encouraged to fill up my gaps of knowledge, or to master the history of tendency. i feel as if he had rather trampled down the hyacinths and anemones in my wild and uncultivated woodlands. i should like, in a dim way, to have his knowledge as well as my own appreciation, but i would not exchange my knowledge for his. the value of a lyric or a beautiful sentence, for me, is its melody, its charm, its mysterious thrill; and there are many books and poems, which i know to be excellent of their kind, but which have no meaning or message for me. he seems to think that it is important to have complete texts of old authors, and i do not think that he makes much distinction between first-rate and second-rate work. in fact, i think that his view of literature is the sociological view, and he seems to care more about tendencies and influences than about the beauty and appeal of literature. i do not go so far as to say or to think that literature cannot be treated scientifically; but i feel as i feel about the doctor in balzac, i think, who, when his wife cried upon his shoulder, said, "hold, i have analysed tears," adding that they contained so much chlorate of sodium and so much mucus. the truth is that he is a philosopher, and that i am an individualist; but it leaves me with an intense desire to be left alone in my woodland, or, at all events, not to walk there with a ruthless botanist! november , . i have heard this morning of the suicide of an old friend. is it strange to say that i have heard the news with an unfeigned relief, even gladness? he was formerly a charming and brilliant creature, full of enthusiasm and artistic impulses, fitful, wayward, wilful. somehow he missed his footing; he fell into disreputable courses; he did nothing, but drifted about, planning many things, executing nothing. the last time i saw him was exquisitely painful; we met by appointment, and i could see that he had tried to screw himself up for the interview by stimulants. the ghastly feigning of cheerfulness, the bloated face, the trembling hands, told the sad tale. and now that it is all over, the shame and the decay, the horror of his having died by his own act is a purely conventional one. one talks pompously about the selfishness of it, but it is one of the most unselfish things poor dick has ever done; he was a burden and a misery to all those who cared for him. recovery was, i sincerely believe, impossible. his was a fine, uplifted, even noble spirit in youth, but there were terrible hereditary influences at work, and i cannot honestly say that i think he was wholly responsible for his sins. if i could think that this act was done reasonably, in a solemn and recollected spirit, and was not a mere frightened scurrying out of life, i should be, i believe, wholly glad. i do not see that any one had anything to gain by his continuing to live; and if reason is given us to use, to guide our actions by, it seems to me that we do right to obey it. suicide may, of course, be a selfish and a cowardly thing, but the instinct of self-preservation is so strong that a man must always manifest a certain courage in making such a decision. the sacrifice of one's own life is not necessarily and absolutely an immoral thing, because it is always held to be justified if one's motive is to save another. it is purely, i believe, a question of motive; whatever poor dick's motives were, it was certainly the kindest and bravest thing that he could do; and i look upon his life as having been as naturally ended as if he had died of disease or by an accident. there is not a single one of his friends who would not have been thankful if he had died in the course of nature; and i for one am even more thankful as it is, because it seems to me that his act testifies to some tenderness, some consideration for others, as well as to a degree of resolution with which i had not credited him. of course such a thing deepens the mystery of the world; but such an act as this is not to me half as mysterious as the action of an omnipotent power which allowed so bright and gracious a creature as dick was long ago to drift into ugly, sordid, and irreparable misery. yet it seems to me now that dick has at last trusted god completely, made the last surrender, and put his miserable case in the father's hands. december , . as i came home to-night, moving slowly westward along deserted roads, among wide and solitary fields, in the frosty twilight, i passed a great pale fallow, in the far corner of which, beside a willow-shaded stream, a great heap of weeds was burning, tended by a single lonely figure raking in the smouldering pile. a dense column of thick smoke came volleying from the heap, that went softly and silently up into the orange-tinted sky; some forty feet higher the smoke was caught by a moving current of air; much of it ascended higher still, but the thin streak of moving wind caught and drew out upon itself a long weft of aerial vapour, that showed a delicate blue against the rose-flushed west. the long lines of leafless trees, the faint outlines of the low distant hills, seemed wrapped in meditative silence, dreaming wistfully, as the earth turned her broad shoulder to the night, and as the forlorn and chilly sunset faded by soft degrees on the horizon. as the day thus died, the frost made itself felt, touching the hedgerows with rime, and crisping the damp road beneath my feet. the end drew on with a mournful solemnity; but the death of the light seemed a perfectly natural and beautiful thing, not an event to be grieved over or regretted, but all part of a sweet and grave progress, in which silence and darkness seemed, not an interruption to the eager life of the world, but a happy suspension of activity and life. i was haunted, as i often am at sunset, by a sense that the dying light was trying to show me some august secret, some gracious mystery, which would silence and sustain the soul could it but capture it. some great and wonderful presence seemed to hold up a hand, with a gesture half of invitation, half of compassion for my blindness. down there, beyond the lines of motionless trees, where the water gleamed golden in the reaches of the stream, the secret brooded, withdrawing itself resistlessly into the glowing west. a wistful yearning filled my soul to enter into that incommunicable peace. yet if one could take the wings of the morning, and follow that flying zone of light, as swiftly as the air, one could pursue the same sunset all the world over, and see the fiery face of the sun ever sinking to his setting, over the broad furrows of moving seas, over tangled tropic forests, out to the shapeless wintry land of the south. day by day has the same pageant enacted itself, for who can tell what millions of years. and in that vast perspective of weltering aeons has come the day when god has set me here, a tiny sentient point, conscious, in a sense, of it all, and conscious too that, long after i sleep in the dust, the same strange and beautiful thing will be displayed age after age. and yet it is all outside of me, all without. i am a part of it, yet with no sense of my unity with it. that is the marvellous and bewildering thing, that each tiny being like myself has the same sense of isolation, of distinctness, of the perfectly rounded life, complete faculties, independent existence. another day is done, and leaves me as bewildered, as ignorant as ever, as aware of my small limitations, as lonely and uncomforted. who shall show me why i love, with this deep and thirsty intensity, the array of gold and silver light, these mist-hung fields with their soft tints, the glow that flies and fades, the cold veils of frosty vapour? thousands of men and women have seen the sunset pass, loving it even as i love it. they have gone into the silence as i too shall go, and no hint comes back as to whether they understand and are satisfied. and now i turn in at the well-known gate, and see the dark gables of my house, with the high elms of the grove outlined against the pale sky. the cheerful windows sparkle with warmth and light, welcoming me, fresh from the chilly air, out of the homeless fields. with such array of cheerful usages i beguile my wondering heart, and chase away the wild insistent thoughts, the deep yearnings that thrill me. thus am i bidden to desire and to be unsatisfied, to rest and marvel not, to stay, on this unsubstantial show of peace and security, the aching and wondering will. december , . writing, like music, ought to have two dimensions--a horizontal movement of melody, a perpendicular depth of tone. a person unskilled in music can only recognise a single horizontal movement, an air. one who is a little more skilled can recognise the composition of a chord. a real musician can read a score horizontally, with all its contrasting and combining melodies. sometimes one gets, in writing, a piece of horizontal structure, a firm and majestic melody, with but little harmony. such are the great spare, strong stories of the old world. modern writing tends to lay much more emphasis upon depth of colour, and the danger there is that such writing may become a mere structureless modulation, the perfect combination is to get firm structure, sparingly and economically enriched by colour, but colour always subordinated to structure. when i was young i undervalued structure and overvalued colour; but it was a good training in a way, because i learned to appreciate the vital necessity of structure, and i learnt the command of harmony. what is it that gives structure? it is firm and clear intellectual conception, the grasp of form and proportion; while colour is given by depth and richness of personality, by power of perception, and still more by the power of fusing perception with personality. the important thing here is that the thing perceived and felt should not simply be registered and pigeon-holed, but that it should become a cell of the writer's soul, respond to his pulse, be animated by his vital forces. now, in my present state, i have lost my hold on melody in some way or other; my creative intellectual power has struck work; and when i try to exercise it, i can only produce vague textures of modulated thoughts--things melodious in themselves, but ineffective because they are isolated effects, instead of effects emphasising points, crises, climaxes. i have strained some mental muscle, i suppose; but the unhappy part of the situation is that i have not lost the desire to use it. it would be a piece of good fortune for me now if i could fall in with some vigorous mind who could give me a lead, indicate a subject. but then the work that resulted would miss unity, i think. what i ought to be content to do is to garner more impressions; but i seem to be surfeited of impressions. december , . to-day i stumbled upon one of my old childish books--grimm's household stories. i am ashamed to say how long i read it. these old tales, which i used to read as transcripts of marvellous and ancient facts, have, many of them, gained for me, through experience of life, a beautiful and symbolical value; one in particular, the tale of karl katz. karl used to feed his goats in the ruins of an old castle, high up above the stream. day after day one of his herd used to disappear, coming back in the evening to join the homeward procession, very fat and well-liking. so karl set himself to watch, and saw that the goat slipped in at a hole in the masonry. he enlarged the hole, and presently was able to creep into a dark passage. he made his way along, and soon heard a sound like a falling hailstorm. he groped his way thither, and found the goat, in the dim light, feeding on grains of corn which came splashing down from above. he looked and listened, and, from the sounds of stamping and neighing overhead, he became aware that the grain was failing through the chinks of a paved floor from a stable inside the hill. i forget at this moment what happened next--the story is rich in inconsequent details--but karl shortly heard a sound like thunder, which he discerned at last to be persons laughing and shouting and running in the vaulted passages. he stole on, and found, in an open, grassy place, great merry men playing at bowls. he was welcomed and set down in a chair, though he could not even lift one of the bowls when invited to join in the game. a dwarf brought him wine in a cup, which he drank, and presently he fell asleep. when he woke, all was silent and still; he made his way back; the goats were gone, and it was the early morning, all misty and dewy among the ruins, when he squeezed out of the hole. he felt strangely haggard and tired, and reached the village only to find that seventy years had elapsed, and that he was an old and forgotten man, with no place for him. he had lost his home, and though there were one or two old grandfathers, spent and dying, who remembered the day when he was lost, and the search made for him, yet now there was no room for the old man. the gap had filled up, life had flowed on. they had grieved for him, but they did not want him back. he disturbed their arrangements; he was another useless mouth to feed. the pretty old story is full of parables, sad and sweet. but the kernel of the tale is a warning to all who, for any wilfulness or curiosity, however romantic or alluring the quest, forfeit their place for an instant in the world. you cannot return. life accommodates itself to its losses, and however sincerely a man may be lamented, yet if he returns, if he tries to claim his place, he is in the way, de trop. no one has need of him. an artist has most need of this warning, because he of all men is tempted to enter the dark place in the hill, to see wonderful things and to drink the oblivious wine. let him rather keep his hold on the world, at whatever sacrifice. because by the time that he has explored the home of the merry giants, and dreamed his dream, the world to which he tries to tell the vision will heed it not, but treat it as a fanciful tale. all depends on the artist being in league with his day; if he is born too early or too late, he has no hold on the world, no message for it. either he is a voice out of the past, an echo of old joys, piping a forgotten message, or he is fanciful, unreal, visionary, if he sees and tries to utter what shall be. by the time that events confirm his foresight, the vitality of his prophecy is gone, and he is only looked at with a curious admiration, as one that had a certain clearness of vision, but no more; he is called into court by the historian of tendency, but he has had no hold on living men. one sees men of great artistic gifts who suffer from each of these disadvantages. one sees poets, born in a prosaic age, who would have won high fame if they had been born in an age of poets. and one sees, too, men who seem to struggle with big, unintelligible thoughts, thoughts which do not seem to fit on to anything existing. the happy artist is the man who touches the note which awakens a responsive echo in many hearts; the man who instinctively uses the medium of the time, and who neither regrets the old nor portends the new. karl katz must content himself, if he can find a corner and a crust, with the memory of the day when the sun lay hot among the ruins, with the thought of the pleasant coolness of the vault, the leaping shower of corn, the thunder of the imprisoned feet, the heroic players, the heady wine. that must be enough for him. he has had a taste, let him remember, of marvels hidden from common eyes and ears. let it be for him to muse in the sun, and to be grateful for the space of recollection given him. if he had lived the life of the world, he would but have had a treasure of simple memories, much that was sordid, much that was sad. but now he has his own dreams, and he must pay the price in heaviness and dreariness! december , . the danger of art as an occupation is that one uses life, looks at life, as so much material for one's art. life becomes a province of art, instead of art being a province of life. that is all a sad mistake, perhaps an irreparable mistake! i walked to-day on the crisp frozen snow, down the valley, by field-paths, among leafless copses and wood-ends. the stream ran dark and cold, between its brambly banks; the snow lay pure and smooth on the high-sloping fields. it made a heart of whiteness in the covert, the trees all delicately outlined, the hazels weaving an intricate pattern. all perfectly and exquisitely beautiful. sight after sight of subtle and mysterious beauty, vignette after vignette, picture after picture. if i could but sing it, or say it, depict or record it, i thought to myself! yet i could not analyse what the desire was. i do not think i wished to interpret the sight to others, or even to capture it for myself. no matter at what season of the year i pass through the valley, it is always filled from end to end with beauty, ever changing, perishing, ever renewing itself. in spring the copse is full of tender points of green, uncrumpling and uncurling. the hyacinths make a carpet of steely blue, the anemones weave their starred tapestry. in the summer, the grove hides its secret, dense with leaf, the heavy-seeded grass rises in the field, the tall flowering plants make airy mounds of colour; in autumn, the woods blaze with orange and gold, the air is heavy with the scent of the dying leaf. in winter, the eye dwells with delight upon the spare low tints; and when the snow falls and lies, as it does to-day, the whole scene has a still and mournful beauty, a pure economy of contrasted light and gloom. yet the trained perception of the artist does not dwell upon the thought of the place as upon a perpetual feast of beauty and delight. rather, it shames me to reflect, one dwells upon it as a quarry of effects, where one can find and detach the note of background, the sweet symbol that will lend point and significance to the scene that one is labouring at. instead of being content to gaze, to listen, to drink in, one thinks only what one can carry away and make one's own. if one's art were purely altruistic, if one's aim were to emphasise some sweet aspect of nature which the careless might otherwise overlook or despise; or even if the sight haunted one like a passion, and fed the heart with hope and love, it would be well. but does one in reality feel either of these purposes? speaking candidly, i do not. i care very little for my message to the world. it is true that i have a deep and tender love for the gracious things of earth; but i cannot be content with that. one thinks of wordsworth, rapt in contemplation, sitting silent for a whole morning, his eyes fixed upon the pool of the moorland stream, or the precipice with the climbing ashes. it was like a religion to him, a communion with something holy and august which in that moment drew near to his soul. but with me it is different. to me the passion is to express it, to embalm it, in phrase or word, not for my pride in my art, not for any desire to give the treasure to others, but simply, so it seems, in obedience to a tyrannous instinct to lend the thought, the sight, another shape. i despair of defining the feeling. it is partly a desire to arrest the fleeting moment, to give it permanence in the ruinous lapse of things, the same feeling that made old herrick say to the daffodils, "we weep to see you haste away so soon." partly the joy of the craftsman in making something that shall please the eye and ear. it is not the desire to create, as some say, but to record. for when one writes an impassioned scene, it seems no more an act of creation than one feels about one's dreams. the wonder of dreams is that one does not make them; they come upon one with all the pleasure of surprise and experience. they are there; and so, when one indulges imagination, one does not make, one merely tells the dream. it is this that makes art so strange and sad an occupation, that one lives in a beautiful world, which does not seem to be of one's own designing, but from which one is awakened, in terror and disgust, by bodily pain, discomfort, anxiety, loss. yet it seems useless to say that life is real and imagination unreal. they are both there, both real. the danger is to use life to feed the imagination, not to use imagination to feed life. in these sad weeks i have been like a sleeper awakened. the world of imagination, in which i have lived and moved, has crumbled into pieces over my head; the wind and rain beat through the flimsy dwelling, and i must arise and go. i have sported with life as though it were a pretty plaything; and i find it turn upon me like a wild beast, gaunt, hungry, angry. i am terrified by its evil motions, i sicken at its odour. that is the deep mystery and horror of life, that one yields unerringly to blind and imperious instincts, not knowing which may lead us into green and fertile pastures of hope and happy labour, and which may draw us into thorny wildernesses. the old fables are true, that one must not trust the smiling presences, the beguiling words. yet how is one to know which of the forms that beckon us we may trust. must we learn the lesson by sad betrayals, by dark catastrophes? i have wandered, it seems, along a flowery path--and yet i have not gathered the poisonous herbs of sin; i have loved innocence and goodness; but for all that i have followed a phantom, and now that it is too late to retrace my steps, i find that i have been betrayed. i feel "as some bold seer in a trance seeing all his own mischance." well, at least one may still be bold! december , . perhaps my trial comes to me that it may test my faith in art; perhaps to show me that the artist's creed is a false and shallow one after all. what is it that we artists do? in a happy hour i should have said glibly that we discern and interpret beauty. but now it seems to me that no man can ever live upon beauty. i think i have gone wrong in busying myself so ardently in trying to discern the quality of beauty in all things. i seem to have submitted everything--virtue, honour, life itself--to that test. i appear to myself like an artist who has devoted himself entirely to the appreciation of colour, who is suddenly struck colour-blind; he sees the forms of things as clearly as ever, but they are dreary and meaningless. i seem to have tried everything, even conduct, by an artistic standard, and the quality which i have devoted myself to discerning has passed suddenly out of life. and my mistake has been all the more grievous, because i have always believed that it was life of which i was in search. there are three great writers--two of them artists as well--whose personality has always interested me profoundly--ruskin, carlyle, rossetti. but i have never been able wholly to admire the formal and deliberate products of their minds. ruskin as an art-critic--how profoundly unfair, prejudiced, unjust he is! he has made up his mind about the merit of an artist; he will lay down a principle about accuracy in art, and to what extent imagination may improve upon vision; and then he will abuse claude for modifying a scene, in the same breath, and for the same reasons, with which he will praise turner for exaggerating one. he will use the same stick that he throws for one dog to fetch, to beat another dog that he dislikes. of course he says fine and suggestive things by the way, and he did a great work in inspiring people to look for beauty, though he misled many feeble spirits into substituting one convention for another. i cannot read a page of his formal writings without anger and disgust. yet what a beautiful, pathetic, noble spirit he had! the moment he writes, simply and tenderly, from his own harrowed heart, he becomes a dear and honoured friend. in praeterita, in his diaries and letters, in his familiar and unconsidered utterances, he is perfectly delightful, conscious of his own waywardness and whimsicality; but when he lectures and dictates, he is like a man blowing wild blasts upon a shrill trumpet. then carlyle--his big books, his great tawdry, smoky pictures of scenes, his loud and clumsy moralisations, his perpetual thrusting of himself into the foreground, like some obstreperous showman; he wearies and dizzies my brain with his raucous clamour, his uncouth convolutions. i saw the other day a little japanese picture of a boat in a stormy sea, the waves beating over it; three warriors in the boat lie prostrate and rigid with terror and misery. above, through a rent in the clouds, is visible an ugly grotesque figure, with a demoniacal leer on his face, beating upon a number of drums. the picture is entitled "the thunder-god beats his drums." well, carlyle seems to me like that; he has no pity for humanity, he only likes to add to its terrors and its bewilderment. he preached silence and seclusion to men of activity, energy to men of contemplation. he was furious, whatever humanity did, whether it slept or waked. his message is the message of the booming gale, and the swollen cataract. yet in his diaries and letters, what splendid perception, what inimitable humour, what rugged emotion! i declare that carlyle's thumbnail portraits of people and scenes are some of the most admirable things ever set down on paper. i love and admire the old furious, disconsolate, selfish fellow with all my heart; though he was a bad husband, he was a true friend, for all his discordant cries and groans. then there is rossetti--a man who wrote a few incredibly beautiful poems, and in whom one seems to feel the inner fire and glow of art. yet many of his pictures are to me little but voluptuous and wicked dreams; and his later sonnets are full of poisonous fragrance--poetry embroidered and scented, not poetry felt. what a generous, royal prodigal nature he had, till he sank into his drugged and indulgent seclusion! here then are three great souls. ruskin, the pure lover of things noble and beautiful, but shadowed by a prim perversity, an old-maidish delicacy, a petulant despair. carlyle, a great, rugged, and tumultuous heart, brutalised by ill-health, morbidity, selfishness. rossetti, a sort of day-star in art, stepping forth like an angel, to fall lower than lucifer. what is the meaning of these strange catastrophes, these noble natures so infamously hampered? in the three cases, it seems to be that melancholy, brooding over a world, so exquisitely designed and yet so unaccountably marred, drove one to madness, one to gloom, one to sensuality. we believe or try to believe that god is pure and loving and true, and that his heart is with all that is noble and hopeful and high. yet the more generous the character, the deeper is the fall! can such things be meant to show us that we have no concern with art at all; and that our only hope is to cling to bare, austere, simple, uncomforted virtue? ought we to try to think of art only as an innocent amusement and diversion for our leisure hours? as a quest to which no man may vow himself, save at the cost of walking in a vain shadow all his days? ought we to steel our hearts against the temptation, which seems to be implanted as deep as anything in my own nature--nay, deeper--to hold that what one calls ugliness and bad taste is of the nature of sin? but what then is the meaning of the tyrannous instinct to select and to represent, to capture beauty? ought it to be enough to see beauty in the things around us, in flowers and light, to hear it in the bird's song and the falling stream--to perceive it thus gratefully and thankfully, and to go back to our simple lives? i do not know; it is all a great mystery; it is so hard to believe that god should put these ardent, delicious, sweet, and solemn instincts into our spirits, simply that we may learn our error in following them. and yet i feel with a sad certainty to-day that i have somehow missed the way, and that god cannot or will not help me to find it. are we then bidden and driven to wander? or is there indeed some deep and perfect secret of peace and tranquillity, which we are meant to find? does it perhaps lie open to our eyes--as when one searches a table over and over for some familiar object, which all the while is there before us, plain to touch or sight? january , . there is a tiny vignette of blake's, a woodcut, i think, in which one sees a ladder set up to the crescent moon from a bald and bare corner of the globe. there are two figures that seem to be conversing together; on the ladder itself, just setting his foot to the lowest rung, is the figure of a man who is beginning to climb in a furious hurry. "i want, i want," says the little legend beneath. the execution is trivial enough; it is all done, and not very well done, in a space not much bigger than a postage-stamp--but it is one of the many cases in which blake, by a minute symbol, expressed a large idea. one wonders if he knew how large an idea it was. it is a symbol for me of all the vague, eager, intense longing of the world, the desire of satisfaction, of peace, of fulfilment, of perfection; the power that makes people passionately religious, that makes souls so much greater and stronger than they appear to themselves to be. it is the thought that makes us at moments believe intensely and urgently in the justice, the mercy, the perfect love of god, even at moments when everything round us appears to contradict the idea. it is the outcome of that strange right to happiness which we all feel, the instinct that makes us believe of pain and grief that they are abnormal, and will be, must be, set right and explained somewhere. the thought comes to me most poignantly at sunset, when trees and chimneys stand up dark against the fiery glow, and when the further landscape lies smiling, lapt in mist, on the verge of dreams; that moment always seems to speak to me with a personal voice. "yes," it seems to say, "i am here and everywhere--larger, sweeter, truer, more gracious than anything you have ever dreamed of or hoped for--but the time to know all is not yet." i cannot explain the feeling or interpret it; but it has sometimes seemed to me, in such moments, that i am, in very truth, not a child of god, but a part of himself--separated from him for a season, imprisoned, for some strange and beautiful purpose, in the chains of matter, remembering faintly and obscurely something that i have lost, as a man strives to recall a beautiful dream that has visited him. it is then that one most desires to be strong and free, to be infinitely patient and tender and loving, to be different. and then one comes back to the world with a sense of jar and shock, to broken purposes, and dull resentments, to unkindly thoughts, and people who do not even pretend to wish one well. i have been trying with all my might in these desolate weeks to be brave and affectionate and tender, and i have not succeeded. it is easy enough, when one is happily occupied for a part of the day, but when one is restless, dissatisfied, impatient, ineffective, it is a constant and a weary effort. and what is more, i dislike sympathy. i would rather bear a thing in solitude and silence. i have no self-pity, and it is humiliating and weakening to be pitied. yet of course maud knows that i am unhappy; and the wretchedness of it is that it has introduced a strain into our relations which i have never felt before. i sit reading, trying to pass the hours, trying to stifle thought. i look up and see her eyes fixed on me full of compassion and love--and i do not want compassion. maud knows it, divines it all; but she can no more keep her compassion hidden than i can keep my unrest hidden. i have grown irritable, suspicious, hard to live with. yet with all my heart and soul i desire to be patient, tolerant, kindly, sweet-tempered. fitzgerald said somewhere that ill-health makes all of us villains. this is the worst of it, that for all my efforts i get weaker, more easily vexed, more discontented. i do not and cannot trace the smallest benefit which results to me or any one else from my unhappiness. the shadow of it has even fallen over my relations with the children, who are angelically good. maggie, with that divine instinct which women possess--what a perfectly beautiful thing it is!--has somehow contrived to discern that things are amiss with me, and i can perceive that she tries all that her little heart and mind can devise to please, soothe, interest me. but i do not want to be ministered to, exquisite as the instinct is in the child; and all the time i am as far off my object as ever. i cannot work, i cannot think. i have said fine things in my books about the discipline of reluctant suffering; and now my feeling is that i could bear any other kind of trial better. it seems to be given to me with an almost demoniacal prescience of what should most dishearten me. "it would not school the shuddering will to patience, were it sweet to bear," says an old poet; and it is true, i have no doubt; but, good god, to think that a man, so richly dowered as i am with every conceivable blessing, should yet have so small a reserve of faith and patience! even now i can frame epigrams about it. "to learn to be content not to be content"--that is the secret--but meanwhile i stumble in dark paths, through the grove nullo penetrabilis astro, where men have wandered before now. it seems fine and romantic enough, when one thinks of another soul in torment. one remembers the old sage, reading quietly at a sunset hour, who had a sudden vision of the fate that should befall him. his book falls from his hands, he sits there, a beautiful and venerable figure enough, staring heavily into the void. it makes me feel that i shall never dare to draw the picture of a man in the grip of suffering again; i have had so little of it in my life, and i have drawn it with a luxurious artistic emotion. i remember once saying of a friend that his work was light and trivial, because he had never descended into hell. now that i have myself set foot there, i feel art and love, and life itself, shrivel in the relentless chill--for it is icy cold and drearily bright in hell, not dark and fiery, as poets have sung! i feel that i could wrestle better with the loss of health, of wealth, of love, for there would be something to bear, some burden to lift. now there is nothing to bear, except a blank purposelessness which eats the heart out of me. i am in the lowest place, in the darkness and the deep. january , . snow underfoot this morning; and a brown blink on the horizon which shows that more is coming. i have the odd feeling that i have never really seen my house before, the snow lights it all up so strangely, tinting the ceilings a glowing white, touching up high lights on the top of picture-frames, and throwing the lower part of the rooms into a sort of pleasant dusk. maud and the children went off this afternoon to an entertainment. i accompanied them to the door; what a pretty effect the snow background gives to young faces; it lends a pretty morbidezza to the colouring, a sort of very delicate green tinge to the paler shades. that does not sound as if it would be beautiful in a human face, but it is; the faces look like the child-angels of botticelli, and the pink and rose flush of the cheeks is softly enriched and subdued; and then the soft warmth of fair and curly hair is delicious. i was happy enough with them, in a sort of surface happiness. the little waves at the top of the mind broke in sunlight; but down below, the cold dark water sleeps still enough. i left them, and took a long trudge among the valleys. oh me! how beautiful it all was; the snowy fields, with the dark copses and leafless trees among them; the rich clean light everywhere, the world seen as through a dusky crystal. then the sun went down in state, and the orange sky through the dark tree-stems brought me a thrill of that strange yearning desire for something--i cannot tell what--that seems so near and yet so far away. yet i was sad enough too; my mind works like a mill with no corn to grind. i can devise nothing, think of nothing. there beats in my head a verse of a little old latin poem, by an unhappy man enough, in whose sorrowful soul the delight of the beautiful moment was for ever poisoned by the thought that it was passing, passing; and that the spirit, whatever joy might be in store for it, could never again be at the same sweet point of its course. the poem is about a woodcock, a belated bird that haunted the hanging thickets of his devonshire home. "ah, hapless bird," he says, "for you to-day king december is stripping these oaks; nor any hope of food do the hazel-thickets afford." that is my case. i have lingered too late, trusting to the ease and prodigal wealth of the summer, and now the woods stand bare about me, while my comrades have taken wing for the south. the beady eye, the puffed feathers grow sick and dulled with hunger. why cannot i rest a little in the beauty all about me? take it home to my shivering soul? nay, i will not complain, even to myself. i came back at sundown, through the silent garden, all shrouded and muffled with snow. the snow lay on the house, outlining the cornices, cresting the roof-tiles, crusted sharply on the cupola, whitening the tall chimney-stacks. the comfortable smoke went up into the still air, and the firelight darted in the rooms. what a sense of beautiful permanence, sweet hopefulness, fireside warmth it all gave; and it is real as well. no life that i could have devised is so rich in love and tranquillity as mine; everything to give me content, except the contented mind. why cannot i enter, seat myself in the warm firelight, open a book, and let the old beautiful thoughts flow into my mind, till the voices of wife and children return to gladden me, and i listen to all that they have seen and done? why should i rather sit, like a disconsolate child among its bricks, feebly and sadly planning new combinations and fantastic designs? i have done as much and more than most of my contemporaries; what is this insensate hunger of the spirit that urges me to work that i cannot do, for rewards that i do not want? why cannot i be content to dream and drowse a little? "rest, then, and rest and think of the best, 'twixt summer and spring, when no birds sing." that is what i desire to do, and cannot. it is as though some creeper that had enfolded and enringed a house with its tendrils, creeping under window-ledges and across mellow brickwork, had been suddenly cut off at the root, and hung faded and lustreless, not even daring to be torn away. yet i am alive and well, my mind is alert and vigorous, i have no cares or anxieties, except that my heart seems hollow at the core. january , . i have had a very bad time of late. it seems futile to say anything about it, and the plain man would rub his eyes, and wonder where the misery lay. i have been perfectly well, and everything has gone smoothly; but i cannot write. i have begun half-a-dozen books. i have searched my notes through and through. i have sketched plots, written scenes. i cannot go on with any of them. i have torn up chapters with fierce disgust, or have laid them quietly aside. there is no vitality in them. if i read them aloud to any one, he would wonder what was wrong--they are as well written as my other books, as amusing, as interesting. but it is all without energy or invention, it is all worse than my best. the people are puppets, their words are pumped up out of a stagnant reservoir. everything i do reminds me of something i have done before. if i could bring myself to finish one of these books, i could get money and praise enough. many people would not know the difference. but the real and true critic would see through them; he would discern that i had lost the secret. i think that perhaps i ought to be content to work dully and faithfully on, to finish the poor dead thing, to compose its dead limbs decently, to lay it out. but i cannot do that, though it might be a moral discipline. i am not conscious of the least mental fatigue, or loss of power--quite the reverse. i hunger and thirst to write, but i have no invention. the worst of it is that it reveals to me how much the whole of my life was built up round the hours i gave to writing. i used to read, write letters, do business in the morning, holding myself back from the beloved task, not thinking over it, not anticipating the pleasure, yet aware that some secret germination was going on among the cells of the brain. then came the afternoon, the walk or ride, and then at last after tea arrived the blessed hour. the chapter was all ready to be written, and the thing flowed equably and clearly from the pen. the passage written, i would turn to some previous chapter, which had been type-written, smooth out the creases, enrich the dialogue, retouch the descriptions, omit, correct, clarify. perhaps in the evening i would read a passage aloud, if we were alone; and how often would maud, with her perfect instinct, lay her finger on a weak place, show me that something was abrupt or lengthy, expose an unreal emotion, or, best of all, generously and whole-heartedly approve. it seems now, looking back upon it, that it was all impossibly happy and delightful, too good to be true. yet i have everything that i had, except my unhappy writing; and the want of it poisons life. i no longer seem to lie pleasantly in ambush for pretty traits of character, humorous situations, delicate nuances of talk. i look blankly at garden, field, and wood, because i cannot draw from them the setting that i want. even my close and intimate companionship with maud seems to have suffered, for i was like a child, bringing the little wonders that it finds by the hedgerow to be looked at by a loving eye. maud is angelically tender, kind, sweet. she tells me only to wait; she draws me on to talk; she surrounds me with love and care. and in the midst of it all i sit, in dry misery, hating myself for my feebleness and cowardice, keeping as far as possible my pain to myself, brooding, feverishly straining, struggling hopelessly to recover the clue. the savour has gone out of life; i feel widowed, frozen, desolate. how often have i tranquilly and good-humouredly contemplated the time when i need write no more, when my work should be done, when i should have said all i had to say, and could take life as it came, soberly and wisely. now that the end has come of itself, i feel like a hopeless prisoner, with death the only escape from a bitter and disconsolate solitude. can i not amuse myself with books, pictures, talk? no, because it is all a purposeless passing of dreary hours. before, there was always an object ahead of me, a light to which i made my way; and all the pleasant incidents of life were things to guide me, and to beguile the plodding path. now i am adrift; i need go neither forwards nor backwards; and the things which before were gentle and quiet occupations have become duties to be drearily fulfilled. i have put down here exactly what i feel. it is not cowardice that makes me do it, but a desire to face the situation, exactly as it is. forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit! and in any case nothing can be done by blinking the truth. i shall need all my courage and all my resolution to meet it, and i shall meet it as manfully as i can. yet the thought of meeting it thus has no inspiration in it. my only desire is that the frozen mind may melt at the touch of some genial ray, and that the buds may prick and unfold upon the shrunken bough. january , . one of the miseries of my present situation is that it is all so intangible, and to the outsider so incomprehensible. there is no particular reason why i should write. i do not need the money; i believe i do not desire fame. let me try to be perfectly frank about this; i do not at all desire the tangible results of fame, invitations to banquets, requests to deliver lectures, the acquaintance of notable people, laudatory reviews. i like a quiet life; i do not want monstrari digito, as horace says. i have had a taste of all of these things, and they do not amuse me, though i confess that i thought they would. i feel in this rather as tennyson felt--that i dislike contemptuous criticism, and do not value praise--except the praise of a very few, the masters of the craft. and this one does not get, because the great men are mostly too much occupied in producing their own masterpieces to have the time or inclination to appraise others. yet i am sure there is a vile fibre of ambition lurking in me, interwoven with my nature, which i cannot exactly disentangle. i very earnestly desire to do good and fine work, to write great books. if i genuinely and critically approved of my own work, i could go on writing for the mere pleasure of it, in the face of universal neglect. but one may take it for granted that unless one is working on very novel and original lines--and i am not--the good qualities of one's work are not likely to escape attention. the reason why keats, and shelley, and tennyson, and wordsworth were decried, was because their work was so unusual, so new, that conventional critics could not understand it. but i am using a perfectly familiar medium, and there is a large and acute band of critics who are looking out for interesting work in the region of novels. besides i have arrived at the point of having a vogue, so that anything i write would be treated with a certain respect. where my ambition comes in is in the desire not to fall below my standard. i suppose that while i feel that i do not rate the judgment of the ordinary critic highly, i have an instinctive sense that my work is worthy of his admiration. the pain i feel is the sort of pain that an athlete feels who has established, say, a record in high-jumping, and finds that he can no longer hurl his stiffening legs and portly frame over the lath. well, i have always held strongly that men ought to know when to stop. there is nothing more melancholy and contemptible than to see a successful man, who has brought out a brood of fine things, sitting meekly on addled eggs, or, still worse, squatting complacently among eggshells. it is like the story of the old tiresome breton farmer whose wife was so annoyed by his ineffective fussiness, that she clapt him down to sit on a clutch of stone eggs for the rest of his life. how often have i thought how deplorable it was to see a man issuing a series of books, every one of which is feebler than its predecessor, dishing up the old characters, the stale ideas, the used-up backgrounds. i have always hoped that some one would be kind and brave enough to tell me when i did that. but now that the end seems to have come to me naturally and spontaneously, i cannot accept my defeat. i am like the monkey of whom frank buckland wrote, who got into the kettle when the water was lukewarm, and found the outer air so cold whenever he attempted to leave it, that he was eventually very nearly boiled alive. the fact that my occupation is gone leaves life hollow to the core. perhaps a wise man would content himself with composing some placid literary essays, selecting some lesser figure in the world of letters, collecting gossip, and what are called "side-lights," about him, visiting his birthplace and early haunts, criticising his writings. that would be a harmless way of filling the time. but any one who has ever tried creative work gets filled with a nauseating disgust for making books out of other people's writings, and constructing a kind of resurrection-pie out of the shreds. moreover i know nothing except literature; i could only write a literary biography; and it has always seemed to me a painful irony that men who have put into their writings what other people put into deeds and acts should be the very people whose lives are sedulously written and rewritten, generation after generation. the instinct is natural enough. the vivid memories of statesmen and generals fade; but as long as we have the fascinating and adorable reveries of great spirits, we are consumed with a desire to reconstruct their surroundings, that we may learn where they found their inspiration. a great poet, a great imaginative writer, so glorifies and irradiates the scene in which his mighty thoughts came to him, that we cannot help fancying that the secret lies in crag and hill and lake, rather than in the mind that gathered in the common joy. i have a passion for visiting the haunts of genius, but rather because they teach me that inspiration lies everywhere, if we can but perceive it, than because i hope to detect where the particular charm lay. and so i am driven back upon my own poor imagination. i say to myself, like samson, "i will go out as at other times before, and shake myself," and then the end of the verse falls on me like a shadow--"and he wist not that the lord was departed from him." january , . nothing the matter, and yet everything the matter! i plough on drearily enough, like a vessel forging slowly ahead against a strong, ugly, muddy stream. i seem to gain nothing, neither hope, patience, nor strength. my spirit revolted at first, but now i have lost the heart even for that: i simply bear my burden and wait. one tends to think, at such times, that no one has ever passed through a similar experience before; and the isolation in which one moves is the hardest part of it all. alone, and cut off even from god! if one felt that one was learning something, gaining power or courage, one could bear it cheerfully; but i feel rather as though all my vitality and moral strength was being pressed and drained from me. yet i do not desire death and silence. i rather crave for life and light. no, i am not describing my state fairly. at times i have a sense that something, some power, some great influence, is trying to communicate with me, to deliver me some message. there are many hours when it is not so, when my nerveless brain seems losing its hold, slipping off into some dark confusion of sense. yet again there are other moments, when sights and sounds have an overpowering and awful significance; when the gleams of some tremendous secret seemed flashed upon my mind, at the sight of the mist-hung valley with its leafless woods and level water-meadows; the flaring pomp of sunset hung low in the west over the bare ploughland or the wide-watered plain; the wailing of the wind round the firelit house; the faint twitter of awakening birds in the ivy; the voice and smile of my children; the music breaking the silence of the house at evening. in a moment the sensation comes over me, that the sound or sight is sent not vaguely or lightly, but deliberately shown to me, for some great purpose, if i could but divine it; an oracle of god, if i could but catch the words he utters in the darkness and the silence. february , . my dissatisfaction and depression begin to tell on me. i grow nervous and strained; i am often sleepless, or my sleep is filled by vivid, horrible, intolerable dreams. i wake early in the clutch of fear. i wrestle at times with intolerable irritability; social gatherings become unbearable; i have all sorts of unmanning sensations, dizzinesses, tremors; i have that dreadful sensation that my consciousness of things and people around me is slipping away from me, and that only by a strong effort can one retain one's hold upon them. i fall into a sort of dull reverie, and come back to the real world with a shock of surprise and almost horror. i went the other day to consult a great doctor about this. he reassured me; he laughed at my fears; he told me that it was a kind of neurasthenia, not fanciful but real; that my brain had been overworked, and was taking its revenge; that it was insufficiently nourished, and so forth. he knew who i was, and treated me with a respectful sympathy. i told him i had taken a prolonged holiday since my last book, and he replied that it had not been long enough. "you must take it easy," he said. "don't do anything you don't like." i replied that the difficulty was to find anything i did like. he smiled at this, and said that i need not be afraid of breaking down; he sounded me, and said that i was perfectly strong. "indeed," he added, "you might go to a dozen doctors to be examined for an insurance policy, and you would be returned as absolutely robust." in the course of his investigations, he applied a test, quite casually and as if he were hardly interested, the point of which he thought (i suppose) that i should not divine. unfortunately i knew it, and i need only say that it was a test for something very bad indeed. that was rather a horrible moment, when a grim thing out of the shadow slipped forward for a moment, and looked me in the face. but it was over in an instant, and he went on to other things. he ended by saying: "mr. ----, you are not as bad as you feel, or even as you think. just take it quietly; don't overdo it, but don't be bored. you say that you can't write to please yourself at present. well, this experience is partly the cause, and partly the result of your condition. you have used one particular part of your brain too much, and you must give it time to recover. my impression is that you will get better very gradually, and i can only repeat that there is no sort of cause for anxiety. i can't help you more than that, and i am saying exactly what i feel." i looked at the worn face and kind eyes of the man whose whole life is spent in plumbing abysses of human suffering. what a terrible life, and yet what a noble one! he spoke as though he had no other case in the world to consider except my own; yet when i went back to the waiting-room to get my hat, and looked round on the anxious-looking crowd of patients waiting there, each with a secret burden, i felt how heavy a load he must be carrying. there is a certain strength, after all, in having to live by rule; and i have derived, i find, a certain comfort in having to abstain from things that are likely to upset me, not because i wish it, but because some one else has ordered it. so i struggle on. the worst of nerves is that they are so whimsical; one never knows when to expect their assaults; the temptation is to think that they attack one when it is most inconvenient; but this is not quite the case. they spare one when one expects discomfort; and again when one feels perfectly secure, they leap upon one from their lair. the one secret of dealing with the malady is to think of it as a definite ailment, not to regard the attacks as the vagaries of a healthy mind, but as the symptoms of an unhealthy one. so much of these obsessions appears to be purely mental; one finds oneself the prey of a perfectly causeless depression, which involves everything in its shadow. as soon as one realises that this is not the result of the reflections that seem to cause it, but that one is, so to speak, merely looking at normal conditions through coloured glasses, it is a great help. but the perennial difficulty is to know whether one needs repose and inaction, or whether one requires the stimulus of work and activity. sometimes an unexpected call on one's faculties will encourage and gladden one; sometimes it will leave one unstrung and limp. a definite illness is always with one, more or less; but in nervous ailments, one has interludes of perfect and even buoyant health, which delude one into hoping that the demon has gone out. it is a very elaborate form of torture anyhow; and i confess that i find it difficult to discern where its educative effect comes in, because it makes one shrink from effort, it makes one timid, indecisive, suspicious. it seems to encourage all the weaknesses and meannesses of the spirit; and, worst of all, it centres one's thoughts upon oneself. perhaps it enlarges one's sympathy for all secret sufferers; and it makes me grateful for the fact that i have had so little ill-health in my life. yet i find myself, too, testing with some curiosity the breezy maxims of optimists. a cheerful writer says somewhere: "will not the future be the better and the richer for memories of past pleasure? so surely must the sane man feel." well, he must be very sane indeed. it takes a very burly philosopher to think of the future as being enriched by past gladness, when one seems to have forfeited it, and when one is by no means certain of getting it back. one feels bitterly how little one appreciated it at the time; and to rejoice in reflecting how much past happiness stands to one's credit, is a very dispassionate attitude. i think dante was nearer the truth when he said that "a sorrow's crown of sorrow was remembering happier things." february , . to amuse oneself--that is the difficulty. amusements are or ought to be the childish, irrational, savage things which a man goes on doing and practising, in virtue, i suppose, of the noble privilege of reason, far longer than any other animal--only young animals amuse themselves; a dog perhaps retains the faculty longer than most animals, but he only does it out of sympathy and companionship, to amuse his inscrutable owner, not to amuse himself. amusements ought to be things which one wants to do, and which one is slightly ashamed of doing--enough ashamed, i mean, to give rather elaborate reasons for continuing them. if one shoots, for instance, one ought to say that it gets one out of doors, and that what one really enjoys is the country, and so forth. personally i was never much amused by amusements, and gave them up as soon as i decently could. i regret it now. i wish we were all taught a handicraft as a regular part of education! i used to sketch, and strum a piano once, but i cannot deliberately set to work on such things again. i gave them all up when i became a writer, really, i suppose, because i did not care for them, but nominally on the grounds of "resolute limitation," as lord acton said--with the idea that if you prune off the otiose boughs of a tree, you throw the strength of the sap into the boughs you retain. i see now that it was a mistake. but it is too late to begin again now; i was reading kingsley's life the other day. he used to overwork himself periodically--use up the grey matter at the base of his brain, as he described it; but he had a hundred things that he wanted to do besides writing--fishing, entomologising, botanising. browning liked modelling in clay, wordsworth liked long walks, byron had enough to do to keep himself thin, tennyson had his pipe, morris made tapestry at a loom. southey had no amusements, and he died of softening of the brain. the happy people are those who have work which they love, and a hobby of a totally different kind which they love even better. but i doubt whether one can make a hobby for oneself in middle age, unless one is a very resolute person indeed. february , . the children went off yesterday to spend the inside of the day with a parson hard by, who has three children of his own, about the same age. they did not want to go, of course, and it was particularly terrible to them, because neither i nor their mother were to go with them. but i was anxious they should go: there is nothing better for children than occasionally to visit a strange house, and to go by themselves without an elder person to depend upon. it gives them independence and gets rid of shyness. they end by enjoying themselves immensely, and perhaps making some romantic friendship. as a child, i was almost tearfully insistent that i should not have to go on such visits; but yet a few days of the sort stand out in my childhood with a vividness and a distinctness, which show what an effect they produced, and how they quickened one's perceptive and inventive faculties. when they were gone i went out with maud. i was at my very worst, i fear; full of heaviness and deeply disquieted; desiring i knew well what--some quickening of emotion, some hopeful impulse--but utterly unable to attain it. we had a very sad talk. i tried to make it clear to her how desolate i felt, and to win some kind of forgiveness for my sterile and loveless mood. she tried to comfort me; she said that it was only like passing through a tunnel; she made it clear to me, by some unspoken communication, that i was dearer than ever to her in these days of sorrow; but there was a shadow in her mind, the shadow that fell from the loneliness in which i moved, the sense that she could not share my misery with me. i tried to show her that the one thing one could not share was emptiness. if one's cup is full of interests, plans, happinesses, even tangible anxieties, it is easy and natural to make them known to one whom one loves best. but one cannot share the horror of the formless dark; the vacuous and tortured mind. it is the dark absence of anything that is the source of my wretchedness. if there were pain, grief, mournful energy of any kind, one could put it into words; but how can one find expression for what is a total eclipse? it was not, i said, that anything had come between her and me; but i seemed to be remote, withdrawn, laid apart like some stiffening corpse in the tomb. she tried to reassure me, to show me that it was mainly physical, the overstrain of long and actively enjoyed work, and that all i needed was rest. she did not say one word of reproach, or anything to imply that i was unmanly and cowardly--indeed, she contrived, i know not how, to lead me to think that my state was in ordinary life hardly apparent. once she asked pathetically if there was no way in which she could help. i had not the heart to say what was in my mind, that it would be better and easier for me if she ignored my unhappiness altogether; and that sympathy and compassion only plunged me deeper into gloom, as showing me that it was evident that there was something amiss--but i said "no, there is nothing; and no one can help me, unless god kindles the light he has quenched. be your own dear self as much as possible; think and speak as little of me as you can,"--and then i added: "dearest, my love for you is here, as strong and pure as ever--don't doubt that--only i cannot find it or come near it--it is hidden from me somewhere--i am like a man wandering in dark fields, who sees the firelit window of his home; he cannot feel the warmth, but he knows that it is there waiting for him. he cannot return till he has found that of which he is in search." "could he not give up the search?" said maud, smiling tearfully. "ah, not yet," i said. "you do not know, maud, what my work has been to me--no man can ever explain that to any woman, i think: for women live in life, but man lives in work. man does, woman is. there is the difference." we drew near the village. the red sun was sinking over the plain, a ball of fire; the mist was creeping up from the low-lying fields; the moon hung, like a white nail-paring, high in the blue sky. we went to the little inn, where we had been before. we ordered tea--we were to return by train--and maud being tired, i left her, while i took a turn in the village, and explored the remains of an old manor-house, which i had seen often from the road. i was intolerably restless. i found a lane which led to the fields behind the manor. it was a beautiful scene. to the left of me ran the great plain brimmed with mist; the manor, with its high gables and chimney-stacks, stood up over an orchard, surrounded by a high, ancient brick wall, with a gate between tall gate-posts surmounted by stone balls. the old pasture lay round the house, and there were many ancient elms and sycamores forming a small park, in the boughs of which the rooks, who were now streaming home from the fields, were clamorous. i found myself near a chain of old fish-ponds, with thorn-thickets all about them; and here the old house stood up against a pure evening sky, rusty red below, melting into a pure green above. my heart went out in wonder at the thought of the unknown lives lived in this place, the past joys, the forgotten sorrows. what did it mean for me, the incredible and caressing beauty of the scene? not only did it not comfort me, but it seemed to darken the gloom of my own unhappy mind. suddenly, as with a surge of agony, my misery flowed in upon me. i clutched the rail where i stood, and bowed my head down in utter wretchedness. there came upon me, as with a sort of ghastly hopefulness, the temptation to leave it all, to put my case back into god's hands. perhaps it was to this that i was moving? there might be a new life waiting for me, but it could not well be as intolerable as this. perhaps nothing but silence and unconsciousness awaited me, a sleep unstirred by any dream. even maud, i thought, in her sorrow, would understand. how long i stood there i do not know, but the air darkened about me and the mist rose in long veils about the pasture with a deadly chill. but then there came back a sort of grim courage into my mind, that not so could it be ended. the thought of maud and the children rose before me, and i knew i could not leave them, unless i were withdrawn from them. i must face it, i must fight it out; though i could and did pray with all my might that god might take away my life: i thought with what an utter joy i should feel the pang, the faintness, of death creep over me there in the dim pasture; but i knew in my heart that it was not to be; and soon i went slowly back through the thickening gloom. i found maud awaiting me: and i know in that moment that some touch of the dark conflict i had been through had made itself felt in her mind; and indeed i think she read something of it in my face, from the startled glance she turned upon me. perhaps it would have been better if in that quiet hour i could have told her the thought which had been in my mind; but i could not do that; and indeed it seemed to me as though some unseen light had sprung up for me, shooting and broadening in the darkness. i apprehended that i was no longer to suffer, i was to fight. hitherto i had yielded to my misery, but the time was come to row against the current, not to drift with it. it was dark when we left the little inn; the moon had brightened to a crescent of pale gold; the last dim orange stain of sunset still slept above the mist. it seemed to me as though i had somehow touched the bottom. how could i tell? perhaps the same horrible temptation would beset me, again and again, deepening into a despairing purpose; the fertile mind built up rapidly a dreadful vista of possibilities, terrible facts that might have to be faced. even so the dark mood beckoned me again; better to end it, said a hollow voice, better to let your dear ones suffer the worst, with a sorrow that will lessen year by year, than sink into a broken shadowed life of separation and restraint--but again it passed; again a grim resolution came to my aid. then, as we sped homewards in the speeding train, there came over me another thought. here was i, who had lightly trafficked with human emotions, who had written with a romantic glow of the dark things of life, despair, agony, thoughts of self-destruction, insane fears, here was i at last confronted with them. i could never dare, i felt, to speak of such things again; were such dark mysteries to be used to heighten the sense of security and joy, to give a trivial reader a thrill of pleasure, a sympathetic reader a thrill of luxurious emotion? no, there was nothing uplifting or romantic about them when they came; they were dark as the grave, cold as the underlying clay. what a vile and loathsome profanation, deserving indeed of a grim punishment, to make a picturesque background out of such things! at length i had had my bitter taste of grief, and drew in to my trembling spirit the shuddering chill of despair. i had stepped, like the light-hearted maiden of the old story, within the forbidden door, and the ugly, the ghastly reality of the place had burst upon me, the huddled bodies, the basin filled with blood. one had read in books of men and women whose life had been suddenly curdled into slow miseries. one had half blamed them in one's thought; one had felt that any experience, however dark and deep, must have its artistic value; and one had thought that they should have emerged with new zest into life. i understood it now, how life could be frozen at its very source, how one could cry out with job curses on the day that gave one birth, and how gladly one would turn one's face away from the world and all its cheerful noise, awaiting the last stroke of god. february , . there is a story of a cornish farmer who, returning home one dark and misty night, struck across the moorland, every yard of which he knew, in order to avoid a long tramp by road. in one place there were a number of disused mine-shafts; the railing which had once protected them had rotted away, and it had been no one's business to see that it was renewed--some few had been filled up, but many of them were hundreds of feet deep, and entirely unguarded. the farmer first missed the track, and after long wandering found himself at last among the shafts. he sate down, knowing the extreme danger of his situation, and resolved to wait till the morning; but it became so cold that he dared stay no longer, for fear of being frozen alive, and with infinite precautions he tried to make his way out of the dangerous region, following the downward slope of the ground. in spite, however, of all his care, he found suddenly, on putting his foot down, that he was on the edge of a shaft, and that his foot was dangling in vacancy. he threw himself backwards, but too late, and he slid down several feet, grasping at the grass and heather; his foot fortunately struck against a large stone, which though precariously poised, arrested his fall; and he hung there for some hours in mortal anguish, not daring to move, clinging to a tuft of heather, shouting at intervals, in the hope that, when he did not return home, a search-party might be sent out to look for him. at last he heard, to his intense relief, the sound of voices hailing him, and presently the gleam of lanterns shot through the mist. he uttered agonising cries, and the rescuers were soon at his side; when he found that he had been lying in a shaft which had been filled up, and that the firm ground was about a foot below him; and that, in fact, if the stone that supported him had given way, he would have been spared a long period of almost intolerable horror. it is a good parable of many of our disquieting fears and anxieties; as lord beaconsfield said, the greatest tragedies of his life had been things that never happened; carlyle truly and beautifully said that the reason why the past always appeared to be beautiful, in retrospect, was that the element of fear was absent from it. william morris said a trenchant thing on the same subject. he attended a socialist meeting of a very hostile kind, which he anticipated with much depression. when some one asked him how the meeting had gone off he said, "well, it was fully as damnable as i had expected--a thing which seldom happens." a good test of the happiness of anyone's life is to what extent he has had trials to bear which are unbearable even to recollect. i am myself of a highly imaginative and anxious temperament, and i have had many hours of depression at the thought of some unpleasant anticipation or disagreeable contingency, and i can honestly say that nothing has ever been so bad, when it actually occurred, as it had represented itself to me beforehand. there are a few incidents in my life, the recollection of which i deliberately shun; but they have always been absolutely unexpected and unanticipated calamities. yet even these have never been as bad as i should have expected them to be. the strange thing is that experience never comes to one's aid, and that one never gets patience or courage from the thought that the reality will be in all probability less distressing than the anticipation; for the simple reason that the fertile imagination is always careful to add that this time the occasion will be intolerable, and that at all events it is better to be prepared for the worst that may happen. moreover, one wastes force in anticipating perhaps half-a-dozen painful possibilities, when, after all, they are alternatives, and only one of them can happen. that is what makes my present situation so depressing, that i instinctively clothe it in its worst horrors, and look forward to a long and dreary life, in which my only occupation will be an attempt to pass the weary hours. faithless? yes, of course it is faithless! but the rational philosophy, which says that it will all probably come right, does not penetrate to the deeper region in which the mind says to itself that there is no hope of amendment. can one acquire, by any effort of the mind, this kind of patience? i do not think one can. the most that one can do is to behave as far as possible like one playing a heavy part upon the stage, to say with trembling lips that one has hope, when the sick mind beneath cries out that there is none. perhaps one can practise a sort of indifference, and hope that advancing years may still the beating heart and numb the throbbing nerve. but i do not even desire to live life on these terms. the one great article of my creed has been that one ought not to lose zest and spirit, or acquiesce slothfully in comfortable and material conditions, but that life ought to be full of perception and emotion. here again lies my mistake; that it has not been perception or emotion that i have practised, but the art of expressing what i have perceived and felt. of course, i wish with all my heart and soul that it were otherwise; but it seems that i have drifted so far into these tepid, sun-warmed shallows, the shallows of egoism and self-centred absorption, that there is no possibility of my finding my way again to the wholesome brine, to the fresh movement of the leaping wave. i am like one of those who lingered so long in the enchanted isle of circe, listening luxuriously to the melting cadences of her magic song, that i have lost all hope of extricating myself from the spell. the old free days, when the heart beat light, and the breeze blew keen against my brow, have become only a memory of delights, just enabling me to speak deftly and artfully of the strong joys which i have forfeited. february , . i have been away for some days, paying a visit to an old friend, a bachelor clergyman living in the country. the only other occupant of the house, a comfortable vicarage, is his curate. i am better--ashamed almost to think how much better--for the change. it is partly the new place, the new surroundings, the new minds, no doubt. but it is also the change of atmosphere. at home i am surrounded by sympathy and compassion; however unobtrusive they are, i feel that they are there. i feel that trivial things, words, actions, looks are noted, commented upon, held to be significant. if i am silent, i must be depressed; if i talk and smile, i am making an effort to overcome my depression. it sounds unloving and ungracious to resent this: but i don't undervalue the care and tenderness that cause it; at the same time it adds to the strain by imposing upon me a sort of vigilance, a constant effort to behave normally. it is infinitely and deeply touching to feel love all about me; but in such a state of mind as mine, one is shy of emotion, one dreads it, one shuns it. i suppose it argues a want of simplicity, of perfect manfulness, to feel this; but few or no women can instinctively feel the difference. in a real and deep affliction, one that could be frankly confessed, the more affection and sympathy that one can have the better; it is the one thing that sustains. but my unhappiness is not a real thing altogether, not a frank thing; the best medicine for it is to think as little about it; the only help one desires is the evidence that one does not need sympathy; and sympathy only turns one's thoughts inwards, and makes one feel that one is forlorn and desolate, when the only hope is to feel neither. at hapton it was just the reverse; neither musgrave nor the curate, templeton, troubled their head about my fancies. i don't imagine that musgrave noticed that anything was the matter with me. if i was silent, he merely thought i had nothing to say; he took for granted i was in my normal state, and the result was that i temporarily recovered it. then, too, the kind of talk i got was a relief. with women, the real talk is intime talk; the world of politics, books, men, facts, incidents, is merely a setting; and when they talk about them, it is merely to pass the time, as a man turns to a game. at hapton, musgrave chatted away about his neighbours, his boys' club, his new organ, his bishop, his work. i used to think him rather a proser; how i blessed his prosing now! i took long walks with him; he asked a few perfunctory questions about my books, but otherwise he was quite content to prattle on, like a little brook, about all that was in his mind, and he was more than content if i asked an occasional question or assented courteously. then we had some good talks about the rural problems of education--he is a sensible and intelligent man enough--and some excellent arguments about the movement of religion, where i found him unexpectedly liberal-minded. he left me to do very much what i liked. i read in the mornings and before dinner; and after dinner we smoked or even played a game of dummy whist. it is a pretty part of the country, and when he was occupied in the afternoon, i walked about by myself. from first to last not a single word fell from musgrave to indicate that he thought me in any way different, or suspected that i was not perfectly content, with the blessed result that i immediately became exactly what he thought me. i got on no better with my writing; my brain is as bare as a winter wood; but i found that i did not rebel against that. of course it does not reveal a very dignified temperament, that one should so take colour from one's surroundings. if i can be equable and good-humoured here, i ought to be able to be equable and good-humoured at home; at the same time i am conscious of an intense longing to see maud and the children. probably i should do better to absent myself resolutely from home at stated intervals; and i think it argued a fine degree of perception in maud, that she decided not to accompany me, though she was pressed to come. i am going home to-morrow, delighted at the thought, grateful to the good musgrave, in a more normal frame of mind than i have been for months. february , . one of the most depressing things about my present condition is that i feel, not only so useless, but so prickly, so ugly, so unlovable. even maud's affection, stronger and more tender than ever, does not help me, because i feel that she cannot love me for what i am, but for what she remembers me as being, and hopes that i may be again. i know it is not so, and that she would love me whatever i did or became; but i cannot realise that now. a few days ago an old friend came to see me; and i was so futile, so fractious, so dull, so melancholy with him that i wrote to him afterwards to apologise for my condition, telling him that i knew that i was not myself, and hoped he would forgive me for not making more of an effort. to-day i have had one of the manliest, tenderest, most beautiful letters i have ever had in my life. he says, "of course i saw that you were not in your usual mood, but if you had pretended to be, if you had kept me at arm's length, if you had grimaced and made pretence, we should have been no nearer in spirit. i was proud and grateful that you should so have trusted me, as to let me see into your heart and mind; and you must believe me when i say that i never loved and honoured you more. i understood fully what a deep and insupportable trial your present state of mind must be; and i will be frank--why should i not be?--and say that i thought you were bearing it bravely, and what is better still, simply and naturally. i seemed to come closer to you in those hours than i have ever done before, and to realise better what you were. 'to make oneself beloved,' says an old writer, 'is to make oneself useful to others'--and you helped me perhaps most, when you knew it least yourself. i won't tell you not to brood upon or exaggerate your trouble--you know that well enough yourself. but believe me that such times are indeed times of growth and expansion, even when one seems most beaten back upon oneself, most futile, most unmanly. so take a little comfort, my old friend, and fare onwards hopefully." that is a very beautiful and wise letter, and i cannot say how much it has meant for me. it is a letter that forges an invisible chain, which is yet stronger than the strongest tie that circumstance can forge; it is a lantern for one's feet, and one treads a little more firmly in the dark path, where the hillside looms formless through the shade. march , . best of all the psalms i love the hundred-and-nineteenth; yet as a child what a weary thing i thought it. it was long, it was monotonous; it dwelt with a tiresome persistency, i used to think, upon dull things--laws, commandments, statutes. now that i am older, it seems to me one of the most human of all documents. it is tender, pensive, personal; other psalms are that; but psalm cxix. is intime and autobiographical. one is brought very close to a human spirit; one hears his prayers, his sighs, the dropping of his tears. then, too, in spite of its sadness, there is a deep hopefulness and faithfulness about it, a firm belief in the ultimate triumph of what is good and true, a certainty that what is pure and beautiful is worth holding on to, whatever may happen; a nearness to god, a quiet confidence in him. it is all in a subdued and minor key, but swelling up at intervals into a chord of ravishing sweetness. there is never the least note of loudness, none of that terrible patriotism which defaces many of the psalms, the patriotism which makes men believe that god is the friend of the chosen race, and the foe of all other races, the ugly self-sufficiency that contemplates with delight, not the salvation and inclusion of the heathen, but their discomfiture and destruction. the worst side of the puritan found delight in those cruel and militant psalms, revelling in the thought that god would rain upon the ungodly fire and brimstone, storm and tempest, and exulting in the blasting of the breath of his displeasure. could anything be more alien to the spirit of christ than all that? but here, in this melancholy psalm, there breathes a spirit naturally christian, loving peace and contemplation, very weary of the strife. i have said it is autobiographical; but it must be remembered that it was a fruitful literary device in those early days, to cast one's own thought in the mould of some well-known character. in this psalm i have sometimes thought that the writer had daniel in mind--the surroundings of the psalm suit the circumstances of daniel with singular exactness. but even so, it was the work of a man, i think, who had suffered the sorrows of which he wrote. let me try to disentangle what manner of man he was. he was young and humble; he was rich, or had opportunities of becoming so; he was an exile, or lived in an uncongenial society; he was the member of a court where he was derided, disliked, slandered, plotted against, and even persecuted. we can clearly discern his own character. he was timid, and yet ambitious; he was tempted to use deceit and hypocrisy, to acquiesce in the tone about him; he was inclined to be covetous; he had sinned, and had learnt something of holiness from his fall; he was given to solitude and prayer. he was sensitive, and his sorrows had affected his health; he was sleepless, and had lost the bloom of his youth. all this and more we can read of him; but what is the saddest touch of all is the isolation in which he lived. there is not a word to show that he met with any sympathy; indeed the misunderstanding, whatever it was, that overshadowed him, had driven acquaintances, friends, and lovers away from him; and yet his tender confidence in god never fails; he feels that in his passionate worship of virtue and truth, his intense love of purity and justice, he has got a treasure which is more to him than riches or honour, or even than human love. he speaks as though this passion for holiness had been the very thing that had cost him so dear, and that exposed him to derision and dislike. perhaps he had refused to fall in with some customary form of evil, and his resistance to temptation had led him to be regarded as a precisian and a saint? i have little doubt myself that this was so. he speaks as one might speak who had been so smitten with the desire for purity and rightness of life, that he could no longer even seem to condone the opposite. and yet he was evidently not one who dared to withstand and rebuke evil; the most he could do was to abstain from it; and the result was that he saw the careless and evil-minded people about him prosperous, happy and light-hearted, while he was himself plunged by his own act in misunderstanding and solitude and tears. and then how strange to see this beautiful and delicate confession put into so narrow and constrained a shape! it is the most artificial by far of all the psalms. the writer has chosen deliberately one of the most cramping and confining forms that could be devised. each of the eight verses that form the separate stanzas begins with the same letter of the alphabet, and each of the letters is used in turn. think of attempting to do the same in english--it could not be done at all. and then in every single verse, except in one, where the word has probably disappeared in translation, by a mistake, there is a mention of the law of god. infinite pains must have gone to the slow building of this curious structure; stone by stone must have been carved and lifted to its place. and yet the art is so great that i know no composition of the same length that has so perfect a unity of mood and atmosphere. there is never a false or alien note struck. it is never jubilant or contentious or assertive--and, best of all, it is wholly free from any touch of that complacency which is the shadow of virtue. the writer never takes any credit to himself for his firm adherence to the truth; he writes rather as one who has had a gift of immeasurable value entrusted to unworthy hands, who hardly dares to believe that it has been granted him, and who still speaks as though he might at any time prove unfaithful, as though his weakness might suddenly betray him, and who therefore has little temptation to exult in the possession of anything which his own frail nature might at any moment forfeit. and thus, from its humility, its sense of weakness and weariness, its consciousness of sin and failure, combined with its deep apprehension of the stainless beauty of the moral law, this lyric has found its way to the hearts of all who find the world and temptation and fear too strong, all who through repeated failure have learned that they cannot even be true to what they so pathetically desire and admire; who would be brave and vigorous if they could, but, as it is, can only hope to be just led step by step, helped over the immediate difficulty, past the dreaded moment; whose heart often fails them, and who have little of the joy of god; who can only trust that, if they go astray, the mercy of god will yet go out to seek them; who cannot even hope to run in the way of god's beloved commandments, till he has set their heart at liberty. march , . i went to see darell, my old schoolfellow, a few days ago; he wrote to say that he would much like to see me, but that he was ill and unable to leave home--could i possibly come to see him? i have never seen very much of him since i left cambridge; but there i was a good deal in his company--and we have kept up our friendship ever since, in the quiet way in which englishmen do keep up their friendships, meeting perhaps two or three times in the year, exchanging letters occasionally. he was not a very intimate friend--indeed, he was not a man who formed intimacies; but he was a congenial companion enough. he was a frankly ambitious man. he went to the bar, where he has done well; he married a wife with some money; and i think his ultimate ambition has been to enter parliament. he told me, when i last saw him, that he had now, he thought, made enough money for this, and that he would probably stand at the next election. i have always liked his wife, who is a sensible, good-natured woman, with social ambitions. they live in a good house in london, in a wealthy sort of way. i arrived to luncheon, and sate a little while with mrs. darell in the drawing-room. i became aware, while i sate with her, that there was a sense of anxiety in the air somehow, though she spoke cheerfully enough of her husband, saying that he had overworked himself, and had to lie up for a little. when he came into the room i understood. it was not that he was physically much altered--he is a strongly-built fellow, with a sanguine complexion and thick curly hair, now somewhat grizzled; but i knew at the first sight of him that matters were serious. he was quiet and even cheerful in manner, but he had a look on his face that i had never seen before, the look of a man whose view of life has been suddenly altered, and who is preparing himself for the last long journey. i knew instinctively that he believed himself a doomed man. he said very little about himself, and i did not ask him much; he talked about my books, and a good deal about old friends; but all with a sense, i thought, of detachment, as though he were viewing everything over a sort of intangible fence. after luncheon, we adjourned to his study and smoked. he then said a few words about his illness, and added that it had altered his plans. "i am told," he said, "that i must take a good long holiday--rather a difficult job for a man who cares a great deal about his work and very little about anything else;" he added a few medical details, from which i gathered the nature of his illness. then he went on to talk of casual matters; it seemed to interest him to discuss what had been happening to our school and college friends; but i knew, without being told, that he wished me to understand that he did not expect to resume his place in the world--and indeed i divined, by some dim communication of the spirit, that he thought my visit was probably a farewell. but he talked with unabated courage and interest, smiling where he would in old days have laughed, and speaking of our friends with more tenderness than was his wont. only once did he half betray what was in his mind: "it is rather strange," he said, "to be pushed aside like this, and to have to reconsider one's theories. i did not expect to have to pull up--the path lay plain before me--and now it seems to me as if there were a good many things i had lost sight of. well, one must take things as they come, and i don't think that if i had it all to do again i should do otherwise." he changed the subject rather hurriedly, and began to talk about my work. "you are quite a great man now," he said with a smile; "i hear your books talked about wherever i go--i used to wonder if you would have had the patience to do anything--you were hampered by having no need to earn your living; but you have come out on the top." i told him something about my own late experiences and my difficulty in writing. he listened with undisguised interest. "what do you make of it?" he said. "well," i said; "you will think i am talking transcendentally, but i have felt often of late as if there were two strains in our life, two kinds of experience; at one time we have to do our work with all our might, to get absorbed in it, to do what little we can to enrich the world; and then at another time it is all knocked out of our hands, and we have to sit and meditate--to realise that we are here on sufferance, that what we can do matters very little to any one--the same sort of feeling that i once had when old hoskyns, in whose class i was, threw an essay, over which i had taken a lot of trouble, into his waste-paper basket before my eyes without even looking it over. i see now that i had got all the good i could out of the essay by writing it, and that the credit of it mattered very little; but then i simply thought he was a very disagreeable and idle old fellow." "yes," he said, smiling, "there is something in that; but one wants the marks as well--i have always liked to be marked for my work. i am glad you told me that story, old man." we went on to talk of other things, and when i rose to go, he thanked me rather effusively for my kindness in coming to see him. he told me that he was shortly going abroad, and that if i could find time to write he would be grateful for a letter; "and when i am on my legs again," he said with a smile, "we will have another meeting." that was all that passed between us of actual speech. yet how much more seems to have been implied than was said. i knew, as well as if he had told me in so many words, that he did not expect to see me again; that he was in the valley of the shadow, and wanted help and comfort. yet he could not have described to me what was in his mind, and he would have resented it, i think, if i had betrayed any consciousness of my knowledge; and yet he knew that i knew, i am sure of that. the interview affected me deeply and poignantly. the man's patience and courage are very great; but he has lived, frankly and laboriously, for perfectly definite things. he never had the least sense of what is technically called religion; he was strong and temperate by nature, with a fine sense of honour; loving work and the rewards of work, despising sentiment and emotion--indeed his respect for me, of which i was fully conscious, is the respect he feels for a sentimental man who has made sentiment pay. it is very hard to see what part the prospect of suffering and death is meant to play in the life of such a man. it must be, surely, that he has something even more real than what he has held to be realities to learn from the sudden snapping off of life and activity. i find myself filled with an immense pity for him; and yet if my faith were a little stronger and purer, i should congratulate rather than commiserate him. and yet the thought of him in his bewilderment helps me too, for i see my own life as in a mirror. i have received a message of truth, the message that the accomplishment of our plans and cherished designs is not the best thing that can befall us. how easy to see that in the case of another, how hard to see it in our own case! but it has helped me too to throw myself outside the morbid perplexities in which i am involved; to hold out open hands to the gift of god, even though he seems to give me a stone for bread, a stinging serpent for wholesome provender. it has taught me to pray--not only for myself, but for all the poor souls who are in the grip of a sorrow that they cannot understand or bear. march , . the question that haunts me, the problem i cannot disentangle, is what is or what ought our purpose to be? what is our duty in life? ought we to discern a duty which lies apart from our own desires and inclinations? the moralist says that it ought to be to help other people; but surely that is because the people, whom by some instinct we deem the highest, have had the irresistible desire to help others? how many people has one ever known who have taken up philanthropy merely from a sense of rectitude? the people who have done most to help the world along have been the people who have had an overwhelming natural tenderness, an overflowing love for helpless, weak, and unhappy people. that is a thing which cannot be simulated. one knows quite well, to put the matter simply, the extent of one's own limitations. there are courses of action which seem natural and easy; others which seem hard, but just possible; others again which are frankly impossible. however noble a life, for instance, i thought the life of a missionary or of a doctor to be, i could not under any circumstances adopt the role of either. there are certain things which i might force myself to do which i do not do, and which i practically know i shall not do. and the number of people is very small who, when circumstances suggest one course, resolutely carry out another. the artistic life is a very hard one to analyse, because at the outset it seems so frankly selfish a life. one does what one most desires to do, one develops one's own nature, its faculties and powers. if one is successful, the most one can claim is that one has perhaps added a little to the sum of happiness, of innocent enjoyment, that one has perhaps increased or fed in a few people the perception of beauty. of course the difficulty is increased by the conventional belief that any career is justified by success in that career. and as long as a man attains a certain measure of renown we do not question very much the nature of his aims. then, again, if we put that all aside, and look upon life as a thing that is given us to teach us something, it is easy to think that it does not matter very much what we do; we take the line of least resistance, and think that we shall learn our lesson somehow. it is difficult to believe that our one object ought to be to thwart all our own desires and impulses, to abstain from doing what we desire to do, and to force ourselves continually to do what we have no impulse to do. that is a philosophical and stoical business, and would end at best in a patient and courteous dreariness of spirit. neither does it seem a right solution to say: "i will parcel out my energies--so much will i give to myself, so much to others." it ought to be a larger, more generous business than that; yet the people who give themselves most freely away too often end by having very little to give; instead of having a store of ripe and wise reflection, they have generally little more than an official smile, a kindly tolerance, a voluble stream of commonplaces. and then, too, it is hard to see, to speak candidly, what god is doing in the matter. one sees useful careers cut ruthlessly short, generous qualities nullified by bad health or minute faults, promise unfulfilled, men and women bound in narrow, petty, uncongenial spheres, the whole matter in a sad disorder. one sees one man's influence spoilt by over-confidence, by too strong a sense of his own significance, and another man made ineffective by diffidence and self-distrust. the best things of life, the most gracious opportunities, such as love and marriage, cannot be entered upon from a sense of duty, but only from an overpowering and instinctive impulse. is it not possible to arrive at some tranquil harmony of life, some self-evolution, which should at the same time be ardent and generous? in my own sad unrest of spirit, i seem to be alike incapable of working for the sake of others and working to please myself. perhaps that is but the symptom of a moral disease, a malady of the soul. yet if that is so, and if one once feels that disease and, suffering is not a part of the great and gracious purpose of god--if it is but a failure in his design--the struggle is hopeless. one sees all around one men and women troubled by no misgivings, with no certain aim, just doing whatever the tide of life impels them to do. my neighbour here is a man who for years has gone up to town every day to his office. he is perfectly contented, absolutely happy. he has made more money than he will ever need or spend, and he will leave his children a considerable fortune. he is kind, respectable, upright; he is considered a thoroughly enviable man, and indeed, if prosperity and contentment are the sign and seal of god's approbation, such a man is the highest work of god, and has every reason to be an optimist. he would think my questionings morbid and my desires moonshine. he is not necessarily right any more than i; but his theory of life works out a good deal better for him than mine for me. well, we drift, we drift! sometimes the sun shines bright on the wave, and the wheeling birds dip and hover, and our heart is full of song. but sometimes we plunge on rising billows, with the wind wailing, and the rain pricking the surface with needle-points; we are weary and uncomforted; and we do not know why we suffer, or why we are glad. sometimes i have a far-off hope that i shall know, that i shall understand and be satisfied; but sometimes, alas, i fear that my soul will flare out upon the darkness, and know no more either of weal or woe. march , . i am reading a great deal now; but i find that i turn naturally to books of a sad intimite--books in which are revealed the sorrowful cares and troubles of sensitive people. partly, i suppose, it is to get the sense of comfort which comes from feeling that others have suffered too; but partly to find, if i can, some medicine for my soul, in learning how others struggled out of the mire. thus i have been reading froude's carlyle and mrs. carlyle's letters over again, and they have moved me strangely and deeply. perhaps it is mostly that i have felt, in these dark months, drawn to the society of two brave people--she was brave in her silences, he in the way in which he stuck doggedly to his work--who each suffered so horribly, so imaginatively, so inexplicably, and, alas, it would seem, so unnecessarily! of course carlyle indulged his moods, while mrs. carlyle fought against hers; moreover, he had the instinct for translating thoughts, instantaneously and volubly, into vehement picturesque speech. how he could bite in a picture, an ugly, ill-tempered one enough very often, as when he called coleridge a "weltering" man! many of his sketches are mere gillray caricatures of people, seen through bile unutterable, exasperated by nervous irritability. and mrs. carlyle had a mordant wit enough. but still both of them had au fond a deep need of love, and a power of lavishing love. it comes out in the old man's whimsical notes and prefaces; and indeed it is true to say that if a person once actually penetrated into carlyle's inner circle, he found himself loved hungrily and devotedly, and never forgotten or cast out. and as to mrs. carlyle, i suppose it was impossible to be near her and not to love her! this comes out in glimpses in her sad pathological letters. there is a scene she describes, how she returned home after some long and serious bout of illness, when her cook and housemaid rushed into the street, kissed her, and wept on her neck; while two of her men friends, mr. cooke and lord houghton, who called in the course of the evening, to her surprise and obvious pleasure, did the very same. the result on myself, after reading the books, is to feel myself one of the circle, to want to do something for them, to wring the necks of the cocks who disturbed carlyle's sleep; and sometimes, alas, to rap the old man's fingers for his blind inconsiderateness and selfishness. i came the other day upon a passage in a former book of my own, where i said something sneering and derisive about the pair, and i felt deep shame and contrition for having written it--and, more than that, i felt a sort of disgust for the fact that i have spent so much time in writing fiction. books like the life of carlyle and mrs. carlyle's letters take the wind out of one's imaginative faculties altogether, because one is confronted with the real stuff of life in them. life, that hard, stubborn, inconclusive, inconsistent, terrible thing! it is, of course, that very hardness and inconclusiveness that makes one turn to fiction. in fiction, one can round off the corners, repair mistakes, comfort, idealise, smooth things down, make error and weakness bear good fruit, choose, develop as one pleases. not so with life, where things go from bad to worse, misunderstandings grow and multiply, suffering does not purge, sorrow does not uplift. that is the worst of fiction, that it deludes one into thinking that one can deal gently with life, finish off the picture, arrange things on one's own little principles; and then, as in my own case, life brings one up against some monstrous, grievous, intolerable fact, that one can neither look round or over, and the scales fall from one's eyes. with what courage, tranquillity or joy is one to meet a thoroughly disagreeable situation? the more one leans on the hope that it may amend, the weaker one grows; the thing to realise is that it is bad, that it is inevitable, that it has arrived, and to let the terror and misery do their worst, soak into the soul and not run off it. only then can one hope to be different; only so can one climb the weary ladder of patience and faith. march , . low-hung ragged grey skies, heaven smeared with watery vapours fleeting, broken and mournful, from the west--these above me, as i stand by the old lichened gate of the high wind-swept field at the top of the wold. in front a stretch of rough common, the dark-brown heather, the young gorse, bluish-green, the rusty red of soaked bracken, the pale ochre-coloured grass, all blent into a rich tint that pleases the eye with its wild freshness. to the left, the wide flat level of the plain, with low hills rising on its verge; to the right, a pale pool of water at the bottom of a secret valley, reflecting the leafless bushes that fringe it, catches the sunset gleam that rises in the west; and then range after range of wolds, with pale-green pastures, dark copses, fawn-coloured ploughland, here and there an emerald patch of young wheat. the air is fresh, soft and fragrant, laden with rain; the earth smells sweet; and the wild woodland scent comes blowing to me out of the heart of the spinney. in front of me glimmer the rough wheel-tracks of a grassy road that leads out on to the heath, and two obscure figures move slowly nearer among the tufted gorse. they seem to me, those two figures, charged with a grave significance, as though they came to bear me tidings, messengers bidden to seek and find me, like the men who visited abraham at the close of the day. as i linger, the day grows darker, the colour fading from leaf and blade; bright points of light flash out among the dark ridges from secluded farms, where the evening lamp is lit. sometimes on days like this, when the moisture hangs upon the hedges, when the streams talk hoarsely to themselves in grassy channels, when the road is full of pools, one is weary, unstrung and dissatisfied, faint of purpose, tired of labour, desiring neither activity nor rest; the soul sits brooding, like the black crows that i see in the leafless wood beneath me, perched silent and draggled on the tree-tops, just waiting for the sun and the dry keen airs to return; but to-day it is not so; i am full of a quiet hope, an acquiescent tranquillity. my heart talks gently to itself, as to an unseen friend, telling its designs, its wishes, its activities. i think of those i hold dear, all the world over; i am glad that they are alive, and believe that they think of me. all the air seems full of messages, thoughts and confidences and welcomes passing to and fro, binding souls to each other, and all to god. there seems to be nothing that one needs to do to-day except to live one's daily life; to be kind and joyful. to-day the road of pilgrimage lies very straight and clear between its fences, in an open ground, with neither valley nor hill, no by-path, no turning. one can even see the gables and chimneys of some grave house of welcome, "a roof for when the dark hours begin," full of pious company and smiling maidens. and not, it seems, a false security; one is not elated, confident, strong; one knows one's weakness; but i think that the lord of the land has lately passed by with a smile, and given command that the pilgrims shall have a space of quiet. these birds, these branching trees, have not yet lost the joy of his passing. there, along the grassy tracks, his patient footsteps went, how short a time ago! one does not hope that all the journey will be easy and untroubled; there will be fresh burdens to be borne, dim valleys full of sighs to creep through, dark waters to wade across; these feet will stumble and bleed; these knees will be weary before the end; but to-day there is no doubt about the pilgrimage, no question of the far-off goal. the world is sad, perhaps, but sweet; sad as the homeless clouds that drift endlessly across the sky from marge to marge; sweet as the note of the hidden bird, that rises from moment to moment from the copse beside me, again and yet again, telling of a little heart that is content to wait, and not ill-pleased to be alone with its own soft thoughts. april , . down in the valley which runs below the house is a mill. i passed it to-day at dusk, and i thought i had never seen so characteristically english a scene. the wheel was silent, and the big boarded walls, dusted with flour, loomed up solemnly in the evening light. the full leat dashed merrily through the sluice, making holiday, like a child released from school. behind was the stack-yard, for it is a farm as well as a mill; and in the byre i heard the grunting of comfortable pigs, and the soft pulling of the hay from the big racks by the bullocks. the fowls were going to roost, fluttering up every now and then into the big elder-bushes; while high above, in the apple-trees, i saw great turkeys settled precariously for the night. the orchard was silent, except for the murmur of the stream that bounds it. in the mill-house itself lights gleamed in the windows, and i saw a pleasant family-party gathered at their evening meal. the whole scene with its background of sloping meadows and budding woods so tranquil and contented--a scene which william morris would have loved--for there is a pleasant grace of antiquity about the old house, a sense of homely and solid life, and of all the family associations that have gone to the making of it, generation after generation leaving its mark in the little alterations and additions that have met a need, or even satisfied a pleasant fancy. the miller is an elderly man now, fond of work, prosperous, good-humoured. his son lives with him, and the house is full of grandchildren. i do not say that it puzzles me to divine what is the miller's view of life, because i think i know it. it is to make money honestly, to bring up his grandchildren virtuously and comfortably, to enjoy his daily work and his evening leisure. he is never idle, never preoccupied. he enjoys getting the mill started, seeing the flour stream into the sacks, he enjoys going to market, he enjoys going prosperously to church on sundays, he enjoys his paper and his pipe. he has no exalted ideas, and he could not put a single emotion into words, but he is thoroughly honest, upright, manly, kind, sensible. a perfect life in many ways; and yet it is inconceivable to me that a man should live thus, without an aim, without a hope, without an object. he would think my own life even more inconceivable--that a man could deliberately sit down day after day to construct a story about imaginary people; and such respect as he feels for me, is mainly due to the fact that my writings bring me in a larger income than he could ever make from his mill. but of course he is a man who is normally healthy, and such men as he are the props of rural life. he is a good master, he sees that his men do their work, and are well housed. he is not generous exactly, but he is neighbourly. the question is whether such as he is the proper type of humanity. he represents the simple virtues at their high-water mark. he is entirely contented, and his desires are perfectly proportioned to their surroundings. he seems indeed to be exactly what the human creature ought to be. and yet his very virtues, his sense of justice and honesty, his sensible kindliness, are the outcome of civilisation, and bear the stamp, in reality, of the dreams of saints and sages and idealists--the men who felt that things could be better, and who were made miserable by the imperfections of the world. i cannot help wondering, in a whimsical moment, what would have been the miller's thoughts of christ, if he had been confronted with him in the flesh. he would have thought of him rather contemptuously, i think, as a bewildering, unpractical, emotional man. the miller would not have felt the appeal of unselfishness and unworldliness, because his ideal of life is tranquil prosperity. he would have merely wondered why people could not hold their tongues and mind their business: and yet he is a model citizen, and would be deeply annoyed if he were told he were not a sincere christian. he accepts doctrinal statements as he would accept mathematical formulae, and he takes exactly as much of the christian doctrine as suits him. now when i compare myself with the miller, i feel that, as far as human usefulness goes, i am far lower in the scale. i am, when all is said and done, a drone in the hive, eating the honey i did not make. i do not take my share in the necessary labour of the world, i do not regulate a little community of labourers with uprightness and kindness, as he does. but still i suppose that my more sensitive organisation has a meaning in the scale of things. i cannot have been made and developed as i am, outside of the purpose of god. and yet my work in the world is not that of the passionate idealist, that kindles men with the hope of bettering and amending the world. what is it that my work does? it fills a vacant hour for leisurely people, it gives agreeable distraction, it furnishes some pleasant dreams. the most that i can say is that i have a wife whom i desire to make happy, and children whom i desire to bring up innocently, purely, vigorously. must one's hopes and beliefs be thus tentative and provisional? must one walk through life, never fathoming the secret? i have myself abundance of material comfort, health, leisure. i know that for one like myself, there are hundreds less fortunate. yet happiness in this world depends very little upon circumstances; it depends far more upon a certain mixture of selfishness, tranquillity, temperance, bodily vigour, and unimaginativeness. to be happy, one must be good-humouredly indifferent to the sufferings of others, and indisposed to forecast the possibilities of disaster. the sadness which must shadow the path of such as myself, is the sadness which comes of the power to see clearly the imperfections of the world, coupled with the inability to see through it, to discern the purpose of it all. one comforts oneself by the dim hope that the desire will be satisfied and the dream fulfilled; but has one any certainty of that? the temptation is to acquiesce in a sort of gentle cynicism, to take what one can get, to avoid as far as possible all deep attachments, all profound hopes, to steel oneself in indifference. that is what such men as my miller do instinctively; meanwhile one tries to believe that the melancholy that comes to such as hamlet, the sadness of finding the world unintelligible, and painful, and full of shadows, is a noble melancholy, a superior sort of madness. yet one is not content to bear, to suffer, to wait; one clutches desperately at light and warmth and joy, and alas, in joy and sorrow alike, one is ever and insupportably alone. april , . i have been reading rousseau lately, and find him a very incomprehensible figure. the confessions, it must be said, is a dingy and sordid book. i cannot quite penetrate the motive which induced him to write them. it cannot have been pure vanity, because he does not spare himself; he might have made himself out a far more romantic and attractive character, if he had suppressed the shadows and heightened the lights. i am inclined to think that it was partly vanity and partly honesty. vanity was the motive force, and honesty the accompanying mood. i do not suppose there is any document so transparently true in existence, and we ought to be thankful for that. it is customary to say that rousseau had the soul of a lackey, by which i suppose is meant that he had a gross and vulgar nature, a thievish taste for low pleasures, and an ill-bred absence of consideration for others. he had all these qualities certainly, but he had a great deal more. he was upright and disinterested. he had a noble disregard of material advantages; he had an enthusiasm for virtue, a passionate love of humanity, a deep faith in god. he was not an intellectual man nor a philosopher; and yet what a ridiculous criticism is that which is generally made upon him, that his reasoning is bad, his knowledge scanty, and that people had better read hobbes! the very reason which made rousseau so tremendous an influence was that his point of view was poetical rather than philosophical; he was not too far removed from the souls to which he prophesied. what they needed was inspiration, emotion, and sentimental dogma; these he could give, and so he saved europe from the philosophers and the cynics. of course it is a deplorable life, tormented by strong animal passion, ill-health, insanity; but one tends to forget the prevalent coarseness of social tone at that date, not because rousseau made any secret of it, but because none of his contemporaries dared to be so frank. if rousseau had struck out a dozen episodes from the confessions the result would have been a highly poetical, reflective, charming book. i can easily conceive that it might have a very bad effect upon an ingenuous mind, because it might be argued from what he says that moral lapses do not very much matter, and that emotional experience is worth the price of some animalism. still more perniciously it might induce one to believe that a man may have a deep sense of religion side by side with an unbridled sensuality, and that one whose life is morally infamous may yet be able to quicken the moral temperature of great nations. some of the critics of rousseau speak as though a man whose moral code was so loose, and whose practice was so libidinous, ought almost to have held his tongue on matters of high moral import. but this is a very false line of argument. a man may see a truth clearly, even if he cannot practise it; and an affirmation of a passionate belief in virtue is emphasised and accentuated when it comes from the lips of one who might be tempted rather to excuse his faults by preaching the irresistible character of evil. to any one who reads wisely, and not in a censorious and pharisaical spirit, this sordid record, which is yet interspersed with things so fragrant and beautiful, may have a sobering and uplifting effect. one sees a man hampered by ill-health, by a temperament childishly greedy of momentary pleasure, by irritability, suspicion, vanity and luxuriousness, again and again expressing a deep belief in unselfish emotion, a passionate desire to help struggling humanity onward, a child-like confidence in the goodness and tenderness of the father of all. disgust and admiration struggle strangely together. one cannot sympathise and yet one dare not condemn. one feels a horrible suspicion that there are dark and slimy corners, vile secrets, ugly memories, in the minds of hundreds of seemingly respectable people; the book brings one face to face with the mystery of evil; and yet through the gloom there steals a silvery radiance, a far-off hope, an infinite compassion for all weakness and imperfection. one can hardly love rousseau, though one does not wonder that there were many found to do so; and instead of judging him, one cries out with horror at the slime of the pit where he lay bound. april , . a delusion of which we must beware is the delusion that we can have a precise and accurate knowledge of spiritual things. this is a delusion into which the exponents of settled religions are apt to fall. the roman catholic, with his belief in the infallible church, as the interpreter of god's spirit, which is nothing more than a belief in the inspiration of the majority, or even a belief in the inspiration of a bureaucracy, is the prey of this delusion. the protestant, too, with his legal creed, built up of texts and precedents, in which the argumentative dicta of apostles and evangelists are as weighty and important as the words of the saviour himself, falls under this delusion. i read the other day a passage from a printed sermon of an orthodox type, an acrid outcry against liberalism in religion, which may illustrate what i mean. "to st. paul and st. john," said the preacher, "the natural or carnal man is hopelessly remote from god; the same lord who came to make possible for man this intimate communion with god is careful to make it clear that this communion is only possible to redeemed, regenerate man; prior to new birth into the kingdom of god, far from being a son of god, man is, according to the lord himself, a child of the devil, however potentially capable of being translated from death into life." such teaching is so horrible and abominable that it is hard to find words to express one's sense of its shamefulness. to attribute it to the christ, who came to seek and save what is lost, is an act of traitorous wickedness. if christ had made it his business to thunder into the ears of the outcasts, whom he preferred to the scribes and pharisees, this appalling message, where would his teaching be? what message of hope would it hold for the soul? such a view of christianity as this insults alike the soul and the mind and the heart; it deliberately insults god; the message of christ to the vilest human spirit is that it is indeed, in spite of all its corruption, its falls, its shame, in very truth god's own child; it calls upon the sinner to recognise it, it takes for granted that he feels it. the people whom christ denounced with indignation so fiery, so blasting, that it even seems inconsistent with his perfect gentleness, were the people who thus professed to know and interpret the mind of god, who bade the sinner believe that he was a merciless judge, extreme to mark what is done amiss, when the one secret was that he was the tenderest and most loving of fathers. but according to this preacher's terrible doctrine god pours into the world a stream of millions of human beings, all children of the devil, with instincts of a corrupt kind, hampered by dreadful inheritances, doomed, from their helpless and reluctant birth, to be sinful here and lost hereafter, and then prescribes to them a hard and difficult path, beset by clamorous guides, pointing in a hundred different directions, bidding them find the intricate way to his heart, or perish. the truth is the precise opposite. the divine voice says to every man: "hampered and sore hindered as you are, you are yet my dearly beloved son and child; only turn to me, only open your heart to me, only struggle, however faintly, to be what you can desire to be, and i will guide and lead you to myself; all that is needed is that your heart should be on my side in the battle. even your sins matter little, provided that you can say sincerely, 'if it were mine to choose and ordain, i would never willingly do evil again.' i know, better even than you yourself know, your difficulties, your temptations, your weaknesses; the sorrow they bring upon you is no dreary and vindictive punishment, it is the loving correction of my hand, and will bring you into peace yet, if only you will trust me, and not despair." the world is full of dreadful things, pains and sorrow and miseries, but the worst of all are the dreary wretchednesses of our own devising. the old detestable doctrine of hell, the idea that the stubborn and perverse spirit can defy god, and make its black choice, is simply an attempt to glorify the strength of the human spirit and to belittle the love of god. it denies the truth that god, if he chose, could show the darkest soul the beauty of holiness in so constraining a way that the frail nature must yield to the appeal. to deny this, is to deny the omnipotence of the creator. no man would deliberately reject peace and joy, if he could see how to find them, in favour of feverish evil and ceaseless suffering. if we believe that god is perfect love, it is inconceivable that he should make a creature capable of defying his utmost tenderness, unless he had said to himself, "i will make a poor wretch who shall defy me, and he shall suffer endlessly and mercilessly in consequence." the truth is that god's omnipotence is limited by his omnipotence; he could not, for instance, abolish himself, nor create a power that should be greater than he. but if he indeed can give to evil such vitality that it can defy him for ever, then he is creating a power that is stronger than himself. while the mystery of evil is unexplained, we must all be content to know that we do not know; for the thing is insoluble by human thought. if god be all-pervading, all-in-all, it is impossible to conceive anything coming into being alien to himself, within himself. if he created spirits able to choose evil, he must have created the evil for them to choose, for a man could not choose what did not exist; if man can defy god, god must have given him the thought of defiance, for no thought can enter the mind of man not permitted by god. with this mystery unsolved, we cannot pretend to any knowledge of spiritual things; all that we can do is to recognise that the principle of love is stronger than the principle of evil, and cling so far as we can cling to the former. but to set ourselves up to guide and direct other men, as the preacher did whose words i have quoted, is to set oneself in the place of god, and is a detestable tyranny. only by our innate sense of justice and love can we apprehend god at all; and thus we are safe in this, that whenever we find any doctrine preached by any human being which insults our sense of justice and love, we may gladly reject it, saying that at least we will not believe that god gives us the power, on the one hand, to recognise our highest and truest instincts, and on the other directs us to outrage them. such teaching as this we can infallibly recognise as a human perversion and not as a divine message; and we may thankfully and gratefully believe that the obstacles and difficulties, the temptations and troubles, which seem to be strewn so thickly in our path, are to develop rather than to thwart our strivings after good, and assuredly designed to minister to our ultimate happiness, rather than to our ultimate despair. april , . i found to-day on a shelf a manual of preparation for holy communion, which was given me when i was confirmed. i stood a long time reading it, and little ghosts seemed to rustle in its pages. how well i remember using it, diligently and carefully, trying to force myself into the attitude of mind that it inculcated, and humbly and sincerely believing myself wicked, reprobate, stony-hearted, because i could not do it successfully. shall i make a curious confession? from quite early days, the time of first waking in the morning has been apt to be for me a time of mental agitation; any unpleasant and humiliating incident, any disagreeable prospect, have always tended to dart into my brain, which, unstrung and weakened by sleep, has often been disposed to view things with a certain poignancy of distress at that hour--a distress which i always knew would vanish the moment i felt my feet on the carpet. i used to take advantage of this to use my manual at that hour, because by that i secured a deeper intensity of repentance, and i have often succeeded in inducing a kind of tearful condition by those means, which i knew perfectly well to be artificial, but which yet seemed to comply with the rules of the process. the kind of repentance indicated in the book as appropriate was a deep abasement, a horror and hatred of one's sinful propensities; and the language used seems to me now not only hollow and meaningless, but to insult the dignity of the soul, and to be indeed a profound confession of a want of confidence in the methods and purposes of god. surely the right attitude is rather a manly, frank, and hopeful co-operation with god, than a degraded kind of humiliation. one was invited to contemplate god's detestation of sin, his awful and stainless holiness. how unreal, how utterly false! it is no more reasonable than to inculcate in human beings a sense of his hatred of weakness, of imperfection, of disease, of suffering. one might as well say that god's courage and beauty were so perfect that he had an impatient loathing for anything timid or ugly. if one said that being perfect he had an infinite pity for imperfection, that would be nearer the truth--but, even so, how far away! to believe in his perfect love and benevolence, one must also believe that all shortcomings, all temptations, all sufferings, somehow emanate from him; that they are educative, and have an intense and beautiful significance--that is what one struggles, how hardly, to believe! those childish sins, they were but the expression of the nature one received from his hand, that wilful, pleasure-loving, timid, fitful nature, which yet always desired the better part, if only it could compass it, choose it, love it. to hate one's nature and temperament and disposition, how impossible, unless one also hated the god who had bestowed them! and then, too, how inextricably intertwined! the very part of one's soul that made one peace-loving, affectionate, trustful was the very thing that led one into temptation. the very humility and diffidence that made one hate to seem or to be superior to others was the occasion of falling. the religion recommended was a religion of scrupulous saints and self-torturing ascetics; and the result of it was to make one, as experience widened and deepened, mournfully indifferent to an ideal which seemed so utterly out of one's reach. it is very difficult to make the right compromise. on the one hand, there is the sense of moral responsibility and effort, which one desires to cultivate; on the other hand, truth compels us to recognise our limitations, and to confess boldly the fact that moral improvement is a very difficult thing. the question is whether, in dealing with other people, we will declare what we believe to be the truth, or whether we will tamper with the truth for a good motive. ought we to pretend that we think a person morally responsible and morally culpable, when we believe that he is neither, for the sake of trying to improve him? my own practice now is to waste as little time as possible in ineffectual regrets, but to keep alive as far as i can in my heart a hope, a desire, that god will help to bring me nearer to the ideal that i can perceive and cannot reach. to-day, turning over the pages of the old manual, with its fantastic strained phrases staring at me from the page, i cannot help wishing that some wise and tender person had been able to explain to me the conditions as i now see them. probably the thing was incommunicable; one must learn for oneself both one's bitterness and one's joy. may , . it sometimes happens to me--i suppose it happens to every one--to hear some well-meaning person play or sing at a party. last night, at the simpsons', a worthy young man, who was staying there, sang some schubert songs in a perfectly correct, weak, inexpressive voice, accompanying himself in a wooden and inanimate fashion--the whole thing might have been turned out by a machine. i was, i suppose, in a fretful mood. "good god!" i thought to myself, "what is the meaning of this woeful performance?--a party of absurd dressed-up people, who have eaten and drunk too much, sitting in a circle in this hot room listening gravely to this lugubrious performance! and this is the best that schubert can do! this is the real schubert! here have i been all my life pouring pints of subjective emotion into this dreary writer of songs, believing that i was stirred and moved, when it was my own hopes and aspirations all along, which i was stuffing into this conventional vehicle, just as an ecclesiastical person puts his emotion into the grotesque repetitions of a liturgy." i thought to myself that i had made a discovery, and that all was vanity. well, we thanked the singer gravely enough, and went on, smiling and grimacing, to talk local gossip. a few minutes later, a young girl, very shy and painfully ingenuous, was hauled protesting to the piano. i could see her hands tremble as she arranged her music, and the first chords she struck were halting and timid. then she began to sing--it was some simple old-fashioned song--what had happened? the world was somehow different; she had one of those low thrilling voices, charged with utterly inexplicable emotion, haunted with old mysterious echoes out of some region of dreams, so near and yet so far away. i do not think that the girl had any great intensity of mind, or even of soul, neither was she a great performer; but there was some strange and beautiful quality about the voice, that now rose clear and sustained, while the accompaniment charged and tinged the pure notes with glad or mournful visions, like wine poured into water; now the voice fell and lingered, like a clear stream among rocks, pathetic, appealing, stirring a deep hunger of the spirit, and at the same time hinting at a hope, at a secret almost within one's grasp. how can one find words to express a thing so magical, so inexpressible? but it left me feeling as though to sing thus was the one thing worth doing in the world, because it seemed to interpret, to reveal, to sustain, to console--it was as though one opened a door in a noisy, dusty street, and saw through it a deep and silent glen, with woodlands stooping to a glimmering stream, with a blue stretch of plain beyond, and an expanse of sunny seas on the rim of the sky. i have had similar experiences before. i have looked in a gallery at picture after picture--bright, soulless, accomplished things--and asked myself how it was possible for men and women to spend their time so elaborately to no purpose; and then one catches sight of some little sketch--a pool in the silence of high summer, the hot sun blazing on tall trees full of leaf, and rich water-plants, with a single figure in a moored boat, musing dreamily; and at once one is transported into a region of thrilled wonder. what is it all about? what is this sudden glimpse into a life so rich and strange? in what quiet country is it all enacted, what land of sweet visions? what do the tall trees and the sleeping pool hide from me, and in what romantic region of joy and sadness does the dreamer muse for ever, in the long afternoon, so full of warmth and fragrance and murmurous sound? that is the joy of art, of the symbol--that it remains and rests within itself, in a world that seems, for a moment, more real and true than the clamorous and obtrusive world we move in. it is so all along the line--the hard and soulless art of technique and rule, of tradition and precept, however accomplished, however perfect it is, is worth nothing; it is only another dreary form of labour, unless through some faculty of the spirit, some vital intensity, or even some inexplicable felicity, not comprehended, not designed, not intended by the artist, it has this remote and suggestive quality. and thus suddenly, in the midst of this weary beating of instruments, this dull laying of colour by colour, of word by word, there breaks in the awful and holy presence; and then one feels, as i have said, that this thrill, this message, this oracle, is the one thing in the world worth striving after, and that indeed one may forgive all the dull efforts of those who cannot attain it, because perhaps they too have felt the call, and have thrown themselves into the eternal quest. and it is true too of life; one is brought near to many people, and one asks oneself in a chilly discomfort what is the use of it all, living thus in hard and futile habits, on dull and conventional lines; and then again one is suddenly confronted by some personality, rich in hope and greatness, touching the simplest acts of life with an unearthly light, making them gracious and beautiful, and revealing them as the symbols of some pure and high mystery. sometimes this is revealed by a word, sometimes by a glance; perfectly virtuous, capable, successful people may miss it; humble, simple, quiet people may have it. one cannot analyse it or describe it; but one has instantaneously a sense that life is a thing of large issues and great hopes; that every action and thought, however simple or commonplace, may be touched with this large quality of interest, of significance. it is a great happiness to meet such a person, because one goes in the strength of that heavenly meat many days and nights, knowing that life is worth living to the uttermost, and that it can all be beautiful and lofty and gracious; but the way to miss it, to lose that fine sense, is to have some dull and definite design of one's own, which makes one treat all the hours in which one cannot pursue it, but as the dirt and debris of a quarry. one must not, i see, wait for the golden moments of life, because there are no moments that are not golden, if one can but pierce into their essence. yet how is one to realise this, to put it into practice? i have of late, in my vacuous mood, fallen into the dark error of thinking of the weary hours as of things that must be just lived through, and endured, and beguiled, if possible, until the fire again fall. but life is a larger and a nobler business than that; and one learns the lesson sooner, if one takes the suffering home to one's soul, not as a tedious interlude, but as the very melody and march of life itself, even though it crash into discords, or falter in a sombre monotony. the point is that when one seems to be playing a part to one's own satisfaction, when one appears to oneself to be brilliant, suggestive, inspiriting, and genial, one is not necessarily ministering to other people; while, on the other hand, when one is dull, troubled, and anxious, out of heart and discontented, one may have the chance of making others happier. here is a whimsical instance; in one of my dreariest days--i was in london on business--i sate next to an old friend, generally a very lively, brisk, and cheerful man, who appeared to me strangely silent and depressed. i led him on to talk freely, and he told me a long tale of anxieties and cares; his health was unsatisfactory, his plans promised ill. in trying to paint a brighter picture, to reassure and encourage him, i not only forgot my own troubles, but put some hope into him. we had met, two tired and dispirited men, we went away cheered and encouraged, aware that we were not each of us the only sufferer in the world and that there were possibilities still ahead of us all, nay, in our grip, if we only were not blind and forgetful. may , . i saw the other day a great artist working on a picture in its initial stages. there were a few lines of a design roughly traced, and there was a little picture beside him, where the scheme was roughly worked out; but the design itself was covered with strange wild smears of flaring, furious colour, flung crudely upon the canvas. "i find it impossible to believe," i said,--"forgive me for speaking thus--that these ragged stains and splashes of colour can ever be subdued and harmonised and co-ordinated." the great man smiled. "what would you have said, i wonder," he replied, "if you had seen, as i did once, a picture of rossetti's in an early stage, with the face and arms of one of his strange and mysterious figures roughly painted in in the brightest ultramarine? many of these fantastic scraps of colour will disappear altogether from the eye, just lending tone to something which is to be superimposed upon them." i have since reflected that this makes a beautiful parable of our lives. some element comes into our experience, some suffering, some anxiety, and we tend to say impatiently: "well, whatever happens, this at least can never appear just or merciful." but god, like a wise and perfect artist, foresees the end in the beginning. we, who live in time and space, can merely see the rough, crude tints flung fiercely down, till the thing seems nothing but a frantic patchwork of angry hues; but god sees the blending and the softening; how the soft tints of face and hand, of river and tree, will steal over the coarse background, and gain their strength and glory from the hidden stains. perhaps we have sometimes the comfort of seeing how some old and ugly experience melted into and strengthened some soft, bright quality of heart or mind. staring mournfully as we do upon the tiny circumscribed space of life, we cannot conceive how the design will work itself out; but the day will come when we shall see it too; and perhaps the best moments of life are those when we have a secret inkling of the process that is going so slowly and surely forward, as the harsh lines and hues become the gracious lineaments of some sweet face, and from the glaring patch of hot colour is revealed the remote and shining expanse of a sunlit sea. may , . there used to be a favourite subject for scholastic disputation: whether hercules is in the marble. the image is that of the sculptor, who sees the statue lie, so to speak, imbedded in the marble block, and whose duty is so to carve it, neither cutting too deep or too shallow, so that the perfect form is revealed. the idea of the disputation is the root-idea of idealistic philosophy. that each man is, as it were, a block of marble in which the ideal man is buried. the purpose of the educator ought to be to cut the form out, perikoptein, as plato has it. what a lofty and beautiful thought! to feel about oneself that the perfect form is there, and that the experience of life is the process of cutting it out--a process full of pain, perhaps, as the great splinters and flakes fly and drop--a rough, brutal business it seems at first, the hewing off great masses of stone, so firmly compacted, fused and concreted together. at first it seems unintelligible enough; but the dints become minuter and minuter, here a grain and there an atom, till the smooth and shapely limbs begin to take shape. at first it seems a mere bewildered loss, a sharp pang as one parts with what seems one's very self. how long before the barest structure becomes visible! but when one once gets a dim inkling of what is going on, as the stubborn temper yields, as the face takes on its noble frankness, and the shapely limbs emerge in all the glory of free line and curve, how gratefully and vehemently one co-operates, how little a thing the endurance of mere pain becomes by the side of the consciousness that one is growing into the likeness of the divine. may , . when goethe was writing werther he wrote to his friend kestner, "i am working out my own situation in art, for the consolation of gods and men." that is a fine thing to have said, proceeding from so sublime an egoism, so transcendent a pride, that it has hardly a disfiguring touch of vanity about it. he did not add that he was also working in the situation of his friend kestner, and kestner's wife, charlotte; though when they objected to having been thus used as material, goethe apologised profusely, and in the same breath told them, somewhat royally, that they ought to be proud to have been thus honoured. but that is the reason why one admires goethe so much and worships him so little. one admires him for the way in which he strode ahead, turning corner after corner in the untravelled road of art, with such insight, such certainty, interpreting and giving form to the thought of the world; but one does not worship him, because he had no tenderness or care for humanity. he knew whither he was bound, but he did not trouble himself about his companions. the great leaders of the world are those who have said to others, "come with me--let us find light and peace together!"--but goethe said, "follow me if you can!" some one, writing of that age, said that it was a time when men had immense and far-reaching desires, but feeble wills. they lost themselves in the melancholy of hamlet, and luxuriated in their own sorrows. that was not the case with goethe himself; there never was an artist who was less irresolute. one of the reasons, i think, why we are weak in art, at the present time, is because we refer everything to conventional ethical standards. we are always arraigning people at the bar of morality, and what we judge them mainly by is their strength or weakness of will. blake thought differently. he always maintained that men would be judged for their intellectual and artistic perception, by their good or bad taste. but surely it is all a deep-seated mistake; one might as well judge people for being tall or short, ugly or beautiful. the only thing for which i think most people would consent to be judged, which is after all what matters, is whether they have yielded consciously to mean, prudent, timid, conventional motives in life. it is not a question of success or failure; it is rather whether one has acted largely, freely, generously, or whether one has acted politely, timidly, prudently. in the gospel, the two things for which it seems to be indicated that men will be judged are, whether they have been kind, and whether they have improved upon what has been given them. and therefore the judgment seems to depend rather upon what men desire than upon what they effect, upon attitude rather than upon performance. but it is all a great mystery, because no amount of desiring seems to give us what we desire. the two plain duties are to commit ourselves to the power that made us, and to desire to become what he would have us become; and one must also abstain from any attempt to judge other people--that is the unpardonable sin. in art, then, a man does his best if, like goethe, he works his own situation into art for the consolation of gods and men. his own situation is the only thing he can come near to perceiving; and if he draws it faithfully and beautifully, he consoles and he encourages. that is the best and noblest thing he can do, if he can express or depict anything which may make other men feel that they are not alone, that others are treading the same path, in sunshine or cloud; anything which may help others to persevere, to desire, to perceive. the worst sorrows in life are not its losses and misfortunes, but its fears. and when goethe said that it was for the consolation of gods as well as of men, he said a sublime thing, for if we believe that god made and loved us, may we not sympathise with him for our blindness and hopelessness, for all the sad sense of injustice and perplexity that we feel as we stumble on our way; all the accusing cries, all the despairing groans? do not such things wound the heart of god? and if a man can be brave and patient, and trust him utterly, and bid others trust him, is he not thereby consoled? in these dark months, in which i have suffered much, there rises at times in my heart a strong intuition that it is not for nothing that i suffer. i cannot divine whom it is to benefit, or how it is to benefit any one. one thing indeed saddens me, and that is to reflect that i have often allowed the record of old sadnesses to heighten my own sense of luxurious tranquillity and security. not so will i err again. i will rather believe that a mighty price is being paid for a mightier joy, that we are not astray in the wilderness out of the way, but that we are rather a great and loving company, guided onward to some far-off city of god, with infinite tenderness, and a love so great that we cannot even comprehend its depth and its intensity. i sit, as i write, in my quiet room, the fragrant evening air floating in, surrounded by all the beloved familiar things that have made my life sweet, easy, and delightful--books and pictures, that have brought me so many messages of beauty. i hear the voice of maud overhead--she is telling the children a story, and i hear their voices break out every now and then into eager questions. yet in the midst of all this peace and sweetness, i walk in loneliness and gloom, hardly daring, so faithless and despairing i am, to let my heart go out to the love and goodness round me, for fear of losing it all, for fear that those souls i love may be withdrawn from me or i from them. in this i know that i am sadly and darkly wrong--the prudent coldness, the fear of sorrow pulls me back; irresolute, cowardly, base! yet even so i must trust the hand that moulded me, and the will that bade me be, just so and not otherwise. june , . it is a melancholy reflection how very little the highest and most elaborate culture effects in the direction of producing creative and original writing. very few indeed of our great writers have been technically cultivated men. how little we look to the universities, where a lifetime devoted to the study of the nuances of classical expression is considered well spent, for any literature which either raises the intellectual temperature or enriches the blood of the world! the fact is that the highly-cultivated man tends to find himself mentally hampered by his cultivation, to wade in a sea of glue, as tennyson said. it is partly that highly-cultivated minds grow to be subservient to authority, and to contemn experiment as rash and obstreperous. partly also the least movement of the mind dislodges such a pile of precedents and phrases and aphorisms, stored and amassed by diligent reading, that the mind is encumbered by the thought that most things worth saying have been so beautifully said that repetition is out of the question. partly, too, a false and fastidious refinement lays hold of the mind; and an intellect trained in the fine perception of ancient expression is unable to pass through the earlier stages through which a writer must pass, when the stream flows broken and turbid, when it appears impossible to capture and define the idea which seems so intangible and indefinable. what an original writer requires is to be able to see a subject for himself, and then to express it for himself. the only cultivation he needs is just enough to realise that there are differences of subject and differences of expression, just enough to discern the general lines upon which subjects can be evolved, and to perceive that lucidity, grace, and force of expression are attainable. the overcultivated man, after reading a masterpiece, is crushed and flattened under his admiration; but the effect of a masterpiece upon an original spirit, is to make him desire to say something else that rises in his soul, and to say it in his own words; all he needs in the way of training is just enough for him to master technique. the highly-cultivated man is as one dazzled by gazing upon the sun; he has no eyes for anything else; a bright disc, imprinted upon his eyes, floats between him and every other object. the best illustration of this is the case of the great trio, wordsworth, southey, and coleridge. all three started as poets. coleridge was distracted from poetry into metaphysics, mainly, i believe, by his indulgence in opium, and the torturing contemplation of his own moral impotence. he turned to philosophy to see if he could find some clue to the bewildering riddle of life, and he lost his way among philosophical speculations. southey, on the other hand, a man of spartan virtue, became a highly-cultivated writer; he sate in his spacious library of well-selected books, arranged with a finical preciseness, apportioning his day between various literary pursuits. he made an income; he wrote excellent ephemeral volumes; he gained a somewhat dreary reputation. but wordsworth, with his tiny bookshelf of odd tattered volumes, with pages of manuscript interleaved to supply missing passages, alone kept his heart and imagination active, by deliberate leisure, elaborate sauntering, unashamed idleness. the reason why very few uneducated persons have been writers of note, is because they have been unable to take up the problem at the right point. a writer cannot start absolutely afresh; he must have the progress of thought behind him, and he must join the procession in due order. therefore the best outfit for a writer is to have just enough cultivation to enable him to apprehend the drift and development of thought, to discern the social and emotional problems that are in the air, so that he can interpret--that is the secret--the thoughts that are astir, but which have not yet been brought to the birth. he must know enough and not too much; he must not dim his perception by acquainting himself in detail with what has been said or thought; he must not take off the freshness of his mind by too much intellectual gymnastic. it is a race across country for which he is preparing, and he will learn better what the practical difficulties are by daring excursions of his own, than by acquiring a formal suppleness in prescribed exercises. the originality and the output of the writer are conditioned by his intellectual and vital energy. most men require all their energy for the ordinary pursuits of life; all creative work is the result of a certain superabundance of mental force. if this force is used up in social duties, in professional business, even in the pursuit of a high degree of mental cultivation, originality must suffer; and therefore a man whose aim is to write, ought resolutely to limit his activities. what would be idleness in another is for him a storing of forces; what in an ordinary man would be malingering and procrastination, is for the writer the repose necessary to allow his energies to concentrate themselves upon his chosen work. june , . i have been looking at a catalogue, this morning, of the publications of a firm that is always bringing out new editions of old writers. i suppose they find a certain sale for these books, or they would not issue them; and yet i cannot conceive who buys them in their thousands, and still less who reads them. teachers, perhaps, of literature; or people who are inspired by local lectures to go in search of culture? it is a great problem, this accumulation of literature; and it seems to me a very irrational thing to do to republish the complete works of old authors, who perhaps, in the midst of a large mass of essentially second-rate work, added half-a-dozen lyrics to the literature of the world. but surely it is time that we began to select? whatever else there is time for in this world, there certainly is not time to read old half-forgotten second-rate work. of course people who are making a special study of an age, a period, a school of writers, have to plough through a good deal that is not intrinsically worth reading; but, as a rule, when a man has done this, instead of saying boldly that the greater part of an author's writings may be wisely neglected and left alone, he loses himself in the critical discrimination and the chronological arrangement of inferior compositions; perhaps he rescues a few lines of merit out of a mass of writing; but there is hardly time now to read long ponderous poems for the sake of a few fine flashes of emotion and expression. what, as a rule, distinguishes the work of the amateur from the work of the great writer is that an amateur will retain a poem for the sake of a few good lines, whereas a great writer will relentlessly sacrifice a few fine phrases, if the whole structure and texture of the poem is loose and unsatisfactory. the only chance of writing something that will live is to be sure that the whole thing--book, essay, poem--is perfectly proportioned, firm, hammered, definite. the sign and seal of a great writer is that he has either the patience to improve loose work, or the courage to sacrifice it. but most readers are so irrational, so submissive, so deferential, that they will swallow an author whole. they think dimly that they can arrive at a certain kind of culture by knowledge; but knowledge has nothing to do with it. the point is to have perception, emotion, discrimination. this is where education fails so grievously, that teachers of this independent and perceptive process are so rare, and that teaching too often falls into the hands of conscientious people, with good memories, who think that it benefits the mind to load it with facts and dates, and forget, or do not know, that what is needed is a sort of ardent inner fire, that consumes the debris and fuses the ore. in that dry, ugly, depressing book, harry and lucy, which i used to read in my youth, there is a terrible father, kind, virtuous, conscientious, whose one idea seems to be to encourage the children to amass correct information. the party is driving in a chaise together, and lucy begins to tell a story of a little girl, kitty maples by name, whom she has met at her aunt pierrepoint's; it seems as if the conversation is for once to be enlightened by a ray of human interest, but the name is hardly out of her lips, when the father directs her attention to a building beside the road, and adds, "let us talk of things rather than of people." the building turns out to be a sugar-refinery, or some equally depressing place, and the unhappy children are initiated into its mysteries. what could be more cheerless and dispiriting? lucy is represented as a high-spirited and somewhat giddy child, who is always being made aware of her moral deficiencies. one looks forward sadly to the time when nature has been resolutely expelled by a knowledge of dynamics and statics, and when lucy, with children of her own, will be directing their attention away from childish fancies, to the fact that the poker is a lever, and that curly hair is a good hygrometer. plenty of homely and simple virtues are inculcated in harry and lucy; but the attitude of mind that must inevitably result from such an education is hard, complacent, and superior. the children are scolded out of superficial vanities, and their place is occupied by a satanical sort of pride--the pride of possessing correct information. what does one want to make of one's own children? one wants them to be generous, affectionate, simple-minded, just, temperate in the moral region. in the intellectual region, one desires them to be alert, eager, independent, perceptive, interested. i like them to ask a hundred questions about what they see and hear. i want them to be tender and compassionate to animals and insects. as for books, i want them to follow their own taste, but i surround them only with the best; but even so i wish them to have minds of their own, to have preferences, and reasons for their preferences. i do not want them to follow my taste, but to trust their own. i do not in the least care about their amassing correct information. it is much better that they should learn how to use books. it is very strange how theories of education remain impervious to development. in the days when books were scarce and expensive, when knowledge was not formulated and summarised, men had to depend largely on their own stores. but now, what is the use of books, if one is still to load one's memory with details? the training of memory is a very unimportant part of education nowadays; people with accurate memories are far too apt to trust them, and to despise verification. indeed, a well-filled memory is a great snare, because it leads the possessor of it to believe, as i have said, that knowledge is culture. a good digestion is more important to a man than the possession of many sacks of corn; and what one ought rather to cultivate nowadays is mental digestion. june , . it is comforting to reflect how easy it is to abandon habits, and how soon a new habit takes the place of the old. some months ago i put writing aside in despair, feeling that i was turning away from the most stable thing in life; yet even now i have learned largely to acquiesce in silence; the dreary and objectless mood visits me less and less frequently. what have i found to fill the place of the old habit? i have begun to read much more widely, and recognise how very ill-educated i am. in my writing days, i used to read mainly for the purposes of my books, or, if i turned aside to general reading at all, it was to personal, intime, subjective books that i turned, books in which one could see the development of character, analyse emotion, acquire psychological experience; but now i find a growing interest in sociological and historical ideas; a mist begins to roll away from my mental horizon, and i realise how small was the circle in which i was walking. i sometimes find myself hoping that this may mean the possibility of a wider flight; but i do not, strange to say, care very much about the prospect. just at present, i appear to myself to have been like a botanist walking in a great forest, looking out only for small typical specimens of certain classes of ground-plants, without any eyes for the luxurious vegetation, the beauty of the rich opening glade, the fallen day of the dense underwood. then too i have begun to read regularly with the children; i did it formerly, but only fitfully, and i am sorry to say grudgingly. but now it has become a matter of intense interest to me, to see how thoughts strike on eager and ingenuous minds. i find my trained imagination a great help here, because it gives me the power of clothing a bare scene with detail, and of giving vitality to an austere figure. i have made all sorts of discoveries, to me astonishing and delightful, about my children. i recognise some of their qualities and modes of thought; but there are whole ranges of qualities apparent, of which i cannot even guess the origin. one thinks of a child as deriving its nature from its parents, and its experience from its surroundings; but there is much beside that, original views, unexpected curiosities, and, strangest of all, things that seem almost like dim reminiscences floated out of other far-off lives. they seem to infer so much that they have never heard, to perceive so much that they have never seen, to know so much that they have never been told. bewildering as this is in the intellectual region, it is still more marvellous in the moral region. they scorn, they shudder at, they approve, they love, as by some generous instinct, qualities of which they have had no experience. "i don't know what it is, but there is something wrong about cromwell," said maggie gravely, when we had been reading the history of the commonwealth. now cromwell is just one of those characters which, as a rule, a child accepts as a model of rigid virtue and public spirit. alec, whose taste is all for soldiers and sailors just now, and who might, one would have thought, have been dazzled by military glory, pronounced napoleon "rather a common man." this arose purely in the boy's own mind, because i am very careful not to anticipate any judgments; i think it of the highest importance that they should learn to form their own opinions, so that we never attempt to criticise a character until we have mastered the facts of his life. another thing i am doing with them, which seems to me to develop intelligence pleasurably and rapidly, is to read them a passage or an episode, and then to require them to relate it or write it in their own words. i don't remember that this was ever done for me in the whole course of my elaborate education; and the speed with which they have acquired the art of seizing on salient points is to me simply marvellous. i have my reward in such remarks as these which maud repeated to me yesterday. "lessons," said alec gravely, "have become ever so much more fun since we began to do them with father." "fun!" said maggie, with indignant emotion; "they are not lessons at all now!" i certainly do not observe any reluctance on their part to set to work, and i do see a considerable reluctance to stop; yet i don't think there is the least strain about it. but it is true that i save them all the stupid and irksome work that made my own acquisition of knowledge so bitter a thing. we read french together; my own early french lessons were positively disgusting, partly from the abominable little books on dirty paper and in bad type that we read, and partly from the absurd character of the books chosen. the cid and voltaire's charles xii.! i used to wonder dimly how it was ever worth any one's while to string such ugly and meaningless sentences together. now i read with the children sans famille and colomba; and they acquire the language with incredible rapidity. i tell them any word they do not know; and we have a simple system of emulation, by which the one who recollects first a word we have previously had, receives a mark; and the one who first reaches a total of a hundred marks gets sixpence. the adorable nature of women! maggie, whose verbal memory is excellent, went rapidly ahead, and spent her sixpence on a present to console alec for the indignity of having been beaten. then, too, they write letters in french to their mother, which are solemnly sent by post. it is not very idiomatic french, but it is amazingly flexible; and it is delicious to see the children at breakfast watching maud as she opens the letters and smiles over them. perhaps this is not a very exalted type of education; it certainly seems to fulfil its purpose very wonderfully in making them alert, inquisitive, eager, and without any shadow of priggishness. it is established as a principle that it is stupid not to know things, and still more stupid to try and make other people aware that you know them; and the apologies with which maggie translated a french menu at a house where we stayed with the children the other day were delightful to behold. i am very anxious that they should not be priggish, and i do not think they are in any danger of becoming so. i suppose i rather skim the cream of their education, and leave the duller part to the governess, a nice, tranquil person, who lives in the village, the daughter of a previous vicar, and comes in in the mornings. i don't mean that their interest and alertness does not vary, but they are obedient and active-minded children, and they prefer their lessons with me so much that it has not occurred to them to be bored. if they flag, i don't press them. i tell them a story, or show them pictures. while i write these words in my armchair, they are sitting at the table, writing an account of something i have told them. maggie lays down her pen with a sigh of satisfaction. "there, that is beautiful! but i dare say it is not as good as yours, alec." "don't interrupt me," says alec sternly, "and don't push against me when i'm busy." maggie looks round and concludes that i am busy too. in a minute, alec will have done, and then i shall read the two pieces aloud; then we shall criticise them respectfully. the aim is to make them frankly recognise the good points of each other's compositions as well as the weak points, and this they are very ready to do. in all this i do not neglect the physical side. they can ride and swim. they go out in all weathers and get wholesomely wet, dirty, and tired. games are a difficulty, but i want them to be able, if necessary, to do without games. we botanise, we look for nests, we geologise, we study birds through glasses, we garden. it is all very unscientific, but they observe, they perceive, they love the country. moreover, maud has a passion for knowing all the village people, and takes the children with her, so that they really know the village-folk all round; they are certainly tremendously happy and interested in everything. of course they are volatile in their tastes, but i rather encourage that. i know that in the little old moral books the idea was that nothing should be taken up by children, unless it was done thoroughly and perseveringly; but i had rather that they had a wide experience; the time to select and settle down upon a pursuit is not yet, and i had rather that they found out for themselves what they care about, than practise them in a premature patience. the only thing i object to is their taking up something which they have tried and dropped; then i do require a pledge that they shall stick to it. i say to them, "i don't mind how many things you try, and if you find you don't care about one, you may give it up when you have given it a trial; but it is a bad thing to be always changing, and everybody can't do everything; so don't take up this particular thing again, unless you can give a good reason for thinking you will keep to it." one of the things i insist upon their doing, whether they like it or not, is learning to play the piano. there are innumerable people, i find, who regret not having been made to overcome the initial difficulties of music; and the only condition i make is, that they shall be allowed to stop when they can play a simple piece of music at sight correctly, and when they have learnt the simple rules of harmony. for teaching them geography, i have a simple plan; my own early geography lessons were to my recollection singularly dismal. i used, as far as i can remember, to learn lists of towns, rivers, capes, and mountains. then there were horrible lists of exports and imports, such as hides, jute, and hardware. i did not know what any of the things were, and no one explained them to me. what we do now is this. i read up a book of travels, and then we travel in a country by means of atlases, while i describe the sort of landscape we should see, the inhabitants, their occupations, their religion, and show the children pictures. i can only say that it seems to be a success. they learn arithmetic with their governess, and what is aimed at is rapid and accurate calculations. as for religious instruction, we read portions of the bible, striking scenes and stories, carefully selected, and the gospel story, with plenty of pictures. but here i own i find a difficulty. with regard to the old testament, i have frankly told them that many of the stories are legends and exaggerations, like the legends of other nations. that is not difficult; i say that in old days when people did not understand science, many things seemed possible which we know now to be impossible; and that things which happened naturally, were often thought to have happened supernaturally; moreover, that both imagination and exaggeration crept in about famous people. i am sure that there is a great danger in teaching intelligent children that the bible is all literally true. and then the difficulty comes in, that they ask artlessly whether such a story as the miracle of cana, or the feeding of the five thousand, is true. i reply frankly that we cannot be sure; that the people who wrote it down believed it to be true, but that it came to them by hearsay; and the children seem to have no difficulty about the matter. then, too, i do not want them to be too familiar, as children, with the words of christ, because i am sure that it is a fact that, for many people, a mechanical familiarity with the gospel language simply blurs and weakens the marvellous significance and beauty of the thought. it becomes so crystallised that they cannot penetrate it. i have treated some parts of the gospel after the fashion of philochristus, telling them a story, as though seen by some earnest spectator. i find that they take the deepest interest in these stories, and that the figure of christ is very real and august to them. but i teach them no doctrine except the very simplest--the fatherhood of god, the divinity of christ, the indwelling voice of the spirit; and i am sure that religion is a pure, sweet, vital force in their lives, not a harsh thing, a question of sin and punishment, but a matter of love, strength, forgiveness, holiness. the one thing i try to show them is that god was not, as i used to think, the property, so to speak, of the jews; but that he is behind and above every race and nation, slowly leading them to the light. the two things i will not allow them to think of are the doctrines of the fall and the atonement; the doctrine of the fall is contrary to all true knowledge, the doctrine of the atonement is inconsistent with every idea of justice. but it is a difficult matter. they will hear sermons, and alec, at school, may have dogmatic instruction given him; but i shall prepare him for confirmation here, and have him confirmed at home, and thus the main difficulty will be avoided; neither do i conceal from them that good people think very differently on these points. it is curious to remember that, brought up as i was on strict evangelical lines, i was early inculcated into the sin of schism, with the result that i hurried with my puritan nurse swiftly and violently by a roman catholic chapel and a wesleyan meeting-house which we used to pass in our walks, with a sense of horror and wickedness in the air. indeed, i remember once asking my mother why god did not rain down fire and brimstone on these two places of worship, and received a very unsatisfactory answer. to develop such a spirit was, it seems to me, a monstrous sin against christian charity, and my children shall be saved from that. meantime my own hours are increasingly filled. it takes me a long time to prepare for the children's lessons; and i have my reward abundantly in the delight of seeing their intelligence, their perception, their interest grow. i am determined that the beginnings of knowledge shall be for them a primrose path; i suppose there will have to be some stricter mental discipline later; but they shall begin by thinking and expecting things to be interesting and delightful, before they realise that things can also be hard and dull. june , . when i read books on education, when i listen to the talk of educational theorists, when i see syllabuses and schedules, schemes and curricula, a great depression settles on my mind; i feel i have no interest in education, and a deep distrust of theoretical methods. these things seem to aim at missing the very thing of which we are in search, and to lose themselves in a sort of childish game, a marshalling of processions, a lust for organisation. i care so intensely for what it all means, i loathe so deeply the motives that seem at work. i suppose that the ordinary man considers a species of success, a bettering of himself, the acquisition of money and position and respectability, to be the end of life; and such as these look upon education primarily as a means of arriving at their object. such was the old education given by the sophists, which aimed at turning out a well-balanced, effective man. but all this, it seems to me, has the wrong end in view. the success of it depends upon the fact that every one is not so capable of rising, that the rank and file must be in the background, forming the material out of which the successful man makes his combinations, and whom he contrives to despoil. the result of it is that the well-educated man becomes hard, brisk, complacent, contemptuous, knowing his own worth, using his equipment for precise and definite ends. my idea would rather be that education should aim at teaching people how to be happy without success; because the shadow of success is vulgarity, and vulgarity is the one thing which education ought to extinguish. what i desire is that men should learn to see what is beautiful, to find pleasure in homely work, to fill leisure with innocent enjoyment. if education, as the term is generally used, were widely and universally successful, the whole fabric of a nation would collapse, because no one thus educated would acquiesce in the performance of humble work. it is commonly said that education ought to make men dissatisfied, and teach them to desire to improve their position. it is a pestilent heresy. it ought to teach them to be satisfied with simple conditions, and to improve themselves rather than their position--the end of it ought to be to produce content. suppose, for an instant--it sounds a fantastic hypothesis--that a man born in the country, in the labouring class, were fond of field-work, a lover of the sights of nature in all her aspects, fond of good literature, why should he seek to change his conditions? but education tends to make boys and girls fond of excitement, fond of town sociabilities and amusements, till only the dull and unambitious are content to remain in the country. and yet the country work will have to be done until the end of time. it is a dark problem; but it seems to me that we are only saved from disaster, in our well-meant efforts, by the simple fact that we cannot make humanity what we so short-sightedly desire to make it; that the dull, uninspired, unambitious element has an endurance and a permanence which we cannot change if we would, and which it is well for us that we cannot change; and that in spite of our curricula and schedules, mankind marches quietly upon its way to its unknown goal. june , . an old friend has been staying with us, a very interesting man for many reasons, but principally for the fact that he combines two sets of qualities that are rarely found together. he has strong artistic instincts; he would like, i think, to have been a painter; he has a deep love of nature, woodland places and quiet fields; he loves old and beautiful buildings with a tenderness that makes it a real misery to him to think of their destruction, and even their renovation; and he has, too, the poetic passion for flowers; he is happiest in his garden. but beside all this, he has the puritan virtues strongly developed; he loves work, and duty, and simplicity of life, with all his heart; he is an almost rigid judge of conduct and character, and sometimes flashes out in a half pharisaical scorn against meanness, selfishness, and weakness. he is naturally a pure ruskinian; he would like to destroy railways and machinery and manufactories; he would like working-men to enjoy their work, and dance together on the village green in the evenings; but he is not a faddist at all, and has the healthiest and simplest power of enjoyment. his severity has mellowed with age, while his love of beauty has, i think, increased; he does not care for argument, and is apt to say pathetically that he knows that his fellow-disputant is right, but that he cannot change his opinions, and does not desire to. he is passing, it seems to me, into a very gracious and soft twilight of life; he grows more patient, more tender, more serene. his face, always beautiful, has taken on an added beauty of faithful service and gracious sweetness. we began one evening to discuss a book that has lately been published, a book of very sad, beautiful, wise, intimate letters, written by a woman of great perception, high intellectual gifts and passionate affections. these letters were published, not long after her death, by her children, to whom many of them were addressed. he had read the book, i found, with deep emotion; but he said very decidedly that it ought not to have been published, at all events so soon after the writer's death. i am inclined to defer greatly to his judgment, and still more to his taste, and i have therefore read the book again to see if i am inclined to alter my mind. i find that my feeling is the exact opposite of his in every way. i feel humbly and deeply grateful to the children who have given the letters to the world. of course if there had been any idea in the mind of the writer that they would be published, she would probably have been far more reticent; but, as it was, she spoke with a perfect openness and simplicity of all that was in her mind. it is curious to reflect that i met the writer more than once, and thought her a cold, hard, unsympathetic woman. she had to endure many sorrows and bereavements, losing, by untimely death, those whom she most loved; but the revelation of her pain and bewilderment, and the sublime and loving resignation with which she bore it, has been to me a deep, holy, and reviving experience. here was one who felt grief acutely, rebelliously, and passionately, yet whom sorrow did not sear or harden, suffering did not make self-absorbed or morbid, or pain make callous. her love flowed out more richly and tenderly than ever to those who were left, even though the loss of those whom she loved remained an unfading grief, an open wound. she did not even shun the scenes and houses that reminded her of her bereavements; she did not withdraw from life, she made no parade of her sorrows. the whole thing is so wholesome, so patient, so devoted, that it has shown me, i venture to say, a higher possibility in human nature of bearing intolerable calamities with sweetness and courage, than i had dared to believe. it seems to me that nothing more wise or brave could have been done by the survivors than to make these letters accessible to others. we english people make such a secret of our feelings, are so stubbornly reticent about the wrong things, have so false and stupid a sense of decorum, that i am infinitely grateful for this glimpse of a pure, patient, and devoted heart. it seems to me that the one thing worth knowing in this world is what other people think and feel about the great experiences of life. the writers who have helped the world most are those who have gone deepest into the heart; but the dullest part of our conventionality is that when a man disguises the secrets of his soul in a play, a novel, a lyric, he is supposed to have helped us and ministered to our deepest needs; but if he speaks directly, in his own voice and person, of these things, he is at once accused of egotism and indecorum. it is not that we dislike sentiment and feeling; we value it as much as any nation; but we think that it must be spoken of symbolically and indirectly. we do not consider a man egotistical, if he will only give himself a feigned name, and write of his experiences in the third person. but if he uses the personal pronoun, he is thought to be shameless. there are even people who consider it more decent to say "one feels and one thinks," than to say "i feel and i think." the thing that i most desire, in intercourse with other men and women, is that they should talk frankly of themselves, their hopes and fears, their beliefs and uncertainties. yet how many people can do that? part of our english shyness is shown by the fact that people are often curiously cautious about what they say, but entirely indiscreet in what they write. the only books which possess a real and abiding vitality are those in which personality is freely and frankly revealed. of course there are one or two authors like shakespeare who seem to have had a power of penetrating and getting inside any personality, but, apart from them, the books that go on being read and re-read are the books in which one seems to clasp hands with a human soul. i said many of these things to my friend, and he replied that he thought i was probably right, but that he could not change his opinion. he would not have had these letters published until all the survivors were dead. he did not think that the people who liked the book were actuated by good motives, but had merely a desire to penetrate behind the due and decent privacies of life; and he would have stopped the publication of such letters if he could, because even if people liked them, it was not good for them to read them. he said that he himself felt on reading the book as if he had been listening at keyholes, or peeping in at windows, and seeing the natural endearments of husband and wife, mother and children. i said that what seemed to me to make a difference was whether the people thus espied were conscious of the espionage or not; and that it was no more improper to have such things revealed in a book, than to have them described in a novel or shown upon the stage. moreover, it seemed to me, i said, as though to reveal such things in a book was the perfect compromise. i feel strongly that each home, each circle has a right to its own privacy; but i am not ashamed of my natural feelings and affections, and, by allowing them to appear in a book, i feel that i am just speaking of them simply to those who will understand. i desire communion with all sympathetic and like-minded persons; but one's actual circle of friends is limited by time and space and physical conditions. people talk of books as if every one in the world was compelled to read them. my own idea of a book is that it provides a medium by which one may commune confidentially with people whom one may never see, but whom one is glad to know to be alive. one can make friends through one's books with people with whom one agrees in spirit, but whose bodily presence, modes of life, reticences, habits, would erect a barrier to social intercourse. it is so much easier to love and understand people through their books than through their conversation. in books they put down their best, truest, most deliberate thoughts; in talk, they are at the mercy of a thousand accidents and sensations. there were people who objected to the publication of the browning love-letters. to me they were the sacred and beautiful record of an intensely holy and passionate relation between two great souls; and i can afford to disregard and to contemn the people who thought the book strained, unconventional and shameless, for the sake of those whose faith in love and beauty was richly and generously nurtured by it. it seems to me that the whole progress of life and thought, of love and charity, depends upon our coming to understand each other. the hostile seclusion which some desire is really a savage and almost animal inheritance; and the best part of civilisation has sprung from the generous self-revelation of kindly and honourable souls. i am not even deterred, in a case of this kind, by wondering whether the person concerned would have liked or disliked the publication of these letters. i feel no sort of doubt that, as far as i am concerned, she would be only too willing that i should thus have read and loved them, and i cannot believe that the disapprobation of a few austere people, or the curiosity of a few vulgar people, would weigh in the balance for a moment against the joy of like-minded spirits. the worst dissatisfaction of life is the difficulty one has in drawing near to others, the foolish hardness, often only superficial, which makes one hold back from and repudiate intimacies. if i had known and loved a great and worthy spirit, and had been the recipient of his confidences, i should hold it a solemn duty to tell the world what i knew. i should care nothing for the carping of the cold and unsympathetic, but i should base my decision on the approval of all loving and generous souls. this seems to me the highest service that art can render, and if it be said that no question of art comes in, in the publication of such records as these letters, i would reply that they are themselves works of the highest and most instinctive art, because the world, its relations and affections, its loss and grief, its pain and suffering, are here seen patiently mirrored and perfectly expressed by a most perceptive personality. the moment that emotions are depicted and represented, that moment they have felt the holy and transfiguring power of art; and then they pass out of the region of stuffy conventions and commonplace decorums into a finer and freer air. i do not deny that there is much vulgar inquisitiveness abroad, but that matters little; and, for myself, i am glad to think that the world is moving in the direction of a greater frankness. i do not mean that a man has not a right to live his life privately, in his own house and his own circle, if he wills. but if that life is lived simply, generously and bravely, i welcome any ripple or ray from it that breaks in light and fragrance upon the harsher and uglier world. july , . i have just read an interesting sentence. i don't know where it comes from--i saw it in a book of extracts. "i am more and more convinced that the cure for sentiment, as for all weakened forms of strong things, is not to refuse to feel it, but to feel more in it. this seems to me to make the whole difference between a true and a false asceticism. the false goes for getting rid of what it is afraid of; the true goes for using and making it serve, the one empties, the other fills; the one abstracts, the other concentrates." there is a great deal of truth in this, and it is manfully put. where it fails is, i think, in assuming an amount of will-power and resolution in human character, which i suspect is not there. the system the writer recommends is a system that a strong character instinctively practises, moving through sentiment to emotion, naturally, and by a sturdy growth. but to tell a man to feel more in a thing, is like telling a man to be intelligent, benevolent, wise. it is just what no one can do. the various grades of emotion are not things like examinations, in which one can successively graduate. they are expressions of temperament. the sentimental man is the man who can go thus far and no farther. how shall one acquire vigour and generosity? by behaving as if one was vigorous and generous, when one is neither? i do not think it can be done in that way. one can do something to check a tendency, very little to deepen it. what the writer calls false asceticism is the only brave and wholesome refuge of people, who know themselves well enough to know that they cannot trust themselves. take the case of one's relations with other people. if a man drifts into sentimental relations with other people, attracted by charm of any kind, and knowing quite well that the relation is built on charm, and that he will not be able to follow it into truer regions, i think he had probably better try to keep himself in check, not embrace a sentimental relation with a mild hope that it may develop into a real devotion. the strong man may try experiments, even though he burns his fingers. the weak man had better not meddle with the instruments and fiery fluids at all. i am myself just strong enough to dislike sentiment, to turn faint in the sickly, mawkish air. but i am not strong enough to charge it with vivid life. moreover, the danger of a strong character taking up the anti-ascetic position is that he is apt to degenerate into a man like goethe, who plucked the fragrant blooms on every side, and threw them relentlessly away when he had inhaled their sweetness. that is a cruel business, unless there is a very wise and tender heart behind. yet again, reconsidering the whole problem, i am not sure that the whole suggestion, taken as advice, is not at fault. i think it is making a melancholy, casuistical, ethical business out of what ought to be a natural process. i think it is vitiated by a principle which vitiates so much of the advice of moralists, the principle that one ought to aim at completeness and perfection. i don't believe that is the secret of life--indeed i think it is all the other way. one must of course do one's best to resist immoral, low, sensuous tendencies; but otherwise i believe that one ought to drink as much as one's glass can hold of pure and beautiful influences. if sentiment is the nearest that a man can come to emotion, i think he had better take it thankfully. it is this ethical prudence which is always weighing issues, and pulling up the plant to see how it grows, which is the weakening and the stunting thing. of course any principle can be used sophistically; but i think that many people commit a kind of idolatry by worshipping their rules and principles rather than by trusting god. it develops a larger and freer life, if one is not too cautious, too precise. of course one must follow what light one has, and all lights are lit from god; but if one watches the lanterns of moralists too anxiously, one may forget the stars. july , . i lose myself sometimes in a dream of misery in thinking of the baseness and meanness and squalor that condition the lives of so many of the poor. not that it is not possible under those conditions to live lives of simplicity and dignity and beauty. it is perfectly possible, but only, i think, for strong natures possessing a combination of qualities--virtue, industry, sense, prudence, and above all good physical health. there must still be thousands of lives which could be happy and simple and virtuous under more secure conditions, which are marred and degraded by the influences under which they are nurtured. yet what can the more fortunate individual do in the matter? if all the rich men in england were to resign to-morrow all the wealth they possessed, reserving only a bare modicum of subsistence, the matter could not be amended. even that wealth could not be wisely applied; and, if equally divided, it would hardly make any appreciable difference. what is worse, it would not alter the baneful influences in the least; it would give no increased security of material conditions, and it would not affect the point at issue, namely, the tone and quality of thought and feeling, where the only hope of real amelioration lies, and which is really the source and root of our social evils. moreover, the real difficulty is not to see what the classes on whom the problem presses most grimly need, but what they want. it is no use theorising about it, and providing elegant remedies which will not touch the evil. what one requires to know is what those natures, who lie buried in this weltering tide, and are dissatisfied and tormented by it, really desire. it is no use trying to provide a paradise on the farther bank of the river, till we have constructed bridges to cross the gulf. what one wants is that some one from the darkness of the other side should speak articulately and boldly what they claim, what they could use. it is not enough to have a wistful cry for help ringing in our ears; one wants a philosophical or statesmanlike demand--just the very thing which from the nature of the case we cannot get. it may be that education will make this possible; but at present education seems merely to be a ladder let down into the abyss, by which a few stronger natures can climb out of it, with horror and contempt in their hearts of what they have left behind. the question that stares one in the face is, is there honest work for all to do, if all were strong and virtuous? the answer at present seems to be in the negative; and the problem seems to be solved only by the fact that all are not capable of honest work, and that the weaklings give the strong their opportunity. what, again, one asks oneself, is the use of contriving more leisure for those who could not use it well? then, too, under present conditions, the survival of the unfittest seems to be assured. those breed most freely and recklessly of whom it may be said that, for the interests of civilisation, it is least desirable that they should perpetuate their kind. the problem too is so complicated, that it requires a gigantic faith in a reformer to suggest the sowing of seed of which he can never hope to see the fruit. the situation is one which tends to develop vehement and passionate prophets, dealing in vague and remote generalisations, when what one needs is practical prudence, and the effective power of foreseeing contingencies. one who like myself loves security, leisure, beauty and peace, and is actuated by a vague and benevolent wish that all should have the same opportunities as myself, feels himself a mere sentimentalist in the matter, without a single effective quality. i can see the problem, i can grieve over it, i can feel my faith in god totter under the weight of it, but that is all. july , . one of the hardest things to face in the world is the grim fact that our power of self-improvement is limited. of some qualities we do not even possess the germs. some qualities we have in minute quantities, but hardly capable of development; some few qualities we possess in fuller measure, and they are capable of development; but even so, our total capacity of growth is limited, conditioned by our vital energy, and we have to face the fact that if we develop one set of qualities we must neglect another set. i think of it in a whimsical and fantastic image, the best i can find. imagine a box in which there are a number of objects like puff-balls, each with a certain life of its own, half-filling the box. some of the puff-balls are small, hard, sterile; others are soft and expansive; some grow quickly in warmth and light, others fare better in cold and darkness. the process of growth begins: some of them increase in size and press themselves into every crevice, enclosing and enfolding the others; even so the growth of the whole mass is conditioned by the size of the box, and when the box is full, the power of increase is at an end. the box, to interpret the fable, is our character with its possibilities. the conditions which develop the various qualities are the conditions of our lives, our health, our income, our education, the people who surround us; but even the qualities themselves have their limitations. two people may grow up under almost precisely similar influences, and yet remain different to the end; two characters may be placed in difficult and bracing circumstances; the effect upon one character is to train the quality of self-reliance, on the other to produce a moral collapse. some people do their growing early and then stop altogether, becoming impervious to new opinions and new influences. some people go on growing to the end. if one develops one side of one's nature, as the intellectual or artistic, one probably suffers on the emotional or moral side. the pain which the perceptive man feels in surveying this process is apt to be very acute. he may see that he lacks certain qualities altogether and yet be unable to develop them. he may find in himself some patent and even gross fault, and be unable to cure it. the only hope for any of us is that we do not know the expansive force of our qualities, nor the size of the box; and therefore it is reasonable to go on trying and desiring; and as long as one can do that, it is clear that there is still room for growth. the worst shadow of all is to find, as one goes on, a certain indifference creeping over one. one accepts a fault as a part of one's nature; one ceases to care about what appears unattainable. it may be said that this is a fatalistic theory, and leads to a mild inactivity; but the question rather is whether it is true, whether it is attested by experience. one improves, not by overlooking facts, in however generous and enthusiastic a spirit, but by facing facts, and making the best use one can of them. one must resolutely try to submit oneself to favourable conditions, fertilising influences. and much more must one do that in the case of those for whom one is responsible. in the case of my own two children, for instance, my one desire is to surround them with the best influences i can. even there one makes mistakes, no doubt, because one cannot test the expansive power of their qualities; but one can observe the conditions under which they seem to develop best, and apply them. to lavish love and tenderness on some children serves to concentrate their thoughts upon themselves, and makes them expect to find all difficulties smoothed away; on other more generous natures, it produces a glow of responsive gratitude and affection, a desire to fulfil the hopes formed of them by those who love them. the most difficult cases of all are the cases of temperaments without loyal affection, but with much natural charm. those are the people who get what is called 'spoilt,' because it is so much easier to believe in the existence of qualities which are superficially displayed than in qualities which lie too deep for facile expression. one comes across cases of children of intense emotional natures, and very little power of expressing their feelings, or of showing their affection. of course, too, example is far more potent than precept, and it is very difficult for parents to simulate a high-mindedness and an affectionateness that they do not themselves possess, even if they are sincerely anxious that their children should grow up high-minded and affectionate. one of the darkest shadows of my present condition is the fear that any revelation of my own weakness and emptiness may discourage and distort my children's characters; and the watchfulness which this requires increases the strain under which i suffer, because it is a hard fact that an example set for a noble and an unselfish motive is not nearly so potent as an example set naturally, sweetly, and generously, with no particular consciousness of motive behind it at all. july , . i have just heard of the sudden death of an old friend. francis willett was a writer of some distinction, whose acquaintance i made in my first years in london. he was a tall, slim man, dark of complexion, who would have been called very handsome, if it had not been for a rather burdened air that he wore. as it was, people tended rather to pity him, and to speak of him as somewhat of a mystery. i never knew anything about the background of his life. he must have had some small means of his own, and he lived in rooms, in rather an out-of-the-way street near regent's park. one used to see him occasionally in london, walking rapidly, almost always alone, and very rarely i encountered him at parties, always wearing a slightly regretful air, as though he were wishing himself away. he wrote a good deal, reviewed books, and, i suppose, contrived to make enough to live on by his pen. he once spoke of himself as being in the happy position of being able to exist without writing, but forced to purchase all small luxuries by work. he published two or three books of short stories and sketches of travel, delicate pieces of work, which had no great sale, but gave him a recognised position among men of letters. i drifted into a kind of friendship with him; we were members of the same club, and he sometimes used to flutter shyly into my rooms like a great moth; but he never asked me to his quarters. i discovered that he had done well at oxford, and also that he had once, at all events, had considerable ambitions; but his health was not strong, he was extremely sensitive, and very fastidious about the quality of his work. i realised this on an occasion when he once entrusted me with a ms., and asked me if i would give him an opinion, as it was an experiment, and he did not feel sure of his ground; he added that there was no hurry about it. i put the ms. away in a despatch-box, and having at the time a press of work, i forgot about it. he never asked me for it, and i did not happen to open the box where it lay. some months after i came upon it. i read it through, and thought it a fine and delicate piece of work. i wrote to him, apologising for my delay and speaking warmly of the piece, which was one of those rather uncomfortable stories, which is not quite long enough to make a book, and yet rather too long to put in a volume with other pieces. he wrote at once, thanking me for my opinion, and it was only by accident at a later date, when i happened to ask him what he was doing with the story, that he told me he had destroyed it. i expressed deep regret that he had done so; and he said with a smile that it was probably rather a foolish impulse that had decided him to make away with it. "the fact is," he said, "that you wrote very kindly about it, but you had had it in your hands so long, that i felt somehow that it could not have interested you--it really doesn't matter," he added, "i don't think it was at all successful." i apologised very humbly, and explained the circumstances. "oh, please don't blame yourself in any way," he said, "i have not the least shadow of resentment in my mind about it. there is something wrong about my work; it doesn't interest people. i suppose it is that i can't let myself go." an interesting conversation followed, and he told me more than he ever told me before or since about himself. he confessed to being so critical of his own work, that his table-drawers were full of unfinished mss. his usual experience was to begin a piece of work enthusiastically; to plan it all out, and to work at first with zest. "then it begins to get all out of shape," he said, "there is no go about it; it all loses itself in subtleties and complexities of motive; one thing trips up another, and at last it all gets so tangled that i put it aside; if i could follow the track of one strong and definite emotion, it would be all right--but i am like the man in the story who changes the cow for the horse, and the horse for the pig, and the pig for the grindstone; and then the grindstone rolls into the river." he seemed to take it all very philosophically, and i ventured to say so. "yes," he said, "i have learnt at last that that is how i am made; but i have been through a good many agonies of disgust and discouragement about it in old days--it is the same with everything i have touched. the bits of work that i have completed have all been done in a rush--if the mood lasts long enough, i am all right--and once or twice it has just lasted. i am like a swimmer," he went on, "who can only swim a certain distance; and if i judge the distance rightly, i can reach the point i desire to reach; but i generally judge the distance wrong; and half-way across i am seized with a sudden fright, and struggle back in terror." by one of the strange coincidences that sometimes happen in this world, i took an unknown lady in to dinner a few days afterwards, and happened to mention willett's name. "do you know him?" she said. "oh yes, of course you do!" she went on; "you are the mr. s---- of whom he has spoken to me." i found that my neighbour was a distant relation of willett's, and she told me a good deal about him. he was absolutely alone in the world; he had been left an orphan at an early age, and had spent his holidays with guardians and relations, with any one who would take pity on him. "he was a clever kind of boy," she said, "melancholy and diffident, always thinking that people disliked him. he used to give me the air of a person who was trying to find something, and who did not quite know where to look for it. he had a time of expansion at oxford, where he made friends and did well; and then he came to london, and began to write. but the real tragedy of his life is this," she said. "he really fell in love, or as nearly as he could, with a very pretty and high-spirited girl, who took a great fancy to him, and pitied him from the bottom of her heart. for five years the thing went on. she would have married him at any time if he had asked her. but he did not. i suppose he could not face the idea of being married. he always seemed to be on the point of proposing to her, and then he would lose heart at the last minute. at last she got tired of waiting, and, i suppose, began to care for some one else; but she was very good to francis, and never lost patience with him. at last she told him one day quietly that she was engaged, and hoped that they would always remain friends. i think, do you know, that it was almost more a relief to him than otherwise. i did my best to help him--marriage was the one thing he wanted; if he could only have been pushed into it, he would have made a perfect husband, because not only is he very much of a gentleman, but he could never bear to fail any one who depended on him; but he has got the unhappiest mind i know; the moment that he has formed a plan, and sees his way clear, he at once begins to think of all the reasons against it--not the selfish reasons, by any means; in this case he reflected, i am sure, how little he had to offer; he could not bring himself to feel that any one could really care for him; and then, too, he never really cared for anything quite enough himself. or if he did, he found all sorts of refined reasons why he ought not to do so. if only he had been a little more selfish, it would have been all right. indeed," said mrs. t----, with a smile, "he is the only person of whom i could truthfully say that if he had only been a little more vulgar, he would have been a much happier person." i saw a good deal of willett after that, and he interested me increasingly. i verified mrs. t----'s judgment about him, and found it true in every particular. i suppose there was some lack of vitality about him, because the more i knew of him the more i found to admire. he was an exquisitely delicate person, affectionate, responsive, with a fine sense of humour--indeed, the most disconcerting thing was that he saw to the full the humour of his own position. but none of the robust motives that spur men to action affected him. he was ambitious, but he would not make any sacrifices to gain the objects of his ambition. he could not use his powers on conventional lines. he was, i think, deeply desirous of confidence and affection, but he could never believe that he deserved either, or that it was possible for him to be interesting to others. he was laborious, pure-minded, transparently honest, and had a shrewd and penetrating judgment of other people; but he seemed to labour under a sense of shame at his deficiencies, and to feel that he had no claims or rights in the world. he existed on sufferance. the smallest shadow of disapproval caused him to abandon any design, not resentfully but eagerly, as though he was fully aware of his own incompetence. i grew to feel a strong affection for him, and tried in many ways to help and encourage him. but he always discounted encouragement, and it is a clumsy business trying to help a man who does not demand or desire help. he seemed to me to have schooled himself into a kind of tender patience; and this attitude, i am ashamed to say, used to irritate me considerably, because it seemed to me to be so much power wasted on accepting defeat, which might have ensured victory. he was with me a few weeks ago. i was up in town, and he dined with me by appointment. he told me, with a gentle philosophy, a story which made my blood boil. he had been asked to write a book by a publisher, and the lines had been laid down for him. "it was such a comfort to me," he said, "because it supplied just the stimulus i could not myself originate. my book was really rather a good piece of work; but a week ago i sent it to the publisher, and he returned it, saying it was not the least what he wanted--he suggested my retaining about a third of it, and rewriting the rest. of course i could do nothing of the kind." "what have you done with it?" i asked. "oh, i have destroyed it." "but didn't you see him," i said, "or do something--or at all events insist on payment?" "oh no," he said, "i could not do that--the man was probably right--he wanted a particular kind of book, and mine was not what he wanted. i did say that i wished he had explained to me more clearly what he wanted--but after all it doesn't very much matter. i can get along all right, if i am careful." "well," i said, "you are really a very aggravating person. if i could not have got my book published elsewhere, i would certainly have had a row--i would have taken out my money's worth in vituperation." willett smiled; "i dare say you would have had some fun," he said, "but that is not my line. i have told you before that i can't interest people--i don't think it is wholly my fault." we sate late, talking; and for the only time in his life he spoke to me, with a depth of emotion of which i should hardly have suspected him, of the value he set upon my friendship, and his gratitude for my sympathy. and now this morning i have heard of his sudden death. he was found dead in his room, bent over his papers. he must have been writing late at night, as his custom was; and it proved on examination that he must have long suffered from an unsuspected disease of the heart. perhaps that may explain his failure, if it can be called a failure. there is something to me almost insupportably pathetic to think of his lonely and uncomforted life, his isolation, his sensitiveness. and yet i do not feel sure that it is pathetic, because his life somehow seems to me to have been one of the most beautiful i have ever known. he did nothing much for others, he achieved nothing for himself; but it is only our miserable habit of weighing every one's life, in a hard way, by a standard of performance and success, which makes one sigh over francis willett's life. it is very difficult at times to see what it is that life is exactly meant to do for us. most of the men and women i know--i say this sadly but frankly--seem to me to leave the world worse, in essential respects, than they entered it. there is generally something ingenuous, responsive, eager, sweet, hopeful about a child--but though i admit that one does encounter beautiful natures that seem to flower very generously in the light of experience, yet most people grow dull, dreary, conventional, grasping, commonplace--they grow to think rather contemptuously of emotion and generosity--they think it weak to be amiable, unselfish, kind. they become fond of comfort and position and respect and money. they think such things the serious concerns of life, and sentiment a kind of relaxation. but with willett it was the precise reverse. he claimed nothing for himself, he never profited at the expense of another; he was utterly humble, gentle, unpretentious, kind, sincere. an hour ago i should have called him "poor fellow," and wished that he had had a more robust kind of fibre; now that i know he is dead, i cannot find it in my heart to wish him any such qualities. his life appears to me utterly beautiful and fragrant. he never incurred any taint of grossness from prosperity or success; he never grew indifferent or hard; and in the light of his last passage, such a failure seems the one thing worth achieving, and to carry with it a hope all alive and rich with possibilities of blessing and glory. he would hardly have called himself a christian, i think; he would have said that he could not have attained to anything like a vital faith or a hopeful certainty; but the only words and thoughts that haunt my mind about him, echoing sweetly and softly through the ages, are the words in which christ described the tender spirits of those who were nearest to the father's heart, and to whom it is given to see god. july , . health of body and mind return to me, slowly but surely. i have given up all attempt at writing; i rack my brain no longer for plots or situations. i keep, it is true, my note-book for subjects beside me, and occasionally jot down a point; but i feel entirely indifferent to the whole thing. meanwhile the flood of letters about my book, invitations from editors, offers from publishers, continues to flow. i reply to these benignantly and courteously, but undertake nothing, promise nothing. i seem to have recovered my balance. i think no more about my bodily complaints, and my nerves no longer sting and thrill. the day is hardly long enough for all i have to do. it may be that when the novelty of the experiment in education wears off, i shall begin to hanker after authorship again. alec will have to go to school in a year or two, i suppose; but it shall be a day-school at first, if i can find one. as to the question of a public school, i am much exercised. of course there are nightmare terrors about tone and morals; but i am not really very anxious about the boy, because he is sensible and independent, and has no lack of moral courage. the vigorous barrack-life is good for a boy, the give-and-take, the splendid equality, the manly code, the absence of affectation. but the intellectual tone of schools is low, and the conventionality is great. i don't want alec to be a conventional man, and yet i want him to accept current conventions instinctively about matters of indifference. i have a horror of the sporting public-school type, the good-humoured, robust fellow, who does his work and fills his spare time with games, and thinks intellectual things, and artistic interests, and emotion, and sympathy, moonshine and rot. such people live a wholesome enough life; they make good soldiers, good officials, good men of business. but they are woefully complacent and self-satisfied. the schools develop a spartan type, and i want alec to be an athenian. but the experiment will have to be made, because a man is at a disadvantage in ordinary life if he has not the public school bonhomie, courtesy, and common sense. i must try to keep the other side alive, and i don't despair of doing it. meantime we are a very contented household, in spite of the fact that now, if ever, is the time for me to make my mark as a writer, and i have to pass all the opportunities that offer. on the other hand, this is the point at which one sees, in the history of letters, so many writers go to pieces. they suddenly find, after their first great success, that they have arrived, by a tortuous and secret path, at being a sort of public man. they are dazzled by contact with the world. they go into society, they make speeches, they write twaddle, they drain their energy, already depleted by creation, in fifty different ways. now i am strongly of ruskin's opinion that the duty of the artist is to make himself fit for the best society, and then to abstain from it. very fortunately i have no sort of taste for these things, beyond the simple human satisfaction in enjoying consideration. that is natural and inevitable. but i don't value it unduly, and i dislike its penalties more than i love its rewards. and then, too, i reflect that it is, after all, life that we are here to taste, and life that so many of us pass by. work is a part of life, perhaps the essence of life; but to be absorbed in work is to be like a man who is absorbed in collecting specimens, and never has time to sort them. i knew of a man who determined, early in life, to write the history of political institutions. he had a great library, and he devoted himself to study. he put in his books, as he read them, slips of paper to indicate passages and chapters that he would have to consult, and as he finished with a book, he put it in a certain place on a certain shelf. he made no other notes or references--he was a man with a colossal memory, and he knew exactly what his markers meant. in the middle of this life of acquisition, while he bored like a worm in a cheese, he died. his library was sold. the markers meant nothing to any one else; and the book-buyers merely took the markers out and threw them away, and that was the end of the history of political institutions. i feel that, apart from our work, we ought to try and arrive at some solution, to draw some sort of conclusions--to reflect, to theorise; we may not draw nearer to the secret, but our only hope of doing so, the only hope that humanity will do so, is for some at least to try. and thus i think that i have perhaps been saved from a great delusion. i was spending my time in spinning romances, in elaborating plots, in manoeuvring life as i would; and it is not like that! life is not run on physical lines, nor on emotional, nor social, nor even moral lines. it is not managed in the least as we should manage it; it is a resultant of innumerable forces, or perhaps the same force running in intricate currents. of course the strange thing is that we men should find ourselves thrust into it, with strong intuitions, vehement preconceptions, as to how it ought to be directed; our happiness seems to depend upon our being, or learning to be, in harmony with it, but it baffles us, it resists us, it contradicts us, it opposes us to the end; sometimes it crushes us; and yet we believe that it means good; and even if we do not so believe, we have to acquiesce, we have to endure; and one thing is certain, we cannot learn the lesson of life by practising indifference or stoical fortitude, or by abandoning ourselves to despair; only by believing that our sufferings are fruitful, our mistakes educative, our sins significant, our sorrows gracious, can we hope to triumph. we go on, many of us, relying on useless defences, beguiling ourselves with fantastic diversions, overlooking, as far as we can, stern realities; stopping our ears, turning away our gaze, shrinking and crying out like children at the prospect of experiences to which we are led by loving presences, that smile as they draw us to the wholesome and bracing incidents that we so weakly dread. we pray for courage, but we know in our souls that courage can only be won by enduring what we fear; and thus preoccupied by hopes and plans and fears, we miss the wholesome sweet and simple stuff of life, its quiet relationships, its tranquil occupations, its beautiful and tender surprises. and then perhaps, at long intervals, we have a deep and splendid flash of insight, when we can thank god that things have not been as we should have willed and ordered them. we should have lingered, perhaps, in the low rich meadows, the sheltered woodlands of our desire; we should never have set our feet to the hill. in terror and reluctance we have wandered upwards among the steep mountain tracks, by high green slopes, by grim crag-buttresses, through fields of desolate stones. yet we are aware of a finer, purer air, of wide prospects of hill and plain; we feel that we have gained in strength and vigour, that our perceptions are keener, our very enjoyment nobler; and at last, it may be, we have sight, from some pisgah-top of hope, of fairer lands yet to which we are surely bound. and then, too, though we have fared on in loneliness and isolation, we see moving forms of friends and comrades converging on our track. it is no dream; it is but a parable of what has happened to many a soul, what is daily happening. what does the sad, stained, weary, fitful past concern us at such a moment as this? it concerns us nothing, save that only through its pains and shadows was it possible for us to climb where we have climbed. to-day it seems that i have been blessed with such a vision. the mist will close in again, doubtless, wild with wind, chill with rain, sad with the cry of hoarse streams. but i have seen! i shall be weary and regretful and despairing many times; but i shall never wholly doubt again. august , . alec is ill to-day. he was restless, flushed, feverish, yesterday evening, and i thought he must have caught cold; we put him to bed, and this morning we sent for the doctor. he says there is no need for anxiety, but he does not know as yet what is the matter; his temperature is high, and we must just keep him quietly in bed, and wait. i tell myself that it is foolish to be anxious, but i cannot keep a certain dread out of my mind; there is a weight upon my heart, which seems unduly heavy. perhaps it is only that it seems unusual, for he has never had an illness of any kind. he is not to be disturbed, and maggie is not allowed to see him. maud sate with him this morning, and he slept most of the time. i looked in once or twice, but people coming and going tend to make him restless. maud herself is a marvel to me. she must be even more anxious than i am, but she is serene, smiling, strong, with a cheerfulness that has no effort about it. she laughed tenderly at my fears, and sent me out for a walk with maggie. i fear i was a gloomy companion. in the evening i went to sit with alec a little. he was wakeful, large-eyed, and restless. he lay with a book of stories from homer, of which he is very fond, in one hand, the other clasping his black kitten, which slept peacefully on the counterpane. he wanted to talk, but to keep him quiet i told him a long trivial story, full of unexciting incidents. he lay musing, his head on his hand; then he seemed inclined to sleep, so i sate beside him, watching and wondering at the nearness and the dearness of the child to me, almost amazed at the revelation which this shadow of fear gives me of the place which he fills in my heart and life. he tossed about for some time, and when i asked him if he wanted anything, he only put his hand in mine; a gesture not quite like him, as he is a boy who is averse to personal caresses or signs of emotion. so i drew my chair up to the bed, and sate there with the little hot hand in my own. maud came up presently; but as he now seemed sound asleep, we left him in the care of the old nurse, and went down to dinner. if we only knew what was the matter! i argue with myself how much unnecessary misery i give myself by anticipating evil; but i cannot help it; and the weight on my mind grew heavier; half the night i lay awake, till at last, from sheer weariness, i fell into a sort of stupor of the senses, which fled from me in the dismal dawn, and the unmanning hideous fear leapt on me out of the dark, like a beast leaping upon its prey. august , . i cannot and dare not write of these days. the child is very ill; it is some obscure inflammation of the brain-tissue. i had an insupportable fear that it might have resulted in some way from being over-pressed in the matter of work, over-stimulated. i asked the doctor. if he lied to me, and i do not think he did, he lied like a man, or an angel. "not in the least," he said, "it is a constitutional thing; in fact, i may say that the rational and healthy life the child has lived will help more than anything to pull him through." but i can't write of the days. i sleep, half-conscious of my misery. i suppose i eat, walk, read. but waking is like the waking of a prisoner who awakes up to be put on the rack, who hears doors open and feet approach, and sickens with dread as he lies. god's hand is heavy upon me day and night. surely nothing, in the world or out of it, can obliterate the memory of this suffering; perhaps, if alec is given back to us, i shall smile at this time of suffering. but, if not-- august , . he is losing ground, he is hardly ever conscious now; he sleeps a good deal, but often he talks quietly to himself of all that we have done and said; he often supposes himself to be with me, and, thank god, he never says a word to show that he has ever feared or misunderstood me. i could not bear that. yesterday when i was with him, he opened his eyes on me; i could see that he knew me, and that he was frightened. i could not speak, but maud, who was with me, just took his hand and with her own tranquil smile, said, "it is all right, alec; there is nothing to be frightened about; we are here, and you will soon be well again." the child closed his eyes and lay smiling to himself. i could not have done that. august , . he died this morning, just at the dawn. i knew last night that all hope was over. i was with him half the night, and prayed, knowing my prayers were in vain. that i could save him no suffering, could not keep him, could not draw him back. maud took my place at midnight; i slept, and in the grey dawn, i woke to find her standing with a candle by my bed; i knew in a moment, by a glance, that the end was near. no word passed between us; i found maggie by the bed; and we three together waited for the end. i had never seen any one die. he was quite unconscious, breathing slowly, looking just like himself, as though flushed with slumber. at last he stirred, gave a long sigh, and seemed to settle himself for the last sleep. i do not know when he died, but i became aware that life had passed, and that the little spirit that we loved had fled, god knows whither. maggie sate with her hand in mine; and in my dumb and frozen grief, almost without a thought of anything but a deep and cold resentment, a hatred of death and the maker of love and death alike, i became aware that both she and maud had me in their thoughts, that my sorrow was even more to them than their own--while i was cut off from them; from life and hope alike, in a place of darkness and in the deep. august , . i saw alec no more; i would remember him as he was in life, not the stiffened waxen mask of my beloved. the days passed in a dull stupor of grief, mechanically, grimly, in a sort of ghastly greyness. and i who thought that i had sounded the depths of pain! i could not realise it, could not believe that all would not somehow be as before. maud and maggie speak of him to each other and to me . . . it is inconceivable. with a dull heartache i have collected and put away all the child's things--his books, his toys, his little possessions. i followed the little coffin to the grave. the uncontrollable throb of emotion came over me at the words, "i am the resurrection and the life." it was a grey, gusty day; a silent crowd waited to see us pass. the great churchyard elms roared and swayed, and i found myself watching idly how the clergyman's hood was blown sideways by the wind. i looked into the deep, dark pit, and saw the little coffin lying there, all in a dumb dream. the holy words fell vacuously on my ears. "man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain"--that was all i felt. i seem to believe nothing, to hope nothing. i do not believe i shall ever see or draw near to the child again, and yet the thought of him alone, apart, uncomforted, lies cold on my heart. maud is wonderful to me; her love does not seem to suffer eclipse; she does everything, she smiles, she speaks; she feels, she says, the presence of the child near her and about her; that means nothing to me; the soul appears to me to have gone out utterly like a blown flame, mingling with the unseen life, as the little body we loved will be mingled with the dust. i cannot say that i endure agony; it is rather as if i had received a blow so fierce that it drove sensation away; i seem to see the bruise, watch the blood flow, and wonder why i do not suffer. the suffering will come, i doubt not; but meanwhile i am only mutely grateful that i do not feel more, suffer more. it does not even seem to me to have drawn me nearer to maud, to maggie; my power of loving seems extinguished, like my power of suffering. i do not know why i write in this book, why i record my blank apathy. it is a habit, it passes the time; the only thing that gives me any comfort is the thought that i shall die, too, and close my eyes at last upon this terrible world, made so sweet and beautiful, and then slashed and scored across with such cruel stripes, where we pay so grievous a penalty for feeling and loving. tennyson found consolation "when he sorrowed most." but i say deliberately that i would rather not have loved my child, than lose him thus. august , . we are to go away. maggie droops like a faded flower, and for the first time i realise, in trying to comfort and distract her, that i have not lost everything. we are much together, and seeing her thus pine and fade stirs a dread, in the heart that had been so cold, that i may lose her too. at last we are drawn together. she came to say good-night to me last night, and a gush of love passed through me, like the wind stirring the strings of a harp to music. "my precious darling, my comfort," i said; the words put, it seemed, on my lips, by some deeper power. she clung to me, crying softly. yet, is it strange to say it, that simple utterance seems almost to have revived her, to have given her pride and courage? but maud is still almost a mystery to me. who can tell how she suffers--i cannot--it seems to have quickened and enriched her love and tenderness; she seems to have a secret that i cannot come near to sharing; she does not repine, rebel, resist; she lives in some region of unapproachable patience and love. she goes daily to the grave, but i cannot visit it or think of it. the sight of the church-tower on my walks gives me a throb of dismay. but now we are going away. we have been lent a little house in a quiet seaside place; i suppose i am ill--at least, i am aware of a deep and unutterable fatigue at times, when i can rouse myself to nothing, but sit unoccupied, musing, glad to be alone, and only dreading the slightest interruption, the smallest duty. i know by some subtle sense that i am seldom absent from maud's thoughts; but, with her incredible courage and patience, she betrays nothing by word or glance. she is absolutely patient, entirely self-forgetful; she quietly relieves me of anything i have to do; she alters arrangements a dozen times a day, with a ready smile; and yet it almost seems to me as if i had lost her too. august , . our route lay through cambridge; we had to change there and wait; so we drove down to the town to look at my old college. there it lay, the charming, pretty, quiet place, blinking lazily out of its deep-set barred windows in the bright sun, just the same, it seemed, as ever, though perhaps a touch more mellow and more settled; every corner and staircase haunted with old ghosts for me. i could put a name to every set of rooms, flash an incident to every door and window. in my heavy, apathetic mood the memory of my life there seemed like a memory of some one else, moving in golden light, talking and laughing in firelit rooms, lingering in moonlit nights by the bridge, wondering what life was going to bring. it seemed like turning the pages of some old illuminated book with bright pictures, where the very sunlight is the purest and stiffest gold. the men i knew, the friends i lived with, admired, loved--where are they? scattered to all parts of the earth, parted utterly from me, some of them dead, alas! and silent. it came over me with a thrill of sharpest pain to think how i had pictured alec here, living the same free and beautiful life, tasting the same innocent pleasures, with the bright, sweet world opening upon him. in that calm, sunny afternoon, life seemed a strange phantasmal business, and i myself a revenant from some thin, unsubstantial world. a door opened, and an old don, well known to me in those days, hardly altered, it seemed, came out and trotted across the court, looking suspiciously to left and right as he used to do. had he been doing the same thing ever since, reading the same books, talking the same innocent gossip? i had not the heart to greet him, and he passed me by unrecognising. we peeped into the hall through the screen. i could see where i used to sit, the same dark pictures looking down. we went to the chapel, with its noble classical woodwork, the great carved panels, the angels' heads, the huge, stately reredos. some one, thank god, was playing softly on the organ, and we sate to listen. the sweet music flowed over my sad heart in a healing tide. yes, it was not meaningless, after all, this strange life, with the good years shining in their rainbow halo, even though the path led into darkness and formless shadow. i seemed to look back on it all, as the traveller on the hill looks out from the skirts of the cloud upon the sunny valley beneath him. it all worked together, said the delicate rising strain, outlining itself above the soft thunder of the pedals, into something high and grave and beautiful; it all ended in the peace of god. i sate there, with wife and child, a pilgrim faring onwards, tasting of love and life and sorrow, weary of the way, but still--yes, i could say that--still hopeful. in that moment even my bitter loss had something beautiful about it. it was there, the bright episode of my dear alec's life, the memory of the beloved years together. maggie, seeing something in my face that she was glad to see, put her hand in mine, and the tears rose to my eyes, while i smiled at maud; the burden fell off my shoulder for a moment, and something seemed as it were to touch me and point onwards. the music with a dying fall came to a soft close; the rich light fell on desk and canopy; the old tombs glimmered in the dusty air. we went out in silence; and then there came back to me, in the old dark court, with its ivied corners, its trim grass plots, the sense that i was still a part of it all, that the old life was not dead, but stored up like a garnered treasure in the rich and guarded past. not by detachment or aloofness from happiness and warmth and life are our victories won. that had been the dark temptation, the shadow of my loss, to believe that in so sad and strange an existence the only hope was to stand apart from it all, not to care too much, not to love too closely. that was false, utterly false; a bare and grim philosophy, a timid sauntering. rather it was better to clasp all things close, to love passionately, to desire infinitely, to yield oneself gladly and joyfully to every deep and true emotion; not greedily and luxuriously, flinging aside the crumpled husk that had given up its sweetness; but tenderly and gently, holding out one's arms to everything pure and noble, trusting that behind all there did indeed beat a great and fatherly heart, that loved one better than one dreamed. that was a strange experience, that sunlit afternoon, a mingling of deepest pain and softest hope, a touch of fire from the very altar of faith, linking the beautiful past with the dark present, and showing me that the future held a promise of perfect graciousness and radiant strength. did other lives hold the same rich secrets? i felt that they did; for that day, at least, all mankind, young and old alike, seemed indeed my brothers and sisters. in the young men that went lightly in and out, finding life so full of zest, thinking each other so interesting and wonderful; in the tired face of the old professor, limping along the street; in the prosperous, comfortable contentment of robust men, full of little affairs and schemes--i saw in all of them the same hope, the same unity of purpose, the same significance; and we three in the midst, united by love and loss alike, we were at the centre, as it were, of a great drama of life and love, in which even death could only shift the scene and enrich the intensity of the secret hope. september , . the rapt and exalted mood that i carried away from cambridge could not last; i did not hope that it could. we have had a dark and sad time, yet with gleams of sweetness in it, because we have realised how closely we are drawn together, how much we depend on each other. maud's brave spirit has seemed for a time broken utterly; and this has done more than anything to bring us nearer, because i have felt the stronger, realising how much she leant upon me. she has been filled with self-reproach, i know not for what shadowy causes. she blames herself for a thousand things, for not having been more to alec, for having followed her own interests and activities, for not having understood him better. it is all unreal, morbid, overstrained, of course, but none the less terribly there. i have tried to persuade her that it is but weariness and grief trying to attach itself to definite causes, but she cannot be comforted. meanwhile we walk, stroll, drive, read, and talk together--mostly of him, for i can do that now; we can even smile together over little memories, though it is perilous walking, and a step brings us to the verge of tears. but, thank god, there is not a single painful memory, not a thing we would have had otherwise in the whole of that little beautiful life; and i wonder now wretchedly, whether its very beauty and brightness ought not to have prepared me more to lose him; it was too good to be true, too perfectly pure and brave. yet i never even dreamed that he would leave us; i should have treasured the bright days better if i had. there are times of sharpest sorrow, days when i wake and have forgotten; when i think of him as with us, and then the horror of my loss comes curdling and weltering back upon me; when i thrill from head to foot with hopeless agony, rebelling, desiring, hating the death that parts us. maggie seems to feel it differently. a child accepts a changed condition with perhaps a sharper pang, but with a swift accustoming to what irreparably is. she weeps at the thought of him sometimes, but without the bitter resistance, the futile despair which makes me agonise. that she can be interested, distracted, amused, is a great help to me; but nothing seems to minister to my dear maud, except the impassioned revival, for it is so, of our earliest first love. it has come back to bless us, that deep and intimate absorption that had moved into a gentler comradeship. the old mysterious yearning to mingle life and dreams, and almost identities, has returned in fullest force; the years have rolled away, and in the loss of her calm strength and patience, we are as lovers again. the touch of her hand, the glance of her eye, thrill through me as of old. it is a devout service, an eager anticipation of her lightest wish that possesses me. i am no longer tended; i tend and serve. there is something soft, appealing, wistful about her that seems to give her back an almost childlike dependence, till my grief almost goes from me in joy that i can sustain and aid her. september , . another trouble has fallen upon us. i have had a very grievous letter from my cousin, who succeeded by arrangement, on my father's death, to the business. he has been unfortunate in his affairs; he has thrown money away in speculation. the greater part of my income came from the business. i suppose the arrangement was a bad one, but the practice was so sound and secure in my father's life that it never occurred to me to doubt its stability. the chief part of my income, some nine hundred a year, came to me from this source. apart from that, i have some three or four hundreds from invested money of my own, and maud has upwards of two hundred a year. i am going off to-morrow to l---- to meet my cousin, and go into the matter. i don't at present understand how things are. his letter is full of protestations and self-recrimination. we can live, i suppose, if the worst comes to the worst, but in a very different way. perhaps we may even have to sell our pleasant house. the strange thing is that i don't feel this all more acutely, but i seem to have lost the power of suffering for any other reason than because alec is dead. september , . i have come back to-night from some weary nightmare days with my poor cousin. the thing is as bad as it can be. the business will be acquired by messrs. f----, the next most leading solicitors. with the price they will give, and with the sacrifice of my cousin's savings, and the assets of the firm, the money can just be paid. we shall have some six hundred a year to live upon; my cousin is to enter the office of the f---- firm as an ordinary clerk. the origin of the disaster is a melancholy one; it was not that he himself might profit, but to increase the income of some clients who had lost money and desired a higher rate of interest for funds left in the hands of the firm. if my cousin had resisted the demand, there would have been some unpleasantness, because the money lost had been invested on his advice; he could not face this, and proceeded to speculate with other money, of which he was trustee, to fill the gap. good-nature, imprudence, credulousness, a faulty grasp of the conditions, and not any deliberate dishonesty, have been the cause of his ruin. it is a fearful blow to him, but he is fortunate, perhaps, in being unmarried; i have urged him to try and get employment elsewhere, but he insists upon facing the situation in the place where he is known, with a fantastic idea, which is at the same time noble and chivalrous, of doing penance. of course he has no prospects whatever; but i am sure of this, that he grieves over my lost inheritance far more than he grieves over his own ruin. his great misery is that some years ago he refused an offer from messrs. f---- to amalgamate the two firms. i feared at first that i might have to sacrifice the rest of my money as well--money slowly accumulated out of my own labours. and the relief of finding that this will not be necessary is immense. we must sell our house at once, and find a smaller one. at present i am not afraid of the changed circumstances; indeed, if i could only recover my power of writing, we need not leave our home. the temptation is to get a book written somehow, because i could make money by any stuff just now. on the other hand, it will almost be to me a relief to part from the home so haunted with the memory of alec--though that will be a dreadful pain to maud and maggie. as far as living more simply goes, that does not trouble me in the least. i have always been slightly uncomfortable about the ease and luxury in which we lived. i only wish we had lived more simply all along, so that i could have put by a little more. i have told maud exactly how matters stand, and she acquiesces, though i can see that, just at this time, the thought of handing over to strangers the house where we have lived all our married life, the rooms where alec and the baby died, is a deep grief to her. to me that is almost a relief. i have dreaded going back there. to-night i told maggie, and she broke out into long weeping. but even so there is something about the idea of being poor, strange to say, which touches a sense of romance in the child. she does not realise the poky restrictions of the new life. and still stranger to me is the way in which this solid, tangible trouble seems to have restored my energy and calm. i found myself clear-headed, able to grasp the business questions which arose, gifted with a hard lucidity of mind that i did not know i possessed. it is a relief to get one's teeth into something, to have hard, definite occupation to distract one; indeed, it hardly seems to me in the light of a misfortune at present, so much as a blessed tangible problem to be grappled with and solved. what i should have felt if all had been lost, and if i had had to resign my liberty, and take up some practical occupation, i hardly know. i do not think i should even have dreaded that in my present frame of mind. september , . i have been thinking all day long of my last walk with alec, the day before he was taken ill. maud had gone out with maggie; and the little sturdy figure came to my room to ask if i was going out. i was finishing a book that i was reading for the evening's work; i had been out in the morning, and i had not intended to go out again, as it was cold and drizzling. i very nearly said that i could not go, and i had a shadow of vexation at being interrupted. but i looked up at him, as he stood by the door, and there was a tiny shadow of loneliness upon his face; and i thank god now that i put my book down at once, and consented cheerfully. he brightened up at this; he fetched my cap and stick, and we went off together. i am glad to think that i had him to myself that day. he was in a more confidential mood than usual. perhaps--who knows?--there was some shadow of death upon him, some instinct to clasp hands closer before the end. he asked me to tell him some stories of my schooldays, and what i used to do as a boy--but he was full of alertness and life, breaking into my narratives to point out a nest that we had seen in the spring, and that now hung, wind-dried and ruinous, among the boughs. coming back, he flagged a little, and did what he seldom did, put his arm in my own; how tenderly the touch of the little hand, the restless fingers on my arm thrilled me--the hand that lies cold and folded and shrivelled in the dark ground! he was proud that evening of having had me all to himself, and said to maggie that we had talked secrets, "such as men talk when there are no women to ask questions." but thinking that this had wounded maggie a little, he went and put his arm round her, and i heard him say something about its being all nonsense, and that we had wished for her all the time. . . . ah, how can i endure it, the silence, the absence, the lost smile, the child of my own whom i loved from head to foot, body soul and spirit all alike! i keep coming across signs of his presence everywhere, his books, his garden tools in the summerhouse, the little presents he gave me, on my study chimney-piece, his cap and coat hanging in the cupboard--it is these little trifling things, signs of life and joyful days, that sting the heart and pierce the brain with sorrow. if i could but have one sight of him, one word with him, one smile, to show that he is, that he remembers, that he waits for us, i could endure it; but i look into the dark and no answer comes; i send my wild entreaties pulsating through the worlds of space, crying, "are you there, my child?" that his life is there, hidden with god, i do not doubt; but is it he himself, or has he fallen back, like the drop of water in the fountain, into the great tide of life? that is no comfort to me; it is he that i want, that union of body and mind, of life and love, that was called my child and is mine no more. september , . such a loss as mine passes over the soul like a plough cleaving a pasture line by line. the true stuff of the spirit is revealed and laid out in all its bareness. that customary outline, that surface growth of herb and blade, is all pared away. i have been accustomed to think myself a religious man--i have never been without the sense of god over and about me. but when an experience like this comes, it shows me what my religion is worth. i do not turn to god in love and hope; i do not know him, i do not understand him. i feel that he must have forgotten me, or that he is indifferent to me, or that he is incapable of love, and works blindly and sternly. my reason in vain says that the great and beautiful gift itself of the child's life and the child's love came from him. i do not question his power or his right to take my child from me. but i endure only because i must, not willingly or loyally or lovingly. it is not that i feel the injustice of his taking the boy away; it is a far deeper sense of injustice than that. the injustice lies in the fact that he made the child so utterly dear and desired; that he set him so firmly in my heart; this on the one hand; and on the other, that he does not, if he must rend the little life away and leave the bleeding gap, send at the same time some love, some strength, some patience to make the pain bearable. i cannot believe that the love i bore my boy was anything but a sweet and holy influence. it gave me the one thing of which i am in hourly need--something outside of myself and my own interests, to love better than i loved even myself. it seems indeed a pure and simple loss, unless the lesson god would have us learn is the stoical lesson of detachment, indifference, cold self-sufficiency. it is like taking the crutches away from a lame man, knocking the props away from a tottering building. an optimistic moralist would say that i loved alec too selfishly, and even that the love of the child turned away my heart from the jealous heart of god, who demands a perfect surrender, a perfect love. but how can one love that which one does not know or understand, a power that walks in darkness and that gives us on the one hand sweet, beautiful, and desirable things, and on the other strikes them from us when we need them most? it is not as if i did not desire to trust and love god utterly. i should think even this sorrow a light price to pay, if it gave me a pure and deep trust in the mercy and goodness of god. but instead of that it fills me with dismay, blank suspicion, fretful resistance. i do not feel that there is anything which god could send me or reveal to me, which would enable me to acquit him of hardness or injustice. i will not, though he slay me, say that i trust him and love him when i do not. he may crush me with repeated blows of his hand, but he has given me the divine power of judging, of testing, of balancing; and i must use it even in his despite. he does not require, i think, a dull and broken submissiveness, the submissiveness of the creature that is ready to admit anything, if only he can be spared another blow. what he requires, so my spirit tells me, is an eager co-operation, a brave approval, a generous belief in his goodness and his justice; and this i cannot give, and it is he that has made me unable to give it. the wound may heal, the dull pain may die away, i may forget, the child may become a golden memory--but i cannot again believe that this is the surrender god desires. what i think he must desire, is that i should love the child, miss him as bitterly as ever, feel my day darkened by his loss, and yet turn to him gratefully and bravely in perfect love and trust. it may be that i may be drawn closer to those whom i love, but the loss must still remain irreparable, because i might have learned to love my dear ones better through alec's presence, and not through his absence. it is his will, i do not doubt it; but i cannot see the goodness or the justice of the act, and i will not pretend to myself that i acquiesce. september , . yesterday was a warm, delicious, soft day, full of a gentle languor, the air balmy and sweet, the sunshine like the purest gold; we sate out all the morning under the cliff, in the warm dry sand. to the right and left of us lay the blue bay, the waves breaking with short, crisp sparkles on the shore. we saw headland after headland sinking into the haze; a few fishing-boats moved slowly about, and far down on the horizon we watched the smoke of a great ocean-steamer. we talked, maud and i, for the first time, i think, without reserve, without bitterness, almost without grief, of alec. what sustains her is the certainty that he is as he was, somewhere, far off, as brave and loving as ever, waiting for us, but waiting with a perfect understanding and knowledge of why we are separated. she dreams of him thus, looking down upon her, and seeming, in her dream, to wonder what there can be to grieve about. i suppose that a mother has a sense of oneness with a child that a father cannot have. it is a deep and marvellous faith, an intuition that transcends all reason, a radiant certainty. i cannot attain to it. but in the warmth and light of her belief, i grew to feel that at least there was some explanation of it all. not by chance is the dear gift sent us, not by chance do we learn to love it, not by chance is it rent from us. lying thus, talking softly, in so gracious a world, a world that satisfied every craving of the senses, i came to realise that the father must wish us well, and that if the shadow fell upon our path, it was not to make us cold and bitter-hearted. infinite love! it came near to me in that hour, and clasped me to a sorrowful, tender, beating heart. i read maud, at her request, "evelyn hope," and the strong and patient love, that dwells so serenely and softly upon the incidents of death, yet without the least touch of morbidity and gloom, treating death itself as a quiet slumber of the soul, taught me for a moment how to be brave. "you will wake and remember, and understand,"--my voice broke and tears came, unbidden tears which i did not even desire to conceal--and in that moment the spirit of my wife came near to me, and soul looked into the eyes of soul, with a perfect and bewildering joy, the very joy of god. october , . we have had the kindest, dearest letters from our neighbours about our last misfortune. but no one seems to anticipate that we shall be obliged to leave the place. they naturally suppose that i shall be able to make as large an income as i want by writing. and so i suppose i could. i talked the whole matter over with maud, and said i would abide by her decision. i confessed that i had an extreme repugnance to the thought of turning out books for money, books which i knew to be inferior; but i also said that if she could not bear to leave the place, i had little doubt that i could, for the present at all events, make enough money to render it possible for us to continue to live there. i said frankly that it would be a relief to me to leave a house so sadly haunted by memory, and that i should myself prefer to live elsewhere, framing our household on very simple lines--and to let the power of writing come back if it would, not to try and force it. it would be a dreadful prospect to me to live thus, overshadowed by recollection, working dismally for money; but i suppose it would be possible, even bracing. maud did not hesitate: she spoke quite frankly; on the one hand the very associations, which i dread most, were evidently to her a source of sad delight; and the thought of strangers living in rooms so hallowed by grief was like a profanation. then there was the fact of all her relations with our friends and neighbours; but she said quite simply that my feeling outweighed it all, and that she would far rather begin life afresh somewhere else, than put me in the position i described. we determined to try and find a small house in the neighbourhood of her own old home in gloucestershire; and this thought, i am sure, gave her real happiness. we determined at once what we would do; we would let our house for a term of years, take what furniture we needed, and dispose of the rest; we arranged to go off to gloucestershire, as soon as possible, to look for a house. we both realise that we must learn to retrench at once. we shall have less than half our former income, counting in what we hope to get from the old house. i am not at all afraid of that. i always vaguely disliked living as comfortably as we did--but it will not be agreeable to have to calculate all our expenses--that may perhaps mend itself, if i can but begin my writing again. all this helps me--i am ashamed to say how much--though sometimes the thought of all the necessary arrangements weighs on me like a leaden weight, on days when i fall back into a sad, idle, hopeless repining. sometimes it seems as if the old happy life was all broken up and gone for ever; and, so strange a thing is memory and imagination, that even the months overshadowed by the loss of my faculty of work seem to me now impossibly fragrant and beautiful, my sufferings unreal and unsubstantial. real trouble, real grief, have at least the bracing force of actuality, and sweep aside with a strong hand all artificial self-made miseries and glooms. december , . i have kept no record of these weeks. they have been full of business, sadness, and yet of hope. we went back home for a time; we made our farewells, and it moved me strangely to see that our departure was viewed almost with consternation. it is maud's loss that will be felt. i have lived very selfishly and dully myself, but even so i was half-glad to find that even i should be missed. at such a time everything is forgotten and forgiven, and such grudging, peaceful neighbourliness as even i have shown seems appreciated and valued. it was a heartrending business reviving our sorrow, and it plunged me for a time into my old dry bitterness of spirit. but i hardened my heart as best i could, and felt more deeply than ever, how far beyond my powers of endurance it would have been to have taken up the old life, and alec not there. again and again it was like a knife plunged into my heart with an almost physical pain. not so with maud and maggie--it was to them a treasure of precious memories, and they could dare to indulge their grief. i can't write of it, i can't think of it. wherever i turned, i saw him in a hundred guises--as a tiny child, as a small, sturdy boy, as the son we lost. we have let the house to some very kind and reasonable people, who have made things very easy to us; and to me at least it was a sort of heavy joy to take the last meal in the old home, to drive away, to see the landscape fade from sight. i shall never willingly return. it would seem to me like a wilful rolling among the thorns of life, a gathering-in of spears into one's breast. i seemed like a naked creature that had lost its skin, that shrank and bled at every touch. february , . i have been house-hunting, and i do not pretend to dislike it. the sight of unknown houses, high garden walls, windows looking into blind courts, staircases leading to lofts, dark cupboards, old lumber, has a very stimulating effect on my imagination. perhaps, too, i sometimes think, these old places are full of haunting spiritual presences, clinging, half tearfully, half joyfully to the familiar scenes, half sad, perhaps, that they did not make a finer thing of the little confined life; half glad to be free--as a man, strong and well, might look with a sense of security into a room where he had borne an operation. but i have never believed much in haunted rooms. the father's many mansions can be hardly worth deserting for the little, dark houses of our tiny life. i disliked some of the houses intensely--so ugly and pretentious, so inconvenient and dull; but even so it is pleasant in fancy to plan the life one would live there, the rooms one would use. one house touched me inexpressibly. it was a house i knew from the outside in a little town where i used to go and spend a few weeks every year with an old aunt of mine. the name of the little town--i saw it in an agent's list--had a sort of enchantment for me, a golden haze of memory. i was allowed a freedom there i was allowed nowhere else, i was petted and made much of, and i used to spend most of my time in sauntering about, just looking, watching, scrutinising things, with the hard and uncritical observation of childhood. when i got to the place, i was surprised to find that i knew well the look of the house i went to see, though i had not ever entered it. two neat, contented, slightly absurd old maiden ladies had lived there, who used to walk out together, dressed exactly alike in some faded fashion. the laurels and yews still grew thickly in the shrubbery, and shaded the windows of the ugly little parlours. an old, quiet, respectable maid showed me round; she had been in service there for twenty years, and she was tearfully lamenting over the break-up of the home. the old ladies had lived there for sixty years. one of them had died ten years before, the other had lingered on to extreme old age. the house was like a museum, a specimen of a house of the thirties, in which nothing had ever been touched or changed. the strange wall-papers and chintzes, the crewel-work chairs, the mirrors, the light maple furniture, the case of moth-eaten humming-birds, the dull engravings of historical pictures, the old books--the drawing-room table was covered with annuals and keepsakes, moore's poems, mrs. barbauld's works--all had a pathetic ugliness, redeemed by a certain consistency of quality. and then the poky, comfortable arrangements, the bath-chair in the coach-house, the four-post bedsteads, the hand-rail on the stairs, the sandbags for the doors, all spoke of a timid, invalid life, a dim backwater in the tide of things. there had been children there at some time, for there were broken toys, collections of dried plants, curious stones, in an attic. the little drama of the house shaped itself for me, as i walked through the frowsy, faded rooms, with a touching insistence. this bedroom had never been used since miss eleanor died--and i could fancy the poor, little, timid, precise life flitting away among the well-known surroundings. this had been miss jackson's favourite room--it was so quiet--she had died there, sitting in her chair, a few weeks before. the leisurely, harmless routine of the quiet household rose before me. i could imagine miss jackson writing her letters, reading her book, eating her small meals, making the same humble and grateful remarks, entertaining her old friends. year after year it had gone on, just the same, the clock ticking loud in the hall, the sun creeping round the old rooms, the birds singing in the garden, the faint footsteps in the road. it had begun, that gentle routine, long before i had been born into the world; and it was strange to me to think that, as i passed through the most stirring experiences of my life, nothing ever stirred or moved or altered here. miss jackson had felt miss eleanor's death very much; she had hardly ever left the house since, and they had had no company. yes, what a woefully bewildering thing death swooping down into that quiet household, with all its tranquil security, must have been! one wondered what miss eleanor had felt, when she knew she had to die, to pass out into the unknown dark out of a world so tender, so familiar, so peaceful; and what had poor miss jackson made of it, when she was left alone? she must have found it all very puzzling, very dreary. and yet, in the dim past, perhaps one or both of them, had had dreams of a fuller life, had fancied that something more than tenderness had looked out of the eyes of a man; well, it had come to nothing, whatever it might have been; and the two old ladies had settled down, perhaps with some natural repining, to their unexciting, contented life, the day filled with little duties and pleasures, the nights with innocent sleep. it had not been a selfish life--they had been good to the poor, the maid told me; and in old days they had often had their nephews and nieces to stay with them. but those children had grown up and gone out into the world, and no longer cared to return to the dull little house with its precise ways, and the fidgety love that had once embraced them. the whole thing seemed a mysterious mixture of purposelessness and contentment. rumours of wars, social convulsions, patriotic hopes, great ideas, had swept on their course outside, and had never stirred the drowsy current of life behind the garden walls. the sisters had lived, sweetly, perhaps, and softly, like trees in some sequestered woodland, hardly recognising their own gentle lapse of strength and activity. and now the whole thing was over for good. curious and indifferent people came, tramped about the house, pronounced it old-fashioned and inconvenient. i could not do that myself; the place was brimful of the pathetic evidences of what had been. soon, no doubt, the old house would wear a different guise--it would be renovated and restored, the furniture would drift away to second-hand shops, the litter would be thrown out upon the rubbish-heap. new lives, new relationships would spring up; children would be born, boys would play, lovers would embrace, sufferers would lie musing, men and women would die in those refurbished rooms. everything would drift onwards, and the lives to whom each corner, each stair, each piece of furniture had meant so much, would become a memory first, and then fade into nothingness. where and what were the two old ladies now? were they gone out utterly, like an extinguished flame? were they in some new home of tranquil peace? were they adjusting themselves with a sense of timid impotence--those slender, tired spirits--to new and bewildering conditions? the old, dull house called to me that day with a hundred faint voices and tremulous echoes. i could make nothing of it; for though it swept the strings of my heart with a ghostly music, it seemed to have no certain message for me, but the message of oblivion and silence. i was sorry, as i went away, to leave the poor maidservant to her lonely and desolate memories. she had to leave her comfortable kitchen and her easy routine, for new duties and new faces, and i could see that she anticipated the change with sad dismay. it seemed to me in that hour as though the cruelty and the tenderness of the world were very mysteriously blended--there was no lack of tenderness in the old house with its innumerable small associations, its sheltered calm. and then suddenly the stroke must fall, and fall upon lives whose very security and gentleness seemed to have been so ill a preparation for sterner and darker things. it would have been more loving, one thought, either to have made the whole fabric more austere, more precarious from the first; or else to have bestowed a deep courage and a fertile hope, a firmer endurance, rather than to have confronted lives so frail and delicate with the terrors of the vast unknown. april , . our new house is charming, beautiful, homelike. it is an old stone building, formerly a farm; it has a quaint garden and orchard, and the wooded hill runs up steeply behind, with a stream in front. it is on the outskirts of a village, and we are within three miles of maud's old home, so that she knows all the country round. we have got two of our old servants, and a solid comfortable gardener, a native of the place. the house within is quaint and comfortable. we have a spare bedroom; i have no study, but shall use the little panelled dining-room. we have had much to do in settling in, and i have done a great deal of hard physical work myself, in the way of moving furniture and hanging pictures, inducing much wholesome fatigue. maggie, who broke down dreadfully on leaving the old home, with the wonderful spring that children have, is full of excitement and even delight in the new house. i rather dread the time when all our occupations shall be over, and when we shall settle down to the routine of life. i begin to wonder how i shall occupy myself. i mean to do a good many odd jobs--we have no trap, and there will be a good deal of fetching and carrying to be done. we shall resume our lessons, maggie and i; there will be reading, gardening, walking. one ought to be able to live philosophically enough. what would i not give to be able to write now! but the instinct seems wholly and utterly dead and gone. i cannot even conceive that i ever used, solemnly and gravely, to write about imaginary people, their jests and epigrams, their sorrows and cares. life and art! i used to suppose that it was all a softly moulded, rhythmic, sonorous affair, strophe and antistrophe; but the griefs and sorrows of art are so much nearer each other, like major and minor keys, than the griefs and sorrows of life. in art, the musician smiles and sighs alternately, but his sighing is a balanced, an ordered mood; the inner heart is content, as the pool is content, whether it mirrors the sunlight or the lonely star; but in life, joy is to grief what music is to aching silence, dumbness, inarticulate pain--though perhaps in that silence one hears a deeper, stranger sound, the buzz of the whirring atom, the soft thunder of worlds plunging through the void, joyless, gigantic, oblivious forces. is it good thus to have the veils of life rent asunder? if life, the world's life, activity, work, be the end of existence, then it is not good. it breaks the spring of energy, so that one goes heavily and sorely. but what if that be not the end? what then? may , . at present the new countryside is a great resource. i walk far among the wolds; i find exquisite villages, where every stone-built house seems to have style and quality; i come down upon green water-meadows, with clear streams flowing by banks set with thorn-bushes and alders. the churches, the manor-houses, of grey rubble smeared with plaster, with stone roof-tiles, are a feast for eye and heart. long days in the open air bring me a dull equable health of body, a pleasant weariness, a good-humoured indifference. my mind becomes grass-grown, full of weeds, ruinous; but i welcome it as at least a respite from suffering. it is strange to think of myself at what ought, i suppose, to be the busiest and fullest time of my life, living here like a tree in lonely fields. what would be the normal life? a little house in a london street, i suppose, with a lot of white paint and bookshelves. luncheons, dinners, plays, music, clubs, week-end visits to lively houses, a rush abroad, a few country visits in the winter. very harmless and pleasant if one enjoyed it, but to me inconceivable and insupportable. perhaps i should be happier and brisker, perhaps the time would go quicker. ought one to make up one's mind that this would be the normal life, and that therefore one had better learn to accommodate oneself to it? does one pay penalties for not submitting oneself to the ordinary laws of human intercourse? doubtless one does. but then, made as i am, i should have to pay penalties which would seem to be even heavier for the submission. it is there that the puzzle lies; that a man should be created with the strong instinct that i feel for liberty and independence and solitude and the quiet of the country, and then that he should discover that the life he so desires should be the one that develops all the worst side of him--morbidity, fastidiousness, gloom, discontent. this is the shadow of civilisation; that it makes people intellectual, alert, craving for stimulus, and yet sucks their nerves dry of the strength that makes such things enjoyable. and still, as i go in and out, the death of alec seems the one absolutely unintelligible and inexplicable thing, a gloom penetrated by no star. it was the one thing that might have made me unselfish, tender-hearted, the anxious care of some other than myself. "perhaps," says an old friend writing to me with a clumsy attempt at comfort, "perhaps he was taken mercifully away from some evil to come." a good many people say that, and feel it quite honestly. but what an insupportable idea of the ways of providence, that god had planned a prospect for the child so dreadful that even his swift removal should be tolerable by comparison! what a helpless, hopeless confession of failure! no; either the whole short life, closed by the premature death, must have been designed, planned, executed deliberately; or else god is at the mercy of blank cross-currents, opposing forces, tendencies even stronger than himself; and then the very idea of god crumbles away, and god becomes the blank and inscrutable force working behind a gentle, good-humoured will, which would be kind and gracious if it could, but is trammelled and bound by something stronger; that was the greek view, of course--god above man, and fate above god. the worst of it is that it has a horrible vraisemblance, and seems to lie even nearer to the facts of life than our own tender-hearted and sentimental theories and schemes of religion. but whether it be god or fate, the burden has to be borne. and my one endeavour must be to bear it myself, consciously and courageously, and to shift it so far as i can from the gentler and tenderer shoulders of those whose life is so strangely linked with mine. may , . one sees a house, like the house we now live in, from a road as one passes, from the windows of a train. it seems to be set at the end of the world, with the earth's sunset distance behind it--it seems a fortress of quiet, a place of infinite peace; and then one lives in it, and behold, it is a centre of a little active life, with all sorts of cross-currents darting to and fro, over it, past it. or again one thinks, as one sees such a house in passing, that there at least one could live in meditation and cloistered calm; that there would be neither cares nor anxieties; that one would be content to sit, just looking out at the quiet fields, pacing to and fro, receiving impressions, musing, selecting, apprehending--and then one lives there, and the stream of life is as turbid, as fretful as ever. the strange thing is that such delusions survive any amount of experience; that one cannot read into other lives the things that trouble one's own. a little definite scheme opens before us here; old friends of maud's find us out, simple, kindly, tiresome people. there is an exchange of small civilities, there are duties, activities, relationships. to maud these things come by the light of nature; to her the simplest interchange of definite thoughts is as natural as to breathe. i hear her calm, sweet, full voice answering, asking. to me these things are utterly wearisome and profitless. i want only to speak of the things for which i care, and to people attuned to the same key of thought; a basis of sympathy and temperamental differences--that is the perfect union of qualities for a friend. but these stolid, kindly parsons, with brisk, active wives, ingenuous daughters, heavy sons--i want either to know them better, or not to know them at all. i want to enter the house, the furnished chambers of people's minds; and i am willing enough to throw my own open to a cordial guest; but i do not want to stand and chatter in some debatable land of social conventionality. i have no store of simple geniality. the other night we went to dine quietly with a parson near here, a worthy fellow, happy and useful. afterwards, in the drawing-room, i sate beside my host. i saw maud listening, with rapt interest, to the chronicles of all the village families, robustly and unimaginatively told by the parson's wife; meanwhile i, tortured by intolerable ennui, pumped up questions, tried a hundred subjects with my worthy host. he told me long and prolix stories, he discoursed on rural needs. at last i said that we must be going; he replied with genuine disappointment that the night was still young, and that it was a pity to break up our pleasant confabulation. i saw with a shock of wonder that he had evidently been enjoying himself hugely; that it was a pleasure to him, for some unaccountable reason, not to hear a new person talk, but to say the same things that he had said for years, to a new person. it is not ideas that most people want; they are satisfied with mere gregariousness, the sight and sound of other figures. they like to produce the same stock of ideas, the same conclusions. "as i always say," was a phrase that was for ever on my entertainer's lips. i suppose that probably my own range is just as limited, but i have an athenian hankering after novelty of thought, the new mintage of the mind. i loathe the old obliterated coinage, with the stamp all rounded and faint. dulness, sameness, triteness, are they essential parts of life? i suppose it is really that my nervous energy is low, and requires stimulus: if it were strong and full, the current would flow into the trivial things. i derive a certain pleasure from the sight of other people's rooms, the familiar, uncomfortable, shabby furniture, the drift of pictures, the debris of ornament--all that stands for difference and individuality. but one can't get inside most people's minds; they only admit one to the public rooms. a crushing fatigue and depression settles down upon me in such hours, and then the old blank sense of grief and loss comes flowing back--it is old already, because it seems to have stained all the backward pages of life; then follows the weary, restless night; and the breaking of the grey, pitiless dawn. june , . i do not want, even in my thoughts, to put the contemplative life above the practical life. highest of all i would put a combination of the two--a man of high and clear ideals, in a position where he was able to give them shape--a great constructive statesman, a great educator, a great man of business, who was also keenly alive to social problems, a great philanthropist. next to these i would put great thinkers, moralists, poets--all who inspire. then i would put the absolutely effective instruments of great designs--legislators, lawyers, teachers, priests, doctors, writers--men without originality, but with a firm conception of civic and human duty. and then i would put all those who, in a small sphere, exercise a direct, quiet, simple influence--and then come the large mass of mankind; people who work faithfully, from instinct and necessity, but without any particular design or desire, except to live honestly, honourably, and respectably, with no urgent sense of the duty of serving others, taking life as it comes, practical individualists, in fact. no higher than these, but certainly no lower, i should put quiet, contemplative, reflective people, who are theoretical individualists. they are not very effective people generally, and they have a certain poetical quality; they cannot originate, but they can appreciate. i look upon all these individualists, whether practical or theoretical, as the average mass of humanity, the common soldiers, so to speak, as distinguished from the officers. life is for them a discipline, and their raison d'etre is that of the learner, as opposed to that of the teacher. to all of them, experience is the main point; they are all in the school of god; they are being prepared for something. the object is that they should apprehend something, and the channel through which it comes matters little. they do the necessary work of the world; they support themselves, and they support those who from infirmity, weakness, age, or youth cannot support themselves. there is room, i think, in the world for both kinds of individualist, though the contemplative individualists are in the minority; and perhaps it must be so, because a certain lassitude is characteristic of them. if they were in the majority in any nation, one would have a simple, patient, unambitious race, who would tend to become the subjects of other more vigorous nations: our indian empire is a case in point. probably china is a similar nation, preserved from conquest by its inaccessibility and its numerical force. japan is an instance of the strange process of a contemplative nation becoming a practical one. the curious thing is that christianity, which is essentially a contemplative, unmilitant, unpatriotic, unambitious force, decidedly oriental in type, should have become, by a mysterious transmutation, the religion of active, inventive, conquering nations. i have no doubt that the essence of christianity lies in a contemplative simplicity, and that it is in strong opposition to what is commonly called civilisation. it aims at improving society through the uplifting of the individual, not at uplifting the individual through social agencies. we have improved upon that in our latter-day wisdom, for the christian ought to be inherently unpatriotic, or rather his patriotism ought to be of an all-embracing rather than of an antagonistic kind. i do not want to make lofty excuses for myself; my own unworldliness is not an abnegation at all, but a deliberate preference for obscurity. still i should maintain that the vital and spiritual strength of a nation is measured, not by the activity of its organisations, but by the number of quiet, simple, virtuous, and high-minded persons that it contains. and thus, in my own case, though the choice is made for me by temperament and circumstances, i have no pricking of conscience on the subject of my scanty activities. it is not mere activity that makes the difference. the danger of mere activity is that it tends to make men complacent, to lead them to think that they are following the paths of virtue, when they are only enmeshed in conventionality. the dangers of the quiet life are indolence, morbidity, sloth, depression, unmanliness; but i think that it develops humility, and allows the daily and hourly message of god to sink into the soul. after all, the one supreme peril is that of self-satisfaction and finality. if a man is content with what he is, there is nothing to make him long for what is higher. any one who looks around him with a candid gaze, becomes aware that our life is and must be a provisional one, that it has somehow fallen short of its possibilities. to better it is the best of all courses; but next to that it is more desirable that men should hope for and desire a greater harmony of things, than that they should acquiesce in what is so strangely and sadly amiss. june , . i have made a new friend, whose contact and example help me so strangely and mysteriously, that it seems to me almost as though i had been led hither that i might know him. he is an old and lonely man, a great invalid, who lives at a little manor-house a mile or two away. maud knew him by name, but had never seen him. he wrote me a courtly kind of note, apologising for being unable to call, and expressing a hope that we might be able to go and see him. the house stands on the edge of the village, looking out on the churchyard, a many-gabled building of grey stone, a long flagged terrace in front of it, terminated by posts with big stone balls; a garden behind, and a wood behind that--the whole scene unutterably peaceful and beautiful. we entered by a little hall, and a kindly, plain, middle-aged woman, with a quaker-like precision of mien and dress, came out to greet us, with a fresh kindliness that had nothing conventional about it. she said that her uncle was not very well, but she thought he would be able to see us. she left us for a moment. there was a cleanness and a fragrance about the old house that was very characteristic. it was most simply, even barely furnished, but with a settled, ancient look about it, that gave one a sense of long association. she presently returned, and said, smiling, that her uncle would like to see us, but separately, as he was very far from strong. she took maud away, and returning, walked with me round the garden, which had the same dainty and simple perfection about it. i could see that my hostess had the poetical passion for flowers; she knew the names of all, and spoke of them almost as one might of children. this was very wilful and impatient, and had to be kept in good order; that one required coaxing and tender usage. we went on to the wood, in all its summer foliage, and she showed us a little arbour where her uncle loved to sit, and where the birds would come at his whistle. "they are looking at us out of the trees everywhere," she said, "but they are shy of strangers"--and indeed we heard soft chirping and rustling everywhere. an old dog and a cat accompanied us. she drew my attention to the latter. "look at pippa," she said, "she is determined to walk with us, and equally determined not to seem to need our company, as if she had come out of her own accord, and was surprised to find us in her garden." pippa, hearing her name mentioned, stalked off with an air of mystery and dignity into the bushes, and we could see her looking out at us; but when we continued our stroll, she flew out past us, and walked on stiffly ahead. "she gets a great deal of fun out of her little dramas," said miss ----. "now poor old rufus has no sense of drama or mystery--he is frankly glad of our company in a very low and common way--there is nothing aristocratic about him." old rufus looked up and wagged his tail humbly. presently she went on to talk about her uncle, and contrived to tell me a great deal in a very few words. i learnt that he was the last male representative of an old family, who had long held the small estate here; that after a distinguished oxford career, he had met with a serious accident that had made him a permanent invalid. that he had settled down here, not expecting to live more than a few years, and that he was now over seventy; it had been the quietest of lives, she said, and a very happy one, too, in spite of his disabilities. he read a great deal, and interested himself in local affairs, but sometimes for weeks together could do nothing. i gathered that she was his only surviving relation, and had lived with him from her childhood. "you will think," she added, laughing, "that he is the kind of person who is shown by his friends as a wonderful old man, and who turns out to be a person like the patriarch casby, in little dorrit, whose sanctity, like samson's, depended entirely upon the length of his hair. but he is not in the least like that, and i will leave you to find out for yourself whether he is wonderful or not." there was a touch of masculine irony and humour about this that took my fancy; and we went to the house, miss ---- saying that two new persons in one afternoon would be rather a strain for her uncle, much as he would enjoy it, and that his enjoyment must be severely limited. "his illness," she said, "is an obscure one; it is a want of adequate nervous force: the doctors give it names, but don't seem to be able to cure or relieve it; he is strong, physically and mentally, but the least over-exertion or over-strain knocks him up; it is as if virtue went out of him; though a partial niece may say that he has a plentiful stock of the material." we went in, and proceeded to a small library, full of books, with a big writing-table in the window. the room was somewhat dark, and the feet fell softly on a thick carpet. there was no sort of luxury about the room; a single portrait hung over the mantelpiece, and there was no trace of ornament anywhere, except a big bowl of roses on a table. here, with a low table beside him covered with books, and a little reading-desk pushed aside, i found mr. ---- sitting. he was leaning forwards in his chair, and maud was sitting opposite him. they appeared to be silent, but with the natural silence that comes of reflection, not the silence of embarrassment. maud, i could see, was strangely moved. he rose up to greet me, a tall, thin figure, dressed in a rough grey suit. there was little sign of physical ill-health about him. he had a shock of thick, strong hair, perfectly white. his face was that of a man who lived much in the open air, clear and ascetic of complexion. he was not at all what would be called handsome; he had rather heavy features, big, white eyebrows, and a white moustache. his manner was sedate and extremely unaffected, not hearty, but kindly, and he gave me a quick glance, out of his blue eyes, which seemed to take swift stock of me. "it is very kind of you to come and see me," he said in a measured tone. "of course i ought to have paid my respects first, but i ventured to take the privilege of age; and moreover i am the obedient property of a very vigilant guardian, whose orders i implicitly obey--'do this, and he doeth it.'" he smiled at his niece as he said it, and she said, "yes, you would hardly believe how peremptory i can be; and i am going to show it by taking mrs. ---- away, to show her the garden; and in twenty minutes i must take mr. ---- away too, if he will be so kind as help me to sustain my authority." the old man sate down again, smiling, and pointed me to a chair. the other two left us; and there followed what was to me a very memorable conversation. "we must make the best use of our time, you see," he said, "though i hope that this will not be the last time we shall meet. you will confer a very great obligation on me, if you can sometimes come to see me--and perhaps we may get a walk together occasionally. so we won't waste our time in conventional remarks," he added; "i will only say that i am heartily glad you have come to live here, and i am sure you will find it a beautiful place--you are wise enough to prefer the country to the town, i gather." then he went on: "i have read all your books--i did not read them," he added with a smile, "that i might talk to you about them, but because they have interested me. may i say that each book has been stronger and better than the last, except in one case"--he mentioned the name of a book of mine--"in which you seemed to me to be republishing earlier work." "yes," i said, "you are quite right; i was tempted by a publisher and i fell." "well," he said, "the book was a good one--and there is something that we lose as we grow older, a sort of youthfulness, a courageous indiscretion, a beautiful freedom of thought; but we can't have everything, and one's books must take their appropriate colours from the mind. may i say that i think your books have grown more and more mature, tolerant, artistic, wise?--and the last was simply admirable. it entirely engrossed me, and for a blessed day or two i lived in your mind, and saw out of your eyes. i am sure it was a great book--a noble and a large-hearted book, full of insight and faith--the best kind of book." i murmured something; and he said, "you may think it is arrogant of me to speak like this; but i have lived among books, and i am sure that i have a critical gift, mainly because i have no power of expression. you know the best kind of critics are the men who have tried to write books, and have failed, as long as their failure does not make them envious and ungenerous; i have failed many times, but i think i admire good work all the more for that. you are writing now?" "no," i said, "i am writing nothing." "well, i am sorry to hear it," he said, "and may i venture to ask why?" "simply because i cannot," i said; and now there came upon me a strange feeling, the same sort of feeling that one has in answering the questions of a great and compassionate physician, who assumes the responsibility of one's case. not only did i not resent these questions, as i should often have resented them, but it seemed to give me a sense of luxury and security to give an account of myself to this wise and unaffected old man. he bent his brows upon me: "you have had a great sorrow lately?" he said. "yes," i said, "we have lost our only boy, nine years old." "ah," he said, "a sore stroke, a sore stroke!" and there was a deep tenderness in his voice that made me feel that i should have liked to kneel down before him, and weep at his knee, with his hand laid in blessing on my head. we sate in silence for a few moments. "is it this that has stopped your writing?" he said. "no," i said, "the power had gone from me before--i could not originate, i could only do the same sort of work, and of weaker quality than before." "well," he said, "i don't wonder; the last book must have been a great strain, though i am sure you were happy when you wrote it. i remember a friend of mine, a great alpine climber, who did a marvellous feat of climbing some unapproachable peak--without any sense of fatigue, he told me, all pure enjoyment--but he had a heart-attack the next day, and paid the penalty of his enjoyment. he could not climb for some years after that." "yes," i said, "i think that has been my case--but my fear is that if i lose the habit--and i seem to have lost it--i shall never be able to take it up again." "no, you need not fear that," he replied; "if something is given you to say, you will be able to say it, and say it better than ever--but no doubt you feel very much lost without it. how do you fill the time?" "i hardly know," i said, "not very profitably--i read, i teach my daughter, i muddle along." "well," he said, smiling, "the hours in which we muddle along are not our worst hours. you believe in god?" the suddenness of this question surprised me. "yes," i said, "i believe in god. i cannot disbelieve. something has placed me where i am, something urges me along; there is a will behind me, i am sure of that. but i do not know whether that will is just or unjust, kind or unkind, benevolent or indifferent. i have had much happiness and great prosperity, but i have had to bear also things which are inconceivably repugnant to me, things which seem almost satanically adapted to hurt and wound me in my tenderest and innermost feelings, trials which seem to be concocted with an almost infernal appropriateness, not things which i could hope to bear with courage and faith, but things which i can only endure with rebellious resistance." "yes," he said, "i understand you perfectly; but does not their very appropriateness, the satanical ingenuity of which you speak, help you to feel that they are not fortuitous, but sent deliberately to you yourself and to none other?" "yes," i said, "i see that; but how can i believe in the justice of a discipline which i could not inflict, i will not say upon a dearly loved child, but upon the most relentless and stubborn foe." "ah," said he, "now i see your heart bare, the very palpitating beat of the blood. do you think you are alone in this? let me tell you my own story. over fifty years ago i left oxford with, i really think i may say, almost everything before me--everything, that is, which is open to an instinctively cheerful, temperate, capable, active man--i was not rich, but i could afford to wait to earn money. i was sociable and popular; i was endowed with an immense appetite for variety of experience; i don't think that there was anything which appeared to me to be uninteresting. but i could persevere too, i could stick to work, i had taken a good degree. then an accidental fall off a chair, on which i was standing to get a book, laid me on my back for a time. i fretted over it at first, but when i got about again, i found that i was a man maimed for life. i don't know what the injury was--some obscure lesion of the spinal marrow or brain, i believe--some flaw about the size of a pin's head--the doctors have never made out. but every time that i plunged into work, i broke down; for a long time i thought i should struggle through; but at last i became aware that i was on the shelf, with other cracked jars, for life--i can't tell you what i went through, what agonies of despair and rebellion. i thought that at least literature was left me. i had always been fond of books, and was a good scholar, as it is called; but i soon became aware that i had no gift of expression, and moreover that i could not hope to acquire it, because any concentrated effort threw me into illness. i was an ambitious fellow, and success was closed to me--i could not even hope to be useful. i tried several things, but always with the same result; and at last i fell into absolute despair, and just lived on, praying daily and even hourly that i might die. but i did not die, and then at last it dawned upon me, like a lightening sunrise, that this was life for me; this was my problem, these my limitations; that i was to make the best i could out of a dulled and shattered life; that i was to learn to be happy, even useful, in spite of it--that just as other people were given activity, practical energy, success, to learn from them the right balance, the true proportion of life, and not to be submerged and absorbed in them, so to me was given a simpler problem still, to have all the temptations of activity removed--temptations to which with my zest for experience i might have fallen an easy victim--and to keep my courage high, my spirit pure and expectant, if i could, waiting upon god. this little estate fell to me soon afterwards, and i soon saw what a tender gift it was, because it gave me a home; every other source of interest and pleasure was removed, because the simplest visits, the wildest distractions were too much for me--the jarring of any kind of vehicle upset me. by what slow degrees i attained happiness i can hardly say. but now, looking back, i see this--that whereas others have to learn by hard experience, that detachment, self-purification, self-control are the only conditions of happiness on earth, i was detached, purified, controlled by god himself. i was detached, because my life was utterly precarious, i was taught purification and control, because whereas more robust people can defer and even defy the penalties of luxury, comfort, gross desires, material pleasures, i was forced, every day and hour, to deny myself the smallest freedom--i was made ascetic by necessity. then came a greater happiness still; for years i was lost in a sort of individualistic self-absorption, with no thoughts of anything but god and his concern with myself--often hopeful and beautiful enough--when i found myself drawn into nearer and dearer relationships with those around me. that came through my niece, whom i adopted as an orphan child, and who is one of those people who live naturally and instinctively in the lives of other people. i got to know all the inhabitants of this little place--simple country people, you will say--but as interesting, as complex in emotion and intellect, as any other circle in the world. the only reason why one ever thinks people dull and limited, is because one does not know them; if one talks directly and frankly to people, one passes through the closed doors at once. looking back, i can see that i have been used by god, not with mere compassion and careless tenderness, but with an intent, exacting, momentary love, of an almost awful intensity and intimacy. it is the same with all of us, if we can only see it. our faults, our weaknesses, our qualities good or bad, are all bestowed with an anxious and deliberate care. the reason why some of us make shipwreck--and even that is mercifully and lovingly dispensed to us--is because we will not throw ourselves on the side of god at every moment. every time that the voice says 'do this,' or 'leave that undone,' and we reply fretfully, 'ah, but i have arranged otherwise,' we take a step backwards. he knocks daily, hourly, momently, at the door, and when we have once opened, and he is entered, we have no desire again but to do his will to the uttermost." he was silent for a moment, his eyes in-dwelling upon some secret thought; then he said, "everything about you, your books, your dear wife, your words, your face, tell me that you are very near indeed to the way--a step or two, and you are free!" he sate back for a moment, as though exhausted, and then said: "you will forgive me for speaking so frankly, but i feel from hour to hour how short my time may be; and i had no doubt when i saw you, even before i saw you, that i should have some message to give you, some tidings of hope and patience." i despair, as i write, of giving any idea of the impressiveness of the old man; now that i have written down his talk, it seems abrupt and even strained. it was neither. the perfect naturalness and tranquillity of it all, the fatherly smile, the little gestures of his frail hand, interpreted and filled up the gaps, till i felt as though i had known him all my life, and that he was to me as a dear father, who saw my needs, and even loved me for what i was not and for what i might be. at this point miss ---- came in, and led me away. as maud and i walked back, we spoke to each other of what we had seen and heard. he had talked to her, she said, very simply about alec. "i don't know how it was," she added, "but i found myself telling him everything that was in my mind and heart, and it seemed as though he knew it all before." "yes, indeed," i said, "he made me desire with all my heart to be different--and yet that is not true either, because he made me wish not to be something outside of myself, but something inside, something that was there all the time: i seem never to have suspected what religion was before; it had always seemed to me a thing that one put on and wore, like a garment; but now it seems to me to be the most natural, simple, and beautiful thing in the world; to consist in being oneself, in fact." "yes, that is exactly it," said maud, "i could not have put it into words, but that is how i feel." "yes," i said, "i saw, in a flash, that life is not a series of things that happen to us, but our very selves. it is not a question of obeying, and doing, and acting, but a question of being. well, it has been a wonderful experience; and yet he told me nothing that i did not know. god in us, not god with us." and presently i added: "if i were never to see mr. ---- again, i should feel he had somehow done more for me than a hundred conversations and a thousand books. it was like the falling of the spirit at pentecost." that strange sense of an uplifted freedom, of willing co-operation has dwelt with me, with us both, for many days. i dare not say that life has become easy; that the cloud has rolled away; that there have not been hours of dismay and dreariness and sorrow. but it is, i am sure, a turning-point of my life; the way which has led me downwards, deepening and darkening, seems to have reached its lowest point, and to be ascending from the gloom; and all from the words of a simple, frail old man, sitting among his books in a panelled parlour, in a soft, summer afternoon. july , . i have been sitting out, this hot, still afternoon, upon the lawn, under the shade of an old lime-tree, with its sweet scent coming and going in wafts, with the ceaseless murmur of the bees all about it; but for that slumberous sound, the place was utterly still; the sun lay warm on the old house, on the box hedges of the garden, on the rich foliage of the orchard. i have been lost in a strange dream of peace and thankfulness, only wishing the sweet hours could stay their course, and abide with me thus for ever. part of the time maggie sate with me, reading. we were both silent, but glad to be together; every now and then she looked up and smiled at me. i was not even visited by the sense that used to haunt me, that i must bestir myself, do something, think of something. it is not that i am less active than formerly; it is the reverse. i do a number of little things here, trifling things they would seem, not worth mentioning, mostly connected with the village or the parish. my writing has retired far into the past, like a sort of dream. i never even plan to begin again. i teach a little, not maggie only, but some boys and girls of the place, who have left school, but are glad to be taught in the evenings. i have plenty of good easy friends here, and have the blessed sense of feeling myself wanted. best of all, a sense of poisonous hurry seems to have gone out of my life. in the old days i was always stretching on to something, the end of my book, the next book--never content with the present, always hoping that the future would bring me the satisfaction i seemed to miss. i did not always know it at the time, for i was often happy when i was writing a book--but it was, at best, a rushing, tortured sort of happiness. my great sorrow--what has that become to me? a beautiful thing, full of patience and hope. what but that has taught me to learn to live for the moment, to take the bitter experiences of life as they come, not crushing out the sweetness and flinging the rind aside, but soberly, desirously, only eager to get from the moment what it is meant to bring. even the very shrinking back from a bitter duty, the indolent rejection of the thought that touches one's elbow, bidding one again and again arise and go, means something; to defer one's pleasure, to break the languid dream, to take up the tiny task, what strength is there! thus no burden seems too heavy, too awkward, too slippery, too ill-shaped, but one can lift it. the yoke is easy, because one bears it in quiet confidence, not overtaxing ability or straining hope. instead of watching life, as from high castle windows, feeling it common and unclean, not to be mingled with, i am in it and of it. and what is become of all my old dreams of art, of the secluded worship, the lonely rapture! well, it is all there, somehow, flowing inside life, like a stream that is added to a river, not like a leat drawn aside from the current. the force i spent on art has gone to swell life and augment it; it heightens perception, it intensifies joy--it was the fevered lust of expression that drained the vigour of my days and hours. but am i then satisfied with the part i play? do i feel that my faculties are being used, that i am lending a hand to the great sum of toil? i used to feel that, or thought i felt it, in the old days, but now i see that i walked in a vain delusion, serving my own joy, my own self-importance. not that i think my old toil all ill-spent; that was my work before, as surely as it is not now; but the old intentness, the old watching for tone and gesture, for action and situation, that has all shifted its gaze, and waits upon god. it may be, nay it is certain, that i have far to go, much to learn; but now that i may perhaps recover my strength, life spreads out into sunny shallows, moving slow and clear. it is like a soft sweet interlude between two movements of fire and glow; for i see now, what then i could not see, that something in my life was burnt and shrivelled up in my enforced silence and in my bitter loss--then, when i felt my energies at their lowest, when mind and bodily frame alike flapped loose, like a flag of smut upon the bars of a grate, i was living most intensely, and the soul's wings grew fast, unfolding plume and feather. it was then that life burnt with its fiercest heat, when it withdrew me, faintly struggling, away from all that pleased and caressed the mind and the body, into the silent glow of the furnace. strange that i should not have perceived it! but now i see in all maimed and broken lives, the lives that seem most idle and helpless, most futile and vain, that the same fierce flame is burning bright about them; that the reason why they cannot spread and flourish, like flowers, into the free air, is because the strong roots are piercing deep, entwining themselves firmly among the stones, piercing the cold silent crevices of the earth. ay, indeed! the coal in the furnace, burning passively and hotly, is as much a force, though it but lies and suffers, as the energy that throbs in the leaping piston-rod or the rushing wheel. not in success and noise and triumph does the soul grow; when the body rejoices, when the mind is prodigal of seed, the spirit sits within in a darkened chamber, like a folded chrysalis, stiff as a corpse, in a faint dream. but when triumphs have no savour, when the cheek grows pale and the eye darkens, then the dark chrysalis opens, and the rainbow wings begin to spread and glow, uncrumpling to the suns of paradise. my soul has taken wings, and sits poised and delicate, faint with long travail, perhaps to hover awhile about the garden blooms and the chalices of honied flowers, perhaps to take her flight beyond the glade, over the forest, to the home of her desirous heart. i know not! yet in these sunlit hours, with the slow, strong pulse of life beating round me, it seems that something is preparing for one struck dumb and crushed with sorrow to the earth. how soft a thrill of hope throbs in the summer air! how the bird-voices in the thicket, and the rustle of burnished leaves, and the hum of insects, blend into a secret harmony, a cadence half-heard! i wait in love and confidence; and through the trees of the garden one seems ever to draw nearer, walking in the cool of the day, at whose bright coming the flowers look upwards unashamed. shall i be bidden to meet him! will he call me loud or low? august , . maud has been ailing of late--how much it is impossible to say, because she is always cheerful and indomitable. she never complains, she never neglects a duty; but i have found her, several times of late, sitting alone, unoccupied, musing--that is unlike her--and with a certain shadow upon her face that i do not recognise; but the strange, new, sweet companionship in which we live seems at the same time to have heightened and deepened. i seem to have lived so close to her all these years, and yet of late to have found a new and different personality in her, which i never suspected. perhaps we have both changed somewhat; i do not feel the difference in myself. but there is something larger, stronger, deeper about maud now, as if she had ascended into a purer air, and caught sight of some unexpected, undreamed-of distance; but instead of giving her remoteness, she seems to be sharing her wider outlook with me; she was never a great talker--perhaps it was that in old days my own mind ran like an ebullient fountain, evoking no definite response, needing no interchange; but she was always a sayer of penetrating things. she has a wonderful gift of seeing the firm issue through a cloud of mixed suggestions; but of late there has been a richness, a generosity, a wisdom about her which i have never recognised before. i think, with contrition, that i under-estimated, not her judgment or instinct, but her intellect. i am sure i lived too much in the intellectual region, and did not guess how little it really solves, in what a limited region it disports itself. i see that this wisdom was hers all along, and that i have been blind to it; but now that i have travelled out of the intellectual region, i perceive what a much greater thing that further wisdom is than i had thought. living in art and for art, i used to believe that the intellectual structure was the one thing that mattered, but now i perceive dimly that the mind is but on the threshold of the soul, and that the artist may, nay does, often perceive, by virtue of his trained perception, what is going on in the sanctuary; but he is as one who kneels in a church at some great solemnity--he sees the movements and gestures of the priests; he sees the holy rite proceeding, he hears the sacred words; something of the inner spirit of it all flows out to him; but the viewless current of prayer, the fiery ray streaming down from god, that smites itself into the earthly symbol--all this is hidden from him. those priests, intent upon the sacred work, feel something that they not only do not care to express, but which they would not if they could; it would be a profanation of the awful mystery. the artist is not profane in expressing what he perceives, because he can be the interpreter of the symbol to others more remote; but he is not a real partaker of the mystery; he is a seer of the word and not a doer. what now amazes me is that maud, to whom the heart of the matter, the inner emotion, has always been so real, could fling herself, and all for love of me, into the outer work of intellectual expression. i have always, god forgive me, believed my work to be in some way superior to hers. i loved her truly, but with a certain condescension of mind, as one loves a child or a flower; and now i see that she has been serenely ahead of me all the time, and it has been she that has helped me along; i have been as the spoilt and wilful child, and she as the sweet and wise mother, who has listened to its prattle, and thrown herself, with all the infinite patience of love, into the tiny bounded dreams. i have told her all this as simply as i could, and though she deprecated it all generously and humbly, i feel the blessed sense of having caught her up upon the way, of seeing--how dimly and imperfectly!--what i have owed her all along. i am overwhelmed with a shame which it is a sweet pleasure to confess to her; and now that i can spare her a little, anticipate her wishes, save her trouble, it is an added joy; a service that i can render and which she loves to receive. i never thought of these things in the old days; she had always planned everything, arranged everything, forestalled everything. i have at last persuaded her to come up to town and see a doctor. we plan to go abroad for a time. i would earn the means if i could, but, if not, we will sacrifice a little of our capital, and i will replace it, if i can, by some hack-work; though i have a dislike of being paid for my name and reputation, and not for my best work. i am not exactly anxious; it is all so slight, what they call a want of tone, and she has been through so much; even so, my anxiety is conquered by the joy of being able to serve her a little; and that joy brings us together, hour by hour. september , . again the shadow comes down over my life. the doctor says plainly that maud's heart is weak; but he adds that there is nothing organically wrong, though she must be content to live the life of an invalid for a time; he was reassuring and quiet; but i cannot keep a dread out of my mind, though maud herself is more serene than she has been for a long time; she says that she was aware that she was somehow overtaxing herself, and it is a comfort to be bidden, in so many words, to abstain a little. we are to live quietly at home for a while, until she is stronger, and then we shall go abroad. maud does not come down in the mornings now, and she is forbidden to do more than take the shortest stroll. i read to her a good deal in the mornings; maggie has proudly assumed the functions of housekeeper; the womanly instinct for these things is astonishing. a man would far sooner not have things comfortable, than have the trouble of providing them and seeing about them. women do not care about comforts for themselves; they prefer haphazard meals, trays brought into rooms, vague arrangements; and yet they seem to know by instinct what a man likes, even though he does not express it, and though he would not take any trouble to secure it. what centuries of trained instincts must have gone to produce this. the new order has given me a great deal more of maggie's society. we are sent out in the afternoon, because maud likes to be quite alone to receive the neighbours, small and great, that come to see her, now that she cannot go to see them. she tells me frankly that my presence only embarrasses them. and thus another joy has come to me, one of the most beautiful things that has ever happened to me in my life, and which i can hardly find words to express--the contact with, the free sight of the mind and soul of an absolutely pure, simple and ingenuous girl. maggie's mind has opened like a flower. she talks to me with perfect openness of all she feels and thinks; to walk thus, hour by hour, with my child's arm through my own, her wide-opened, beautiful eyes looking in mine, her light step beside me, with all her pretty caressing ways--it seems to me a taste of the purest and sweetest love i have ever felt. it is like the rapture of a lover, but without any shadow of the desirous element that mingles so fiercely and thirstily with our mortal loves, to find myself dear to her. i have a poignant hunger of the heart to save her from any touch of pain, to smooth her path for her, to surround her with beauty and sweetness. i did not guess that the world held any love quite like this; there seems no touch of selfishness about it; my love lavishes itself, asking for nothing in return, except that i may be dear to her as she to me. her fancies, her hopes, her dreams--how inexplicable, how adorable! she said to me to-day that she could never marry, and that it was a real pity that she could not have children of her own without. "we don't want any one else, do we, except just some little children to amuse us." she is a highly imaginative child, and one of our amusements is to tell each other long, interminable tales of the adventures of a family we call the pickfords. i have lost all count of their names and ages, their comings and goings; but maggie never makes a mistake about them, and they seem to her like real people; and when i sometimes plunge them into disaster, she is so deeply affected that the disasters have all to be softly repaired. the pickfords must have had a very happy life; the kind of life that people created and watched over by a tender, patient and detailed providence might live. how different from the real world! but i don't want maggie to live in the real world yet awhile. it will all come pouring in upon her, sorrow, anxiety, weariness, no doubt--alas that it should be so! perhaps some people would blame me, would say that more discipline would be bracing, wholesome, preparatory. but i don't believe that. i had far rather that she learnt that life was tender, gentle and sweet--and then if she has to face trouble, she will have the strength of feeling that the tenderness, gentleness and sweetness are the real stuff of life, waiting for her behind the cloud. i don't want to disillusion her; i want to establish her faith in happiness and love, so that it cannot be shaken. that is a better philosophy, when all is said and done, than the stoical fortitude that anticipates dreariness, that draws the shadow over the sun, that overvalues endurance. one endures by instinct; but one must be trained to love. february , . it is months since i have opened this book; it has lain on my table all through the dreadful hours--i write the word down conventionally, and yet it is not the right word at all, because i have merely been stunned and numbed. i simply could not suffer any more. i smiled to myself, as the man in the story, who was broken on the wheel, smiled when they struck the second and the third blow. i knew why he smiled; it was because he had dreaded it so much, and when it came there was nothing to dread, because he simply did not feel it. to-night i just pick up idly the dropped thread. perhaps it is a sign, this faint desire to make a little record, of the first tingling of returning life. something stirs in me, and i will not resist it; it may be read by some one that comes after me, by some one perhaps who feels that his own grief is supreme and unique, and that no one has ever suffered so before. he may learn that there have been others in the dark valley before him, that the mist is full of pilgrims stumbling on, falling, rising again, falling again, lying stupefied in a silence which is neither endurance nor patience. maud was taken from me first; she went without a word or a sign. she was better that day, she declared, than she had felt for some time; she was on the upward grade. she walked a few hundred yards with maggie and myself, and then she went back; the last sight i had of her alive was when she stood at the corner and waved her hand to us as we went out of sight. i am glad i looked round and saw her smile. i had not the smallest or faintest premonition of what was coming; indeed, i was lighter of mood than i had been for some time. we came in; we were told that she was tired and had gone up to lie down. as she did not come down to tea, i went up and found her lying on her bed, her head upon her hand--dead. the absolute peace and stillness of her attitude showed us that she had herself felt no access of pain. she had lain down to rest, and she had rested indeed. even at my worst and loneliest, i have been able to be glad that it was even so. if i could know that i should die thus in joy and tranquillity, it would be a great load off my mind. but the grief, the shock to maggie was too much for my dear, love-nurtured child. a sort of awful and desperate strength came on me after that; i felt somehow, day by day, that i must just put away my own grief till a quiet hour, in order that i might sustain and guard the child; but her heart was broken, i think, though they say that no one dies of sorrow. she lay long ill--so utterly frail, so appealing in her grief, that i could think of nothing but saving her. was it a kind of selfishness that needed to be broken down in me? perhaps it was! every single tendril of my heart seemed to grow round the child and clasp her close; she was all that i had left, and in some strange way she seemed to be all that i had lost too. and then she faded out of life, not knowing that she was fading, but simply too tired to live; and my desire alone seemed to keep her with me. till at last, seeing her weariness and weakness, i let my desire go; i yielded, i gave her to god, and he took her, as though he had waited for my consent. and now that i am alone, i will say, with such honesty as i can muster, that i have no touch of self-pity, no rebellion. it is all too deep and dark for that. i am not strong enough even to wish to die; i have no wishes, no desires at all. the three seem for ever about me, in my thoughts and in my dreams. when alec died, i used to wake up to the fact, day after day, with a trembling dismay. now it is not like that. i can give no account of what i do. the smallest things about me seem to take up my mind. i can sit for an hour by the hearth, neither reading nor thinking, just watching the flame flicker over the coals, or the red heart of the fire eating its way upwards and outwards. i can sit on a sunshiny morning in the garden, merely watching with a strange intentness what goes on about me, the uncrumpling leaf, the snowdrop pushing from the mould, the thrush searching the lawn, the robin slipping from bough to bough, the shapes of the clouds, the dying ray. i seem to have no motive either to live or to die. i retrace in memory my walks with maggie, i can see her floating hair, and how she leaned to me; i can sit, as i used to sit reading by maud's side, and see her face changing as the book's mood changed, her clear eye, her strong delicate hands. i seem as if i had awaked from a long and beautiful dream. people sometimes come and see me, and i can see the pity in their faces and voices; i can see it in the anxious care with which my good servants surround me; but i feel that it is half disingenuous in me to accept it, because i need no pity. perhaps there is something left for me to do in the world: there seems no reason otherwise why i should linger here. mr. ---- has been very good to me; i have seen him almost daily. he seems the only person who perfectly understands. he has hardly said a word to me about my sorrow. he said once that he should not speak of it; before, he said, i was like a boy learning a lesson with the help of another boy, but that now i was being taught by the master himself. that may be so; but the master has a very scared and dull pupil, alas, who cannot even discern the letters. i care nothing whether god be pleased or displeased; i bear his will, without either pain or resistance. i simply feel as if there had been some vast and overwhelming mistake somewhere; a mistake so incredible and inconceivable that nothing else mattered; as if--i do not speak profanely--god himself were appalled at what he had done, and dared not smite further one whom he had stunned into silence and apathy. with mr. ---- i talk; he talks of simple, quiet things, of old books and thoughts. he tells me, sometimes, when i am too weary to speak, long, beautiful, quiet stories of his younger days, and i listen like a child to his grave voice, only sorry when it comes to an end. so the days pass, and i will not say i have no pleasure in them, because i have won back a sort of odd childish pleasure in small incidents, sights, and sounds. the part of me that can feel seems to have been simply cut gently away, and i live in the hour, just glad when the sun is out, sorry when it is dull and cheerless. i read the other day one of my old books, and i could not believe it was mine. it seemed like the voice of some one i had once known long ago, in a golden hour. i was amused and surprised at my own quickness and inventiveness, at the confidence with which i interpreted everything so glibly and easily. i cannot interpret any more, and i do not seem to desire to do so. i seem to wait, with a half-amused smile, to see if god can make anything out of the strange tangle of things, as a child peers in within a scaffolding, and sees nothing but a forest of poles, little rising walls of chambers, a crane swinging weights to and fro. what can ever come, he thinks, out of such strange confusion, such fruitless hurry? well, i will not write any more; a sense of weariness and futility comes over me. i will go back to my garden to see what i can see, only dumbly and mutely thankful that it is not required of me to perform any dull and monotonous task, which would interrupt my idle dreams. february , . i tried this morning to look through some of the old letters and papers in maud's cabinet. there were my own letters, carefully tied up with a ribbon; letters from her mother and father; from the children when we were away from them. i began to read, and was seized with a sharp, unreasoning pain, surprised by sudden tears. i seemed dumbly to resent this, and i put them all away again. why should i disturb myself to no purpose? "there shall be no more sorrow nor crying, for the former things are passed away"--so runs the old verse, and i had almost grown to feel like that. why distrust it? yet i could not forbear. i got the papers out again, and read late into the night, like one reading an old and beautiful story. suddenly the curtain lifted, and i saw myself alone, i saw what i had lost. the ineffectual agony i endured, crying out for very loneliness! "that was all mine," said the melting heart, so long frozen and dumb. grief, in waves and billows, began to beat upon me like breakers on a rock-bound shore. a strange fever of the spirit came on me, scenes and figures out of the years floating fiercely and boldly past me. was my strength and life sustained for this, that i should just sleep awhile, and wake to fall into the pit of suffering, far deeper than before? if they could but come back to me for a moment; if i could feel maud's cheek by mine, or maggie's arms round my neck; if they could but stand by me smiling, in robes of light! yet as in a vision i seem to see them leaning from a window, in a blank castle-wall rising from a misty abyss, scanning a little stairway that rises out of the clinging fog, built up through the rocks and ending in a postern gate in the castle-wall. upon that stairway, one by one emerging from the mist, seem to stagger and climb the figures of men, entering in, one by one, and the three, with smiles and arms interlaced, are watching eagerly. cannot i climb the stair? perhaps even now i am close below them, where the mist hangs damp on rock and blade? cannot i set myself free? no, i could not look them in the face, they would hide their eyes from me, if i came in hurried flight, in passionate cowardice. not so must i come before them, if indeed they wait for me. the morning was coming in about the dewy garden, the birds piping faint in thicket and bush, when i stumbled slowly, dizzied and helpless, to my bed. then a troubled sleep; and ah, the bitter waking; for at last i knew what i had lost. february , . "all things become plain to us," said the good vicar, pulling on his gloves, "when we once realise that god is love--perfect love!" he said good-bye; he trudged off to his tea, a trying visit manfully accomplished, leaving me alone. he had sate with me, good, kindly man, for twenty minutes. there were tears in his eyes, and i valued that little sign of human fellowship more than all the commonplaces he courageously enunciated. he talked in a soft, low tone, as if i was ill. he made no allusions to mundane things; and i am grateful to him for coming. he had dreaded his call, i am sure, and he had done it from a mixture of affection and duty, both good things. "perfect love, yes--if we could feel that!" i sate musing in my chair. i saw, as in a picture, a child brought up in a beautiful and stately house by a grave strong man, who lavished at first love and tenderness, ease and beauty, on the child, laughing with him, and making much of him; all of which the child took unconsciously, unthinkingly, knowing nothing different; running to meet his guardian, glad to be with him, sorry to leave him. then i saw in my parable that one day, when the child played in the garden, as he had often played before, he noticed a little green alley, with a pleasant arch of foliage, that he had never seen before, leading to some secluded place. the child was dimly aware that there were parts of the garden where he was supposed not to go; he had been told he must not go too far from the house, but it was all vague and indistinct in his mind; he had never been shown anything precisely, or told the limits of his wanderings. so he went in joy, with a sense of a sweet mystery, down the alley, and presently found himself in a still brighter and more beautiful garden, full of fruits growing on the ground and on the trees, which he plucked and ate. there was a building, like a pavilion, at the end, of two storeys; and while he wandered thither with his hands full of fruits, he suddenly saw his guardian watching him, with a look he had never seen on his face before, from the upper windows of the garden-house. his first impulse was to run to him, share his joy with him, and ask him why he had not been shown the delicious place; but the fixed and inscrutable look on his guardian's face, neither smiling nor frowning, the stillness of his attitude, first chilled the child and then dismayed him; he flung the fruits on the ground and shivered, and then ran out of the garden. in the evening, when he was with his guardian, he found him as kind and tender as ever. but his guardian said nothing to him about the inner garden of fruits, and the child feared to ask him. but the next day he felt as though the fruits had given him a new eagerness, a new strength; he hankered after them long, and at last went down the green path again; this time the summer-house seemed empty. so he ate his fill, and this he did for many days. then one day, when he was bending down to pluck a golden fruit, that lay gem-like on the ground among green leaves, he heard a sudden step behind him, and turning, saw his guardian draw swiftly near, with a look of anger on his face; the next instant he was struck down, again and again; lifted from the ground at last, as in a passion of rage, and flung down bleeding on the earth; and then, without a word, his guardian left him; at first he lay and moaned, but then he crawled away, and back to the house. and there he found the old nurse that tended him, who greeted him with tears and words of comfort, and cared for his hurts. and he asked her the reason of his hard usage, but she could tell him nothing, only saying that it was the master's will, and that he sometimes did thus, though she thought he was merciful at heart. the child lay sick many days, his guardian still coming to him and sitting with him, with gentle talk and tender offices, till the scene in the garden was like an evil dream; but as his guardian spoke no word of displeasure to the child, the child still feared to ask him, and only strove to forget. and then at last he was well enough to go out a little; but a few days after--he avoided the inner garden now out of a sort of horror--he was sitting in the sun, near the house, feebly trying to amuse himself with one of his old games--how poor they seemed after the fruits of the inner paradise, how he hankered desirously after the further place, with its hot, sweet, fragrant scents, its rich juices!--when again his guardian came upon him in a sudden wrath, and struck him many times, dashing him down to the ground; and again he crept home, and lay long ill, and again his guardian was unwearyingly kind; but now a sort of horror of the man grew up in the mind of the child, and he feared that his strange anger might break out at any moment in a storm of blows. and at last he was well again; and had half forgotten, in the constant kindness, and even merriment, of his guardian, the horror of the two assaults. he was out and about again; he still shunned the paradise of fruits, but wearying of the accustomed pleasaunce, he went further and passed into the wood; how cool and mysterious it was among the great branching trees! the forest led him onwards; now the sun lay softly upon it, and a stream bickered through a glade, and now the path lay through thickets, which hid the further woodland from view; and now passing out into a more open space, he had a thrill of joy and excitement; there was a herd of strange living creatures grazing there, great deer with branching horns; they moved slowly forwards, cropping the grass, and the child was lost in wonder at the sight. presently one of them stopped feeding, began to sniff the air, and then looking round, espied the child, and began slowly to approach him. the child had no terror of the great dappled stag, and held out his hand to him, when the great beast suddenly bent his head down, and was upon him with one bound, striking him with his horns, lifting him up, smiting him with his pointed hooves. presently the child, in his terror and faintness, became aware that the beast had left him, and he began to drag himself, all bruised as he was, along the glade; then he suddenly saw his guardian approaching, and cried out to him, holding out his hands for help and comfort--and his guardian strode straight up to him, and, with the same fierce anger in his face, struck at him again and again, and spurned him with his feet. and then, when he left him, the child at last, with accesses of deadly faintness and pain, crept back home, to be again tended by the old nurse, who wept over him; and the child found that his guardian came to visit him, as kind and gentle as ever. and at last one day when he sate beside the child, holding his hand, stroking his hair, and telling him an old tale to comfort him, the child summoned up courage to ask him a question about the garden and the wood; but at the first word his guardian dropped his hand, and left him without a word. and then the child lay and mused with fierce and rebellious thoughts. he said to himself, "if my guardian had told me where i might not go; if he had said to me, 'in the inner garden are unwholesome fruits, and in the wood are savage beasts; and though i am strong and powerful, yet i have not strength to root up the poisonous plants and make the place a wilderness; and i cannot put a fence about it, or a fence about the wood, that no one should enter; but i warn you that you must not enter, and i entreat you for the love i bear you not to go thither,'" then the child thought that he would not have made question, but would have obeyed him willingly; and again he thought that, if he had indeed ventured in, and had eaten of the evil fruits, and been wounded by the savage stag, yet if his guardian had comforted him, and prayed him lovingly not to enter to his hurt, that then he would have loved his guardian more abundantly and carefully. and he thought too that, if his guardian had ever smitten him in wrath, and had then said to him with tears that it had grieved him bitterly to hurt him, but that thus and thus only could he learn the vileness of the place, then he would have not only forgiven the ill-usage, but would even have loved to endure it patiently. but what the child could not understand was that his guardian should now be tender and gracious, and at another time hard and cruel, explaining nothing to him. and thus the child said in himself, "i am in his power, and he must do his will upon me; but i neither trust nor love him, for i cannot see the reason of what he does; though if he would but tell me the reason, i could obey him and submit to him joyfully." these hard thoughts he nourished and fed upon; and his guardian came no more to him for good or for evil; and the child, much broken by his hard usage and his angry thoughts, crept about neglected and spiritless, with nothing but fear and dismay in his heart. so the imagination shaped itself in my mind, a parable of the sad, strange life of man. "perfect love!" if it were indeed that? yet god does many things to his frail children, which if a man did, i could not believe him to be loving; though if he would but give us the assurance that it was all leading us to happiness, we could endure his fiercest stroke, his bitterest decree. but he smites us, and departs; he turns away in a rage, because we have broken a law that we knew not of. and again, when we seem most tranquil and blest, most inclined to trust him utterly, he smites us down again without a word. i hope, i yearn to see that it all comes from some great and perfect will, a will with qualities of which what we know as mercy, justice, and love are but faint shadows--but that is hidden from me. we cannot escape, we must bear what god lays upon us. we may fling ourselves into bitter and dark rebellion; still he spares us or strikes us, gives us sorrow or delight. my one hope is to cooperate with him, to accept the chastening joyfully and courageously. then he takes from me joy, and courage alike, till i know not whom i serve, a father or a tyrant. can it indeed help us to doubt whether he be tyrant or no? again i know not, and again i sicken in fruitless despair, like one caught in a great labyrinth of crags and precipices. february , . then the christian teacher says: "god has given you a will, an independent will to act and choose; put it in unison with his will." alas, i know not how much of my seeming liberty is his or mine. he seems to make me able to exert my will in some directions, able to make it effective; and yet in other matters, even though i see that a course is holy and beautiful, i have no power to follow it at all. i see men some more, some less hampered than myself. some seem to have no desire for good, no dim perception of it. the outcast child, brought up cruelly and foully, with vile inheritances, he is not free, as i use the word; sometimes, by some inner purity and strength, he struggles upwards; most often he is engulfed; yet it is all a free gift, to me much, to another little, to some nothing at all. with all my heart do i wish my will to be in harmony with his. i yield it up utterly to him. i have no strength or force, and he withholds them from me. i do not blame, i only ask to understand; he has given me understanding, and has put in my heart a high dream of justice and love; why will he not show me that he satisfies the dream? i say with the old psalmist, "lo, i come," but he comes not forth to meet me; he does not even seem to discern me when i am yet a long way off, as the father in the parable discerned his erring son. then the christian teacher says to me that all is revealed in christ; that he reconciles, not an angry god to a wilful world, but a grieved and outraged world to a god who cannot show them he is love. yet christ said that god was all-merciful and all-loving, and that he ordered the very falling of a single hair of our heads. but if god ordered that, then he did not leave unordered the qualities of our hearts and wills, and our very sins are of his devising. no, it is all dark and desperate; i do not know, i cannot know; i shall stumble to my end in ignorance; sometimes glad when a gleam of sunshine falls on my wearied limbs, sometimes wrapping my garments around me in cold and drenching rain. i am in the hand of god; i know that; and i hope that i may dare to trust him; but my confidence is shaken as he passes over me, as the reed in the river shakes in the wind. february , . a still february day, with a warm, steady sun, which stole in and caressed me, enveloping me in light and warmth, as i sate reading this morning. if i could be ashamed of anything, i should be ashamed of the fact that my body has all day long surprised me by a sort of indolent contentment, repeating over and over that it is glad to be alive. the mind and soul crave for death and silence. yet all the while my faithful and useful friend, the body, seems to croon a low song of delight. that is the worst of it, that i seem built for many years of life. shall i learn to forget? i walked long and far among the fields, in the fresh, sun-warmed air. ah! the sweet world! everything was at its barest and austerest--the grass thin in the pastures, the copses leafless. but such a sense of hidden life everywhere! i stood long beside the gate to watch the new-born lambs, whose cries thrilled plaintively on the air, like the notes of a violin. little black-faced grey creatures, on their high, stilt-like legs--a week or two old, and yet able to walk, to gambol, to rejoice, in their way, to reflect. the bleating mothers moved about, divided between a deep desire to eat, and the anxious care of their younglings. one of them stood over her sleeping lamb, stamping her feet, to dismay me, no doubt, while the little creature lay like a folded door-mat on the pasture. another brutally repelled the advances of a strange lamb, butting it over whenever it drew near; another chewed the cud, while its lamb sucked, its eyes half closed in contented joy, just turning from time to time to sniff at the little creature pressed close to its side. i felt as if i had never seen the sight before, this wonderful and amazing drama of life, beginning again year after year, the same, yet not the same. the old shepherd came out with his crook, said a few words to me, and moved off, the ewes following him, the lambs skipping behind. "he shall feed me in a green pasture, and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort." how perfectly beautiful and tender the image, a thing seen how many hundred years ago on the hills of bethlehem, and touching the old heart just as it touches me to-day! and yet, alas, to me to-day the image seems to miss the one thing needful; how all the images of guide and guardian and shepherd fail when applied to god! for here the shepherd is but a little wiser, a little stronger than his flock. he sees their difficulties, he feels them himself. but with god, he is at once the guide, and the creator of the very dangers past which he would lead us. if we felt that god himself were dismayed and sad in the presence of evils that he could not touch or remedy, we should turn to him to help us as he best could. but while we feel that the very perplexities and sufferings come from his hand, how can we sincerely ask him to guard us from things which he originates, or at least permits? why should they be there at all, if his concern is to help us past them; or how can we think that he will lead us past them, when they are part of his wise and awful design? and thus one plunges again into the darkness. can it indeed be that god, if he be all-embracing, all-loving, all-powerful, can create or allow to arise within himself something that is not, himself, alien to him, hostile to him? how can we believe in him and trust him, if this indeed be so? and yet, looking upon that little flock to-day, i did indeed feel the presence of a kind and fatherly heart, of something that grieved for my pain, and that laid a hand upon my shoulder, saying, "son, endure for a little; be not so disquieted!" march , . something--far-off, faint, joyful--cried out suddenly in the depths of my spirit to-day. i felt--i can but express it by images, for it was too intangible for direct utterance--as a woman feels when her child's life quickens within her; as a traveller's heart leaps up when, lost among interminable hills, he is hailed by a friendly voice; as the river-water, thrust up into creeks and estuaries by the incoming tide, is suddenly freed by the ebb from that stealthy pressure, and flows gladly downwards; as the dark garden-ground may feel when the frozen soil melts under warm winds of spring, and the flower-roots begin to swell and shoot. some such thrill it was that moved in the silence of the soul, showing that the darkness was alive. it came upon me as i walked among soft airs to-day. it was no bodily lightness that moved me, for i was unstrung, listless, indolent; but it was a sense that it was good to live, lonely and crushed as i was; that there was something waiting for me which deserved to be approached with a patient expectation--that life was enriched, rather than made desolate by my grief and losses; that i had treasure laid up in heaven. it came upon me as a fancy, but it was something better than that, that one or other of my dear ones had perhaps awaked in the other world, and had sent out a thought in search of me. i had often thought that if, when we are born into this world of ours, our first years are so dumb and unperceptive, it might be even so in the world beyond; that we are there allowed to rest a little, to sleep; and that has seemed to me to be perhaps the explanation why, in those first sad days of grief, when the mourner aches to have some communication with the vanished soul, and when the soul that has passed the bounds of life would be desiring too, one would think, to send some message back, why, i say, there is no voice nor hint nor sign. perhaps the reason why our grief loses its sting after a season is that the soul we have loved does contrive to send some healing influence into the desolate heart. i know not; but as i stood upon the hill-top to-day at evening, the setting sun gilding the cloud-edges, and touching the horizon with a delicate misty azure, my spirit did indeed awake with a smile, with a murmured word of hope. if i, who have lost everything that can enrich and gladden life, can yet feel that inalienable residue of hope, which just turns the balance on the side of desiring still to live, it must be that life has something yet in store for me--i do not hope for love, i do not desire the old gift of expression again; but there is something to learn, to apprehend, to understand. i have learnt, i think, not to grasp at anything, not to clasp anything close to my heart; the dream of possession has fled from me; it will be enough if, as i learn the lesson, i can ease a few burdens and help frail feet along the road. duty, pleasure, work--strange names which we give to life, perversely separating the strands of the woven thread, they hold no meaning for me now--i do not expect to be free from suffering or from grief; but i will no more distinguish them from other experiences saying, this is joyful, and i will take all i can, or this is sad, and i will fly from it. i will take life whole, not divide it into pieces and choose. my grief shall be like a silent chapel, lit with holy light, into which i shall often enter, and bend, not to frame mechanical prayers, but to submit myself to the still influence of the shrine. it is all my own now, a place into which no other curious eye can penetrate, a guarded sanctuary. my sorrow seems to have plucked me with a strong hand out of the swirling drift of cares, anxieties, ambitions, hopes; and i see now that i could not have rescued myself; that i should have gone on battling with the current, catching at the river wrack, in the hopes of saving something from the stream. now i am face to face with god; he saves me from myself, he strips my ragged vesture from me and i stand naked as he made me, unashamed, nestling close to his heart. april , . a truth which has come home to me of late with a growing intensity is that we are sent into the world for the sake of experience, not necessarily for the sake of immediate happiness. i feel that the mistake we most of us make is in reaching out after a sense of satisfaction; and even if we learn to do without that, we find it very difficult to do without the sense of conscious growth. i say again that what we need and profit by is experience, and sometimes that comes by suffering, helpless, dreary, apparently meaningless suffering. yet when pain subsides, do we ever, does any one ever wish the suffering had not befallen us? i think not. we feel better, stronger, more pure, more serene for it. sometimes we get experience by living what seems to be an uncongenial life. one cannot solve the problem of happiness by simply trying to turn out of one's life whatever is uncongenial. life cannot be made into an earthly paradise, and it injures one's soul even to try. what we can turn out of our lives are the unfruitful, wasteful, conventional things; and one can follow what seems the true life, though one may mistake even that sometimes. one of the commonest mistakes nowadays is that so many people are haunted with a vague sense that they ought to do good, as they say. the best that most people can do is to perform their work and their obvious duties well and conscientiously. if we realise that experience is what we need, and not necessarily happiness or contentment, the whole value of life is altered. we see then that we can get as much or even more out of the futile hour when we are held back from our chosen delightful work, even out of the dreary or terrified hour, when the sense of some irrevocable neglect, some base surrender that has marred our life, sinks burning into the soul, as a hot ember sinks smoking into a carpet. those are the hours of life when we move and climb; not the hours when we work, and eat, and laugh, and chat, and dine out with a sense of well-merited content. the value of life is not to be measured by length of days or success or tranquillity, but by the quality of our experience, and the degree in which we have profited by it. in the light of such a truth as this, art seems to fade away as just a pleasant amusement contrived by leisurely men for leisurely men. then, further, one grows to feel that such easy happiness as comes to us may be little more than the sweetening of the bitter medicine, just enough to give us courage and heart to live on; that applies, of course, only to the commoner sorts of happiness, when one is busy and merry and self-satisfied. some sorts of happiness, such as the best kind of affection, are parts of the larger experience. then, if we take hold of such experience in the right way, welcoming it as far as possible, not resisting it or trying to beguile it or forget it, we can get to the end of our probation quicker; if, that is, we let the truth burn into us, instead of timidly shrinking away from it. this seems to me the essence of true religion; the people who cling very close to particular creeds and particular beliefs seem to me to lose robustness; it is like trying to go to heaven in a bath-chair! it retards rather than hastens the apprehension of the truth. here lies, to my mind, the unreality of mystical books of devotion and piety, where one is instructed to practise a servile sort of abasement, and to beg forgiveness for all one's noblest efforts and aspirations. neither can i believe that the mystical absorption, inculcated by such books, in the human personality, the human sufferings of christ, is wholesome, or natural, or even christian. i cannot imagine that christ himself ever recommended such a frame of mind for an instant. what we want is a much simpler sort of christianity. if a man had gone to christ and expressed a desire to follow him, christ, i believe, would have wanted to know whether he loved others, whether he hated sin, whether he trusted god. he would not have asked him to recite the articles of his belief, and still less have suggested a mystical and emotional sort of passion for his own person. as least i cannot believe it, and i see nothing in the gospels which would lead me to believe it. in any case this belief in our experience being sent us for our far-off ultimate benefit has helped me greatly of late, and will, i am sure, help me still more. i do not practise it as i should, but i believe with all my heart that the truth lies there. after all, the truth is there; it matters little that we should know it; it is just so and not otherwise, and what we believe or do not believe about it, will not alter it; and that is a comfort too. april , . after i had gone upstairs to bed last night, i found i had left a book downstairs which i was reading, and i went down again to recover it. i could not find any matches, and had some difficulty in getting hold of the book; it is humiliating to think how much one depends on sight. a whimsical idea struck me. imagine a creature, highly intellectual, but without the power of sight, brought up in darkness, receiving impressions solely by hearing and touch. suppose him introduced into a room such as mine, and endeavouring to form an impression of the kind of creature who inhabited it. chairs, tables, even a musical instrument he could interpret; but what would he make of a writing-table and its apparatus? how would he guess at the use of a picture? strangest of all, what would he think of books? he would find in my room hundreds of curious oblong objects, opening with a sort of hinge, and containing a series of laminae of paper, which he would discern by his delicacy of touch to be oddly and obscurely dinted. yet he would probably never be able to frame a guess that such objects could be used for the communication of intellectual ideas. what would he suppose them to be? the thought expanded before me. what if we ourselves, in this world of ours, which seems to us so complete, may really be creatures lacking some further sense, which would make all our difficulties plain? we knock up against all sorts of unintelligible and inexplicable things, injustice, disease, pain, evil, of which we cannot divine the meaning or the use. yet they are undoubtedly there! perhaps it is only that we cannot discern the simplicity and the completeness of the heavenly house of which they are the furniture. fanciful, of course; but i am inclined to think not wholly fanciful. may , . the question is this: is there a kind of peace, of tranquillity, attainable in this world, which is proof against all calamities, sufferings, sorrows, losses, doubts? is it attainable for one like myself, who is sensitive, apprehensive, highly strung, at once confident and timid, alive to impressions, liable to swift changes of mood? or is it a mere matter of mental, moral, and physical health, depending on some balance of qualities, which may or may not belong to a man, a balance which hundreds cannot attain to? by this peace, i do not mean a chilly indifference, or a stoical fortitude. i do not mean the religious peace, such as i see in some people, which consists in holding as a certainty a scheme of things which i believe to be either untrue or uncertain--and about which, at all events, no certainty is logically and rationally possible. the peace i mean is a frame of mind which a man would have, who loved passionately, who suffered acutely, who desired intensely, who feared greatly; and yet for whom, behind love and pain, desire and fear, there existed a sort of inner citadel, in which his soul was entrenched and impregnable. such a security could not be a wholly rational thing, because reason cannot solve the enigmas with which we are confronted; but it must not be an irrational intuition either, because then it would be unattainable by a man of high intellectual gifts; and the peace that i speak of ought to be consistent with any and every constitution--physical, moral, mental. it must be consistent with physical weakness, with liability to strong temptations, with an incisive and penetrating intellectual quality; its essence would be a sort of vital faith, a unity of the individual heart with the heart of the world. it would rise like a rock above the sea, like a lighthouse, where a guarded flame would burn high and steady, however loudly the surges thundered below upon the reefs, however fiercely the spray was dashed against the glasses of the casements. if it is attainable, then it is worth while to do and to suffer anything to attain it; if it is not attainable, then the best thing is simply to be as insensible as possible, not to love, not to admire, not to desire; for all these emotions are channels along which the bitter streams of suffering can flow. prudence bids one close these channels; meanwhile a fainter and remoter voice, with sweet and thrilling accents, seems to cry to one not to be afraid, urges one to fling open every avenue by which impassioned experiences, uplifting thoughts, noble hopes, unselfish desires, may flow into the soul. this peace i have seen, or dream that i have seen, in the faces and voices of certain gracious spirits whom i have known. it seemed to consist in an unbounded natural gratitude, a sweet simplicity, a childlike affectionateness, that recognised in suffering the joy of which it was the shadow, and in desperate catastrophes the hope that lay behind them. such a peace must not be a surrender of anything, a feeble acquiescence; it must be a strong and eager energy, a thirst for experience, a large tolerance, a desire to be convinced, a resolute patience. it is this and no less that i ask of god. june , . i had a beautiful walk to-day. i went a short way by train, and descending at a wayside station, found a little field-path, that led me past an old, high-gabled, mullioned farmhouse, with all the pleasant litter of country life about it. then i passed along some low-lying meadows, deep in grass, where the birds sang sweetly, muffled in leaves. the fields there were all full of orchids, purple as wine, and the gold of buttercups floated on the top of the rich meadow-grass. then i passed into a wood, and for a long time i walked in the green glooms of copses, in a forest stillness, only the tall trees rustling softly overhead, with doves cooing deep in the wood. only once i passed a house, a little cottage of grey stone, in a clearing, with an air of settled peace about it, that reminded me of an old sweet book that i used to read as a child, phantastes, full of the mysterious romance of deep forests and haunted glades. i was overshadowed that afternoon with a sense of the ineffectiveness, the loneliness of my life, walking in a vain shadow; but it melted out of my mind in the delicate beauty of the woodland, with its wild fragrances and cool airs, as when one chafes one's frozen hands before a leaping flame. they told me, those whispering groves, of the patient and tender love of the father, and i drew very near his inmost heart in that gentle hour. the secret was to bear, to endure, not stoically nor stolidly, but with a quiet inclination of the will to sorrow and pain, that were not so bitter after all, when one abode faithfully in them. i became aware, as i walked, that my heart was with the future after all. the beautiful dead past, i could be grateful for it, and not desire that it were mine again. i felt as a man might feel who is making his way across a wide moor. "surely," he says to himself, "the way lies here; this ridge, that dingle mark the track; it lies there by the rushy pool, and shows greener among the heather." so he says, persuading himself in vain that he has found the way; but at last the track, plain and unmistakable, lies before him, and he loses no more time in imaginings, but goes straight forward. it was my sorrow, after all, that had shown me that i was in the true path. i had tried, in the old days, to fancy that i was homeward bound; sometimes it was in the love of my dear ones, sometimes in the joy of art, sometimes in my chosen work; and yet i knew in my heart all the time that i was but a leisurely wanderer; but now at last the destined road was clear; i was no longer astray; i was no longer inventing duties and acts for myself, but i had in very truth a note of the way. it was not the path i should have chosen in my blindness and easiness. but there could no longer be any doubt about it. how the false ambitions, the comfortable schemes, the trivial hopes melted away for me in that serene certainty! what i had pursued before was the phantom of delight; and though i still desired delight, with all the passion of my poor frail nature, yet i saw that not thus could the real joy of god be won. it was no longer a question of hope and disappointment, of sin and punishment. it was something truer and stronger than that. the sin and the suffering alike had been the will of god for me. i had never desired evil, though i had often fallen into it; but there was never a moment when, if i could, i would not have been pure and unselfish and strong. that was a blessed hour for me, when, in place of the old luxurious delight, there came, flooding my heart, an intense and passionate desire that i might accept with a loving confidence whatever god might send; my wearied body, my tired, anxious mind, were but a slender veil, rent and ruinous, that hung between god and my soul, through which i could discern the glory of his love. june , . it was on a warm, bright summer afternoon that i woke to the sense both of what i had lost and what i had gained. i had wandered out into the country, for in those days i had a great desire to be alone. i stood long beside a stile in the pastures, a little village below me, and the gables and chimneys of an old farmhouse stood up over wide fields of young waving wheat. a cuckoo fluted in an elm close by, and at the sound there darted into my mind the memory, seen in an airy perspective, of innumerable happy and careless days, spent in years long past, with eager and light-hearted companions, in whose smiling eyes and caressing motions was reflected one's own secret happiness. how full the world seemed of sweet surprises then! to sit in an evening hour in some quiet, scented garden in the gathering dusk, with the sense of a delicious mystery flashing from the light movements, the pensive eyes, the curve of arm or cheek of one's companion, how beautiful that was! and yet how simple and natural it seemed. that was all over and gone, and a gulf seemed fixed between those days and these. and then there came first that sad and sweet regret, "the passion of the past," as tennyson called it, that suddenly brimmed the eyes at the thought of the vanished days; and there followed an intense desire to live in it once again, to have made more of it, a rebellious longing to abandon oneself with a careless disregard to the old rapture. then on that mood, rising like a star into the blue spaces of the evening, came the thought that the old days were not dead after all. that they were assuredly there, just as the future was there, a true part of oneself, ineffaceable, eternal. and hard on the heels of that came another and a deeper intuition still, that not in such delights did the secret really rest; what then was the secret? it was surely this: that one must advance, led onward like a tottering child by the strong arm of god. that the new knowledge of suffering and sorrow was as beautiful as the old, and more so, and that instead of repining over the vanished joys, one might continue to rejoice in them and even rejoice in having lost them, for i seemed to perceive that one's aim was not, after all, to be lively, and joyful, and strong, but to be wiser, and larger-minded, and more hopeful, even at the expense of delight. and then i saw that i would not really for any price part with the sad wisdom that i had reluctantly learnt, but that though the burden galled my shoulder, it held within it precious things which i could not throw away. and i had, too, the glad sense that even if in a childish petulance i would have laid my burden down and run off among the flowers, god was stronger than i, and would not suffer me to lose what i had gained. i might, i assuredly should, wish to be more free, more light of heart. but i seemed to myself like a woman that had borne a child in suffering, and that no matter how restless and vexatious a care that child might prove to be, under no conceivable circumstances could she wish that she were barren and without the experience of love. i felt indeed that i had fulfilled a part of my destiny, and that i might be glad that the suffering was behind me, even though it separated me from the careless days. i hope that in after days i may sometimes make a pilgrimage to the place where that wonderful truth thus dawned upon me. i have made a tabernacle there in my spirit, like the saints who saw the lord transfigured before their eyes; and to me it had been indeed a transfiguration, in which love and sorrow and hope had been touched with an unearthly light of god. june , . yesterday i was walking in a field-path through the meadows; it was just that time in early summer when the grass is rising, when flowers appear in little groups and bevies. there was a patch of speedwell, like a handful of sapphires cast down. why does one's heart go out to certain flowers, flowers which seem to have some message for us if we could but read it? a little way from the path i saw a group of absolutely unknown flower-buds; they were big, pale things, looking more like pods than flowers, growing on tall stems. i hate crushing down meadow-grass, but i could not resist my impulse of curiosity. i walked up to them, and just as i was going to bend down and look at them, lo and behold, all my flowers opened before my eyes as by a concerted signal, spread wings of the richest blue, and fluttered away before my eyes. they were nothing more than a company of butterflies who, tired of play, had fallen asleep together with closed wings on the high grass-stems. there they had sate, like folded promises, hiding their azure sheen. perhaps even now my hopes sit motionless and lifeless, in russet robes. perhaps as i draw dully near, they may spring suddenly to life, and dance away in the sunshine, like fragments of the crystalline sky. july , . i was in town last week for a few days on some necessary business, staying with old friends. two or three people came in to dine one night, and afterwards, i hardly know how, i found myself talking with a curious openness to one of the guests, a woman whom i only slightly knew. she is a very able and cultivated woman indeed, and it was a surprise to her friends when she lately became a christian scientist. when i have met her before, i have thought her a curiously guarded personality, appearing to live a secret and absorbing life of her own, impenetrable, and holding up a shield of conventionality against the world. to-night she laid down her shield, and i saw the beating of a very pure and loving heart. the text of her talk was that we should never allow ourselves to believe in our limitations, because they did not really exist. i found her, to my surprise, intensely emotional, with a passionate disbelief in and yet pity for all sorrow and suffering. she appealed to me to take up christian science--"not to read or talk about it," she said; "that is no use: it is a life, not a theory; just accept it, and live by it, and you will find it true." but there is one part of me that rebels against the whole idea of christian science--my reason. i found, or thought i found, this woman to be wise both in head and heart, but not wise in mind. it seems to me that pain and sorrow and suffering are phenomena, just as real as other phenomena; and that one does no good by denying them, but only by accepting them, and living in them and through them. one might as truly, it seems, take upon oneself to deny that there was any such colour as red in the world, and tell people that whenever they saw or discerned any tinge of red, it was a delusion; one can only use one's faculty of perception; and if sorrow and suffering are a delusion, how do i know that love and joy are not delusions too? they must stand and fall together. the reason why i believe that joy and love will in the end triumph, is because i have, because we all have, an instinctive desire for them, and a no less instinctive fear and dread of pain and sorrow. we may, indeed i believe with all my heart that we shall, emerge from them, but they are no less assuredly there. we triumph over them, when we learn to live bravely and courageously in them, when we do not seek to evade them or to hasten incredulously away from them. we fail, if we spend our time in repining, in regretting, in wishing the sweet and tranquil hours of untroubled joy back. we are not strong enough to desire the cup of suffering, even though we may know that we must drink it before we can discern the truth. but we may rejoice with a deep-seated joy, in the dark hours, that the hand of god is heavy upon us. when our vital energies flag, when what we thought were our effective powers languish and grow faint, then we may be glad because the father is showing us his will; and then our sorrow is a fruitful sorrow, and labours, as the swelling seed labours in the sombre earth to thrust her slender hands up to the sun and air. . . . we two sate long in a corner of the quiet lamp-lit room, talking like old friends--once or twice our conversation was suspended by music, which fell like dew upon my parched heart; and though i could not accept my fellow-pilgrim's thought, i could see in the glance of her eyes, full of pity and wonder, that we were indeed faring along the same strange road to the paradise of god. it did me good, that talk; it helped me with a sense of sweet and tender fellowship; and i had no doubt that god was teaching my friend in his own fatherly way, even as he was teaching me, and all of us. july , . in one of the great windows of king's college chapel, cambridge, there is a panel the beauty of which used to strike me even as a boy. i used to wonder what further thing it meant. it was, i believe--i may be wholly wrong--a picture of reuben, looking in an agony of unavailing sorrow into the pit from which his brothers had drawn the boy they hated to sell him to the midianites. i cannot recollect the details plainly, and little remains but a memory of dim-lit azure and glowing scarlet. even though the pit was quaintly depicted as a draw-well, with a solid stone coping, the pretty absurdity of the thought only made one love the fancy better. but the figure of reuben!--even through an obscuring mist of crossing leads and window-bars and weather stains, there was a poignant agony wrought into the pose of the figure, with its clasped hands and strained gaze. i used to wonder, i say, what further thing it meant. for the deep spell of art is that it holds an intenser, a wider significance beneath its symbols than the mere figure, the mere action it displays. what was the remorse of reuben? it was that through his weakness, his complaisance, he had missed his chance of protecting what was secretly dear to him. he loved the boy, i think, or at all events he loved his father, and would not willingly have hurt the old man. and now, even in his moment of yielding, of temporising, the worst had happened, the child was gone, delivered over to what baseness of usage he could not bear to think. he himself had been a traitor to love and justice and light; and yet, in the fruitful designs of god, that very traitorous deed was to blossom into the hope and glory of the race; the deed itself was to be tenderly forgiven, and it was to open up, in the fulness of days, a prospect of greatness and prosperity to the tribe, to fling the seed of that mighty family in soil where it was to be infinitely enriched; it was to open the door at last to a whole troop of great influences, marvellous events, large manifestations of god. even so, in a parable, the figure came insistently before me all day, shining and fading upon the dark background of the mind. it was at the loss of my own soul that i had connived; not at its death indeed--i had not plotted for that--but i had betrayed myself, i saw, year by year. i had despised the dreams and visions of the frail and ingenuous spirit; and when it had come out trustfully to me in the wilderness, i had let it fall into the hands of the midianites, the purloining band that trafficked in all things, great and small, from the beast of the desert to the bodies and souls of men. my soul had thus lain expiring before my eyes, and now god had taken it away from my faithless hands; i saw at last that to save the soul one must assuredly lose it; that if it was to grow strong and joyful and wise, it must be sold into servitude and dark afflictions. i saw that when i was too weak to save it, god had rent it from me, but that from the darkness of the pit it should fare forth upon a mighty voyage, and be made pure and faithful in a region undreamed of. to reuben was left nothing but shame and sorrow of heart and deceit to hide his sin; unlike him, to me was given to see, beyond the desert and the dwindling line of camels, the groves and palaces of the land of wisdom, whither my sad soul was bound, lonely and dismayed. my heart went out to the day of reconciliation, when i should be forgiven with tears of joy for my own faltering treachery, when my soul should be even grateful for my weakness, because from that very faithlessness, and from no other, should the new life be born. and thus with a peaceful hope that lay beyond shame and sorrow alike, as the shining plain lies out beyond the broken crags of the weary mountain, i gave myself utterly into the hands of the father of all. he was close beside me that day, upholding, comforting, enriching me. not hidden in clouds from which the wrathful trumpet pealed, but walking with a tender joy, in a fragrance of love, in the garden, at the cool of the day. august , . mr. ---- is dead. he died yesterday, holding my hand. the end was quite sudden, though not unexpected. he had been much weaker of late, and he knew he could only live a short time. i have been much with him these last few days. he could not talk much, but there was a peaceful glory on his face which made me think of the pilgrims in the pilgrim's progress whose call was so joyful. i never suspected how little desire he had to live; but when he knew that his days were numbered, he allowed something of his delight to escape him, as a prisoner might who has borne his imprisonment bravely and sees his release draw nigh. he suffered a good deal, but each pang was to him only like the smiting off of chains. "i have had a very happy life," he said to me once with a smile. "looking back, it seems as though my later happiness had soaked backwards through the whole fabric, so that my joy in age has linked itself as by a golden bridge to the old childish raptures." then he looked curiously at me, with a half-smile, and added, "but happy as i have been, i find it in my heart to envy you. you hardly know how much you are to be envied. you have no more partings to fear; your beautiful past is all folded up, to be creased and tarnished no more. you have had the love of wife and child--the one thing that i have missed. you have had fame too; and you have drunk far deeper of the cup of suffering than i. i look upon you," he said laughingly, "as an old home-keeping captain, who has never done anything but garrison duty, might look upon a young general who has carried through a great campaign and is covered with signs of honour." a little while after he roused himself from a slumber to say, "you will be surprised to find yourself named in my will; please don't have any scruples about accepting the inheritance. i want my niece, of course, to reign in my stead; but if you outlive her, all is to go to you. i want you to live on in this place, to stand by her in her loneliness, as a brother by a sister. i want you to help and work for my dear people here, to be tender and careful for them. there are many things that a man can do which a woman cannot; and your difficulty will be to find a hem for your life. remember that there is no one who is injured by this--my niece is my only living relation; so accept this as your post in life; it will not be a hard one. it is strange," he added, "that one should cling to such trifles; but i should like you to take my name, if you will; and you must find some one to succeed you; i wish it could have been your own boy, whom i have learnt to love." miss ---- came in shortly after, and mr. ---- said to her, "yes, i have told him, and he consents. you do consent, do you not?" i said, "yes, dear friend, of course i consent; and consent gratefully, for you have given me a work in the world." and then i took miss ----'s hand across the bed and kissed it; the old man laid his hands upon our heads very tenderly and said, "brother and sister to the end." i thought he was tired then, and made as if to leave him, but he said, "do not go, my son." he lay smiling to himself, as if well pleased. then a sudden change came over his face, and i saw that he was going; we knelt beside him, and his last words were words of blessing. october , . this book has been my companion through some very strange, sad, terrible, and joyful hours; my faithful companion, my silent friend, my true confessor. i have felt the need of utterance, the imperative instinct--the most primitive, the most childish of instincts--to tell my pains and hopes and dreams. i could not utter them, at the time, to another. i could not let the voice of my groaning reach the ears of any human being. perhaps it would have been better for us both, if i could have said it all to my dearest maud. but a sort of courtesy forbade my redoubling my monotonous lamentations; her burden was heavy enough without that. i can hardly dignify it with the name of manliness or chivalry, because my frame of mind during those first months, when i lost the power of writing, was purely despicable; and then, too, i did not want sympathy; i wanted help; and help no one but god could give me; half my time was spent in a kind of dumb prayer to him, that he would give me some sort of strength, some touch of courage; for a helpless cowardice was the note of my frame of mind. well, he has sent me strength--i recognise that now--not by lightening the load, but by making it insupportably heavy and yet showing me that i had the strength to carry it; i am still in the dark as to why i deserved so sore a punishment, and i cannot yet see that the loneliness to which he has condemned me is the help that is proportioned to my need. but i walk no longer in a vain shadow. i have known affliction by the rod of his wrath. but the darkness in which i walk is not the darkness of thickening gloom, but the darkness of the breaking day. and then, too, i suppose that writing down my thoughts from day to day just eased the dumb pain of inaction, as the sick man shifts himself in his bed. anyhow it is written, and it shall stand as a record. but now i shall write no more. i shall slip gratefully and securely into the crowd of inarticulate and silent men and women, the vast majority, after all, of humanity. one who like myself has the consciousness of receiving from moment to moment sharp and clear impressions from everything on earth, people, houses, fields, trees, clouds, is beset by a kind of torturing desire to shape it all in words and phrases. why, i know not! it is the desire, i suppose, to make some record of what seems so clear, so distinct, so beautiful, so interesting. one cannot bear that one impression that seems so vivid and strange should be lost and perish. it is the artistic instinct, no doubt. and then one passes through the streets of a great city, and one becomes aware that of the thousands that pass one by, perhaps only one or two have the same instinct, and even they are bound to silence by circumstance, by lack of opportunity. the rest--life is enough for them; hunger and thirst, love and strife, hope and fear, that is their daily meat. and life, i doubt not, is what we are set to taste. of all those thousands, some few have the desire, and fewer still the power, to stand apart from the throng. these are not content with the humdrum life of earning a livelihood, of forming ties, of passing the time as pleasantly as they can. they desire rather to be felt, to exercise influence, to mould others to their will, to use them for their convenience. i have had little temptation to do that, but my life has been poisoned at its source, i now discern, by the desire to differentiate myself from others. i could not walk faithfully in the procession; i was as one who likes to sit securely in his window above the street, noting all that he sees, sketching all that strikes his fancy, hugging his pleasure at being apart from and superior to the ordinary run of mortals. here lay my chiefest fault, that i could not bear a humble hand, but looked upon my wealth, my loving circle, as things that should fence me from the throng. i lived in a paradise of my own devising. but now i have put that all aside for ever. i will live the life of a learner; i will be docile if i can. i might indeed have been stripped of everything, bidden to join the humblest tribe of workers for daily bread. but god has spared my weakness, and i should be faithless indeed, if, seeing how intently his will has dealt with me, i did not recognise the clear guiding of his hand. he has given me a place and a quiet work to do; these strange bereavements, one after another, have not hardened me. i feel the bonds of love for those whom i have lost drawn closer every hour. they are waiting for me, i am sure of that. it is not reason, it is not faith which prompts me; it is a far deeper and stronger instinct, which i could not doubt if i would. what wonder if i look forward with an eager and an ardent hope to death. i can conceive no more welcome tidings than the tidings that death was at hand. but i do not expect to die. my health of body is almost miraculously preserved. what i dare to hope is that i may learn by slow degrees to set the happiness of others above my own. i will listen for any sound of grief or discontent, and i will try to quiet it. i will spend my time and strength as freely as i can. that is a far-off hope. one cannot in a moment break through the self-consideration of a lifetime. but whereas, before, my dim sense that happiness could not be found by deliberately searching for ease made me half rebellious, half uncomfortable, i know now that it is true, and i will turn my back if i can upon that lonely and unsatisfied quest. i did indeed--i can honestly say that--desire with a passionate intentness the happiness of maud and the children; but i think i desired it most in order that the sunshine of their happiness should break in warmth and light upon myself. it will be hard enough--i can see that--not to labour still for the sake of the ultimate results upon my own peace of mind. but in my deepest heart i do not desire to do that, and i will not, god helping me. and so to-day, having read the whole record once again, with blinding tears, tears of love, i think, not tears of self-pity, i will close the book and write no more. but i will not destroy it, because it may help some soul that may come after me, into whose hands it may fall, to struggle on in the middle of sorrow and darkness. to him will i gladly reveal all that god has done for my soul. that poor, pitiful, shrinking soul, with all its faint desires after purity and nobleness and peace, all its self-wrought misery, all its unhappy failures, all its secret faults, its undiscerned weaknesses, i put humbly and confidently in the hands of the god who made me. i cannot amend myself, but i can at least co-operate with his loving will. i can stumble onwards, with my hand in his, like a timid child with a strong and loving father. i may wish to be lifted in his arms, i may wonder why he does not have more pity on my frailty. but i can believe that he is leading me home, and that his way is the best and nearest. the end brite and fair by henry a. shute author of "the real diary of a real boy" illustrated by worth brehm cosmopolitan book corporation new york mcmxx copyright, by cosmopolitan book corporation all rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the scandinavian printed in u.s.a. brite and fair june th, ---sunday nite. i have been to chirch and sunday school today, not to the unitarial. we are going to the congrigasional now becaus keene and cele are singing in the quire. so we go there. i had ruther go to the unitarial becaus beany and pewt go there. beany blows the organ and sumtimes he peeks out behine the organ and maiks a feerful face and maiks everybody laff. once beany he thummed his nose to old chipper burly. chipper he was the sunday school supperintendent and was beeting time for the scholers to sing and chipper he tirned round quick and see beany, and chipper he jest hipered into the organ log and grabed beany by the coler and yanked him out of the lof and wauked him out of the chirch. then he got micky goold to blow the organ and beany he lost his gob for sundays, but micky went to sleep or times and snoared feerful and they had to waik him up and once he hollered rite out loud. so mickey he lost his gob and they got beany back. they tride pewt and then game ey watson, beanys brother but they was wirse than micky. so they hired beany. he is the best and only lets the wind out one or two times every sunday and the organ sounds like a goos but that aint so bad as going to sleep and hollering goldarn it lemme alone is it? we had a new minister today, miser larned has gone away for all summer. the new minister preeched about not killing flise and buggs and wirms and bumbelbeas and yeller jacket hornits. he sed they had a rite to live jest as mutch as peeple and we hadent augt to kill them. i spose it is all rite to let a muskeeter or flee or one of them cornered flise that hangs round a swimmin hole bite you terrible and not even yip. how about bedbugs. june , ---today is washing day and i had to lug about a million pales of water for old mis dire, sams mother whitch comes over mondays. her hands is all sriveled up they has been in hot water so mutch. mother she sed that was the reason when i asted her and father he laffed and sed he had been in hot water all his life and he wasent sriveled a bit. mother she laffed two. father aint sriveled for he weigs lbs. i gess he dident meen that kind of hot water eether. i am tired most to deth tonite. june , ---brite and fair. i went fishing today with potter goram in the morning and was going again in the afternoon but i dident get home in time to help them flap flise out of the dining room and mother woodent let me go to pay me for being lait. darn it. every day we have to flap flise out of the dining room. we all grab our flapers and begin to flap from one end of the room to the other flaping them into the kitchen. then we shet the doors and keep them out. it is fun flaping for most always i can give keene a good bat in the ear with a flaper when she aint looking. then she gives me one on the snoot and then we jest go at it til mother stops us. she maiks us take tirns now. ferst it is me and cele and then it is cele and keene. it is never me and keen any more. mother says we fite enuf without fiting when there is china and crockery and glass round and things to eat two. ennyway it is tuf on cele to have to do it all the time becaus she is good and dont fite. i told mother what old mister minister sed and mother she sed that if old mister minister had to fite flise for every mossel of food he et she gessed he woodent say mutch about not killing them. aunt sarah she sed so two. flise is wirse this summer. we have got a new set of fli screnes. little ones for the butter plates, bigger ones for the sass plates and some grate big ones for the meat plates and the cake basket. we had to get them becaus the old ones was woar out and i took the big one and kept a young robin in nearly a week and mother maid me let him go and never wood use the screne again. we tride to have muzlin screnes to the wiinders but the cat and the dog jumped through them if the doors was shet. mother says she dont know what she will do if the flise get enny wirse. june , ---it raned last nite. brite and fair today. it raned hard and the sidewalks was filed with pudles of water. me and beany had lots of fun spatering peeple. the way we do it is this. when we see sum peeple waulking on the sidewaulks we run by them fast and stamp hard in the pudles and the water spaters all over them. we dont do it to wimmen and girls. but we do to men and fellers. it is lots of fun to hear them sware. beany got bats in the ear and a kick and i got bats in the ear and kicks. so i beat beany. one of the kicks was a peeler. ennyway we had lots of fun. today all the fellers and girls got a letter from old mister minister and it had in it a peace of poetry like this do you know how menny flise fli about in the warm sun how menny fishes in the water god has counted eevry one every one he called by naim when into the wirld it caime. there was a lot moar to it but i aint got no time to wright enny moar of such stuf as that. i showed it to mother and she said when he got older peraps he wood know moar. june , ---clowdy today. jest the day to go fishing but i had to ho in the garden. if it had raned i coodent ho the beans becaus if you ho when it is wet they will be all covered with black specks like whacker chadwick had when he had the measles. i have et them like that and they taist jest like those yeller spots in creem tarter bisquit when it gets way in a corner of your mouth up under your ear on the inside and you cant reech it with a drink of water. ennyway it dident rane and i had to ho whitch is jest my luck. mother let me go at oh clock to go in swimming with the chadwicks and potter and skinny bruce. we had sum fun tying gnots in skinnys shert sleev. we bet skinny coodent swim across under water and while he was doing it we wet his shert sleves and tide hard gnots in them. skinny coodent unty them becaus he aint got enny front teeth. most of the fellers can unty gnots eesy with their teeth but skinny had to go home with his shert tide around his neck and his jacket buttened up tite. the cornered flise has come and bit skinny terrible while he was trying to get into his shert. i hollered oh skinny, do you know how meny flise fli about in the warm sun and skinny he up and chased me as far as gilmans barn and wood have chased me further but he hadent enny shert on. i guess if the old minister had heard skinny sware he woodent have sed mutch more about flise. june , ---brite and fair. not mutch today. tonite the band played in the band room. ed tilton has got a new basehorn. it is auful shiny and almost as long as he is. potsy dirgin played a fife. father says peraps i can have a fife some day but a cornet costs two much money. they played a new march and a peace that mother said was a romanse from leeclare. mother used to play it. i asked her where leeclare was and she sed it was a mans name. cele can hear a band peace once and play it on the piano jest as good as they can. i can whistle it all rite but she can put in the alto and the treble and the base jest like it is rote. june , ---brite and fair. not mutch today only swiming and playing base ball and a fite down town whitch old swain and old kize the poliseman stoped. tonite we all have to take a bath in the tub in the kichen. mother maiks me use soft sope. the others use casteel sope but mother says soft sope is the only thing that will get me cleen. it stings terrible when it gets into a cut or a soar place. after a feler has been stang with soft sope in a cut on his hand or on his leg with a nail or a peace of glass or a tin can he dont care mutch for anything but a yeller jakit hornit. i had to lug all the water for the tub and i had to fill it with fresh water for every one of us. they aint enny sense in that. onct wood have been enuf. twict wood ennyway. june , ---sunday again brite and fair it is always brite and fair sundays so fellers has to go to chirch. last nite when keene was going to bed we heard sum feerful screaches in her room. mother and aunt sarah just hipered upstairs thinking keene had tiped over the lamp and was burning to deth and both hollering for mecy sakes what is the matter. nothing was the matter only a dorbugg had flew into her hair and stuck there and scart her most to deth. mother said she had augt to be ashaimed of herself. mother give me the dorbugg and i am going to put it down beanys back. i bet beany will gump. beany come to our chirch today. they wasnt eny chirch at the unitarial. in sunday school beany spoke a peace about a fli. it said god made the little fli but if you crush it it will die and then he set down. the rest of us laffed but the minister told us it was the best peace of all and it showed that elbridge, that is beany you know, was kind to flise and insex of all kinds and if we was all like elbridge, beany you know, the wirld woodent have as mutch mizzery in it. we was all mad with beany for showing off and we were going to lam him one after school let out. he cought a big bumbelbea whitch had flew in to the window and took sum wax and hitched a long white thread to the bumbelbea and let him go and he flew all over the chirch with that long white thread hanging down like a kite tail. everybody laffed and the girls screemed and ducked there heads down and the minister tride a long while to ketch the bumblelbea and finely he cought it by the thred and it clim up the thred and stang him and he sed drat the pesky thing and snaped his fingers and the bea flew out of the window. then the minister sed it was natural for the bea to be scart only he sed terrorfide whitch meens the saim, and it dident know who was befrending it. but it was crool to tie a string to him and the boy whitch done it wood suffer. enny way he sed you woodent do it wood you elbridge and beany he sed no sir. then beany he went behine the organ and we sung oh how happy are we all in our little sunday school and beany let the wind out of the organ times. so we aint going to lam beany. ennyway the ministers thum is all swole up. june , ---i put the dorbugg down beanys back. you aught to heard him holler. june , ---rany and cold. a big black ant has got nippers and can bite like time. i am going to put one down beanys back some day. june , ---the cat drank sum fli poison today and dide. we are going to have some fli paper after this. father says all you got to do is to get sum pich and spred it on brown paper and the flise will get their hine legs all stuck up on it and die. so tomorrow i am going down to the sawmill and scraip a lot of pich off the ends of the logs. june , ---brite and fair. today i scraiped a lot of pich off the logs and then took it home and tonite father warmed it until it was all runny and spred it on a lot of sheets of brown linen. it was awful sticky, i bet it wood hold a cat, then befoar we went to bed he put in the kitchen sink and on the table and on the dining room table and in the setting room, and he hung one up over the sink to kech flise on the wall. well in the middle of the nite i heard awful swareing down stairs and heard father hollering for mother to come down. i set up and lissened. i gnew it wasent berglers for father cood nock the stuffing out of enny bergler and if it was i gnew he woodent let mother come down where they was dainger. so i lissened and oh time how father was swareing. i never heard enny such swareing in my life, and father aint a swareing man. then i heard mother begin to laff. then i gnew it was all right. so i lissened. then i heard father say for god's sake get the sizzers and cut this damn linen off my head, and mother sed keep still and stop swareing, and father he sed, i have got to keep still for i am all stuck up and i had augt to be aloud to sware. then he laffed. then mother she said i am afrade i shall have to cut off most of your hair, and father he sed get hold of the end of it and yank quick. then i heard him say why dont you pull a poor cusses head off and she sed i gess i have jugging by the looks of this linen. it is all covered with hair. then i heard her cutting with sizzers and then he sed it is lucky i came down in my shert tale if i had been dressed i wood have had to go to bed tomorrow until you went down town to by me a new sute. you see father had gone down for a drink of water in the dark and had got into the fli paper. father had augt to know better than to do that becaus once he drunk sum water out of a dipper in the pale in the dark and the nex morning he found my squirrel drowneded in the pale and he never gnew whether it was drownded before he drank or after he drunk and it made him sick to wonder whitch was whitch. well after a while father and mother come up stairs again, i cood hear keene and cele gigling in there room and i wanted to holler do you know how many flise fli about in the warm sun but i dident dass to. this morning mother sed that father he sed he forgot all about the drink of water and dident get it but we aint going to have enny more fli paper round the house. it was wirse than having a poliseman with handcufs and twisters. june , ---i am having awful tuf luck with my hens this year. miss dires cat cougt of my chickings this week. i went over to tell her about it and have her pay for the chickings and she sed how did i know it was her cat and i sed it was a old yeller cat that she had for or years and i see it runing with a chicking in its mouth. then she sed it wasent her cat and i sed all right i am going to kill it with a rock and she sed you better not kill it if you know what is good for you and i sed what do you care if it aint your cat and she sed i will maik it mine if you kill it and you will wish you was ded if you kill it. so i went home. then nellie steped on my best hen whitch was scraching behine her in the stall and squashed her almost as flat as a doremat. enny way i have got to do sumthing about that cat. i wonder what old mister minister wood do if a cat killed his chickings. i supose he wood say it is rong to kill a cat and that a cat had as mutch rite to live as---as---well as old mis dire. june , --- chickings gone today. i let a rock ding at the cat and jest missed her. i wish i had a bull dog. june , ---went in swiming today. times. the cornered flise are auful and bit like time. i squashed lots of them and they wont fli about in the warm sun enny more. i dont cair. me and pewt are going to set a trap for the cat. pewt can make bully box traps. if he ketches the cat i am going to give him my collexion of birds egs. it is werth it. i aint got menny chickings left. june , ---brite and fair of course. it always is sunday. i went to chirch sunday and to sunday school. i wanted to go to the unitarial but father he sed no i wood go where he told me to or i coodent go at all. i thought i had got him there and i sed all rite i will stay to home and he sed all rite you can stay to home and stay in bed. so i thougt i had better go to chirch and i sed all rite i will go to chirch. i told him as long as we had got a phew in both chirches someone augt to set in it once in a while. the minister is going to get up a club to study insex throug the telescope and to lern us about their ways. he said beas have queans and droans and aunts have a government and keeps cows. i wonder if he xpects us to beleeve that. and flees can be traned to ride a vellosipede but he dident know that if you ketch a big grashoper and say grashoper gashoper gray give me sum molasses and then fli away the grashoper will give you some molasses. just think he dident know that and he dident know that ef you squashed a caterpiller it would rane before nite. we have all got to join the club. i wish i had staid in bed. tonite pewt come over with a big box trap and we set it in the hen coop and left the dore open. i bet we will ketch her. we bated it with a peace of pikerel. june , ---gosh what do you think. we have caugt that cat. this morning i went to the hencoop and the trap was sprung. when i shook it a little i cood hear the old cat growl and spitt. so i nailed the cover down so he coodent get out and gess what we done with him. tonite after dark we carried the box to the deepo and put him on the nite fraight trane for haverhill. nobody see us. we wated till the trane started and then went home. pewt wanted to drownd the old cat but i thougt if we did i wood have to lie about it and while i can lie good if i have to i had ruther not. and it wood be eesier to say i dident know ehere the cat was peraps it wood be in haverhill and peraps in boston. june , ---brite and fair. gosh what do you think. the first thing i see this morning was that old cat setting on mis dires steps. i thougt she must have comeway back from haverhill but after breckfast old mother moulton come over and asted me if i had seen her cat. she was terrible xcited and asted me more than questions but i dident know ennything. pewt come down and sed she had been to his house and to beanys and all over the naborhood. gosh i bet we caugt her cat and sent it away. ennyway what rite had her old cat in my hencoop. tonite me and pewt set a new trap and bated it with a fresh sucker. i have got to get the old yeller cat. one more chickling disapeared to day. june , ---it raned hard last nite. i gess cats staid to home and dident go out. this morning the trap wasent spring. had to ho in the garden after it dride up. toniet we put a big shiner in the trap for bate. june , ---we cogt that old cat today. i know it was her this time becaus when the cover come down it pinched her tale and there was a bunch of yeller hair in front of the trap. tonite we put the trap on the fraight trane and that is the last of that old cat. old mother moulton is still hunting for her cat. i wonder if the cats will know eech other when they meet in haverhill. i xpect mis dire will be over tomorrow to find out where her old cat is. i dont know where she is. i havent hit her or killed her and i dont know what has become of her. june , ---brite and fair. today i saw that old cat again. i wonder whose cat we cought. i had to pay pewt cents for his traps. we set another for tonite. june , ---awful hot today. i dident ketch that cat. i went fishing today for some cat bate. went in swimming times. got some good shiners. i have found out whose cat we sent to haverhill the last time. there was a peace in the exeter news-letter whitch sed. lost a valuble black and yeller striped tiger cat. a grate pet. had on a red satin bow. a suteable reward will be paid for infirmation as to whareabouts. a. p. blake. gosh a. p. blake is mager blake who owns the squamscot hotel. i know that cat. i wish me and pewt gnew some peeple in haverhill peraps we cood get the reward. tonite i paid pewt another ten cents and we set another trap. i wonder whose cat we will get nex time. june , ---brite and fair, i never knew it to rane sunday. cougt another, dont know whose cat it is. if we open the cover the cat will gump out and if we dont sum body elces cat may get sent haverhill. ennyway enny cat whitch is cougt in my hencoop has got to take chances. tonite we sent it away on the trane. we almost got cougt putting it on. went to chirch and sunday school. beany has got his gob back at the unitarial and has went back there, so there wasent enny fun. i heard old mis dire calling her cat tonite for most an hour. i guess we got that old cat at last. june , ---mis dire was calling her cat this morning. she come and did the washing today but she dident say ennything about her cat but i think she was uneezy and she looked at me sort of hard. i bet she thinks i have killed her cat. june , -- today old mis dire come over. i was in the shed and i saw her go waulking stiflegged. after a minit or too mother called me. i pertended i dident hear her and kept on spliting wood, then she come out and told me old mis dire sed i killed her cat and wanted to ast me some questions and mother sed now if you have killed her cat tell the truth. i sed i anit killed it or hit it or drowneded it and i dont know where it is. so we went in. old mis dire was there mad as time and she sed now harry shute i want to know what you have did with my cat and if you lie to me, then mother sed quick ome moment misses dire if you are going to ast him enny questions you have got to do it in a different way if you xpect enny anser. mother she looked at old mis dire and old mis dire looked at mother mad as time but mother had a kind of funny look in her eyes not a mad look but a kind of look that made old mis dire back water prety quick. then old mis dire sed you throwed a rock at my cat last week and i sed yes i did and i wish i had hit hir and killed her but i dident. then she said you and that misable watson boy and that jalebird of a purinton boy have drowned my cat and i sed i dont know about them but i dont beleve they done it becaus they dident have enny chickings but hope to die and cross my throte i havent seen your cat or hit your cat or drowned your cat and i dont know where she is i honest dont. old mis dire asted me more than questions and after a while she went home. she was pretty grumpy and sed sumbody had got to pay for her cat but i guess she desided i dident know ennything about it. she went over to pewts and to beanys but dident find out ennything. mother she was glad i told the truth and i did dident i? i dident hit her old cat, or killed it or drowned it or see it and i dont know where it is. mother told father about it when he come home from boston and father sed dam her old cat. i wont have you bothered about her old cat. i wood have told her to go to the devel. mother laffed and sed no you woodent george you wood have felt bad and pitted her as i did. she is a poar old woman and it is two bad for ennyone to kill her pet cat. ennyway that is over and i aint got to wurry over my chickings enny more. i wish i dassed tell father about it but i am afraid father wood tell mother for a goke and if mother dident think it was rite she wood make me go to haverhill or boston and hunt for them old cats. father i know wood laff his head off but i dassent tell him. old cats sounds like a base ball game dont it. ennyway me and pewt made home runs dident we. june , rany. dident do ennything today. june , ---i havent wrote ennything about school becaus i dident like school and dident like to think about it. the fellers is all rite and we have sum fun playing base ball and foot ball and corram and duck on a rock and nigger baby. but we have to study like time and they aint hardly enny fites becaus if fellers has a fite old francis licks time out of them and recess aint very interestin if they aint enny fites. school closes tomorrow and i am so glad i dont know what to do. i gess old francis wanted to celibrait today for he licked fellers. skipy moses for paisting medo thirsten in the eye with a spit ball and chitter robinson for not singing in tune and he cant if he wanted to so what is the sence of licking him i dont see and pewt for putting a carpit tack in pheby taylors seat. pheby he is a feller you know and when he set on it he gumped up lively and let out a yell. pheby dident tell he aint that kind of a feller but old francis seamed to know it was pewt and snached him bald headed in two minits and whacker chadwick for wrighting a note to a girl and pozzy chadwick for maiking up a face at him when he was licking whack and bug chadwick for telling him to stop when he was licking pozzy. the chadwicks all got licked the same day. it aint the ferst time eether by a long chork and skinny bruce for drawing sumthing on the school house fence that hadent aught to be drew and pacer gooch for calling gran miller a nigger and he is a nigger whitch dont seem rite to me and human nudd, his name is harman but we call him human for wrighting with a squeaky slate pensil. he hadent enny other. i gess old francis gnew this was his last day for licking for he never licks on xibition day but is as nice as pye. june , ---gosh school is over. i cant hardly beleeve it. lots of peeple come in today and of course all the good boys and girls spoke peaces and direlogs and done xamples on the blackboard. huh i am glad i am not a good scholar and a faveret of the teecher. last of all we give old francis a silver pensil on a chane. the wirst of it was i had to chip in ten cents. the chadwicks give a dollar. whack sed that if he had gnew that they were all going to be licked yesterday they wood have spent the dollar and woodent have given nothing. they needed that dollar two. ennyway school is out till september hurray. june st. i just took it eezy to-day. the ferst day of vacation always seams to me like when you find a five cent peace in a pair of your last years britches. you can spend it for ennything you want and you havent got to save it or put it in your bank or by sumthing that you need. so yesterday after school closed i split up wood enuf for today and sunday, and today i just dident do nothing. a man and wimen hired my boat and wanted me to row them up river but i told them i had a weak arm. one of the wimen said poar boy what is the matter with it and i sed it dident know but it trubles me a good deal. then the other one sed whitch arm is it and i sed the right one and she sed you must be lefthanded and i sed yes i am a little. i lied about that but i dident lie about my week arm or about my truble with it. both my arms is week. if they wasent i cood lick pewt and it trubles me becaus my arms is so skinny. the fellers laff at my legs two. well the man hired my boat and i went with them and the man rew all the way and i had a good time only i had to be cairful to keep my right hand in my jacket pocket most of the time and point out things to them with my left hand. ennyway i cood row with one hand better than that man cood with too. he splashed and cougt crabs and once his heels went up and he went rite over on his back the wimen laffed and he laffed two. june , ---brite and fair. i gnew it wood be. we had a new minister today. old mister minister preeched sumwhere elce but he come back in the afternoon to sunday school and started his club. everybody had to join. most of the fellers dident want to. chick chickering says he is glad he dont go to our chirch becaus if he did he coodent colect enny more butterflise and kill them with ether and stick them in a box with a pin. chicks father is a minister two and he goes fishing and birdseging and butterfliing with chick. i am glad my father isent a minster but if he was i wood want him to be like chick chickerings father. gosh i always laff when i think of father being a minister. he woodent be getting up clubs to save the lifes of flise and snaiks and intch wirms and moth millers and cockroches, but he wood gnock enny feller pizzle end upwards that raised time in chirch. today we had to a sine a book and pay five cents and promise not to take the life of animal or bird or reptil or insex. pop clark asked what a feller had augt to do if a mad dog come down the street fomeing at the mouth and biting and taring rite and lef, or if a poizen adder or ratlesnaik coiled round your hine leg. the minister sed if it caim to be a question of the life of a human being or of an animal or a reptil of coarse the life of a human being shood be spaired. so he has got sum sence but not mutch. june , ---i ment july , brite and fair. hoap it wont rane on the th. jest as soon as vacation comes i have a lot of gobs to do. spliting wood and going errands and cleening out the cellers and the barn and wirking in the garden. i woder what peeple think a vacation is for. i try to do evrything mother wants becaus in days it will be the th. july , ---only day after this before the th. i went up to pewts today. he has borowed harris cobbs cannon. it is an old lunker. pewt says if you put in six fingers of powder and wads and then fill it to the muzle with grass and ram it tite it will shaik the winders all over town. july , ---tomorrow is the th. i am going to get up at oh clock. father says that is the erliest and if i get up one minit before that i wont go out at all. it seams to me oh clock is prety lait. sum of the fellers stay out all nite. july . brite and fair. i was so tired last nite that i coodent wright. i dident go to bed until nearly leven and i got up at oh clock. it was the best th i ever had. pewt's cannon xploded the ferst time. we loded it to the muzle and put the muzle rite agenst the stone step of old nat weeks house. then we lit the fusee and run. i gess it is lucky we done it for there was a feerful bang and a big flash jest like when litening strikes a tree rite in front of your house and a big hunk of that cannon went rite throug old bill greenleafs parlor winder and took sash and all and gnocked a glass ship in a gloab that the glassblewers blowed into forty million peaces and gnocked a big hunk out of the marbel top table and sent the things on the whatnot all over the room. bill he come downstairs in his shert tale and hollered and swore so you cood hear him fer eigt miles eesy. me and pewt and beany hid behine pewts fathers paint shop and lissened. nat weeks he come out and old printer smith and old bill morrill. old ike shute dident. i gess he dident dass to. we cood hear them talking it over and cood hear bill holler and sware and bills wife say mersy sakes aint this dredful. they thogt it must have been did by flunk ham and chick randall or the warren boys, all big fellers becaus they sed it must be big fellers to have sutch a big cannon. so me and pewt and beany clim over fifields back fence and went down town throug spring street. beany set fire to a bunch of fire crackers in his poket and birnt him so he can only sit down on one side. fatty melcher stumped pewt to hold a firecracker in his mouth and let it go off. it is eezy enuf. all you have got to do is to put the end between your teeth and lite the other end and shet your eys. it will go off and burst in the middle and all you will get is a few sparks that dont hurt mutch. but this one was a flusher and it flushed at the end whitch was in pewts mouth and a stream of sparks went rite down pewts gozzle. you would have dide to see pewt spitt and holler and drink water. he drank most a gallon and he wont speak to me becaus laffed. all the chadwicks got birned when they was blowing up old buzell's fence posts, they was lots of fites down town and a house on franklin street and a barn on stratam road birned up. it was the best th i ever gnew. father sed about more ths and he wood go out of bisiness. i sed ths is eigt and he sed dont you try to be funny. if you do you will get a bat in the ear. so i shet up. when father says that it is about time to shet up. july , brite and fair. saterday again. it is funny when i am in school i am crasy for it to be saterday but when it is vacation i hate to have saterday come. it means things that aint very good. one is that another weak of vacation has gone and the other is that the next day is sunday both of whitch is prety tuf. tonite me and father went in swimming at the gravil. we had a good swim and then we floted down river. it was warm and the treetoads was crokeing and a peewee was peeweeing high up in a elm tree and bats was fliing and it was fine. evry now and then a fish wood splash or a mushrat dive. when we got home all the folks was setting on the front steps and we got talking about the doodlebug club. father he calls it that. father sed they aint no fool like a dam fool and sed that once when he was in school his teecher old ellis the father of rody ellis that i went to school to used to paist time out of the fellers jest for nothing. so the fellers they got prety sick of it and one day jim melcher and of coarse father, he and jim melcher always went together and charles taylor two and oliver lane and or others went out and batted down about a pint of bumblebeas with shingles. they got stang or times a peace but no feller minds being stang in a good caus. so the next day they went to school erly and poured all them ded beas in his old lether seat. well old ellis come in and rung the bell and sed prair and paisted time out of or fellers for exercise and toar the sherts off or others for old acquantence saik so father sed and then he set down hard in his chair and more than forty of the stings of them ded bumblebeas riggid in deth so father sed ran rite into him. well he let out a yell you cood have heard at hampton beach and gumped rite over his desk and run out of the school house howling and holding hisself in both hands and sweling up feerful in grate aggony. and father he sed he was stang in forty seven places and swole up so that they had to get old killpigger haley i mean pig killer haley to get his briches off with a skining knife. i wonder if old mister minister wood like bumblebeas if we done that to him. july , rany as time. i thought i woodent have to go to chirch but what do you think it cleered up and the sun come out a hour before chirch. how is that for tuf luck. july , rany not hard but drissly. i wood have went fishing today but there was a thunder shower this morning and fish wont bite after thunder but go down in deep holes and lay still. this afternoon we had the meating of the club. the minister talked lots and ansered questions. i asted him if we had aught to tare down spiders webs becaus they kiled flise. he sed yes then i asted him if the spider woodent starve to deth if he coodent ketch flise. then he sed spiders was sumtimes poizinus and i asted him if he had ever been bit by a horsefli. then we had speeking and beany spoke his peace about god made the little fli but if you crush it it will die and then my sister cele spoke the peace do you know how meeny flise fli about in the warm sun and the minister clapt his hands and we all did two. then tomtit thompson sed he had a new peace about insex and the minister asted him to speak it and tomtit dident want to, but the minister sed he had aught to be willing to help out in a good caus. tomtit he sed he was afrade the minister woodent like it but the minister sed he was very sure he wood like it and so tomtit he stood up and made a bow and sed his peace and it was jest bully. now i lay me down to sleep while the bedbugs round me creap if one should bite before i waik i hope to god his jaw will braik and what do you think the minister he got mad and told tommy he was a bran from the birning and a apostate. i thought they wasent but apostates ever and wasent enny now but that is what he called tommy and he throwed him out of the club by the ear, wisht it had been me. well after tommy had went the minister talked to us about how wicked it was for tommy to use the name of god in sutch a conexion. i asted him why it was wicked to use it in conexion with a bedbugg when it wasent wicked to use it in conexion with a fli like beanys peace and my sister celes and he sed one was used in the spirrit of love and the other in the spirrit of hate. then we sung a hynm and went home. i wish i was tomtit thompson. july , ---brite and fair. gosh what do you think. the committy of the chirch came to our house today and asted mother if she wood have the minister to supper as it was her tirn. mother sed certenly i wood be very glad to entertain him. after the committee left i sed gosh mother you told a awful whacker to them old wimmen when you sed you wood be glad to do it dident you. mother she laffed and sed peraps it woodent be as deliteful as it mite be but she wood try hard to be glad to do it and if i wood do my part and all the rest wood we cood give him a good supper and it woodent hurt us to do it. so we have all got to duff in. july , it is going to be a weak from friday nite that the minister is coming. friday nite is the nite they have prair meeting and he will have to go prety soon after supper so he wont be there very long. aunt sarah she sed what if he invites us to go and mother she sed she gessed father wood have a prety good xcuse ready. she never gnew him to fale. mother sed that days wood give her time to get ready. we have all got to wirk. then mother sed she wood have to warn father not to say ennything tuf and warn the children not to speak when the minister was saying grace and not to notice the new napkins and thing like that and that she had got to sweep evry room and wash all the winders and rub up the silver and the caster and the caik baskit. when father come hom tonite mother she told him about having the minister to supper and father sed gosh what for. and mother she sed george that is a nice way to speak about a minister and father he sed why can't you let me take him down to old eph cuttlers and get him a stake and sum fride potatoes and about fingers of fusil oil whiskey and it wood do him a pile of good. mother she sed i am ashaimed of you george for talking so. why cant you take it serius and father he sed it is serius ennuf and i am trying not to burst into teers over it. honest if you wood let me take him to hirveys resterant it wood save you a lot of truble. but mother sed no we must do our part and father he sed gosh he suposed so but it was tuf. then father he sed i suppose you wont dast to bat out the flise if he comes. then beany hollered for me and i dident hear eny more. july , brite and fair. i have got an idea. me and pewt and beany are goin to talk it over tonite. we are going to have chicken and gelly and hot bisquit and custereds and cold ham and cookys and whips and lots of other things for supper friday nite. keene and cele are going to sing shall we gather at the river and theres a chirch in the valley by the wild wood. father wanted them to sing little brown gug how i love thee and we'll all drink stone blind when johnny comes marching home and sally come up sally come down sally come twist your heal around the old man has gone to town sally come up in the middle but mother sed no they must sing good chirch songs. july , keene and cele and i washed the winders upstairs today. i had to lug about million pales of water. i asted mother what was the use of washing the upstairs winders for him as he wasent going to stay over nite. father he sed if we fed him two mutch he mite have the collick and have to be put to bed and perhaps stay weaks. he sed we must be cairful and not feed him to hy. july , brite and fair, we washed the downstairs winders today. darn the minister ennyway. july , brite and fair of coarse. sunday went to chirch of coarse, also sunday school. more tuf luck. the minister cant come friday but will come thirsday so he will have a hoal evening with us. gosh. july , had to raik up the yard. i aint been fishing hardly this summer. darn the minister. july , or ennywhere else eether. today i had to cleen the barn and woodshed and pile the wood up neet. i wonder who they think is entertaneing the minister ennyway. darn him to darnation. i hoap nobody will ever see this diry. july . we are all nerly ded. mother and aunt sarah has been cooking all day. keene and cele have been practising hynm tunes and i of coarse have did most all the wirk. pewt and beany come over tonite and fixed up what we shall do to the minister. jest you wait and see old mister minister. i bet mother wil be glad and aunt sarah two. tomorrow the minister comes. i bet he will wish he dident. july , brite and fair. we have had a grate time. i never had sutch a time in my life. i gess nobody ever did befoar. everyone is in bed xausted but me. they think i am in bed but i am wrighting this. last nite me and beany and pewt talked over what we shood do to the minister. i told them what father done to old man ellis and pewt wanted to do that but i thot perhaps i mite not get the rite chair to put the bumblebeas in and if father set on them i mite as well run away to sea. then peeple has been knowed to tare off their britches when they are stang by the hornits and bumblebeas and if the minister done that it would be very mortifiing to my mother and my aunt sarah and my sisters keene and cele. so we desided that woodent be proper althoug we wanted to like time. then beany wanted to put a live snaik in his hat, but we desided the snaik wood scare mother and my aunt sarah and my two sisters to deth. then pewt he sed less dig up some of those red stink wirms behine the barn and put a handfull in his hat. you know they smell so that you have to use soft soap and sand and scrub your hands or days before you can get it off. so neether of us wanted to tuch one. then i sed mother is going to set the table and put on all the chicken and gelly and butter and cake and creem and everything and cover them with the fli screens and shet the doors and have nobody go in until super is ready. super is to be at six and she is going to have evrything ready at five and then they are all going upstairs and dress up in their best and curl celes hair and ty up keenes hair with a red ribon becaus her hair wont curl and dress georgie and annie and frank and the baby and maik father put on a cleen coler and shert and black his boots and promise to be cairful not to say ennything that would shok the minister, so i sed less go in the kitchen and ketch about million flise and put them under the fli screnes, and they sed i was a buster to think it up. well at five oh clock the table was all set and it looked fine. i never see it look so good. so after the folks had went up stairs me and pewt and beany clim into the kitchen and cougt a bushel of flise and tiptode into the dining room and lifted up the screnes and put them under. after we had prety near filled the screnes we tiptode out. well father he came home and swoar when he had to put on a cleen shert and coler and i blacked his boots. i have to do evrything of coarse. that is what i am for so evryone thinks. mother had on her black silk dress with some lase round her neck and aunt sarah two and the girls was all dressed up and father two and they all looked fine. mother looked the best. she always does and aunt sarah the next. keene sed i hadent blacked the back part of my shoes and that wasent enny of her business and so i told her to shet up and she made a face and run out her tung. then father he sed now if you two children begin enny of that you will go to bed lifely. so we both shet up. well we wated and wated and the minister dident come and we wated sum more and the minister dident come and i got scart, becaus if he dident come the folks woodent see the goke and i wood get time paisted out of me. well finally the bell rung and cele went to the door. keene was mad because she coodent and she started to run out her tung at cele and then she remembered what father sed and she stoped just in time. sure enuf it was the minister and he sed he was delade because he had to reprove thoughtless boys whitch were ketching small and innosent fish with sharp hooks. father whispered to me that is a hell of a reeson for keeping a man starving to deth and i laffed but nobody paid attension to me. well they all shook hands with the minister and cele made a curtsy and sed tea is ready and we all marched out into the dining room mother and the minister first, then father and aunt sarah and then keene and cele and then the little ones and georgie and i come last as i always do when there aint enny wirk to do. well as soon as they got in i herd them all draw a long breth and then aunt sarah sed for mersey sakes and mother she sed for heavens sake and father he sed for goddlemity sakes and the minister he sed my greef what a disgusting site. well you cood hardly see the things to eat they was so covered with flise. then i winked at mother and sed god made the little fli and if you crush it it will die and then i winked again but mother she dident laff back and father grabed me by the neck and sed did you do this devilish thing and he shook me till i cood hardly say yes, when mother made him put me down. then she sed what did you do sutch a dredful thing for and when i heard her voice i woodent have did it for a $ , and i sed becaus the minister was all the time preeching not to kill flise and mother and all of us was all the time more you dident kill them the more you had to flap out and it got so that you dident dass to eat a piece of currant cake or blewbery bred for feer it wasent what you thought it was and mother she sed and then i stoped quick for i dident want to get mother in a scraip but she sed go on and tell it all. so i sed she sed that if the minister had to fite with about leven milion flise evry day in summer for evrything he et or drank she bet he woodent preech god made the little fli and then the minister he sed but my dear boy god did make the little fli dont you reelise that and i sed and god made swallows and kingbirds and leest flicatchers and spiders, what have you got to say about that. i had him there but father sed no imperdence young man tell us all. so i went on and told all about it, what pewt sed and what beany sed and what i sed and what we done. or times father had to coff awful and wipe his eyes. he sed he got sum pepper up his nose some how he dident know how. when i finished father sed you go to your room and i will see you laiter. so i went up stairs and wated a auful long time afrade father wood come up and lam time out of me. well bimeby cele come up and sed very solum father wants to see you down stairs in the dining room. so i went down and there they all set at the table with a new super ready and the flise all flaped out. all but the minister. father he sed sit down boy and have sum super and i sed aint you going to lick me and he sed not if i know myself and i sed where is the minister and father he sed he has went home mad. i tride to get him to stay and eat super with us and i tride to get him to go to hirvey's resterant and he asted me if i was going to punish you and i sed that was a matter between the boys mother and father and i gessed they wood have to settle that themselfs and the minister was mad and woodent stay. mother she sed i dont think he was mad george, i think he was hert. father he laffed and sed well if i had acted so i wood have been mad but a minister was hurt. ennyway he will lern something some day i hoap. then he filled up our plates and we et and et and et and father told the funiest stories i ever heard. we laffed so we cood scarcely eet. that nite after i had went to my room father he come up to my room and opened the door and sed harry are you awaik. i had heard him coming and put out the lite and gumped into bed. i sed yes sir and he sed god made the little fli and if you crush it it will die and then he shet the door and went to bed. july , ---i bet that old minister wont come to our house again verry soon. we are going back to the unitarial chirch. they have got a new quire there and keene and cele are going to sing in the unitarial quire. it will seem kind of good to be there again, and there aint enny meeting in the afternoon only sunday school. i dont cair mutch about sunday school becaus they dont lern us mutch there. today i rode horseback with ed tole. he has got a little red pony not as big as nellie. it can go like time. ed rides it without a sadle. when i ride without a sadle and sturups it nearly splits me in too, and hirts my backboan. today we raced. nellie can trot faster than eds but eds can run faster. i woodent swap ennyway. july , ---hot as time. today i met my uncle robert. he aint my uncle robert but is my fathers uncle. he is my great uncle so mother says. he aint half so big as my father. he is my grandfathers brother. my grandfather is dead. my uncle robert aint quite. father says he is dead but dont know it. well ennyway i met him and said how do you do uncle robert and he sed whose boy are you and i sed i am george shutes boy and he sed huh i hoap you will maik a better man than your father. i wanted to say sumthing sassy to him but if i had sed what i thought father wood have lammed time out of me. father always licks me for mispoliteness and imbehavior, so i jest looked at him scornful and tirned my back on him. he had went along so peraps he dident see me. i hoap he did. i bet my father is times as good as uncle robert. i asted mother and she sed i supose sum peeple wood say uncle robert is best but i dont quite like his kind. i told father what uncle robert sed and father laffed and sed i must not blame uncle robert becaus after he was born they dident find it out for several weeks and so he got a bad start and hadent never cougt up. i wonder if that is true or one of fathers gokes i can always tell. then father sed that isac was a grate trile to uncle robert he was so tuf, and aunt sarah she sed why george shute you know that isac never did a rong thing in his life and father sed no i gess he dident but if he had been aloud to go with me and gim melcher and charles talor and the rest of the boys we wood have made a man of ike. july , ---father has bougt sheep. mother sed what in the wirld do you want sheep for and father he sed he got them cheep becaus they dident have enny lamns in march. father says they may have sum enny time now and i must keep my eye pealed. i have wrote a poim about our sheep. my father he has got sheep he got them most almity cheep but if them sheep dont have no lamns he'll fill the air with feerful damns. ain't that a pretty good poim. i bet pewt coodent wright that or beany eether. july , brite and fair. i dont cair this time for it seems good to go to the unitarial once more. i bet beany is glad. i bet pewt is two. i staid in the barn until chirch time feeding my sheep. keene was mad and sed i smelt awful barny. keene feels prety big becaus she aint got to set in the same phew with me. beany got stang by a hornet in the organ lof and one side of his face was all swole up. evry time he wood look out everybody laffed. so after chirch old chipper burly told him he coodent blow the organ ennymore becaus he made faces and made the peeple laff. so beany has lost his gob again. it was two bad becaus beany coodent help it. we are going to get up a partition to get beany back. july , ---brite and fair. it is feerful dusty now and when we go across the street we stamp our feet and the dust comes up all over evrything. it is lots of fun when peeple are near you. went in swimming times. july . brite and fair. i had tuf luck today. first i got kept in the yard becaus i stamped some dust on girls whitch was going down town in white dresses. mother heard them jawing me and come out and made me beg there pardon and she give them a brush and dusted them off and told me to stay in the yard all day. then this afternoon i dident have mutch to do xcept ho the garden. all the fellers was away fishing or swimming or buterfliing, so i dident have much to do and when old john quincy adams polard went by all humped up over his cain i was picking buggs off the tomatoe plants and i jest coodent help it and let ding joosy red tomatoes at him, the ferst whized by his head and he looked around jest in time to get th rite in the eye. well it squashed all over his face and he began to sware and to lam round with his cane and claw the tomatoe out of his eyes. then he come rite back to our house and i squat down behine the tomatoe plants. i was in a corner and coodent get out and he made for me with his old cain. i hollered for mother and she come out and stoped him after he had given me bats and nocked down tomatoe plants. well mother took him into the house and got sum water and towels and washed his face and promised to have his shert washed. then i had to beg his pardon. that made twice in one day. that is two mutch i think. then mother sent me to my room for the rest of the day. so i staid there reading for a awful long time and then i was trying to spit in the rane baril and mother caugt me and sent me to bed. a feller cant do nothing without being snached baldheaded. july , ---today we wrote a partition to get beany back his gob. it read like this, mister chipper burley. beany wasent making up faces last sunday when the peeple laffed. he was bit by yeller jacket hornits behine the organ and he done prety well not to holler rite out loud. most fellers wood have done it but not beany. his face was all onesided and looked so funny that peeple coodent help laffin. his face is funy ennyway but peeple have got used to it when it aint swole up. beany woodent have stuck his head out if he had gnew how he looked. he was not to blaim. so he wants his gob back and we hoap you wil let him come back. yours very respectively. well we got a lot of people to sine. earl and cutts and father and mr. healy and pewts father and old man dow and evrybody that read the partition sined it and slaped their leg and laffed. sum of them roared and sed i gess old chipper will take notise of that. well then we drawed lots to se whitch wood read the partition to chipper and i drawed the shortest one. i always do so i am not sirprized. i am going up to chips tomorrow. july . brite and fair. i went up to chips today. he was in boston. july . if we dont have rane before long father says there wont be ennything to eat nex year. went up to chips again today. he hadent got home from boston. july , i will never speek to chipper burley again. he has got the wirst temper i ever see. he gets mad for nothing. i never see such a man, i went up today. i met or men whitch sined the partition and they asted me if i had seen chip and i sed no and they sed wel go up as soon as you can so i went up. a servant girl came to the door and told me chip, only she sed mister burley was in the greenhouse. so i went to the greenhouse and he was there with mister busell and mister alfrid coner and old charles coner and joe hiliard. he asted me what i wanted and i told him and he winked at the other men and sed read it and i started to read it and i had jest got as far as mister chipper burley when he got mad and grabed it and toar it up and chased me almost down to front streete. i wish i gnew what he was mad about. i dident do a thing but jest start to read it. i bet i wont go there again. july , ---rany and thunderry. i always thougt a girl with red hair and frekles wood taist jest loke dandylions when you bite them. i meen of course bite the dandylions. i meen when you kiss the girl. i dont know. some day i am going to find out. july , ---i wunder why i wrote what i wrote yesterday. if i thougt ennybody wood ever read this diry i wood have toar that out. ennyway that is what i always thougt. i bet sum of the fellers know. but i dont. beany has got his gob back. they coodent get ennyone else to taik it. his face has all gone down so it is not funny enny moar. at least it is not enny funnier than usual and we are used to that. july , ---it was hot as time today. this afternoon me and cawcaw harding went up to the gravil to go in swiming and jest as we was jest ready to dive in a cold mist came up and we nearly froze befoar we cood find our close. i tell you we dresed prety quick and hipered for home. father sed it was a sea tirn and sumtimes horses and catel has been lost and froze to deth by them and i had beter be cairful about going in swiming when it is too hot. i never know when father is goking. one day i asted him what the fellers witch lived in south america and africa did for snow-baling and he sed that the snow was so hot sumtimes that they had to cool their snowballs befoar they pluged them at other felers or they wood scald them or burn them bad. i gnew that father was goking that time but the nex day in school i read in a school book that a man once froze water in a red hot cup. so peraps he wasent goking after all. july ---i have to cut grass for them sheep evry day now and it taiks a lot of time when i cood be fishing. i never see such things to eat. always baaing for sumthing to eat. today they et a whole cabbije i hooked out of j. albert clarks garden, and a bushel of grass i cut over by the high school and sum carots and sum meal and hay and a lot of potatoe pealings and peaces of lettis and drank haff a pale of water and tiped over whole pales full. one is tame and follows me round. that is the old one. the young one is wild and if i dont look out wil butt me when i aint looking and where i aint xpecting it. once she nocked me over and i hit her with a stick hard. so now when i get in the pen she gets in the corner. she knows she cant fool with me. i guess not. july , ---this morning we heard a awful baaing in the sheep pen and father called me erly and we went out. what do you think they was lamns there. was ded. the old sheep the one that i liked becaus she was tame was the one whitch lamns was ded. she was runing up and down and smelling of them and baaing. then she wood waulk away from them and look round and see if they was folowing her and when she see that they dident she wood come back and baa sum more. father he sed thunder that is too bad we will have to berry them. i dont want your mother to see them. it wil maik her feel terrible. so i got a spaid and father took up the little lamns and we went out behine the barn and father dug a hole and then we rapped them up in sum brown paper and berrid them. when we went back to the barn the old sheep was baaing terrible and runing from one end of the pen to the other end. her eyes stuck out of her haid and she looked at us as if she was asking us where her lamns was. father sed thunder this is tuf what in time can we do. i sed i dont know and he sed he dident supose i did he never gnew me to know ennything when it was asted. so he patted her head and called her a good old girl and i got sum grass for her but she woodent eat. the other lamm was all right but the first thing i gnew the mother sheep nocked her oan lamn over. jest butted it over. father sed hell and he was over the fence in jest secunds. then he let her up and she backed into a corner shaiking her head. then the lamn kind of teetered up to her wobbly as time and tried to suck and she butted him again and nocked him down and father grabed her by the back of the neck with one hand and by the end of her back with the other and sed now old lady you will do one of things in about minits. eether nurse this lamn or go down to butcher haleys. so i poked the lamns nose under the sheep and in a minit it was sucking like a good one and wigling its tale like a snaik when you step on its head. the old sheep tried to butt and kick and get away but she mite jest as wel have tride to brake away from a steal trap. i bet my father cood hold a wild bull of bastem that the minister talked about if he had him by the neck with one hand and the tale with the other. i tel you that lamn had a good time. after he dident want enny more father put him in another pen and let the old sheep go. this noon he held her again. it took us so long that it was too lait to go to chirch. i bet i dident feel bad. after dinner father held her again. tonite he held her a few minits and then he let me hold her. she only yanked once but i held her as good as father. august , ---this morning father dident have time to hold the sheep so he hollered up-stairs for me to get up and hold her. then i heard the door of the hack slam and i thought as long as father had went to the trane i woodent hurry and the nex i gnew mother was shaiking me and teling me that it was eigt oh clock and that my lamn was bleeting terrible. so i gumped up and dresed and run down and put the lamn in the pen and clim after it. the old sheep backed into a corner when i went towerds her and stamped her front foot and befoar i cood gump to one side she hit me with her head and nocked me flat. i gnew beter than to get up and so i roled over towerds her and got her by the legs and then i got a good grip in her wool. we had a regular rassel and she draged me all over the pen. i held on like a good feler and bimeby i got her in a corner head ferst. then the lamn woodent come to suck. i gess he was scart. i dident blame him for i was scart two. if i hadent been scart i would have let go so i hollered for keene but nobody caim. i cood hear them ratling dishes and eating breckfast and i was most starved to death and i dident dass to let go of that old sheep. so i hung on and began to call the lamn. it wood baa and come prety nearly up and then run back. bimeby it come so near that i cood reech it but when i let go of the sheep with one hand she began to kick and strugle and i had another rassel with it. i was most tuckered out when she stoped to rest again. then i hollered for sumone to come but nobody caim. then i hapened to think that in the swiss family robinson that the father was triing to ride a wild ass and it kicked and bit and rared and plungged and the only way to stop him was to bite his hear. so when he rared up strait he grabed his ear with his teeth and bit it throug and the ass got down on his feet once more and stoped kicking and biting and plungging and he never had enny moar truble with him. so i made up my mind that when that sheep began to tare round again i wood try it. so bimeby the little lamn come up close and i let go one hand to stick the lamns head in place when the old sheep began to try to get away and i got both arms round its neck tite and grabed its ear with my teeth and bit as hard as i cood. well i wish you cood have saw what hapened. i never gnew wether she tirned a back summerset or i did. i gess we both did. she led out a baa and slamed me down on the floor and trod al over me and butted me over and tride to gump out of the pen. while i was on the ground and she was steping on me i caugt her by the legs and down she went and most squashed me flat and one of her feet trod on my head. you jest bet i hollered and then keene and cele and mother and aunt sarah come out and told me to get out of the pen befoar i was killed. i had been triing to get out ever since i bit her but she seamed to be evrywhere to onct. when they come she ran into a corner and i clim out. i was all covered with dirt and my nose was skined and my close toar. keene asted me if i had ben playing ring round the rosy and mother told her that she must wash and mend my close for that before she went out of the yard. so i gess keene wont be so smart another time. i went back to my room and changed my close and washed my face and hands and mother put some plaster on my face. then i had breckfast. tonite i am so tired that i cant wright enny more. tomorrow i will tell how we fed the lamn. i have got so i can handle the sheep all right. sam dire done it. august ---brite and fair. yesterday after i had my breckfast mother told me to ask sam dire what to do to fed the lamn. mother says sam dire is the lady from philydelfia like the story of the peterkin family in the young folks. when the peterkin family in the magasine is stuck and dont know what to do they go to the lady from philydelfia who tells them jest what to do. so mother sends for sam dire when she dont know what to do. so sam he came over and clim into the pen and grabed the old sheep and held her until i got the lamn and it had enuf. then sam he went over to the blacksmith shop and he made rings of iron. then he got a strap with a buckel and he put the strap with a ring on it round her neck. then he fassened a peace of closeline to the ring and run it throug the other ring whicht he had fassened to a beem in the corner and brougt the end of the roap out of the pen and tide it. so all i have to do now is to pull her up to the ring and ty the roap. then i get my gnee agenst her and she cant move. i done it at noon and at nite. she holds back when i pull but when i brace my feet agenst the side of the pen and pull you bet she has to come. that was prety good of sam. tonite father nearly dide when i told him about biting her ear and mother told him how i looked. he went over and paid sam cents and told him he was a beter inventer than the man which invented hot water and i tell you sam was pleased most to deth. august , ---i think lizzie tole is the pretyest girl i ever see in my life. it looks as if beany wood get her. still i am hoaping. august , ---i woodent have ennybody read this diry for million dollars. i am very cairful about it. beany is a prety good feller but there is sum things that no feller can stand. i gess ed tole likes me better than he does beany but lizzie dont. i wood ruther have it the other way. still i am hoaping. beany may see sumbody he likes better. so may she. i hoap it will be me. i forgot to say that this was sunday. i tride to get father to let me stay at home to taik cair of the sheep but he woodent. he staid home himself to look after them. i dont think that is fair. they was a thunder shower this afternoon. it was after chirch of coarse. it was a ripper. it struck a tree up on coart strete and split off a big lim. i have to wirk prety hard cutting grass for them sheep. august , ---i have to wirk harder than enny feller i know. all beany has to do is to split kinlins and lug in wood and get water from the well with the old chane and windlas and that is always fun becaus a feller always splashed the water all over him and sumtimes the chane brakes and they have to fish for it with hooks and sumtimes things get in the well and you cant use the water for a long time and then beany has to come over to my house. once a cat got drownded in beanys well. beany cood see it floating round but me and beany was mad and he sed he never wood come over to my house again or speak to me as long as he lived. so beany dident say nothing to his family but kep on luging in pales of water. bimbye the water began to smel bad and taist feerful and beanys father xamined the well after about a week more and found the old ded cat and there was a dredful time and beany got a licking and had to come over to our house for water until his well was clened out. ennyway we had made up. gues what we got mad about. i treted lizzie to gibs and beany got mad and woodent speek to me or to her. then he bought a prize packige of candy and got a ring that was wirth a grate deel of money and gave it to her and now she goes with beany and dont speek to me. i am never going with girls again. ennyway me and beany are all rite again. august , ---brite and fair. pewt is wirking for his father painting the academy fence. he says he gets one dollar and a quarter a day. gosh i wunder if he does. beany says pewt dont get fifty cents a year. pewt woodent wirk if he dident get paid. he always has got money too. so i gess he gets sum pay. i almost never have enny money xcept when i let my boat and bisness is poar this summer. i doant beleve i have ernt dollars this summer. i think father had aught to pay me fer all the wirk i do. i am tired of that old sheep. i wish a dog wood come in some day and kill it. we all like the lamn. it is geting so it can eat grass a little. evry day i ty the old sheep out in the grass. i wish it was ded. evry time it baas i have to give it sumthing. i wood like to give it sum poizon. august , ---hot and thundery. cele is reading the bible throug. she reads a chapter evry morning. she is terible religius. she is a grate reader of dime novels. she reads all mine. father lets me read them. he says he likes to read them himself. it is all indian fiting. cele has read nat todd the traper and billy bolegs and scalploc sam and mountain mike and one eyd pete and lots of them. she says she likes the bible best. i dont beleve it. she has got as far as the th palsam. once father made me lern a palsam. he gave me cents. i have tride to forget it and it is most forgot. it goes like this. day unto day utterith speach and nite unto nite showeth gnowledge. there is no speach nor gnowledge where thy voice is not heard. that is all i can remember now. once i cood say it all but i dident know what it ment. i gnew what the cents was for. mother dont believe it wil do cele eny good to read dime novels but father says it will help her atain a hapy medium. august , ---mother dont like to have cele read dime novils. father dont cair. i dont cair much so long as father dont stop me. of course cele cood read mine after i had got throug them, but cele wont do that. she is two good for this wirld. it is funny. cele is as stuffy as a bull dog but she has got a new england consciense, so father says, and if mother tells her not to read dime novils she woodent do it to saive her life. but if cele thougt it was rong to read dime novils mother and father cood lam time out of her but they coodent maik her read them. she thinks it is rite to read dime novils but if mother tells her not to she wont read them if you cut her rite hand off. that is cele. august , ---me and cele are reading wild mag the trappers bride. she has got to the nineth palsam now. she gets the novil when i am cutting grass for that old sheep and i get it when she is reading the palsams. i bet i can remember the novil beter than she can the palsam. i bet she can two. keene dont read eether. she is reading weded but no wife in the new york legger. i think mother dont like that eether. tonite mother and father had it out. father sed he thougt it wood be all rite for cele to read novils but if mother sed no it was going to be no and that is all there was about it. keene coodent keep still and sed it aint nice to read dime novils and mother sed it is wirse to read weded but no wife in the legger and father sed that is jest dam rite joey, he calls mother joey, and so keene has got to stop reading that story. cele cried and keene was mad. i dident yip and nothing was sed about me. i know when to keep quiet as well as the nex one. this is one of them times. after we had went out i told cele i wood read it and tell her all about it but she sed no it woodent be rite and she went off balling and wiping her eyes. she red palsams today to make up. i am glad i havent got a new england consciense. it is a awful thing to have when they is enny fun going. i hoap i shal never have one. august , ---brite and fair. the ferst chirch is going to have a picknic a week from nex tuesday. father says i cant go becaus i am a unitarial. i dont see why. i used to go to the ferst chirch. august , ---sunday today. it raned hard all day. it is the ferst time i ever gnew it to rane on sunday, and i gess it is the ferst time it ever did in this wirld. i sed i wood like to go to the ferst chirch and sunday school but father he sed not mutch young man, but so long as you are so anchious to go to chirch you can go to the unitarial with your sister celia. i tride to get out of it but he made me go. so me and cele went. this is one of the times when i dident know enuf to keep still. i am going to that picknic sumhow. unitarials dont never have picknics. that is the only thing i have got agenst them. august , ---in weks from today school begins again. i dont like to think of it. it is a shaim. i waulked down town with the ferst chirch minister mister borows today. he asted me why we dident go to his chirch enny more and sed that he missed my sisters singing in the quire. he dident say ennything about missing me. i told him we was all crasy to get back to his chirch and sunday school, only i called it sabath school becaus ministers always call it that and evrybody else doesnt. he asted me if we become crasy to get back about the time we heard of the picknic and i sed no not exackly then, for we had always felt like that way but we was more crasier when we heard of that. all he sed was hum. that can meen most ennything you know. i am going to that picknic sumhow. i wish that old sheep was ded. if i see a bear climing the fense to kill that sheep and take off her skin and rap it up in a neet roll the way bears do and then eat it, i mean the sheep and leeve the skin and i had a gun in my hand i woodent shoot that bear. that is the way i feel about her. evry time i want to go ennywhere i have to taik cair of that old sheep ferst. august , ---i havent seen a show in exeter for a long time. i wish i gnew how i was going to that picknic. august , ---i was going fishing all day today and taik my dinner with me but of coarse i had to come back at one oh clock to feed that darned old sheep. i wish we lived in a bear country. august , ---brite and fair. perhaps if i did i woodent dass to go fishing. ennyway i wish that old sheep was ded. i am still hoaping to go to that picknic. august , ---we have had a terrible xciting time here today. if it hadent been for cele we wood have lost our sheep. me and keene fit hard with clubs and broomsticks and kicking in the ribs and pulling his tale but cele done it. i shood never have thougt of it. but cele did. father says cele is a heroin. he says cele has got some branes but that me and keene has got moar curage than jugment. he says mother has got some branes two. i gess father was tickled to deth about it. well this is the way it was. old henry dow has got a awful cros dog. when it aint tide he keeps it with him. today it got untide or knawed its roap and the ferst i gnew i heard keene begin to screach and a growl and a kind of choking sort of baa. i was up in the barn lof, but when i herd that i come down prety quick. when i got there old dows dog had that sheep rite by the gozzle and had throwed it down. the lamn was trembling and baaing and keene was lamming that dog with a broom jest as hard as she cood paist him and screaching as loud as she cood. he dident mind the broom stick enny more than a fether. i ran up and kicked him in the ribs but that dident maik him let go. i got hold of his tale and pulled and kicked but he hung on. they was maiking a awful choking growly noise. mother run out and then run back and i herd her pumping a pale of water and i run for the ax. jest as i got it and come out of the shed cele come taring out of the house with sumthing shiny in her hand and throwed it rite in that dogs nose and eys, and he let go and began to howl and paw at his eys and nose and role over and tare round. people were running into the yard and mother come out with a pale of water jest as sam dire clim over the fense with a red hot iron in his pinchers and come taring up. the dog had scooted for hom howling bludy murder and when sam got there he was so xcited he put the red hot iron on the sheep and set its wool afire. we wood have had roast lamn for dinner if it hadent been for mother who throwed her pale of water part of it on the sheep and part of it on cele who got in the way. the funny part of it was that when we xamined the sheep we found she wasent hurt mutch. the bull dog had got his teeth partly in her thick wool and partly in her lether coller. she was scart about to deth and kep hudling up against us like a cat. keene she sed she saw the whole of it. the old bull dog started for the lamn and that old sheep whitch had never liked the lamn gumped rite in front of it with her head down and the bull dog gumped and grabed her instead of the lamn. if he had grabed the lamn he wood have killed it to onct. tonite father asted more than questions about it. he sed we al done splendid. that me and keene showed grate curage but that cele and mother showed grate jugment. he nearly dide laffing when he heard sam dire set fire to the sheep. he sed he gesed sam dident want to lose his heat. father asted cele how she hapened to think to do that and that is the funny part of it. sumtimes you have to laff at funerals. well cele sed that in scalploc sam a bear had a deth grip on his dogs throte when scalploc sam he grabed his pepper pot and throwed a hanful of pepper in his eys and nose and while the bear was ritheing in agony and filling the welkin with horid roars and snarls and growls scalploc sam loded his thrusty riffle and slew him. slew means kill. so that give cele the idea and she done it. she sed she dident get enny help from the palsams. so mother is going to let cele read dime novils if she dont read two many. then keene up and sed that she had aught to be aloud to read weded yet no wife but mother she sed no. so father give keene cents and gave me ten cents. i told him he had aught to let me go to that picknic but he sed he dident believe in eleven hours conversion i told him i had been thinking about that picknic for eleven days and he laffed and sed i would have to get along with that ten cents. i tell you we was all tired tonite. i think father had aught to let me go to that picknic. i am still hoaping. august , ---today that sheep let the lamn suck and seamed to like it. she rubed agenst me and was as tame as the old one was. if she is going to ack that way i shall like her. beanys father is going to let beany go to that picknic. mister watson beanys father rings the town bell and is the ganiter of the ferst chirch. beany always has all the luck. i dont have enny. it is most time for that picknic but nobody aint sed nothing to me about it yet. i am still hoaping. august , ---when i woke up this morning it was raining hard and it raned all day. this is the ferst time i ever gnew it to do that and the th time i ever gnew it to rane on sunday. today i split the wood and luged it in and fed the sheep and did all them things that i have to do and most felers dont have to do and then i read awhile and we talked about the bull dog and the sheep. then i rote a poim about it. one day in sumer in au-gust. it was so hot we nearly bust my sheep was painting with the heat when a dog came taring down the street and then without delay or pause he gumped on them with teeth and claus p.s. a dog aint got no claus to clau with, only nails and nails woodent rime with pause. he seezed that sheep by her white throte and shook her till she was all aflote he wood have killed her ded rite there when my sister keene who you coodent scare let out a screech you cood heard a mile and laid on a broom in her very best style and while she was taning his mizable hide i give him sum feerful kicks in the side and squashed him almost perfictly flat but he wodent let go for all of that till my sister cele came runing out with a scornful look on her hansom snout (p.s. a second time. it is a kind of mean thing to say about my sister cele but it is a good rime ennyway as long as i sed she was hansome i dont beleeve she wood cair.) and she throwed in that dogs face and eys peper enuf to make kyann pepper pyes and that dog let go and begam to yell and howl as if he was rite in hell (p.s. th we unitarials say there aint no hell but i aint sure) and he made for home on the cleen gump jest as mother came out with a pale from the pump and old sam dire clim over the fench with a red hot iron and a munky rench (p.s. again. fench is ment for fence. poits can do this whenever they have to) and he set on fire that poor sheeps fur and that was the best he cood do for her, but mother throwed that pale of water half on the sheep and fourths on her daughter and cele sed sam you dam big lout just what in hell are you about? (p.s. once more. my sister cele never sed that really. she wood ruther cut her rite hand off than use such langage. but nobody but me will ever read this) and sam sed looking verry wize i apoller-oler-ollergize. and then thinking he better not stop he clim the fence to his backsmith shop and oh how grateful that sheep must feel to me and mother and keene and cele. but old sam dire has went to his shop where we certingly hoap old sam will stop. (p.s. the last time. we really dont hoap so becaus we all like sam very mutch. sam is one of the best fellers we ever gnew. but i had to finnish the poim some way. ennyway sam wont ever read it.) there i think they aint many better poims than that. i bet the exeter news leter wood put it in their paper if i dassed to let them. i bet beany coodnt have wrote it. i bet pewt coodent have either. august , ---tomorrow is the last day before the picknic and i am still hoaping. it will be prety mean if i cant go to that picknic. i am stil hoaping. august , ---hooray i am going to that picknic. i had almost given up hoap. mister minister barrows come and asted me if i wood let my boat for the picknic. i sed i never let my boat to a picknic unless i rew it myself becaus i never gnew who wood row it and how they wood treet it and once they dident bring it back at all but after they had used it all day they left it up river and dident pay me and i had to go up after it and when i had waulked three miles up river i found it on the other bank and it was too cold to swim across and i had to waulk way back to the brige and then go up on the other side to get it and it took me most all day and the boat was all full of dried mud and ded hornpout and i had to spend the rest of the day in washing it out and dident get enny pay. wel he sed they wood pay me well and wood treet the boat verry carifully but i sed i coodent trust enybody eether to pay for the boat or to take cair of it. so i sed i gess i dident want to let the boat unless i did the rowing and was there to look after it. i sed it was the only boat i had and that father was always telling me not to let evry tom dick and harry have it jest becaus they wanted it. he sed he wood assure me that everything wood be all rite if i wood tell him how mutch i wanted for it but i told him he coodent have the boat unless i went with it and he had beter get a boat of sumbody elce. he sed that my boat was large and safe and that nobody elce has so good a boat. i told him that wasent my fault but that was the way i did business, so after awhile he sed well if i wood promise to do all the rowing that he wanted he wood ingage me and my boat and he is going to give me cents. i only get cents most of the time but i thougt i had augt to get of him. so he sed all rite and i am going. when father come home i told him the minister had sed that if i wood come to the picknic and help row the boat he would give me cents more than i usally got, and he sed i cood do it if he wanted me as bad as that. i dident tell father all i sed to the minister or all he sed to me. i dont think the minister wanted me very bad. i think he wanted the boat more. enny way he had to do it. tomorrow i am going to wash the boat out and i bet i will have a good time. keene says she woodent want to go where she wasent wanted but i told her that when they paid me twice as mutch as i usally got it showed that they wanted me prety bad. so kerry coodent say mutch to that. august , ---it is almost time for school to begin and i have lost a hole week in bed and my life has been despared of. i dont beleeve enny feller ever was so sick as i have been and still lived to tell the tale. doctor pery sed he never gnew a feller to go throug what i have went throug and live. it was that darn picknic that done it. doctor perry says they aint a doctor in exeter that dont lay in a lot of extry caster oil and rubarb and sody and a new popsquert and get a lot of sleep the nite befoar a chirch picknic. he sed that a collick from eating two mutch is bad enuf but when a feller is all swole up with poizen ivory leeves two it is wirse. it is a very long story and i dont beleeve i can write it out all in one evining becaus sumtimes my head goes round like a button on a barn door so father sed. wel the morning of the picnic i got up erly and washed out my boat and had it at the worf when the peeple come down. mother sed she dident want me to go unless i took sumthing for them to eat so she put me up a half dozen donuts and sum sanwiches and sum apple tirnovers and a little bottel of pickels. well i thougt they wood have enuf for all of the people without that and so i et it all while i was washing out the boat. i gnew i was a going to have a hard days wirk and i wanted to be ready and after i had hid the basket and had the boat reddy the peeple began to come down to the worf. they had baskets and pales and paper boxes and ice creem freesers and bottels and plaits and goblets and mugs and cups and brown paper packages of coffy that smeled awful good and made me hungry again althoug i had et a hole basket full. well the minister was there with a long taled coat and a white neck ty and decon william henry johnson and decon ambrose peevy and aunt hannar peevy and widow sally mackintire and lots of them and evrybody was talking and laffing and stepping on things they hadent aught to step on and puting things in rong places and loosing things jest like old peeple always do. the ferst thing they done was to pile on to the worf so many that the worf sunk down and the water come over it and wet most of there feet and they al screached and hipered up the bank and then begun to blame me for it as if i had done it when i was in the boat and dident tuch their old worf. and mrs. lydia simpkins shorl went floting down river and i had to row out and get it and she sed i had augt to know better than to get too many peeple on a worf and wet their feet and they thougt i done it a purpose. sum peple wood have given me ten cents. she mite have thanked me. the minister was all rite. he sed it wasent my falt. so they was more cairful nex time and one at a time they tiptode acros the worf and got into the boats. i had my boat full and al the women grabed at the sides of the boat and hollered wen it rocked the teentyest bit. but after they see i gnew what i was about they begun to have a good time draging their hands in the water and setting one sided. it made it awful hard to row but i dident say nothing but rew as hard as i cood. i dident know until we got to the eddy woods why it was so hard. it was becaus thomas edwin folsoms coat tales were draging in the water all the way. if i had gnew that i dont beleeve i wood have sed nothing. they sung songs like lightly row, lightly row ore the sparkling waives we go and rocked in the cradle of the deep and come away come away theres moonlite on the lake and row brother row the stream runs fast the rapids are near and the boat is---sumthing or other i have forgot. they always sing songs like them. when we got up to the eddy they got out and the decons coat tales were driping over his hine legs so he took his coat off and hung it on a lim of a tree to dry. then i had to lug all the baskets and pales up the bank. befoar i went down for a second lode of peeple mrs. dearborn give me more sanwiches and donuts and a drink of lemonade for rowing them so good and when i had et them i started down river again. it was bully to se how eesy that boat went after the people was out. it was jest as eesy as nothing at all. i met all the boats comeing up. they was rowing evry whitch way. the oars was splashing and not keeping time. there was one man whitch thougt he was a grate rower. he set in the back rowing seat and had or full groan peeple in the front part of the boat and a little dride up woman who dident weig more than a empty basket on the back seat and she was triing to steer the boat. the bow of the boat was sunk down and the stirn was up in the air so that the ruder dident tuch the water. the boat would swing round and the man wood pull sideways till his face was all one sided and jaw at his wife becaus she dident know enuf to steer a boat, and she wood paw back that she gnew as mutch about steering as he did about rowing. they were having a real good time. then i met beany with fat wimmen in the stirn seat and in the front seat beany was up so high that his oars cood hardly reech the water and the boat was one sided becaus one woman was twice as fat as the other and the other peeple were leening over the side of the boat and beany was sweting like a horse and mad enuf to bite a peace out of the bow of the boat and eat it and he was going about one mile an hour and his face was as red as skiny bruces hair. i set up and rew with long even stroaks and fethered my oars and dident splash a bit and the boat went on an even keel with little whirlpools when the oars came out and when i passed beany the peeple in his boat sed dont that shute boy row well, i wish he was rowing this boat. if he was we wood get there sum time today. and beany was mad and i heard him say huh old plupy is only showing off. well when i got back to the worf there was sum more peeple wating with sum milk cans of lemonaid, and a freeser of ice creem and i was so hot from rowing so hard that i set down and brethed hard and wiped my face and held my head in my hands. they asted me if i was sick and i sed no only xasted becaus i am so thirsty my throat is dry. so they give me a glas of lemonaid and a saucer of ice cream and peaces of cake and after i had et that i sed i felt better and was ready to row them up. they asted me how long it would taik and i sed if they wood set so the boat wood run even i wood do it prety quick. so they done as i sed and i rew steddy by the gravil and the oak and the cove and the fishing bank to the willows whitch is haff way and they give me glasses of lemonaid and when i had drank it i started again and rew stedy till i got to the last tirn when i passed beany and the other boats that the old pods were rowing. when i went by beany he sed i bet you havent been way down to the worf old plupe and the peeple in my boat sed he surely has and the fat wimmen in beanys boat sed the nex time we come up we will get him to row us and not you elbrige. i sed to myself low so they woodent hear me i bet you wont if i can help it. well i landed my peeple at the bank and luged up their stuff befoar beany got there. when he got there a awful funny thing hapened. beany he give or long stroaks to land the boat and he done it pretty good for him. while the boat was running in beany balanced in the bow ready to gump out and hold it. well when he done it and lifted the bow to pull up the boat the stirn went down so far that the water came over the side of the boat and the fat wimmen were setting in about six inches of water. well they screeched and tride to get up but they was weged in so tite that they coodent till of the men gumped into the boat and yanked them up and you augt to hear them lay into beany. the back of their dreses was sopping wet. wel peeple had put up swings and fellers was pushing girls in swings and runing under them and sum were swinging in hammocks and sumone had bilt a fire and sum were setting the tables and sum were setting down on shorls and cushings and children were playing copenhagin and going to gerusalem and it was a lively time. i wanted to have sum fun but the minit i landed wimmen that i had never saw befoar wanted me to go out with them to get sum flowers and leeves for their table and of coarse i had to go but as i was prety well tuckered out i made them give me one more glas of lemonaid and sandwiches. that was better than nothing and after i had drank it and et them i was reddy and we went off in the boat. i rew them across the river and we found sum vines with shiny leaves and a lot of yeller dazies and sum cardinel flowers and the wimmen made reaths of them one for eech plait on the table. while we was doing this sum more people come and they began to make reaths and i helped them. bimeby we had enuf and we went back to the picknic with our arms full. when we got there they was a big crowd round sumthing on the ground and we run up and found that beany had fell out of a swing and had hit on his head. he swang the higest of enyone when he fel out and if he hadent hit on his head it wood have killed him. it made him kind of squint eyd for a while and his head was on one side for or days but it dident hurt him. miss lewccretia baley had spraned her anckle by steping in a hole and had to set with her anckle rapped up in a shorl. but i notised she et as mutch as ennyone, and tommy tomson had got a fishhook in his leg and had to have it cut out. evryone was having a good time and i cood smell the coffy. after beany was pernounced out of dainger and was able to crawl round and drink about glases of lemonaid before dinner was ready, sum fellers is pigs ennyway, i had to row sum moar peeple up river for sum cardinel flowers. before i done this i got them to give me creem cakes and a peace of blewberry pie. i aint like beany always waiting to eat without wirking for it. a feller has to eat in order to wirk good. well when i had et them i rew the people up river and when they wood see a cardinel flower they wood holler to me and i wood row the boat up to the place where the cardinel flower was and they wood pick it and holler over it and then we wood go on. the river was kind of low and the banks were steep and slipery where the cardinel flowers grew and charlie lane, the feller whitch was in the boat, had on sum white britches and we had got enuf and was going back when one of the wimmen sed oh see that splended one we must have that one. so i rew up and charlie got out and clim up and got the flower whitch was a big one or feet above the water. when charlie got it he turned round and sed the rose is red the vilet blew the pink is sweet and--- and his hels flew up and he set down in the slipery mud and slid rite into the water, that is his hine legs went in to his gnees but he grabed the boat and that stoped him. his white britches were wet and covered with green slime to his gnees and the seat of his britches was black with mud. the wimmen nearly dide laffing and charlie sed mersy sakes what a mess. most evry other feller wood have swore feerful but charlie doesnt sware and is a good young man. that is why we call him charlie. well charlie sed he gessed he wood woulk home and change his britches, he called them his pants, and so he got out of the boat and clim up the bank and started. i dident tell him he was on the rong side of the river becaus he dident ast me and i supose he gnew what he was about. the last i see of him he was going towerds kensinton. while i was sick i sort of wurred about him but when i ast mother she sed he was in the store. he works for old gid lyford. when we got back to the picknic old mrs. bolton had had a spell and the minister and decon sawyer was lifting her into miss susan parkinsons caryall to drive her home. sum feller had throwed a teeny little bull toad in her lap. huh i shood think that was a prety thing to have a spell for. i never see ennyone have a spell. i wish i had got there in time to see it. beany sed it was grate fun and elvrybody injoyed it. mr. e. o. luvrin had been stang by a hornit on his underlip and evrybody had a good time looking at him. i don't beleeve there was ever a beter picknic. the tables had been set and looked fine. our table with the reaths was the pretyest. well we all set down and evrybody sed hush, hush and the minister sed a long prair. peraps it seamed longer becaus i was most starved to deth. i had been wirking so hard and it was a long time since i had my breckfast. well after the minister got through, we pitched in and et. i never had so good a dinner in my life. we had ham sanwiches and cornbeef sanwiches and tung sanwiches and pickles and milk and pickle limes and creem cakes and blewberry pie and chese and rasbery tirnovers and astrackan apples and balled egs and blackberrys and tee and coffy and sardeens on crackers and custerd pyes and squash pyes and apple pyes and gelly roles and tarts and coconut cakes and all the ice creem we cood eat, pink ice creem and white ice creem and yeller ice creem. i et sum of everything they had. you see it was a long time since i had my breckfast and i had been wirking hard and mother had always told me to eat evrything in my plait and i wanted to ennyway. so i et until i coodent eat ennymore and most everybody done so two. after dinner i helped clear away the things and then sum peeple went wauling in the wood sum slep in the hammucks and sum set down in cerkles and played gaims and told storys. they was one big cerkle whitch had the minister and most of the decons and their wifes and all the old wimmen and they was playing childrens gaims and hollering and laffing jest like children. old e. o. luverin the feller whitch had been stang by a hornit on the underlip had told me to bate a hook and set my pole for a big hornpout or an eal. so i done that before dinner. i put a big steal hook on the line and bated it with the bigest grashoper i cood find, an old lunker, one of them kind that maiks a noise lika a nutmeg graiter and when it flise ratles its wings. then i unwound al my line and threw the bate out as fur as i cood and set the pole with a croched stick rite down in the sand by the boats. i was lissening to the peeple playing gaims when sum feller hollered plupy you got a bite and i looked and saw that my line was tite and my pole bending. so i hipered down the bank and grabed the pole and pulled in. i had a big one on the hook and he pulled terrible, but i yanked him out and i pulled so hard that he went way over my head and rite in the middle of the cerkle of peeple. it was an old lunker of an eal and when it lit on the ground it twisted and squirmed and thrashed round like a snaik and of al the screaching and tirning of back summersets by the wimmen whitch were fat and coodent get up quick, and of all the holding up of skerts and hipering for the woods by the thin wimmen you never saw in all your life. and the men hollored and got out of the way of that eal as quick as the wimmen and one decon hollered what in hel and damnation are you trying to do you cussid fool, and sum of the others sed things i gess they wished they hadent. me and beany was triing to get that eal of the hook. i got my foot on his neck and he squermed round my leg and got my britches leg all covered with slime. bimeby i got him off and into my boat, and when i went back old mrs. sofire peezley was having a spell. i never seen ennyone have a spell before and it was very interesting. she screached and cried and then threw her head back and laffed and claped her hands together and roled her eys and gulped and swallered, and the wimmen were patting her on the back and making her smell of amonia botles and calling her dear and blesid lamn, and poar darling and talking to her as if she was a baby, and wimmen were coming back from the woods and saying it was a burning shaim and looking at me mad and saying i had aught to be in jale. and old e. o. luvrin jawed me but it dident do no good becaus his lip was so swole that nobody cood understand what he sed. but i sed i aint done nothing what are you pichin into me for? then a woman sed you are the wirst boy in town and you are jest like your father was, and i sed i gess if you gnew what my father sed about you you woodent say much more and she tirned red and sed if that boy stays here i wont. it is a shaim to have sutch a boy at a desent picnic or with desent peeple. then they all got round me and jawed me and the minister sed i must go home and i sed all rite if i have got to go i wil taik my boat, and he sed verry well take your boat and go. i am verry mutch disapointed in you. then i sed ennyway i want my fifty cents and they all sed dont you give him a cent he has been a newsense. then i sed it may be all rite to call a feller a newsence after he has rew about a hundred peeple more than fifty miles and luged barils stuff up the bank and made reaths and picked flowers and rescued peeple from drownding whitch dident know enuf to sit in a boat, but i aint going till i get my fifty cents then they sed if i dident go rite off they wood lick me and i woodent get my fifty cents. so i got into my boat and rew up river. then i rew back and kept in the middle of the river and began to holer things to beany. i gnew they coodent drive me off the river so i hollered to beany did you see old misses peezley have that fit? gosh i bet she maiks old man peezley stand round. peraps that is why he is baldheaded. beany dident dass to say nothing. then i hollered beany did you hear old decon aspinwall sware at me? he wanted to know what in hel and damation i was triing to do. that is prety talk for a decon aint it? i shood think he wood feel ashaimed the nex time he speeks in prair meeting. i cood see the decon talking to the minister xcited, and misses peezley was talking xcited two. but beany dident dass to say nothing. so i hollered again to beany did you see old rhody shatuck hold up her skirts and hiper for the woods? did you ever see sutch skinny legs? then old man shatuck run down the bank and hunted round for a rock but i gnew he coodent find one becaus there aint enny rocks there and he tride to break a lim off a tree to plug at me and he hollered and sed he would brake my back, but i gnew he coodent get me and i hollered again to beany o beany aint it lucky the minister is married becaus all the wimmen is hanging round him and beany dident dass to say nothing, but they all got together and talked and then the minister come down the bank and called me to come in and he wood give me my fifty cents if i wood go strait home but i sed not mutch i dont come where you can get a holt on me and lam time out of me. well he sed i will not hurt you but i sed you sed you wood pay me and you dident and i cant trust you. he turned red as a beat and sed i am verry sorry that you acuse me of being untroothful but here is your money if you will come near enuf so i can toss it into the boat. so i backed the boat in holding my oars ready to row out if he tride to grab the boat or to gump in but he dident do eether but throwed the fifty cent peace into the boat and i started for home. i gess it was about time for i began to feel prety quear. my head aked and there was black specks before my eys and my face and hands burned like fire and smarted and my boans aked. i gess i shall have to stop here for i hear mother coming up with my chicken broth and tost and am most starved to deth. father says i weig pounds less than nothing and my arms and legs is jest like pipe stems or spider legs. continnude from the last. august ---when i got home i hiched the boat and my head went round so i had to set down. then i got up and went home. mother saw me and sed what is the matter with your face it is as red as fire. i sed i gess the muskeeters done it. she asted me if i wanted enny supper but i sed i dident ever want to eat again but i wanted a drink of water. so i drunk sum water and went up stairs. then i begun to feel bad and caled mother and she come up jest in time. i was awful sick. father come up and aunt sarah and they held my head and run in and out of the room with wash boles and towels. o i was awful sick and mother sed for mersy sakes what have you been eating and father sed for goddlemity sake what haven't you been eating? bimeby i felt a little better only my face and hands burned and itched. mother sed she dident like the looks of it and she never gnew a feller to be sick at his stomack with a red face and hands. so she wet a towel in cold water and put it on my face and hands and bimeby i gess i went to sleep. sumtime in the nite i began to feel sick again and had awful panes in my stomack and i called mother again. this time i was awful sick again and father and mother and aunt sarah were verry busy for a long time. bimeby i wasent so sick to my stomack but my panes were wirse and father went for docter perry. he was gone a long time before he come back with him. doctor perry he took a look at me and sed poison ivory, so he got it did he. then he felt of my stomack and looked at by tung and felt my pulce and heard me grone and gave me a dose of castor oil and then he took out a little popsquirt the litlest i ever see and he sed i gess i shall have to give you a subteranian interjection. i thougt a interjection was a part of speach like alas and o and ah. ennyway that is what the grammar says. but this wasent that kind for the docter run the sharp point of that little popsquert whitch was jest as sharp as a needle rite into my arm. it hurt like time and i hollered but after he had pulled it out i began to feel kind of lite and floty and the ferst i gnew the pane was gone and i dident know nothing more. well the next morning i felt a little beter but not enuf to get up and not enuf to eat but after a while i felt wirse again and mother sent for doctor perry again and he come and give me some more medecine and another subteranian interjection whitch put me to sleep again. the next time i woke up again i coodent open one ey and only see a teeny bit out of the other, but i felt better, only i iched feerful and smarted. doctor perry laffed when he come in and sed i looked funny but not so funny as old e. o. luvrin. he sed all the peeple whitch set at one table had it and had it wirse than i did, but i was sicker the other way. he sed that all the docters had been up day and nite and always were buzy when there was a chirch picknic. he sed that if he had his way chirch picknics wood not be aloud enny more than prize fites and cock fites. he sed that the peple were prety mad with me and thougt i done it purpose, but he told them if i had done it a perpose i woodent have been fool enuf to tuch the ivory myself, whitch was prety good for the docter. ennyway i give him plenty of biziness. i suppose i hadent augt to have sed what i did about missis shatucks legs and old misses peezleys fit, but i aint sorry for what i sed about the old decon swaring. i hadent done nothing. jest cougt a eal. i must have left him in the boat. gosh when i get well enuf to go down to the boat he will be in auful smelly condition. i am sory i forgot him. well i had to stay in bed days. most of the time i had web cloths on my head and coodent see nothing. cele come up and read wild mag the trapers bride and a new novil dair devvil dave the dead shot. she oferred to read the th palsam to me but i told her i dident feal strong enuf yet so she read more chapters of dair devvil dave instead. beany come over with a tame rat tide with a string. he wasent very tame and bit beany times. potter goram brogt his collexion of butterflise and a live green snaik. mother woodent come in until he put the snaik in his poket. the chadwicks puz and bug came in twise and fit for me, in the ferst fite puzzy got a black ey and in the th fite bug got a bludy nose. they was good fites and jest about even. i tell you they is always redy to help a frend. ed tole brougt up his rooster and had arainged a fite with gimmy fitzgeralds rooster but jest as they was going to set them a going the old minister called to see if i was ded and when he found i wasent he made a long call and praid fer me and told me i had sinned deaply but wood be forgiven if i had faith. all the time i cood see ed and gimmy peeking round the corner of the barn and wateing till the old minister had went so they cood have their rooster fite. i was afrade they wood have it behine the barn where i coodent see it and i thout that old minister never wood go. while he was there he saw the bible open to the th palsam and he sed it is very grattifiing to me to see that you are reading the bible and i sed i wasent reading it becaus i coodent read ennything yet, but my sister cele comes up and reads to me and he sed she is a very good girl indeed and i have heard she is very diffeernt from the rest of the shute family. i sed yes sir. then he looked round some moar and found wild mag the trapers bride whitch was rite on the table. i wood have hid it only i coodent get it unless i piled out of bed and i dident think it was proper to get up in my shert tale befoar the minister. so i hoaped he woodent see the novil but he did and he picked it up and looked at it and read the naim and held it jest as if it was a bull toad or a snaik and then he sed are you reading this vile trash and i sed yes sir, and he sed how cood you read it with your eyes swole up, and i sed i cood see sum. he sed you jest told me you coodent see to read. i dident know what to say so i sed yes sir. then he sed awful stern do you meen to tel me that your sister celia---and jest then mother she come in and sed i am afrade mister barrows that we hadent aught to disturb our pashent too long. he isent verry strong yet. and he said that is true misess shute but he has made some staitments about this improper book that i think it is my duty to look into and he held up wild mag the trapers bride and mother she sed it seems as if mr. shute and i are compitent to deside what our children are to read. and he sed but my dear misses shute this is a verry improper book indeed and mother she sed have you read it and he sed god forbid i wood not disgraice my inteligents by reading sutch a book, and my mother she sed how do you know then it is a impropper book without reading it? and he sed how can a bok of the naim of wild mag the trapers bride be a good book and mother she sed she had read it and there was nothing impropper at all in it. i dident know she had read it so when the minister had went off kind of stiflegged i asted her if she dident thing it was a riping story and she sed no she dident see how i cood read it but she had read it to see if there was ennything impropper in it and they wasent. she sed she only read it to see if there was ennything really rong in it. she dont care for sutch stories i am afrade. then she asted if i wanted ennything and i sed no and she went down stairs. then when she had went i clim out of bed and waived my hand to ed and gimmy and they come out with their rosters under their arms and set them a going and they hadent made more than a dozen gumps at eech other when in come old mother moulton with sum gelly and custerd for me and she stoped the fite and jawed the boys and asted them if they dident know enny beter than to have a rooster fite in the yard of a poar boy whitch had nearly dide only a few days ago and ed and gimmy sed no mam we dident know he had been so sick and we woodent have did it and they picked up their roosters and went home and i skiped into bed prety lively for a boy whitch had nearly dide a few days ago. so when she come up i was in bed and i et the custerd and part of the gelly and it was bully. i wish she hadent come so soon. that wood have been a good rooster fite. i set up most haff of the time today. tomorrow i am going downstairs. fatty gilman come down today and brought me oranges and a red bananner. mother let me eat the oranges but woodent let me eat the bananner. i dont know what she done with it. i supose sumone et it. enyway i dident. aug. ---today i went out in the yard. it was brite and fair all day. lots of the felers come up and had a tirnament. first they had a match throwing green apples on a stick. puzzy chadwick throwed the furtherest. he threw one from my yard across the high school yard and it went throug a window in old heads cariage shop. it was so far that when the men in that room piled out swaring they dident supose it was one of us and thy swore at john toomy and other fellers in the school yard. pewt was the next best. perhaps it wood have went as far as puzzys but sumthing stoped it. what stoped it was a mans head. i dont know who the man was but when that apple hit him rite on the back of his head he throwed down sum boards he was luging into the shop and clim the fense and chased john toomey and the other felers way down south street. i gess he dident catch them becaus he swore so when he come back and if he had cougt them and licked them he wood have felt better. men always do. so we dident throw enny more apples. so then we had sum rassels and the twin browns and potter goram had a mach wigling their scalps and ears. harry brown beat on a scalp wigling and potter on ear wigling. the chadwicks puzzy and bug fit again and neether licked. then we had a spitting match. ed tole beat. he always does. then mother come out and sed i had been out long enuf. so i went in. i had a pretty good day. september . brite and fair. it seams bully to be well again and to see the fellers and to go in swimming and fishing. i havent went in swimming or fishing since i have ben sick but i am going in in a day or too. i can eat things now whitch is better than enything. a feller cant do mutch unless he has a good apetite. father says there is one thing whitch has kept me back all these years. he sed that if i had had a beter apetite when i went to that picknic i cood have et nine pecks of stuff insted of only five. he sed he wood have to get the doctor to give me a tonick the nex picknic time so that i can do a gob that will be a credit to the family. he sed enny healthy boy witch can go to a chirch picknic and only eat meesly pecks of food aint doing jestice to himself or his frends and he hoaps i will do beter nex time. he says he dont want me to make a hog of myself but he does want me to make a record that he can be proud of. he says i can be champeen if i only try hard. i never know whether father is goking or not, but i think this time he must be goking. ennyway it wasent becaus i et two mutch that made me sick, it was becaus i got poizoned by poizen ivory leeves and that stuffed up my stomack. if it hadent been for that i bet i woodent have been sick. then going so long without ennything to eat and wirking hard dident do me enny good. they are still mad with me. i am sorry now i sed what i did. when a feller has lade between life and deth for days he looks at things diferent from what they wood if he was well and was going round with fellers like pewt and beany and whach and fatty and pop and medo and tady and skinny and fellers like them. so i have been thinking over what i have did and sed and i am very mutch ashaimed of myself. if enny other feller had went and sed things about my mother and sister or about aunt sarah and my father that i sed about old rody shatuck and misses peezley and decon aspinwall i wood have felt like giving him a bang in the snoot. i wood have did it if he wasent two big, and if he was i wood have triped him up sum nite with a roap or plunged him with ripe tomatose or rotten egs when he had got on his best close. but i needent be afraid that ennyone wood say ennything against my folks becaus they dont have fits and dont run round after ministers and dont hold up their skerts xcept when there is a mouse round and that is always at home where peeple cant see them. so i shant have to bat ennyone for that but that dont make enny difference becaus i have did rong. so i have thougt it over and last nite when the band was playing departed days and the romance from leclare in the band room i desided i wood wright a letter to all the peeple i had sassed and beg their pardon. it is prety tuff to do it but it aint haff as tuff as being snaiked rite up befoar them by your father and made to beg their pardon. i have had to do this quite a number of times. so this morning when i woke up and had brekfast i remembered what i desided and i went up to my room and rote a lot of letters to peeple. i gess when father finds it out he will think i am prety good feller after all. it took me a long time to do it and i hated to waist the time becaus it is prety near the last weak of vacation but i gnew i wood feel beter when i had done it and i done it. this is what i rote to decon aspinwall. decon aspinwall congregasional chirch exeter new hampshire dear sir i have been thinking over what i sed to you when i hollered to beany about your swaring at me at the picknic last weak and i done verry rong and please to forgive me. of coarse it wasent so mutch becaus you swore so but becaus you are a decon of the chirch and speek in prair meating and so you hadent augt to have did it. but that is no xcuse for me to sass you. father sed i wasent verry mutch to blaim. he says he dont object to swaring but when a man tries to be a decon and plug ugly at the saim time it is the dam hippockrasy of it that maiks a man mad. i only tell you this to show you i was not verry mutch to blaim. but i am verry sorry i done it. you needent tell father what i sed, but i hoap you will try hard not to sware so another time when there is wimmen and girls and a minister present jest becaus a boy done what they told him to do and cougt a eal. yours very respectively harry shute i bet that decon will be glad when he gets that leter. i bet there aint many fellers whitch can write a better letter than that. i bet beany coodent. i bet pewt coodent eether. this is the letter i rote to old misses peezley. mrs. sofire peezly exeter new hampshire dear misses peezly. i am verry sorry for hollering to beany them things about you. when you had that fit i suposed it was becaus you was mad and i was kind of mad two becaus i had been cheeted out of my fifty cents by the minister, becaus i cougt a eal after they had told me to do it. then i remembered that my father had sed once that you had them fits when you wanted sumthing and kept having them until you got what you wanted and that he pitted mister peezly. so i dident think when i hollered to beany and i wish you wood pleese forgive me. it is a awful thing to have fits when you cant help it. mother says that peeple whitch have fits have to be verry careful not to get xcited. so when you go to a picknic again and enny feller throws a bull toad or a snaik into your lap you must reflek that a bull toad and a green snaik never bite or scrach and aint poizen. if you had gnew that at the picknic you wood not have had that fit. mother says that if peeple keep having fits they get wirse and sumtimes go crasy. so i hoap you will forgive me and will be very cairful not to get xctied. it is dredful to have fits and i am verry sorry for you. yours verry respectively harry shute there i think she will be verry mutch pleesed when she gets that leter. she wont think i am the wirst boy in town. this is the letter i rote to rhody shatuck. missis rody shatuck exeter new hampshire dear missis shatuck. i am verry sorry for hollering to beany at the picknic last weak about your skinny legs. i woodent have did it if i had been well, but i had been poizened by poizen ivory leeves and the minister had cheeted me out of my fifty cents and everybody had jawed me becaus i cougt a eal and so i done it. if you had a hair lip or a squint ey or a wenn on your neck like old nat mason it woodent be so bad but it is a dredful thing to have such skinny legs as you have got and i am verry sorry for you becaus i have got skinny legs myself and the fellers have made fun of me ever since i can remember and it is awful to be made fun of all the time. if i was a girl i cood cover them up with my skert and nobody wood know they was skinny unless i fell down or the wind blew two hard or i pulled up my skert like you done at the picknic. so if i was you i wood be very cairful not to pick up your skert like you done at the picknic and nobody will know how skinny your legs is. sumtimes i wish fellers wore skerts but i gess i would ruther have skinny legs. so pleese to forgive me for what i done. yours very respectively harry shute. this is the leter i rote to the minister. the referent minister of the ferst congrigasionel chirch dear sir. i thougt i wood wright you and tell you how sorry i am that i sed the sassy things to you whitch i sed at the picknic last weak. i am also verry sorry indeed that i douted your word when you sed you wood give me the fifty cents. if you had been ennything but a minister i wood not have thougt you wood cheet me but i have heard my father say that ministers has so many things give to them and has so many old mades and fulish wimmen after them that they aint mutch to blaim if they forgets sumthings whitch they hadent augt to forget. you see i dident know you verry well and i thought you mite be one of them kind of ministers but i found out that you wasent when you paid me the fifty cents and done as you agreed when you promised not to grab me and lam time out of me. i was reddy for you and if you had grabed that boat i wood probly have rew so hard that you wood have been puled into the water all over. i am glad you done as you agreed and paid me. you were prety lait in doing it and i was not to blaim for thinking you wood not keep your agreement, espesially as the wimmen all told you not to pay me a cent. so i am verry sorry for what i sed and i think you done prety well for a congirigasional minister and i hoap you will forgive me even if i am a unitarial and done beleeve in hel as you do. yours very respectively harry shute. i bet when old mister minister gets that leter he will wish i had staid in his chirch. but it is two lait now. i bet they will all be sorry i left the chirch. it aint many fellers whitch are willing to oan up that they are rong as i have done in these leters. my granmother usted to say that a soft answer tirnith away rath. so i bet i have made sum frends by them leters. when i got throug wrighting the leters it was almost time for dinner but i had a little moar time and i rote one mor to miss tabithy wilkins. she is a old made and she was xcited when i holered to beany about the wimmen chasing after the minister and i dident mean her and so i thougt i had augt to tell her so she woodent wurry. so i rote her a leter two. this is what i rote her. miss tabithy wilkins exeter new hampshire dear miss wilkins. when i hollered to beany at the picknic last weak about the wimmen running after the minister you thought i ment you and you got xcited. i thougt i wood wright and tell you who i ment. i dident meen you at all. i ment your sisters mary ann and unice and i ment missis angilina annis and feeby derborn and or others. i hoap you have not wurred about this. i rote jest as soon as i cood for i have been awful sick and lade between life and deth for a long time and coodent see ennything becaus my eys were all swole up by poizen ivory. i gnew you wood be glad to know i dident meen you, but i wood speek to your sisters if i was you. yours very respectively harry shute. after i had rote that i got sum stampls of mother. she wanted to know what i wanted them for and when i told her what i had did she sed it was verry brave of me to admiit i was rong and i must feel verry happy over it and i sed i did and i et my dinner and put the leters in the post ofice and all i have got to do now is to have a good time for the nex weaks. september th, ---brite and fair and hot as time. i dident have enny chanse to wright ennything yesterday. i dident feel mutch like it neether. i dont believe enny feller had so mutch truble in weaks as i had last nite. to hear father talk you wood think i was a bank burglar or a cannybile whitch kills and eats children. i have been jawed and licked and kep in my room and sent to bed without super, only cele brougt it up after father had went down town, and had evry thing did to me jest becaus i rote them leters and i dont see what there was in them leters to make ennyone mad. i coodent wright enny beter leters than them if i tride a hole weak, and the peeple whitch got them is feerful mad with me and father says that posiably they may persecute me at law and i may have to go to jale for what i rote and father says i have got him into a feerful scraip becaus i told them peeple what he sed about them. but then he sed it so i dont see why he shood be mad, and what he sed is true and he says that evrybody knows it is true so i done see why he shood be mad. the wirst of it is mother is mad with me two, that is to say mother aint mad xactly for she dont get mad but she is verry mutch displeesed with me and sed i done rong in wrighting to them as i did. i dont see why. ferst she says i done rong by hollering to beany about them and she was glad i begged their pardon and now she says i done rong becaus i dident stop when i begged their pardon and not say enny more. of course i had to xplain things to them. ennyway i dont understand it now and i dont beleeve i shall if i have to go to jale for forty-five years. i wonder if peeple ever do stay in jale forty-five years. peraps i shall find out sum day. i dont care. ennything i sbetter than having evrybody mad with you. a feller mite as well be ded. i wish i was ded. if i was ded peraps sum of them wood be sorry. well day before yesterday was a bully day. i went fishing in the morning with pewt and fatty melcher and cougt hogbaks, old lunkers and pickeril and a big roach almost as big as the one i left in my jaket poket the time the folks thougt there was a ded rat in the wall of the house and got old man staples to pull down the plastering. then in the afternoon i went butterfling with potter goram and got sum splendid red and black ones on the nettle flowers by the side of the road. father he came home from boston good-natured and was glad to see i was so mutch better and we had the roach and pickeril for supper and they was fine. after supper father went down town for sumthing and we was setting round the table. cele had read the nd palsam and was reading dare devvil dave the ded shot and i was wateing for father who sed he wood bring me a new novil from fogg and fellers store. keene was reading the fireside companion, mother lets her read that insted of the new york legger. georgie was putting a picture puzel together and annie and franky and the baby had been put to bed when i heard father comin up the steps. as soon as he opened the door i sed have you got my novil and he sed the thing you will get is a thundering good licking insted of a novil and i see i a minit that he was mad. so i sed what have i done and he sed what in thunder did you wright that devilish leter to that infernal idiut aspinwall for? and i sed i done it to beg his pardon and mother she sed i done rite. then father he sed that is a prety way to beg a mans pardon by telling him i sed he was a dam hippokrit. then i sed i dident say you sed he was a dam hippokrit i only sed you sed when a man tries to be a decon and a plug ugly one at the same time it was the dam hippockerasy of the thing that made you mad. i dident say you sed he was a dam hippokrit. father he sed for goddlemitys sakes what is the difference? what rite had you to tell him that ennyway and i sed well you did say it dident you? and he sed of coarse i sed it and it is true but if you dont know enny more than to tattle evrything i say at home i will give you a good sound thrashing rite now and i thougt i was going to get it when mother sed wait george to father and then she sed to me what did you wright to decon aspinwall and i cood remember all of it and i told her jest what i had rote and she leened back in her chair and begun to laff and laffed and laffed until i thought she wood fall out of her chair and aunt sarah she laffed almost as hard as mother and father he begun to laff and then we all laffed. i laffed becaus i see father laffin and i sed to my self it is all rite he wont lick me now. so i laffed. after we had stoped laffing mother sed how did you find out about the letter george and father he sed i went into fogg and fellers store to get your novil and while i was talking to jack fogg up come decon aspinwall as red as a beat and sed what do you mean george shute by calling me a dam hippokrit? and i sed i havent called you a dam hippokrit or enny sort of a hippokrit and he sed yes you have and i have it hear in black and white and he shook a leter rite in my face. so i sed i dont know what you meen. i havent rote any leter about you and he sed i know it but your misable son has ritten this atrosius epissle and you shall pay for it sir, you shall pay for it. well all the peeple in the store were lissening and i was a geting mad and so i sed well decon i know you aint drunk for you are to cussed meen to pay for a drink and so i gess you must be crasy but to keep you from going cleer out of your mind i will read the leter and i was sirprized. but i tried to smooth it over and sed now decon do you supose for one minit that i ever thougt that of you, mutch less sed it? and he sed yes sir that is jest what a man like you wood say and think two. well i kep my temper and tride to smooth him down but the more i tride the mader he got and finally he told me i was a defaimer of innosent persens and that he wood maik me proove it in coart. then i got mad and sed look hear you longnosed old vagrant, sue and be damned, but i have heard enuf of your chin musick and if you say words moar i will smash that sankit monious old snout of yours so flat that they wont be able to see your ears. then i told him to go to hell and i come home. but it was the bigest fool performance to wright a leter like that i ever heard of and if you ever do ennything again like that i will tan the hide off of you. i sed i woodent and i hoaped nobody wood say enny more but jest then mother sed i hoap you were moar cairful about the other leters and father he sed what have you sent enny others and i sed yes sir and he sed who elce did you wright to and i told him and he sed what did you wright to missis peezly and i sed i told her i was verry sorry for what i hollered to beany and asted her to forgive me, and he sed are you sure and i sed yes sir hoap to die and cross my throte. and he sed what did you wright to rody shatuck and i sed i rote her jest about the saim as i had rote to missis peezly and he asted if i was sure and i sed hoap to die and cross my throte. and he asted me what i rote to the minister and i sed i asked him to forgive me becaus i douted his word and for sassing him and he sed are you sure and i sed hoap to die and cross my throte. then he asted if i rote the same to the other peeple and i sed yes ser and he sed well thank the good lord you had more sence than you did when you rote the leter to old aspinwall. and i sed yes sir i am glad i had so i thougt i was all rite when the door bell rang kind of mad. i can always tell how a person feals when he rings our doorbell and when he neerly pulls it out i know he is mad. i felt as if sumthing was going to hapen jest then. well cele went to the door and i heard a woman asing if father was in and i reconised misses peezlys voice and i gnew she was mad and i wondered what she was mad for. so father he went in and i cood her her yapping away at him and cood hear father talking but coodent hear what they was saying. mother sed i hope you told your father the truth and i sed yes mam. bimeby father come in and called mother and she went in and i cood hear her talking. jest then the door bell rang and cele let in old rody shatuck and a minit afterwerds in come angelina annis and unice and mary ann wilkins and feeby derborn all of them jest mad enuf to fite. i cood tell they was mad by the way they asted for father. i tell you i got fealing prety sick but i coodent see what they was mad about. when they went into the parlor you wood have thougt it was a chirch meating when they was voating for the carpet in the vestry. evry woman talked to onct jest as loud as they cood. i never head such a noise in my life before. bimeby father come in and told me to come in and told me not to say a word unless to answer questions that he asked. i hated awful to go in but i had to. when i got in they was all there with there faces as red as beats and mad enuf to bit spikes. rody shatuck called me a misable brat and old missis peezly called me a low minded retch and made a mosshun as if she was going to paist me one with her old umbrela, but father told me to set down in a chair by mother then angelina sed to mother that she augt to be ashaimed of herself for incurageing me in my criminallity. that is what she sed but i dident know what she ment. but father who had not yipped a single yip sence i went in sed loud now look hear misses shatuck i want you to understand that you must keep missis shute out of this discussion. you can say what you like to me or about me and when you are all through i may have sumthing to say but if ennyone of you say a word disrespectful to her why then we will stop this thing to onct. now if you understan that go ahead. well i gess they understood it for of all the talk you ever heard, you wood have thought to thousand hens was cakling. they jest give it to me and father. father looked stern and serius but i thougt i cood see sumthing in his eys that looked like he wanted to laff, but mother dident look a bit like laffing. bimeby when they had talked about a hour it seamed to me they stoped. then father sed now young ladies i am a grate deel older then you are and have tride to look at the matter on both sides. why father aint within a most a hundred years so old as eny of them but he gnew how to pleese them. mother looked mad but father went on. as for you missis peezly nobody here ever heard of you having fits or ennything else. i goke a good deel to home here and i never goke about peeple i dont like. it is always about peeple for which i have the greatest respec and liking. i may have sed sumthing like what he sed and if i did i hadent augt to have did it, and woodent have did it if i had suposed that this boy woodent have gnew better than to have took it serius. i beg your pardon verry sincerely and this boy must do it two. so father he done it and i had to do it a th time. well she told father she was sorry she lost her temper with him for evrybody sed he was a perfick gentleman, but she still thougt the boy had augt to be punished verry sevearly for mottifiing her so. father he sed she mite be very sure he wood attend to that and he glore at me when he sed it as if he wood cut me into peaces and she sed good nite to father and good nite to mother and mother looked at her as if she wasent there and old missis peezly tirned red and snifed and went out stifleged. then father he sed to rody shatuck now missis shatuck the last thing in the wirld that a yung lady shood be ashamed of is to be slite and graiceful. that is one of the menny things you had augt to be proud of. there isnt a fat woman in this town whitch dusent envy you for your graice and activity, of coarse the boy was very infortunate in his choice of words but i asure you that the only thing he did was to call two publick atension to your verry atractive figure. i am real sorry i was not there to taik advantage of a most unusual oportunity. and then old rody gigled and sed she had been told she had a fine figure but she dident like to be told like i told it and father glore at me again and sed it woodent happen again and she sed goodnite to father and to mother and mother looked at her as if she wasent there at all and she tirned red and snifed and went off stifleged like old missis peezly. then father sed to mary ann and unice wilkins and feeby derborn. young ladies there probly aint enny peeple that do as mutch for the moral uplif of the chirch as those devoted young wimmen whitch do so mutch to help the minister in his menny duties in the chirch and parrish and when the history of the chirch is rote you young ladies will occupy a very high place on the role of onner. they always is and always will be peeple whitch is consoomed with gelousy and probly sum one has sed things and my son has heard them. but i am sure young ladies whitch is so kind harted as you have shew yourselfs to be will not be two sevear on a boy whitch at the time was sufering from poizen ivory and over eating and as for his part he wood punish him sevearly for saying what he did. so they sed if he wood do that it wood be all rite and they sed it was a pleasure to talk with a man who was so willing to do rite and to maik others do rite and father sed it was a pleasure to meat and talk to ladies of their standing in chirch and in society and he shook hands with them and they sed good nite to father and to mother and mother looked at them jest as if they wasent there, and they all tirned red and snifed and went off mad as time and jest as stifleged as the others. well after they had went father looked at mother kind of funny and scrached his hed and sed well joey, he calls mother joey, you have got about as mutch tack as a fire alarm on resurexion day and mother sed george shute do you realy mean to say that you are going to whip him for lying to you after what you have sed to them wimmen? and father laffed and sed he had to do sumthing to teech me a lesson and that one moar nite like this wood send him to a mad house. and mother told him he lide to them wimmen wirse than i had lide to him and he sed it wasent lies it was dipplomercy and if she had enny tack he wood have had them gnitting sox and mittens for him, and mother snifed two. so then he took me up stairs and licked me. not verry hard but moar than i desirved. but the wirst was that i cant go out of the yard for days and nex weak is the last weak of vacation. i think it is prety meen to treat a boy so whitch has lade between life and deth for days. i always get the wirst of it when i try to be good. i never will try to be good again if i live a million years. september , - brite and fair. it mite jest as well rane as not. i cant go out of the yard today and none of the fellers have been up. i saw beany ride by on jo palmers back. i hollered at him but he dident look. then pewt went down throug the high school yard with oars over his shoulder. me and pewt aint so frendly now becaus old man purinton has bougt boats, new ones and is leting them to peeple for less than i get for mine. he has painted them all white with a red rim and a picture on the stirn and they dont enny peeple want my boat. i wasent mad with pewt but he feals so big over his old boats that it maiks me sick. ennyway he mite have come over to see me when i was sick and laid between life and deth days. sum other peeple mite have come. lizzie tole was one of them. if it had been beany she wood have went to see him. i read in a book onct how a feller had a girl whitch took up with another feller whitch had a fine horse and buggy and a silver mounted harnis. so this feller told her he had lost all faith in wimmens consistency and had put them out of his life for ever. so the girl laffed and told him all rite she dident cair. so he went away with his hart curroded with bitterniss and went to wirk in a hotel. he wirked so hard that in years he oaned the hotel and had money in the bank. then the girl rote him that she had always luved him and never had luved the other feller but he rote her that the dye was cast, he shood never marry. and he never did, so his children never gnew a mothers cair. so i shall never marry like that feller who dident and all on account of beany. sumhow i cant get mad with beany. i had augt to menny times and keep mad two but i cant do it. september , ---i got up erly this morning befoar father went to boston and took cair of nellie and swept out the stable and luged in the water and split a lot of wood and blacked fathers boots and set up and had breckfast with him. i was hoaping he wood let me go out of the yard. but he dident say nothing about that but did say i had got to get up evry morning befoar he goes away and do my chores i done them so well this morning. i thougt that was a prety mean thing for him to do. i wished i hadent got up. well tonite father he caime home mad and sed i was the bigest fool he ever see. he sed i had blacked his boots with stove polish and evrybody laffed at him. so i wont have to get up. i had to black his boots over times with day and martins blacking befoar i cood get them to shine. it was a awful long day in the yard. beany brougt his black and tan terrier over and we got frank haines dog over and had a fite but jest as they were going good mother come out and poared a pale of water on them and they run off prety quuick. neether licked. that is always the way. sumbody always stops the good fites. it was saterday nite and after i had luged in about a milion pales of water and filled all the tubs for the folks to taik there baths in father he sed to mother, joey, he calls her joey, becaus her name is joanna. sumtimes when father wants to plage her he calls her johanna with a h and says she is irish. she dont like that becaus she is inglish. mother came to america when she was years of aig and so she doesent remember verry much about ingland. father says mother dont understand gokes becaus she is inglish and mother says she is glad of it becaus a good menny of fathers gokes hadent augt to be understood by ennybody. when she says that father always laffs and says she is a goker herself sumtimes. well i forgot what i was a going to say becaus when i wright about my father and mother i dont think about ennything else they are so bully. my father was the best fiter in exeter or ennywhere elce. ed thursten told me that once he and father went down to newmarket and a feller in the hotel tride to lick father and father hit him a old he one in the snout and gnocked him up flites of stairs and round corners befoar he stoped. i bet they aint many fellers whitch cood do that. ennyway ed was there and seen him do it and he says he can show me the hotel and the stairs and the corners he went round and the big dent in the wall where he stoped. so i gess it must be so. i bet beanys father coodent do it. i bet pewts coodent eether. evrybody likes father and calls him george and he gokes with them and gets them to say funny things and then he laffs and evrybody laffs. so he dont never have to fite now. i am glad of it for i shoodent like to se father fite even if he can lick evrybody. gosh it is funny i forgot what i was going to say. you see i think father and mother is about the best peeple in the wirld. i dont know whitch is best. father says mother is wirth of him and he augt to know becaus he has gnew her longer than i have. well father sed well joey, he calls her joey, how has the boy behaived himself today and mother sed he has done verry well indeed. so father he sed to me what do you say if we go in swimming at the gravil and i sed all rite i wood like to. so we went down to the boat and i rew him up to the gravil and we went in and had a grate swim. father dont like to have me swim under water. he says i stay under so long that he gets scart for fear that i wont never come up. after we got back home he let me go down town with him and after he had been to old tom conners store and old nat weeks and old josh getchels and gid lyfords we went into fogg and fellows store and father bougt a new novil for me. the naim of it is grissly ike the scalp lifter. i bet it is a riper. i havent read it yet becaus father sed as long as he let me go out befoar my tirm of imprisenment was over i had got to let cele read it first. so she read it most all the evining. she only read one palsam tonite. she aint so religus as i thougt she was when they is a new novil round. september , ---brite and fair to-day and cool. it feals like autum. i tell you i dont like to have the summer go. one weak from nex munday school begins. i hait to think of it. we will have to do the old xamples about a. and b. and how many squaire feet there is in ackers roods and rods and new hamshire is bounded on the north by maine on the east by long ileand sound on the south by rode iland and conetticut and on the west by new york, and the capital of tennysee is tallyhassy and the capital of new york is oswego and things we lerned last year. sumtimes i feal like saying to old francis, who sed it aint, but i know if i did he wood lam time out of me. well i have got one moar weak. i hoap i wont be kep in enny more. i cant spair a single minit. went to chirch today. the quire coodent sing becaus sumthing was rong with the organ. only the squeel keys wood go and they went as loud as a steam whistle. the base keys woodent maik a single yip. old chipper berley clim into the organ after chirch was over and found that sumbody had stufed a old pair of overhals and a old hat all spatered with paint into the big pipe. chipper told beany he done it and beany he sed he dident hoap to die an cross his throte and then chipper he held up the overhals and the hat and they both had i. m. watson rote on them and so beany has lost his gob this time forever so chipper sed and he waulked beany out by the ear. beany told me honest he dident do it. he sed he pumped jest as hard as he cood becaus he dident want to let the wind go out. chipper sed the reeson he pumped so hard was becaus he gnew that all the wind wood go into the squeel keys and sound awful. beany feals prety bad over it becaus he needed the money. he has bougt sumthing at old bill morrils gewelry store. i knew what it is two and who it is for but beany dont know i know. beany will feal prety cheap if he has to give it back to old bill. praps she wont give it back to beany. then beany will be in a scraip. ennyway if she wont give it back beany wont never forgive her. i hoap she wont. it will be tuf on beany. september , ---beany is fealing prety bad. he asted me if i cood lend him a dollar. honest i coodent becaus i aint got it. he says he has got to get a dollar ennyway. i lent him cents so he aint got to get but cents moar. he tride to get a gob today poasting bills but cris staples got it. then beany he went up to chipper berleys to get his pay and chipper told him he was lucky not to get arested for distirbing a religus meating. so beany dont know what to do. he aint got ennything to sell and i aint eether. he tride to borrow it of pewt but pewt sed he dident have it. september , ---they is a circus coming to town next friday. it was going to be in portsmouth but there was another circus got the the circus grounds ferst and so they are coming to exeter. me and pewt and beany are going to get a gob poasting bills. the bill poaster was in town today with a red and blue and gold cart with calico horses and put up the big bills. he only had big ones and dident have enny others and cant get them until wensday nite and he wants me and pewt and beany to put them up in the nite so that when the peeple get up in the morning they can see them the ferst thing. the way he hapened to get us is becaus beanys father and pewts father is painters and paper hangers and so they went to them and they wodent stay up all nite to do it and then he asted if they was enny boys to do it for a dollar a peace and a ticket and so we got the gob. we cant tell ennyone jest what we have got to do but it is bully. he told us that we was to put the pictuers up in the rite places to make a show and atract the attension of the peeple. where they cood see them the best. so we are going to do it. he says the secrit of poasting bills is to get them in the rite places. he give us a list of the pictures. these are them. the hippotymus the behemuth of hoaly rit. the boar constricter whitch can crush and swalow a hole dear or oxx at one meal. the hieener that by stelth repairs to the graive yards at nite and digs up the bodys of the ded and devours them. jo jo the dog face man the ofspring of a babboon and a aborrygine, the most repullsive haff human being in the wirld. the stork which brings blessings to the householes in the shape of babies. the cheater or hunting lepard. the spider munkey, and the tapir and the geraft. pewt has got the list so peraps i havent rote them all rite. we are going to meat and deside where to poast them up as soon as pewt gets them. peraps tomorrow. sept. , ---rany today and cold as time. i tell you it ranes and blows. aunt sarah says may be it is the equinoxious storm. that usually comes on the th. i hoap it wont rane wensday nite. we cant poast up bills in a rane storm and if we dont poast up them bills we dont get no dollar and no ticket and what will beany do then? beany is in a tite place. if he cant get that dollar he has got to get that present back from lizzie tole. if she wont give it back then beany may have to go to jale and he wont never forgive her. if she has to give it back she will be mad with beany forever and ever. i almost hoap it will rane. no i dont eether. it will be two tuf on beany. what ever beany has did to me i like him and i hoap it wont rane and that beany will get his dollar. i cant be mutch fairer than that can i? this afternoon we went up in the barn on the hay, me and pewt and beany and talked over where we are going to poat up the bills nex wensday nite tomorrow. it raned so that pewt dident dass to bring over the bills. they are in his shop all roled up in a role as big as my leg and tide tite. so we looked at our list and we are going to put the picture of the cheeter on decon aspinwalls house. he is the bigest cheeter we know and everybody says so. the stork we are going to put on mrs. clarisser dorsons front door. pewt says he heard his mother say that the dorsons xpect a baby pretty soon. so we all agreed that wood be the place to put it. we all got jawing about where we shood put the picture of the elefant. beany thougt it had augt to go on horris cobbs front door. pewt thougt it had augt to go on old mister gechels store and i thougt it had augt to go on fatty frogs house. horris cobb is the fattest man in town but he aint tall. odd mister gechel is feerful tall, almost ten feet i gess but he aint verry big as fatty fogg is lots taller than horris and times as big round as old mister gechel. so we decided to put the elefant on fatty foggs house and the giraft on gechels house. the hieener we are going to put on the berrying ground gait rite under where it says we are all passing away. you know the hieener digs up people and devours them and beany says that will go well with the sine. that was a good one for beany. i bet that circus man will say we are prety smart felers. the howling munkey we are going to put on the methydist parsonage. the reverent josiar higgins has got white whiskers on his throte jest like the howling munkeys and i bet he can howl as loud sundays. so that is the rite place for that picture. i never gnew befoar how mutch beter it is to have things did rite. we are going to put the picture of the tapir on my uncle gilman's house. pewt thougt it had augt to be put on ikey blums house only ikey aint got any house and his shop is not on enny street. ikey has a old plug horse and colects bones and rags and iron. he has the longest nose i ever see. it goes way down over his mouth. i dont see how he can eat. my uncle gilman has got the next longest nose. his nose is a good deal biger than ikeys but it aint so long. but uncle gilman is lucky becaus he has got a house to put the picture on. he can blow his nose so it sounds jest like a cornet. not so good as bruce briggam can play the cornet but prety good. i bet he will be pleesed that he beat ikey and ikey will be mad, but nobody can have evrything in this wirld. the picture of the boar constricter we are going to put on the front gait of old decon eberneaser petigrew. he goes to all the chirch supers and eats moar than enny man there. one time charlie folsom the resterant man whitch makes clam chowder wanted to see how mutch old eben cood eat and he invited him in and made a hoal wash boiler full of chowder. charlie sed he put in a peck of clams and galons of milk and a lot of potatoes and onyiuns and he invited old decon petigrew in and he et and et and et and et. charlie begun to get scat for feer he wood bust. bimeby he stoped eating becaus he coodent hold enny moar. he had et all but about quats. charlie dident sleep enny that nite he wurrid so about decon. he thougt sure he wood die befoar morning. so he got up erly the nex morning and come down town. when he went by ebens house he looked up to see if there was enny craip or a reath on the door. there wasent so he gnew he hadent dide but he gessed he was prety sick. well what do you think when he got to his resterant there stood old eben all rite wateing for him and he told charlie that if he dident want the rest of that chowder he wood take it. so charlie he give it to him and he says he must be jest like a boar constricter. father has always told me to do evry thing rite that i attempt to do. he tells me that all the time. i gess he will find that i can do things rite as well as the nex one. tonite when we come out of the barn it had stoped raning and the sun come out i hoap it will be good wether tomorrow and nex day two. pewt is going to make buckets of paist. me and beany are to get the flour for it and pewt makes it. he knows how better than we do. he and beany fernish the brushes to put on the paist. i fernish a lantirn if it is two dark. september , ---brite and fair and jest bully wether. i got up late today and i am glad of it becaus i have a hard days wirk tonite, father told me this morning that i must distinkly understand that there aint going to be no fooling tonite but jest wirk. i prommised we woodent do nothing but wirk and put the bills in the best places so as to pleese evrybody. that is what the circus man told us not to do enny damige and not to get ennyone mad but to put the bills where they will attrack the most atension. and that is why he is to pay us so mutch money and give us a ticket apeace to the show. after breckfast i split up enuf wood for today and luged in pales of water and went over to pewts. beany was there and we opened the role of pictures and they were old lunkers. gosh the howling munkeys looked jest like the reverent josier higgins and the cheeter looked kind of slanty eyd and meen like decon aspinwall. the boar constricter was swalowing a live cow hoal. i bet peeple will laff. and the tapir honest he looked kind of like my uncle gilman. well we are going to go ferst over the river to uncle gilmans and then to old mister gechel and then to pettigrews and then to clarisser dorsons and then to decon aspinwalls and then to the reverent josier higgins and so on. pewt thinks it will taik hours to do it good so they cant be toar down if we done it with tacs ennybody whitch dident like it cood yank it off eesy but if we paist it on with a little gum arab in it, it will have to be scrope off with a gnife. so pewt says and i gess he knows, we carried up paper bags of flour and pewt made buckits of paist. we paisted a picture of flora temple the fastest trotting horse in the wirld on a mahoginy buro that pewts father is polishing for doctor goram potters grandfather and i bet it will taik a weak to get it off. so i gess pewts paist is good paist. we are going to meat at beanys at haff past oh clock. father is going to wake me at oh clock. i hoap he wont forget to wake up. ennyway it wont make enny difference for i shant go to sleep. i bet we will have a good time. beany says it is all up with him if he dont get that dollar. he says he will be the ferst of his family to go to jale. that is what a feller gets for being in debt. beany had augt to have wated. but i supose when a feller gets going with a girl he dont think. beany is not bad but thinkless. i hoap it will be a lessen to him. he is feerfully wurrid but he needent be for if the wirst comes to wirst i shall sell one of my hens. i havent told him this becaus if he gnew it perhaps he wood spend the dollar for sumthing else for her. but while i have a hen to my naim beany shall not go to jale. i wood not go to bed at all tonite if father woodent know it but if my lite aint out by oh clock he hollers for me to go to bed lively. so i am going to read grissly ike the scalp lifter until oh clock and then go to bed and lissen for the clock to strike . september , ---this is saterday. i almost wish i was ded. i havent been out of my room sence thirsday xcept to split wood and lug water and feed the sheep and horse and hens. father says one moar sumer like this one will make a gibbering manioc of him. he says there must be sumthing rong with me. he dont know wether he had augt to lick it out of me or send me to the reform school or to a place where they keep idjuts. that is the way he talks to me but when old decon aspinwall and the reerent josier higgins and clarisser dorsens husband and old man pettigrew sed i had augt to be sent to the reform school he told them to go strait to hell and try it if they thougt they cood. beanys father has kep beany in his room and pewts father has kep pewt in. the only time i can speak to beany is after father has went to boston and beanys father has went down town we holler across from our chamber winders. we havent seen pewt for his chamber is on the back of his house. i asted beany what he was going to do about the dollar and he says he xpected the poliseman to come for him enny time. i told him if the poliseman come to tell him to come over and take the best hen i had. beany felt better and sed i was a trew frend. he says it is a pity things is as they is but he cant help it. a feller cant help they way he feals sumtimes. peraps i am lucky that beany has cut me out for if i had cut him out i mite be xpecting to go to jale. if i hadent heard father tell them men to go to hell i wood be afrade of going tojale or the reform school. i dont beleeve reform school or jale is enny wirse then staying in your room when a circus paraid is going by on the nex strete. i think i will wright about what has hapened tomorrow whitch is sunday. i want to finish reading grissly ike the scalp lifter. cele tiptode up to my room and threw it in. cele always stands up for a feller when he is in truble. probly after the hoal thing has bloan over if it ever does cele will tell mother she done rong in giving me the novil and will ask to be punished that is jest like cele. september , ---brite and fair. i am in my room wrighting. most everybody has went to chirch xcept mother who never gets time to go and father who is eether over to pewts fathers shop or over to beanys fathers barn talking. beany has got his gob back becaus they found out that pewt put the overhals and old hat into the organ. he done it to play a trick on beany but he dident meen to lose him his gob. so it is all rite. i see beany going to chirch. i cant go. it is tuf to have to stay in your room and not be aloud to go to chirch. that is a prety way to bring up a boy i shood say. it will be lucky for them if i dont grow up a drunkard and a robber or a berglar. some day father will be sorry for what he has did to me. well it is a long story. last thursday nite i fell asleep and father waked me up at oh clock. i went to beanys and found him and we went to pewts and got the paist and the pictures. i luged one pale and beany the other. pewt luged the paper. we had to change hands lots of times and set the pales down. i tell you they was heavy. it was clowdy but as it was moon time it was prety lite. we dident see nobody and it seamed kind of dreery. we got to uncle gilmans and paisted the picture of the tapir up rite on the front side of his house. then we went to gechels house and paisted up the giraft. we had a long handeled brush and i had to stand on beanys shoulder to reech the girafs head. the picture reeched nearly to the roof. once we thougt we was cougt but it was only a horse kicking in the barn. we dident make enny noise and when we talked we jest wispered. it was almost as mutch fun as hooking water mellons. then we went to old pettigrews and paisted up the boar constricter. then we went to fatty foggs and his dog woodent let us come near the house. we thougt he wood knaw us and pewt hit him with a rock and he yelped so loud that old fatty come down in his shirt tale and a little tin lamp but we was hid behine sum boards. then we went to clarisser dorsens but it was all lit up and doctor perrys horse and chase was there hiched to a poast. we wated and bimeby old man dorson come out on the run and went down town. bimeby he came back with a old woman and they went into the house so we coodent put the stork picture on her house without being cougt and we put it on billy hansoms house. billy and his wife have jest been married and last weak the fellers give them a serinaid. so we thougt they wood be pleased to be notised. by that time the town clock struck . so we had to hurry and them pales was heavy. so we come over the bridge and throug clifford strete to coart strete. pewt he had to go into his house and while he was gone beany sed it wood be a good goke on pewt to put jo jo the dog faced man picture on pewts house because pewts father has got long wiskers. so we done it and when pewt come out we told him we had put it on old hen dows house and pewt thougt that was bully. then beany wanted to go in his house to get sum donuts and while he was in pewt sed it wood be a good thing to put the spider monkey picture on beanys house. beanys father is kind of thin and wear awful tite britches and a blew coat and dresses elegant and so we done it and when beany come out with his donuts we set down and et them and he dident notise ennything. well after we had et the donuts we paisted up the cheeter picture on decon aspinwalls house and the elefant on horris cobbs house and the hineer one on the berrying yard. we tried verry hard to do a good gob there and we gnew it wood maik a fine apearance rite under the sine we are all passing away. then we come home. father let me in and asted me if i done enny damige and i sed no. he asted me where we paisted up the bills and i told him he cood see in the morning when he went to the trane. so i went to bed. the nex morning mother come up and waked me and told me to dress and come down stairs jest as quick as i cood. she looked xcited. i asted her if ennybody was sick and she sed wirse than that. i cood hear peeple talking loud down stairs and i run down as quick as i cood get my close on and without washing my face or comeing my hair. when i got down there in the setting room i saw billy and mrs. billy hanson and old pettigrew and beanys father and pewts father and the reverent josier higgins and old man wiggins the trusty of the berrying ground and decon aspinwall and pewt and beany and father and mother and aunt sarah. and they were all piching in xcept father and mother and aunt sarah who dident say ennything. mrs. billy hanson sed she had never been so insulted in her life. she sed she had lived a good cristian life and to have sech a insult paisted on her house was more than flesh and blud cood stand and she boohood like a big baby. and decon aspinwall sed he had stood all he was going to and this time the coarts wood take it up and settle it onct for all if peeple was to be insulted and defaimed and there rites trampled on and the reverent josier sed he thougt the sacrid eddifise of whitch he was a unwerthy paster had augt to be safe from infaimus attacks and that he shood ast the coarts to rite him in the publick ey. and old man wiggins he sed that the ded wood tirn in there graives if they see what was on the berrying ground gait. and beanys father sed he wasent going to be called a spider munkey for nothing and pewts father sed he was going to find out who poasted up that jo jo bill befoar he left, if it took the rest of his lifetime. then they all talked together and made a feerful noise. bimeby father sed now you have all had your chance, less find out sumthing about it. so he told them what he gnew about the circus man asking us to poast the bills and pewts father and beanys father sed that was so. then father asted me why i done it and i told him we were told to poast the bills in aproprate places to atrack attension and we done it. i sed we was going to put the stork up on missis dorsens house but the doctor was there and we coodent and so we put it on misses hansons. and then missis hanson saled into me like time again then pewts father sed pewt sed he dident know ennything about puting the jo jo bill on his house and i sed he was in the house then and beanys father sed beany sed he dident know about the spider munkey bill and i sed beany was in the house then and i done it. then they all sed i was the ring leeder and had led pewt and beany into temptasion and old decon aspinwall sed it was mity queer that we dident put up ennything on fathers house and the boy was the father of the man and that he wood see that i was sent to the reform school and that father paid heavy damages. that was the time father got mad and told him to go to hell and old decon went off to see his lawyer. then father told the others that he wood do all he cood to make it rite and he took me round to all of them to their houses and made me beg their pardon. peeple were scraping the pictures off and washing them with hot water and evrybody was laffing. uncle gilman and mister gechel and horris cobb all laffed and sed it was a good goke but the others were all feerful mad with me and father and not very mad with pewt and beany. that is all rite but the idea of me leading pewt and beany into temtasion makes me sick. well pewt got a licking and beany got a licking and i got a licking and we have all got to stay in the house until school begins. but beany had to go to chirch to keep his gob. it is prety tuf to stay in a fellers room and to hear a circus band playing and not go jest becaus we tride to do the best we cood. ennyway i am glad i aint going to the reform school. father jest come in with a paper. he sed he had been arested and had to get bale. he sed old decon aspinwall had sewed him for thousand dollars for defaiming his caracter. father sed old decon had to go to portsmouth for a lawyer, and that amos tuck and general marstin and judg stickney and alvy wood all come up and sed they wood see him throug without paying a dam cent. father feals prety good tonite. aunt sarah says he always does when there is a chane for a fite. this is the ferst time in my life i ever hoaped school wood begin. ennything is beter than staying in your room. september , ---school begun today and i went. i dident supose i ever wood ruther go to school than stay in my room espeshully a school whitch is taugt by old francis. but they is always sumthing lively taiking place in old francis school. sumtimes micky guold is setting down on tacts or the points of pens whitch has been stuck in his seet so they wont fall over like a bent pin whitch aint mutch good enyway most of the time and hollering bludy merder and geting snached baldheaded for it by old francis, or beany or bug chadwick is being ferriled with a hard wood ruler with hairs in the pam of there hand to splitt the old ruler into fraggments whitch i have never seen did yet in this life or licked sumwhere else whare nuthing will do enny good xcept a peace of paistboard or the exeter newsleter in the set of their britches, or pop clark is maid to eat a apple before the hoal school as fast as he can with rot and wirm holes and wirms and the stem and seeds and the coar or skinny bruce is being snaiked over seets and put in the woodbox with the cuvver down because gim erly whitch sits behine skinny put a pin in the toe of his shue and reeched over and kicked tady finton whitch sits in front of skinny and old francis wont believe skinny but licks him onct for doing it and twict for liing about it whitch he says is twict as wirse as doing it, or fatty gilman is down on all foars and howling while old francis lams him with the haff of the broom stick he stirs the fire with while fatty is triing hard to crawl throug a chair whitch he cant do enny moar than the cammel cood crawl throug the ey of the needle in the bible. all of them things is taiking place in old francis school every day whitch makes it a very intersting place when you are not the feller whitch is doing them things but is setting down and waching them out of the coner of your ey and pertending to studdy hard whitch nobudy can do when sumbuddy is howling terruble and banging agenst seets and you never know when your tern wil come nex. but it is lots beter than staying in your room and not seing the fellers and coppying there xamples and getting so far behine in your studdies that you are shoar to get licked evry day for a week or . there is sum fun in geting licked onct in a while if you have a chance to escaip and it is a grate deel moar fun if sumbuddy else gets licked for sumthing you have did. sumtimes a feller will tel on sumbuddy else and then evry feler whitch can lick him licks him the ferst time they gets the chance. but most of the fellers will take another fellers lickings without a yip. old francis lickings is wirse than or of another fellers lickings but aint so bad as or lickings whitch a feller is shoar to get if he tells on anuther feller to say nuthing about the girls running their tungs out at you and calling you tattle tail and stiking their nose up in the air when they goes by you whitch maiks a feller feal prety cheep whitch is sumtimes wirse than a licking. so on the hoal i had ruther go to school than stay in my room whitch dont make enny diference becaus i have got to go ennyway wether i want to or not. tonite i had to studdy colburn arithmatic. it is the wirst book i ever studded. i bet there aint a boy in this wirld whitch doesnt want to paist time out of old colburn. i had ruther be a merderer if nomuddy gnew it than be a feler whitch rote a arithmatic. ennyway old colburn had a key whitch tells jest how to do the xamples and has them all figgered out. teechers is aloud to have the key but the scholers cant have it. enny time old francis dont know how to do a xample he looks in his key and lerns how and then a feller whitch dont have a key is snached baldheaded becaus he dont know how to do it. i dont think that is fair. i had xamples to do and i have got them all did. cele done and keene and father . so i am all rite tomorrow. father give me bats in the ear befoar i undestood one xample. keene gets mad but she dont dass to bat me. cele is the best. september , ---brite and fair. i havent let my boat for a long time. pewts' father has got the best boats now. it was prety quite in school today only fellers got licked. five of them hollered to make old francis stop. scotty briggim never hollers and stubby gooch and tady tilton and jack mevlin dont ever holler. nigger bell never got but one licking and he hollered louder than enny feller i ever herd old francis dont lick him becaus he hollers so loud. september , ---brite and fair. i havent had a cent for moar than a weak. it is tuf to be so poar. i have got to rase sum chink sumhow. beany aint paid me my cents yet. september , ---i got licked today in school. jest for nothing. sum one put sum gum in medo thirstems seet and he coodent get up to resite and old francis yanked him up and found the gum and licked me becaus i set jest behine his seet. he sed he had been keeping his ey on me for a long time. it cant be very long becaus school has only been days. today was wensday and there wasent enny school in the afternoon. me and putter went up river fishing and caught pickeril. prety good for us. september , ---brite and fair. nex weak is the county fair and cattle show. i am going. the band is pracktising evry nite and that is the reeson i cant get my lessons. no feller can studdy when a band is playing king john quickstep and red stocking quickstep and romanse from leeclare and departed days and things like them rite across the strete. so i miss in my lessons and get licked most every day. sum day i am going to play in a band. i shall play a e flat cornet like old robinson and bruce briggim and rashe belnap. they played a new peace tonite. i shoodent think men whitch cood play in a band wood ever do ennything else. i never wood. september , ---rany as time. i hoap it wont rane next weak when they are having the fare. tonite it raned so hard that the band dident pracktise so i had time to studdy. i coodent do ennything this afternoon but set in ed toles barn and see the horses rubed down. september , ---brite and fair today. i went to chirch today. after chirch me and father went up to the fair grounds. they have got a lot of sheds bilt and most of the fence is up and the ralings round the track. i bet it will be a good fair. peekily tiltons father plays in the band and uncles. his father plays a b flat tenner horn and his uncle ed plays a e flat base horn and his uncle george plays an e flat alto horn and his uncle warrin plays a b flat cornet. peeliky says he is going to play some day. he doesnt know what he will play but he wil play sumthing. i asted father why he dident play in the band and he sed they was dam fools enuf in the wirld without he being one. i was going to ast him to by me a cornet but i desided i woodent jest yet. i gnew jest what he wood say if i asted him. father says he dont like band playing but i notise he stays to home the nites the band plays and sets on the steps an lisens and beets time with his foot and sumtimes puts in as good base as ed tilton, peeliky tiltons uncle can with his base horn and when sumbuddy in the band plays out of tune he gumps up and waulks up and down the piaza and says why dont they hit that feller with a ax. so i know he likes band playing as wel as i do. i wish he played in the band fer then i wood go into the bandroom and hear them. me and beany tride to go in one nite and we was jest going up stairs when sumbuddy throwed a hoal pale of water on us and we skined out prety lifely. i woodent care if they only wood let us in after they had throwed the water but they hollered get out of here you little devils or we will drownd you. i bet them band fellers can lick enny other band fellers and beat them playing two. i bet our band is as good as enny band in the wirld. september , ---i am terible xcited. we are going to have three days vacasion this week while they have the fair and cattle show and i have got a seeson ticket becaus charles talor is going to have nellie to drive the hoal time. he gets the hay and grane and straw for the annimals and has got to be going in and out of the fair grounds al the time and father has let him have nellie and he give me and father a seeson tickit. so i kin go all the time so long as i split my kinlins and get in my wood and all the pales of water mother wants. beanys father is going to ride in percession as marchal with a yeller sash on and long yeller gloves on and a stick with red and white and blew ribbons on it and so beany has got a seeson tickit two and pewts father is going to put sum golden pollish hens and sum rocky mountain hens in the hen show and so pewt has got a seeson ticket. beany has pade me back my forty cents. i tell you there aint many fellers whitch has as good luck as i have got. days vacasion and a season tickit to a fair and cattle show and plenty of money. i dont se what else a feller cood want. tonite i studded as hard as i cood with a band playing or new peaces. cele helped me with my examples. it wont do for me to miss in my lessons tomorrow or nex day. i gess with celes help i can hang on for days more after that i dont care so mutch. september , ---it looks like rane. i hoap it wil rane today if it ranes this weak. today i saw a man drive throug town in a high wheal gig hiched to a auful long legged horse. the man had on a cap with a long viser and had pullers on his ranes and had pales hung under his gig and set on a lot of blankits and the horse had on a white blanket with red letters on it whitch sed flying tiger . enterd for the free for all. he asted tommy tomson the way to the fair grounds and tommy sed he cood show him and he clim into the gig and drove off. well tommy he staid to the fair grounds all the forenoon and in the afternon old francis licked him and made him holler two but tommy sed it was worth it to stay to the fair grounds haff a day and get out of school for one licking. he sed it dident hurt mutch and he only hollered to make him stop. tommy says they have bilt a bandstand and a stand for the juges and pens for the pigs and hens and cattle and resterants and pop corn places and evrything else. i wood like to go up tonite but father says i cant go up until the ferst day of the fair. tommy says there is going to be a snaik charmer and a bull whitch gives milk and a girl whitch has got heads and legs and arms and a sheep with legs. mother says i cant go in to see the girl with legs becaus its impropper to look at a girls legs. i asted father and he sed it is twict as impropper to look at a leged girls legs as a leged one so i cant go in to see that. tommy sed they was going to be a troting race for bulls. charley treadwill has got a big white and black bull named nickerbocker whitch he drives in a wagon with a bit in his mouth and he is going to have a race with a bull from portsmouth. i bet on charleys bull. i wish it was a bull fite. i wood bet on charleys bull. old wakeup robinson is going to trot his horse prince john. they is going to have bands the exeter band and the newmarket band. i bet the exeter band is the best. i cant hardly wate for tomorrow. i dident miss in school today and tonite we set out on the steps to hear the band. old wisler weeks is going to play a fife in the band and old potsy dirgin is going to play a fife two. september , ---brite and fair and county fair two. that is a goke and a good one two but nobuddy will ever see it but me. gosh i am tired tonite i never had so much fun in my life. we had the best percession i ever see. first come the marchals george perkins and john gardner and beanys father and old francis and john gibson all on white horses xcept george perkins and john gardner and old francis whitch was on red horses and jon gibson whitch was on a spoted horse and they all looked fine. then come the exeter band and then a lot of ox teems full of wimen in white with their hides all brushed up with curry combs and their horns all cuvered with ribbons and evergreens in their slats. i tell you when old giddings and old wiliam conner and old nat gilman jabbed them with the ox godes they walked along prety lifely. then come the newmarket band and then the fire ingine and a lot of men with cains and stove pipe hats and then a steam wagon and then charles tredwill driving his bull and old wakeup robinson with his troter and a sope pedler with a humpback horse. it was the best percession i ever see. the exeter band played times as loud as the newmarket band. i wish you cood have heard peeliky tiltons uncles play you wood have thougt they wood bust their cheeks but they dident. fatty walker broak heads on his base drum the ferst day and len heirvey broak one in the snair drum. i gnew they wood beat the newmarket band. tonite father and mother and cele and keene and georgie have went to the haughticulture show in the town hall. they have all sorts of frutes and beens and pees and beets and flowers and gars of frute and perserves and bread and cake and pyes to see whitch has maid the best and gnitting and sowing things and drawings and paintings and bea hives and stufed birds and a stufed wilcat showing her teeth. it is ded so it cant hirt ennybuddy and composisons of school girls and handwriting and lots of things. i wanted to go but father sed i codent go to evrything. i gess i will go to bed. i have got a verry bizy day tomorow. beany is going to try and get a gob tomorow. september , ---brite and fair again. i am prety tired again tonite and am staying to home. father and arnt sahar and keene and cele and georgie have went to the haughticulchure show this time and me and mother are staying to home. mother is rocking the baby and i am in my room wrighting. today there was a percession this morning and i was in it but only a litle while. i held one end of the base drum but evry time fatty walker wood hit it a good belt he wood send me flying round sideways and at the end of the ferst peace i felt jest as if old francis had shook my livver out. so i give it up. so they got curley conner a big feller. fatty cood bang the drum as hard as he cood lam it but he coodent nock curley round. today the exeter band beat the newmarket band again. it scart horses and made them run awa and smashed wagons and throwed out people and the newmarket band only scart one horse and dident throw out enny peeple. i tell you exeter can beat newmarket evry time. me and pewt and beany all got a chance to take a gob. the man that hollers for julia the snaik charmer offerd us doller apeace if we wood stand up on the platform and let a boar constricter coil around us and then julia the snaik charmer wood come out and charm the snaiks and save our lifes. you bet we dident take that gob. beany got a gob hollering for a peap show of war pictures but his father come riding up and snaiked him out. i give cents of my cents that beany pade me to get a shock in a lectric machine and when i got hold of the handels i coodent let go. i felt like a crasy boan all over and i danced and hollered till jerry carter come up and told the man if he dident stop the machine he wood smash it and smash him two so the man he stopped it and i let go and run. everybuddy laffed but me and jerry carter. then we went to the track to see the bull race. there was a big black bull hiched into a gig troting up and down the track and they were wating for charly tredwill and nickerbocker. bimeby he come troting down the track and when the red bull see the other he stopd and pawed the ground and bellered and nickerboker he done the sam and both men begun to lick them but the bulls dident notise it enny more than if a fli stang them and they put their heds down and began to push and butt and hook and roar and they tiped over the gig and the wagon and throwed charly and the other man out and stepped on charly tredwill's head and nocked down the rales and went bang agenst the juges stand and everybuddy hollered for charlys bull xcept about haff of them whitch hollered for the other bull but nobuddy dassed to go near them. bimeby the captain of the ingine company whitch was going to have a xibition squirt hollered to the fellers to start the breaks and they done it and begun to squert rite on the bulls heads and they coodent stand it and they stoped fiting. they were all tuckered out and there harnasses and wagons was all smashed to kinlin wood. it was beter than enny dog fite i ever see. every buddy sed it was the best thing in the show. i wish they had let them fite it out. i bet charlys bull wood lick. father sed twict that charly wasent hirt becaus his head was solid way through. that enny feller whitch wood fool away his time to trane a bull to trot in a race coodent be hirt by ennything stepping on his head. beany has got a gob as waiter in a resterrent. he got cents yesterday. pewt got cents in working for a feler whitch has a lot of poasts and a lot of rings. the poasts is all numbered and they is a preasent for every poast. you give cents to toss a ring. if you toss it good and it goes over a poast you get a gold wach or a blaided gnife or a gold headed cain or a sigar or a whip or a doll or a glass pitcher. i tossed it over a poast and got a sigar and i give the sigar to old barny casidy and he lit it and took puffs and spit it out and sed it was made of a old horse blanket. tomorrow is the last day of the fair and if i am going to ern enny money i have got to get a gob prety quick. father is going to stay at home tomorow to go to the fair. i have had a auful good time today and seen some good races but i havent had a gob. pewt and beany always have the luck. september , ---this is a rany sunday. i cant go to chirch becaus my paint has not come off yet. i shood not dass to go to chirch becaus peeple wood laff rite out loud. father says he dont believe it will ever come off. but mother says it will with plenty of greece and soft sope. i am most raw now. i wish father had kiled that man. i never got into so bad a scraip before. father says that he has desided that the reform school or the idjut assilem is the only place for me but mother says i needent wurry about that for that is only his talk but i must be more cairful in the future. i told her i dident meen ennything rong but only wanted to earn a little money and she sed she gnew that but there is sum ways of erning money whitch is open to objecsion and i gess she is rite and this is one of them ways. after a feller has had his skin scrubed with soft sope and bristol brick for two days jest like pollishing a brass door gnocker he wishes he was ded. well you see i maid up my mind to get a gob becaus beany had and pewt had and i had spent all my money. so the first thing i done when i had did my choars was to put for the fair grounds erly. when i got there i went to the resterrent and asted them if they wanted a waiter. they sed no but they was a feller whitch had a tent nex to julia the snaik charmer whitch has ben triing to get boys. so i went over there and there was a new tent and a big picture painted on a sheet of the wild men of bornio whitch was captured after a dredful fite in whitch bludhounds was kiled and men fataly injered for life. they was a picture of soldiers and hunters with guns and bludhounds chasing the wild men and carring off the wounded men and the ded dogs. when i got there i saw a big man with a big mustash talking with hiram mingo a nigger boy. i asted him if he had a gob for me and he looked at me and sed i was prety skinny but perhaps he cood fix me. he asted us into the tent. i woodent go for i was afrade of the wild men of bornio but he sed the tent was emty. so we went in and he sed he had bad luck. that both his wild men was sick and he had a wife and nine small children, and he had got to earn there bread and the only way to do it was to get sum kind hearted feller like us to be wild men. he sed if we wood do that for him he wood pay us dollars apeace and his nine children and his sick wife and blind mother wood pray for us on her gnees. i was auful sorry for him he looked so sad. he sed he had looked up a lot of feller and talked with a lot and we was the only fellers that was smart enuf to do it. he sed he never was gnew to maik a mistake in a feller. he gnew he cood trust us enny time. so i asted him what we wood have to do and he sed he wood paint us up like wild men and put on sum firs and leperd skins and sum brass rings on our hine legs and a necklace of tiger claws and all we wood have to do was to snarl and say yowk and let out howls, and try to get at peeple. i dident want to black up but hiram dident care becaus he is a nigger. so is asted him if the black wood ware off and he sed yes and so after a while i sed i wood. well he made me take off all my close and he painted me all over black and he put sum black stuf on my hair and twisted out all the points whitch stuck up, then he wound a leperd skin round me and round hiram and i had a neck lace of tiger claws and brass rings round my hine legs. then he took sum red paint and he painted sum big scars on us where tigers had toar us. when he showed me in the looking glass how it looked it scart me. i never would have gnew it was me. i was wirse looking than a babboon. then he learned us how to snarl and yowl and make faces. he sed it was easier for me to make faces than enny feller he had ever gnew and he sed it must come natural to me. he sed i wood scare a gorilla white. then he lerned us how to fite and sed we must snarl and fite when he was out on the platform telling the peeple about us and then we wood rush in and crack a whip and fire a pistol in our faces and stop us. well after we had lerned how he put a ox chane on to us and then he went out and begun to holler. he sed ladies and gentlemen for one short day only you are privileged to see the wild men of bornio, imported at vast expense by arrangements with the king of bornio and captured after a terific fite after dogs was killed and men fataly ingered for life. they are of small size but like the man munky they have the strength of strong men in their sinews and boans and in there native lair they track and kill the maneeting tiger and the lion with there naked hands. then he pounded his stick twict on the platform and it was a signal to us and we begun to yowl and snarl and stamp and he sed there they are taring each other to bits and he rushed in and hollered and cracked his whip and fired his pistal and we yowled and snarld and peeple begun to rush up and pay cents to come in. when they saw us one woman sed my what dredful looking things and one man sed i have got a years old boy that can lick boath of them munkys. so when he and his boy come near the platform i gumped at him and made a auful face and let out a auful howl and i wish you cood have seen that years old boy hiper acrost that tent and holler. he was scart most to deth and the man two and a woman screached and they had to carry her out. then the man cracked his whip and drove me back snarling and making auful faces and hiram he let out sum auful yowls and bit his chane and fomed at the mouth with sope and the man told how only last weak he had to put on us a red hot iron to drive us off a hieener whitch had got out of its cage and had atacted us but he was two lait and before he cood drive us from our pray we toar him to bits. a man asted what we et and he sed live rabits and chickings and sometimes frogs. well peeple kep coming in droves and bimeby i see beany an pewt come. beanys eyes were jest like sorcers. i laid down and snarled a litle and i pertended to be asleep and snarled in my sleep like a dog does. i wanted beany to come near me and so i kep quite and bimeby beany and pewt come close to the platform and i make a gump at them and let out the loudest yowl and maid the feerfullst face i cood. wel beany went heels over head and hollered bludy merder and pewt he div rite out under the bottom of the tent and that is the last i see of them. a lot of people come in whitch i gnew and i scart a lot of them most to deth and old mister emerson lost his false teeth and dident das to come back after them. i never had so mutch fun in my life. bimeby i see father and charles talor come in. when they see us talor begun to laff and sed thunder george the skinny munky faced one is skinny enuf to be your boy and father laffed and sed did you ever see sutch a looking thing in your life. i wated till they come up and then i gumped to the end of my chane and yowled feerful and toar my hair and stamped my feet and made faces and snarled auful and hiram done the same. they kep back out of reech and father sed well if them is the kind of things fellers see whitch has the delirim tremens i never shall taik another drink what do you say talor and they laffed and went out. well we scart peeple all that day and had a grate time. at dinner he closed the tent and give us sumthing to eat and drink and then in the afternoon we done the same thing. we got prety tired of it but we kep on. bimeby father come in again and looked round and asted sum men if they had seen his boy. they sed no and he went away. bimeby he come in agen and stood and looked at us a long time. i was tired and dident yowl so mutch. after awhile he come up near and i made a gump at him and knashed my teeth. he kep back so i coodent tare him whitch was a good thing for him for he wood have broak my back and he sed that is the ferst time i ever see blew eyd nigger and he kept looking. well a lot of peeple come in and the man begun to talk about us and pounded the platform and we had augt to have fit, but we was boath prety sick of it and he cracked his whip clost to hiram and snached a peace of skin off his back and it hirt hiram so bad that he forgot he was a wild man of bornio and had been toar by a tiger and he begun to ball and in a minit evrybuddy was hollering cheet cheet and father jumped over the raling and grabed me and yanked me off that platform and men were hollering kill the cheet and evrybuddy was trying to get at him and codent find him for he had got out sumway. wel father sed you infernal idjut where is your close and i sed in that trunk and he opened the trunk and got out my close and made me put them on and hiram he put his on and peeple were hollering for there money back for it was a cheet and i sed where is my dollars and father sed what you ned is lickings and that is what you will get when i get you home if i can ever get your hide clean enuf to lick and he got charles talor to drive up with nellie and took me home. when we come out of the tent they was a big crowd whitch holllered and laffed at us and all the fellers hollered plupy the niger munky and plupy the wild man of bornio. it was tuf on me for all hiram mingo had to do was to put on his close and hat and he was all rite. well when we got home and went into the house mother was so surprised that she nerly dropped the baby. i gess she wood have but he begun to howl and grab her round the neck and hold his breth and grow black in the face and franky and annie howled and held on to her skerts and to aunt sarahs two and they had to be took out of the room and when mother and aunt sarah come back they sed what have you got there george and father sed it is your smart son, and mother sed what has he been doing now, and father sed he has been a wild man of bornio at cents a whack and mother and arnt sarah sed well of all things in this wirld and then they begun to laff until the teers roled down there cheaks and father sed i know it aint no laffing matter and mother sed i know it aint and then she lafed so it hirt her side. bimeby father sed what are we going to do. i draw the line at bringing up a babboon or a man munky in this family. so mother and aunt sarah and father and me went down to the kitchen and got a tub and filled it with warm water and they put me in and then they scrubed me with soft sope and then they took me out and most of the black was on. the water was sum black but they sed they coodent see it was enny blacker than when i took my reglar saterday bath. then they filled the tub again and scrubed me with soft sope and bristol brick. it about skined me and maid me holler. that took off sum of the black. then they tride seesand and that hirt so they had to stop so they greesed me with lard and wiped it off and father sed i was improving. he sed i looked like a half nigger and he guessed nex week they cood get me to look like a quarune and praps weak after nex like a octerune. i have got to stay in until i get white again. mother says i am the wirst looking thing she ever see in her life. father is talking about reform school again but i ges i needent wurry. today i was two soar to be scrubed so i was greased and wiped off. tomorrow if i am not two soar they are going to try bristol brick and soft soap again. i had my head shaived. father done it with the horse clippers. tomorrow if i am not two soar they are going to try bristol brick and soft sope again i asted father if they cougt that man and he sed no they never wood. it is tuf to end a weak this way. it is a auful xperience for a feller whitch has always tride to do rite. september , ---today they almost skined me alive. i feel like a haol pimpel all red and swole up. after they get throug skining me with soft sope and bristol brick and seesand they greece me all over. they are using mutten taller now becaus lard is too xpensive so mother says, and father says it suits me for i am the champeen mutten hed. i ges i am a quadrune now. it taiks me a hoal day to get over being skun so they can skin me again. i asted father why he coodent put me in a tirning laith and tirn me down jest like they maik wheal hubs down to old gus browns hub shop. father he sed it looked as if he wood have to and he wood see gus about it today. ennyway i dont beleeve it wood hirt as mutch as seesand. september , ---beany come in to see me today. he laffed so that i told him if he dident stop i wood give him a bang in the snoot so he stoped. we plade checkers and dominose. he can beet me evry time. beany says i cant go in swiming enny more for years becaus if i get wet the black comes back. gosh i wunder if that is so. i have been reeding uncle toms cabbin and i dont like it enny moar. i asted mother if what beany sed was trew and she laffed and sed of coarse it aint in your blud and i sed it wood get in if they wasent prety cairful not to scrub me two hard. i asted father about it when he come home and he sed he wasent sure. he sed it depended sum on how i behaved. that sumtimes a feller wood tirn black with raige, and if he had been blacked up it mite come back. i told him i wood do the best i cood if i ever got white again. i asted how he suposed i ever was fool enuf to do what i had did and he sed it seamed to be eesier for me to be a fool than for most folks. then he sed i was too anchious for money. he sed it reminded him of a line in a poim whitch was rote by a lattin gentleman naimed publius virgin. i asted him if he was enny relasion of old john virgin whitch oaned the trotting horses and he sed no he dident think he cood be. if he was it must be straned prety fine. the line went like this a cused thirst for gold to what dust thou compel the human mind i rote it down jest as father sed it. i dont know what it means but i dident dass to tel him that and so i sed yes sir i woodent be surprised if it done jest that. i wish i cood go to school again. i wood be willing to have old francis lam me. i suppose the fellers will all laff and call me munkey face and wild man of bornio but i woodent cair for that. tomorrow i shall be well enuf to be scrubed again. tonite i am greeced and almost too slipery to lay in bed. i am glad i am not a eal or a hornpout. i feel jest like them only i aint got enny horns. september . brite and fair. i have been scrubed again. i bet they was sum fishooks in that seesand. it felt so. enyway i am a octerune now and most white. mother says one moar greecing will be enuf. september , ---the last time i was greeced i had the itch. it wasent as bad as this but i remember it well. september ---today i went down town. i have been away a long time but the town looks about the saim. kelley and gardners have sole gnifes and fogg and fellows have sole sum pipes and a cuppy olliver optics magazene and old luke langly has sole a gointed comb and a tin horn and wagon but in other respecks things look about the saim. i am glad i wasent away long enuf for the place to chainge. that wood be dreadful. i herd of a man onct whitch was sent to jale for his hoal life. bimby they was a new king in the land and he let out the men whitch was in jale this poar man was so glad to get out that he run miles all the way home but when he got home evrything had chainged. where his house was stood a methydist chapel and where his frends house was they had bilt a pest house for small pocks pashients and where the green house stood they had bilt a glue factory and where the libary stood they was a slauter house. but in spite of all these improovments he did not feal to home and he was verry loansum. so he went back to the king and gnelt down on his gnees and sed nobble and venial monnark send me back to jale for my friends are scatered and my house is gone. so the king whitch was a verry kind harted monnark sent him back to jale where he lived hapily many years on bread and water and sumtimes only water. so i know jest how he felt when i come down town the ferst time to see if things had chainged. but they havent mutch. september , ---well of all the big fools i ever see in my life they aint no september or or and i rote them down. this is october . there was a frost last nite. i wanted to go to school this morning but mother sed i had beter wait until monday and begin fresh. so i done errants and split wood and luged pales of water and raiked leeves this afternoon and me and potter rew up the river to the rapids. the lily pads was all ded and the leeves of the trees was red and yellow. the blewgays was calling and it semed kind of loansume. it seamed good to row again in a boat. tomorrow i shall go to chirch. i have missed chirch a good deel. i never thougt i cood. i never thougt i cood miss school but i have. october , ---i went to chirch today. the minister preeched about our duty to our father and mother. i have been thinking a grate deel laitly about how litle i have amounted to and what a lot of truble i have gave my parents and my frens. when a feller is kep in his room prety near all summer suffering from a awful soar skin diseeze caused by being painted black by a man whitch had augt to have gnew better and scrubed with soft sope and bristol brick and seesand to get off the black and not knowing from day to day and from weak to weak wether he will be a nigger or a white man all the rest of his life i tell you he begins to think over the mean things he has did and resolv to do better if he ever gets well and has the chanct. and when a feller gets well and gets a chanct as i have did he aint mutch of a feler if he brakes his resolvs and hadent augt to get well. father has always gave me a good edjucasien and i have lerned to read well and to spel acuraitly and the multiplacsion table is rite at the end of my tung and i can wright down enny table without looking in the book. the hardest is but it is jest as easy to me as . times is- times is times is times is times is times is times is times is times is times is there if eny feller can do enny better than that i shood like to see him. then i can bound new hampshire and i know all the counties in the state whitch will be of the gratest asistence to me when i go out into the wirld to maik my fortune. i only wish father had a morgige on his home but he hasent. if he had i wood come back sum time to pay it. i asted father one day why he dident have a mortgige and he sed he dident have enny home to morgige but had to hire a house of j. albert clark. father sed that enny feller with leven children to suport whitch cood by him a house or a farm was smarter than he was. so i have desided first to give up beany and pewt. it will be tuf to give them up. peeple sumtimes have to strugle hard to give up smoaking and drinking but sumtimes they doesent. pwets father and beanys father will be glad beaus they boath says that neither pewt or beany ever done a rong thing befoar they were so frendly with me. so i am glad there will be sumone whitch will be glad of it. ennyway i gess they dont know pewt and beany so well as i do. i cood tell sum things about them if i was meen enuf. i talked it over with cele and she thinks if i wood reed the palsams evry day it wood help but i am afrade i coodent do boath. i wunder if pewt and beany can get along without me. i hoap they will be able to stand it but i woodent be surprised if they coodent without sum suffering. ennyway they have got to stand it becaus from this time we aint going together enny moar. of coarse i shall speek to them when i meat them and say hi beany and hi pewt but they wont be enny moar ringing door bells nites and plugging tomatose and grean apples. that will be hard two because it is jest the time for them things and the cucumbers is brite yeller and full of guice and seeds. if a feller waring a stove pipe hat shood come along the strete when i was near a tomatoe vine or a cucumber bush i am afraide i shood have to let ding at him. i dont beleeve the palsams wood do enny good. there is sum things that no feller can stand. but i am going to do the best i can even if i am like a solitary sandpiper or hork whitch always goes aloan. i am not going to tell the folks jest what i am going to do. they will find out later by my acks. sum fellers talks two mutch. i am not goin to be of that kind. i am going to keep my mouth shet and do rite and no feller can do rite if he goes round with pewt and beany and fellers like them. i like them boath better than i like the best scolars in school and the fellers whitch dont never miss in there lessons but a feller has got to do his duty sum times in his life. i am going to bed and try to sleap but i dont beleeve i shall sleap a winck. october , ---brite and fair. i went to school today for the ferst time. the fellers was glad to see me. they augt to have been becaus they maid lots of fun of me. they call me the wild man of bornio and munkey face and scrached themselves and pertended to be awful soar. but i dident cair i was so glad to get back to school and to see the fellers that they cood hav called me ennything. ennyway a feller whitch has been called polelegs and skinny and daddy long legs and yeller legs dont mind a few moar nicnaims. i dident get licked today but ame prety near getting. it seamed like old times to set at my desk and see old francis shake the fellers up. old francis aint changed a bit. tonite i was raiking up leeves when beany come over. i sed hi beany and he ses hi plupy. what are you doing raiking leeves and i sed yes. he sed have you got anuther raik and i sed no. then he sed when you get tired i will raik and i sed aint going to get tired. then he sed if you aint it will be the ferst time. then i sed peraps and i kep on raiking. then he sed i have got a raik to home and i will go over and get it and come back and help you i sed you needent truble yourself. and he sed it is more fun wirking then setting round doing nuthing and i sed that is why i am wirking. then he sed well i will get my raik and i sed if you have got enny raiking to do you can do it in your own yard and beany he stopd and looked at me sirprised and sed what is eeting of you plupy and i sed nuthing is eeting of me, and he sed what have i did and i sed nuthing and beany he sed what maiks you ack so queer and i sed i aint acking queer and he sed you are two and i sed i aint neetner and he sed sumthing is certainly eeting of you and i sed no there aint nothing eeting of me only this is my gob and i am going to do it without enny help. then beany he sed all rite plupy if that is the way you are going to ack i bet it is the last time i ever offer to help you and i sed i hoap so and beany he went off wisling loud without maiking enny tune. i set out to call him back and maik up with him but i dident. i kep on raiking and looked at beany out of the corner of my ey but he dident look back and he was waulking stif leged and when beany waulks that way you mite jest as well give up. he is as obstinite as a mule. after supper i finished raiking and then split up my kinlins. after i had split them i forgot and started for beanys but jest as i was going out of my yard i remembered that me and beany was throug. so i went back and set on the steps. beany pewt and medo thirston and nipper and sum of the other fellers was playing club the gool and the gool was in beanys yard so i coodent go out and play becaus me and beany was throug. i was crasy to play but i coodent. after dark i studded hard but i coodent lern ennything becaus i cood hear beany and the other fellers hollering and laffing. i bet beany done it a perpose. enyway beany you jest wate till tomorrow and and see what you will get when old francis finds out you havent studded your leson, and you two pewt. october , ---went to school today. beany dident speek to me. so i wated till he got his licking for not having his lesson. well you never see sutch luck as beany has. they was jest xample i hadent done. cele coodent do it or keene and father had went down town. so i thougt i woodent be called up on that sum. wel i got called up on that sum and coodent do it and got licked and beany got called up after i had missed and i thougt it wood be sum fun to see beany licked. well what do you think beany he up and done the example rite. i never was so sirprised in my life. then old francis told me i had augt to be ashaimed of myself. that if i had did as elbrige, elbrige is beany you know, done and staid in and studded insted of romeing the stretes i woodent have missed. i sed yes sir. i wood like to know how beany done that xample. i saw pewt today and spoke to him. he acted queer. i wonder if beany told him. tonite the fellers plaid again in beanys yard. they plaid coram. most always they play coram in the school yard where there is moar room but tonite they plaid it in beanys yard. so i coodent do ennything but set on the steps after i had done my choars. they aint much fun in that. i miss beany a good deel. it is going to be hard to keep away from him but it is the rite thing to do. it is days that i havent got in enny scraip. if i had been going with beany and pewt i wood have got in some scraip befoar this. it is days sence i have had enny fun. but it shall get used to it after a while. i studded hard tonite with cele and keene and got all my xamples. keene says i dont try. it aint enny of her bisiness. she only done two of them and cele the other . but i notise that the ones whitch does the leest has the most to say. if keene says mutch more about me i wont let her do enny moar of my xamples. so she had better be cairful what she says. i am going to bed erly for they aint enny of the fellers to talk to. october , ---brite and fair. i went to school today. dident miss in my lessons mutch not enuf to get licked. beany had sum good luck and sum how he did his xample rite. pewt missed but xplained the reeson so well that he dident even get shook. pewt is grate fer that. he can ast questions so as to maik old francis think he knows sumthing about it when he dont know ennything. i wish i cood do that. if i dont know the xample i cant ack as if i did, i am wateing for beany to get a good licking to pay him for being meen to me nites and having all the fellers play in his yard. i bet i woodent have did that to him. this afternoon there wasent enny school and i thougt i wood have sum fun. i went down to ed toles but he had went to drive a man to north kamton. frank hanes had went sumwhere when i went up to his house. then i went up to the chadwicks but they and parson otis and fatty gilman had went sumwhere but nobody gnew where. then i went home and found that potter goram and chick chickering had come down with there butterfli nets to get me to go and get sum lait buterflise. i tell you i hipered down to moultons field and they wasent there and then up to the grove and they wasent there. then i went home feeling prety loansum. well there wasent ennything to do for fun so i split sum wood and then mother asted me if i wood screw sum things up in the kitchen to hang close on. so i got the screw driver and went to wirk. while i was wirking pewt came over. i was awful glad to see pewt but i thougt he had acked kind of meen to me in not coming over to see me befoar and so i thougt i would punish him a litle befoar i maid up. so i said hi pewt and went on with my wirk. pewt sed what are you doing plupy and i sed saying my prairs before going to bed. then pewt sed huh and kept quiet and i went on wirking and wisling as if i was aloan. bimbye pewt sed if you take a hammer and drive the screw in a little way it will taik hold and i sed sort of scornful is that so and he sed yes that is so and if you want to get that screw in this weak you had better do as i say. i dident say ennything only grunted and kep wirking until it broak the head of the screw off then pewt begun to laff and said there what did i tell you. let me show you how to do it plupy. i sed supose you think you can bild a barn. pewt sed peraps i can and i sed sumone is getting prety smart round here and pewt said i know a feller whitch aint very smart and i sed well if you dont like what you see round here you know where you can go and pewt he sed i bet i know where i can go and i am going there two old plupe and the next tim i come round here again you will know it and i sed no sirre i shant know it for when you come over here again i shall be sumwhere elce. then pewt went off hollering plupys mad and i am glad and i know what will pleeze him taik a nail and scrach his tale and hang him up and greece him. jest as loud as he cood holer and then he hollered you are a old seesand munky and a bristol brick wild man of bornio, and i hollered silver is better than pewter and who hooked perry moultons apples and pewt hollered back who et them and i shet up becaus i was afrade mother mite hear him. well after pewt had went i felt wirse than ever becaus i realy was glad to see him and wanted him to stay and have sum fun but sumhow i coodent help being meen to him. it is funny how a feller will do jest what he dont want to do and the more he dont want to the more he will do it. well after pewt went off mad and i took a hammer and done jest what he told me and them screws did jest as he sed they wood and i dident have enny truble. i gues i was a darn fool for sassing pewt when he was doing me a good tirn but he needent have called me them names at leest he needent have called me them mad. you can call a feller naimes good natured and he jest laffs but if you call a feller the saim naims mad then they is a row and the fellers dont speek enny more. well tonite pewt and beany had all the fellers over to beanys house having a grate time and mister watson beanys father come out and plaid with them jest lika a boy and they had a lot of fun and then mister watson beanys father went in and dressed up in an old stovepipe hat and pertended he was a drunk man and he wood stager agenst the fense and they wood plug him with roten tomatose and cucumbers and nock his old stovepipe hat off and squash on his close and he wood chase them and tumble down and you never see sutch fun in your life. i tell you i was jest about crasy to go over there but i coodent becaus me and beany was mad and pewt two so i had to stay on my steps and watch them. you never see sutch fun in your life. mister watson beanys father is the funniest man i ever see he dont never drink or get drunk but he can ack like a drunk man jest so you wood think he was drunk and maik you kill yourself laffing. well after it grew dark i went in to study but i felt so loansum that i went up stairs and went to bed. mother came up and asted me if i was sick and i sed no only i dident feal verry well and she wanted to give me sum castor oil but i sed i was all rite. so she went down after she had felt of my head and it was cold so she sed i was all rite only a little tired. cele sed she wood do my xamples for me and i cood copy them in the morning. it is awful hard to give up your frends becaus they have a bad effect on you. i bet it is harder than to give up licker after a man has been a drunkerd all his life. it dont seam to be hard for pewt and beany to give me up. they seam to have more fun than ever befoar. enny way i have got to get used to it. father says you can get used to enything if you taik time enuf. october , ---rany today and windy. about a milion leeves blowed down today. tonite we had a fire in the air tite stove and it seamed moar cheerful. beany and pewt coodent have the fellers in beanys yard. i am still wundering how beany lerned how to do them xamples. it aint like him to know now. i still feal prety blew. october , -- brite and fair. there was a frost last nite. i dident miss today. neether pewt or beany spoke to me. tonite i done my choars and went and set on the steps and wached the fellers playing in beanys yard. i felt prety bad. father sed what is the matter with you. i sed nothing and he sed you have been acking like a sick cat for a weak why dont you go over and play with the boys and i sed i dont want to. he sed you havent had a fite with elbridge, elbridge is beany you know, and i sed no. then he asted me if i had a fite with clarence, clarence is pewt you know, and i sed no, i havent had enny fie with pewt, then he went in and set by the table and red the exeter newsletter whitch always comes out on fridays. i went in and went up stairs because we dont have xamples on saturday only speeking and geogrify. after i went up stairs i went into the front room. it was warm and the windows was open. father had went out on the front steps and i was setting in the window lissening to the fellers and wishing i was out there with them. bimeby i heard father say to mother joey what is the matter with harry laitly. he has been acking nummer than a deef mewt and mother sed i dont know what it is. he has done his choars better than i ever gnew him to do them xcept jest befoar crismas and th of july and he eets well but he dont play enny moar and he dont seam like himself enny moar. then father he sed i dont like it. i hoap he isnt going to be a lollypop or a goody good boy. if there is ennything i hait in this wirld it is a miss nancy sort of boy. aunt sarah she up and sed i gess you needent wurry about any boy of yours being a miss nancy, george shute, and father laffed and sed well it dont seam as if i ever cood have a boy like that but you cant be sure. as far as i know there aint enny ministers in my family sence the pilgrim fathers landed on the wild new ingland shoar. then aunt sarah she sed peraps it would have been better if they had been a few and father he sed that may be so but i dout it. then father he sed it aint natural for a boy to set round like a sick hen. either he is thinking up sum deviltry or he is getting to be a lollipop and of the things i ruther it wood be the ferst. then mother sed i dont quite agree with you george. i dont like a miss nancy enny moar than you do but i dont beleeve it is nessary for a boy to be thinking up deviltry to be a real boy. then father he sed i gess you was never a boy joey or you woodent say that. a boy is going to raise tune or he aint a boy and you mite as well put him into skerts to onct. i never gnew a puppy to grow up into a good dog unless he chewed up slippers and spoilt moar things than he was wirth. then mother sed that depends on what you call a good dog. if you meen a dog whitch is all the time fiting that is one thing but if you meen a real good dog that is another thing. then father he sed i woodent give a cent for a dog that cant fite. a god dog that is groan up dont care to fite but will if he has to. and a good man dont cair to but will if he has to. they is a difference between a good boy and a goody good boy. i wood ruther my boy wood git into scraips than not. if he dont i know sumthing is rong with him. then mother she sed if you like to have him get into scraips why do you get so mad with him and lick him, only mother she sed punnish him, when he gets into scraips and father sed dont you see i cant aprove of his scraips for if i did he wood be in scraips all the time and he wood be if he gnew what i was saying. then father began to laff and to tell what he and gim melcher and bill yung and beanys father and pewts father done when they was boys and he asted if all of them fellers wasent pretty good men and aunt sarah sed none of them is mutch to brag of and father laffed and sed that shows you aint a good judge of caracter. i tell you when i herd what father sed i maid up my mind that i wood maik up with beany and pewt and we wood show father and pewts father and beanys father that we was jest as lifely as they was when they was boys. then i tell you i felt beter than i had felt for a long while and i am going to bed. to-morrow i will maik up with pewt and beany. october , ---brite and fair. today i maid up with pewt and beany. it wasent near so hard as i thought it wood be. i gess boath of them missed me two but not as mutch as i missed them becaus they had the other fellers. this afternoon we got up a club whitch we call the terrible . i am the president becaus i got it up. pewt is the secritery becaus he can wright so good and beany is the tresurer becaus it dont cost ennything to get in and he aint got enny money to taik cair of. the objeck of the club is to do tuf things and not get found out. i aint got time to wright enny moar about it tonite becaus we aint had a reglar meating of the club yet. we are going to have one tomorrow after chirch and wright out a consecration and bi laws. after we have did this things is going to be ifely round here. october , ---brite and fair. it is jest raning leeves today. i went to chirch and to sunday school. beany sed he was going to raise time in chirch so as to lose his gob. he sed a feller whitch was going to be tresurer of the terible hadent augt to have a chirch gob, but me and pewt told him he must kep his gob becaus if he wasent going to get caugt when we done tuf things we must be respecktable befoar folks. we told beany that if he rased time two mutch and a feller hapened to get his windows broak he wood say we fellers done it and then peraps we cood lie out of it and peraps we coodent. so beany he desided to behaive and to keep his gob, and he done well and only let the wind out of the organ time and that was when he was looking at a rooster fite in old man elliots yard throug the window, and of coarse when there is a rooster fite or a dog fite or enny kind of a fite a feller has jest got to look at it. the only thing that maid it funier than time was becaus they had got a woman from out of town to sing in the quire and she was singing the voice of one criing in the wilderniss and jest then the organ went eooowaugh and sounded like when you step on cats tales to onct and stoped and then begun again and we cood hear beany pumping as fast as he cood and the old bellose maid a noise just like the braiks on a fire ingine, like this, chunka, chunka, chunka, and everybody laffed and the woman set down mad and woodent sing eny moar. chipper and old hen dow jawed beany like time after chirch. beany he told them why he done it but they dident seam to think that was enny xcuse and kep on jawing him. chipper he sed he has stood moar from beany than he had from enny feller and that a house of worship wasent a place for munky shines and this was the last chanct beany shood have. so beany kep his gob but he has a narow escaip and will have to be moar cairful nex time. well after sunday school we met in beanys barn and rote out the consecration and bi laws. it is a old peeler. i had borrowed sum bi laws of a club father usted to be in and i had rote down a lot of things to put in and pewt coppied them after we had talked them over becaus pewt can wright so good. this is what he rote. consecration and bi laws of the terrible . we pewt and beany and plupy do hearbi asosiate ourselfs together under the corperat naim of the terible . artickle . the object of this asosiasion is to brake windows, to plug green apples and ripe tomatose and roten cucumbers at peeple we dont like or whitch wares there best close on a weak day, or whitch feels two big for his britches. to get even with fellers and with peeple whitch has done rong to us in the past or in the future. wether we have to do it with slingshots or roten egs. resolvd that the use of slingshots and roten egs is only to be used when enny unusuel or crool rong has been did us. and when the punishment must be sevear. artickle . the main objeck of the members is not to get cougt and evry feller whitch is a member must agree never to betray enny other feller if he gets cougt himself and is licked to maik him tell. and enny feller whitch does tell on another member will be maid to eet a live toad and angel wirms. it is no xcuse if he does it under terible tortures sutch as shaking hands with a pensil between your fingers or putting musterd on your tung or licking you with a bed slot in whitch tacts has been put. artickle . the offisers of the asosiation shall be a president a secritary and a tresurer. the duty of the president shall be to call the meatings of the asosiation. the duty of the secritary shall be to wright down what is did at the meatings. the duty of the treasurer is to take cair of the money of the association. artickle . it dont cost ennything to get into the asosiation. the terrible is good frends and will stand by eech other as long as live remanes and no money makes anny diference. nobody elce can get in but the terible at enny prise what ever. artickle . steeling is absolootly forbiddon. this aplise to money, gewils, hens, roosters and chickings, dogs, horses and cattle and ennything whitch peeple has in there houses and barns, but does not apli to apples, pares straberries and frutes in their seeson befoar they has been pictd and put in the house or barn and nothing in this consecration shall be considered as hendering enny one of the terible from pluging ennything at cats dogs or other animals. artickle . at the end of the asosiasion whitch will come when enny of the members is ded or in jale the propity of the asosiasion shall be divided equil between sutch of the members as aint ded or in jale and the records of the asosiation if there is enny shall be birnt and distroid. bi laws i. evry member shall be reddy to fite for another member at a moments notise. ii. evry member shall be reddy to lie for another member when ever he can help him by liing. if he can help him by teling the trooth he will be xpected to do so if he can. iii. if a feller gets cougt he is xpected to lay it on to sum feller whitch is likely to do them things whitch he is cougt for doing. iv. the fellers whitch is most likely to do the things whitch a feller is most likely to get cougt for doing is fatty gilman, skinny bruce, tady fenton, jack melvin, whack, pozzy and bug chadwick, fatty melcher, pop clark, hiram mingo, ben rundlett, ed tole and several others. v. evry member has go to commit them naims to memory and keep them at his tungs end becaus he mite need them at enny time. vi. as far as posiable members must keep out of enny trubble with wimmen. the terible does not wage war against wimmen. of coarse when a woman has got a husband whitch the terible has ennything agenst she must taik her chanct but she wont be hirt if she keeps her fingers out of the pye. i have never knew a woman to do that in our lifes. it aint our falt that she is his wife. she done it herself. vii. as far as posiable the terible will try to keep out of trubble in school. it aint that we are scart of old francis but it seams sumtimes as if he had got eys in the back of his hed and gnew evrything a feller thinks befoar he thinks it. then we all sined. we was going to have or more bi laws but we dident know enny moar roman numbers and you have got to have figger numbers for the artickles and roman numbers for the bi laws. after we had sined it i thougt we cood have got them from the clock. we dident think of that. after we had sined it pewt gave it to me to keep as i am the president. he sed he had augt to keep them becaus he is secritary but i told him that artickle of the consecration sed the duty of the secretary was to wright what was did at the meatings and dident say he was to keep the paper. so pewt give in. oct. , ---brite and fair. the secritary of the terible got licked in school today becaus he sed geogrify is the sience of numbers and the art of compewting by them. he told old francis he wasent thinking and old francis he give him a licking to maik him think. tonite the terible comited our ferst crime. this is the way we done it. we agread to be studding our lessons at oh clock. when it struck we wood go out for a drink or sumthing and meat on elm strete jest behine pewts and beanys house. pewt and beany had got a pile of ripe tomatose. then we would ding old william hobbs door bell and when he come to the door we wood paist him. he always drives us out of his yard so we done it. when it struck oh clock i sed i forgot to shet up my hens and a skunk may come round. keene sed i will help you. i sed no i will do it. what would you do if we met a skunk. so i went down and hipered over to elm strete. pewt and beany was there with their hands full of tomatose. pewt tiptode up and rung the bell. in a minit old hobbs come to the door with a candle shaded with his hand. as soon as he come out we let ding as hard as we cood eech one or tomatose. one nocked the candle out of his hand and put it out. one hit him square in the mouth and squashed. or hit him in other places and the rest squashed on the house. i wish you cood herd him spitt and sware and holler. jest as soon as we pluged him we started running towards front strete and then went behine the unitarial chirch throug a hole in fifields fense into beanys yard. i wasent away from the house more than minits. when i came in mother sed did you shet the door to the hen coop and i sed yes. i did shet it becaus i thought she mite ast me. in about half an hour old man hobbs rung our door bell and asted mother where i was. she sed do you want to see him and he sed where has he been tonite and she sed he has been in studdying all the evening ever sence supper and he sed are you sure and she sed why yes i have been here myself. then he sed well sum boys came to my house and rung my door bell and when i come to the door they threw roten vegitables at me and asaulted me and if i can find out ther edentitty i am going to persecute them to the xtent of the law and send them to jale. mother she sed it is a shaim and i certainly hoap you will find out who they are and i am very glad to say that my son had nothing to do iwth it and i am sure he wood not do ennything of the kind. so old hobbs he went away and mother came in and told us. she sed he hadent quite got all of the tomatose out of his wiskers but she hoped he wood ketch them. i hoap so two over the left. it may lern old hobbs a lesson if he isent two old to learn. i am afrade he is. october , ---i have got horks. potter goram give them to me. they is full groan and verry hansum. one is a hen hork and the other a red taled hork. gess what i naimed them. one is hork and the other spitt. mother sed those were dredful naims but i think they are prety good ones. i feed them on meat and fishes and rats and mice. if you poak them with a stick they grab it with his claus and hiss like a snaik. there eys is yellow. i dont let folks poak them. tonite i called a meating of he terible . i had rote the record of what we had did and pewt had coppied it. i thougt i had better wright it becaus i can spel so mutch beter than pewt. well pewt read the record and beany reported that there wasent enny money in the tresury. then i asted if ennybody had ennything to say and beany sed that we had better paist old decon aspinwall next for he was so meen. i was afrade he wood lay it onto me becaus i had trubble with him times. then pewt sed we cood nale up a sine in front of his house sassing him, but i had done that onct for a circus. so we desided to lay for him sum time but not yet. ennyway we have got him marked. so after supper we took a few grean apples and our sticks and went into pewts back yard behind the trees and plugged sum apples as hard as we cood without ameing. we fired them in the direxion of j. albert clarks house becaus he had ordered me and beany out of his yard one day jest for nothing. we wood all plug together jest as hard as we cood plug and then lissen hard. we cood tell by the sound when they wood hit on the roofs or not. bimeby we herd the gingle of glass times. then we begun to play coram and kep hollering and laffin. then we herd j. ward levitt holler who in hell is firing rocks through my winders. then he hollered to father and sed george look here and see what your dam boy has been up to and we herd father say what is it ward and ward sed he has broak winders in my shop and you have got to pay for them. then father sed all rite. if he done it i will pay but if he hasent done it i wont. so ferst father hollered for me and i dident hear him. then they went over to beanys and i wasent there and beanys mother sed i hadent been there. then they come through old mrs. seeveys yard and then into pewts and we were playing coram. then j ward sed here are the devils and father sed dident you hear me holler and i sed did you holler and looked at him sirprized and father sed i hollered louder than a steem wissel and i sed we were playing coram and making so mutch noise that i gess it drownded your holler out. then he sed how long have you been here and i sed ever sence suppr. then father sed ward says you broak winders in his shop, and i sed how cood i when i have been here evry minit. and father sed are you sure you havent been out of this yard sence you come here, now dont you lie to me and i sed hoap to die and cross my throte have i pewt have i beany and pewt and beany both hoaped to die and crossed there throtes. then father sed there ward you see they coodent have did it for it is twict as far as enn one of them can throw and ward he sed i dont know about that. then father sed try boys and see how far you can throw and try as hard as you can. so i pict up a rock and let ding and nearly throwed my arm out of goint and it went clear across mrs. seeveys yard into beanys and then pewt he throwed clear over beanys house into old heads yard and beat me and beany throwed into his yard but not so far as i did. then old ward he sed we dident try and father sed if you can throw across mrs. seeveys yard and into watsons yard, watson is beanys father you know, i will pay for them winders even if harry dident brake them. then old j ward he sed all rite george i will show these boys what i can do and he took off his long taled coat and roled up his sleaves and hunted round for a rock and then he let ding and the rock went sideways rite towards mrs. seeveys house and went rite throug one of her kichen winders and the minit it went in she come out yapping who has broak my winder and old j. ward stood with his mouth open and one hind leg in the air where he had drawed it up when he saw the rock going towerds the winder. so when she hollered who broak my winder he put his hind leg down and stutered and sed i gess i done it maam and she sed what did you do it for? aint you got enny better business than to go round throwing rocks throug peeples winders and he sed i was jest showing these boys how to throw a stone and she sed well if they cant throw enny better than you can i gess you havent showed them mutch. now if you will show me about cents for that winder and i will say no moar about it. so old j. ward pade her cents and she went in. then father sed are you sure you dident brake them winders yourself ward you seam to be a good shot. old j. ward laffed and sed well george i gess these boys dident do it, but i am going to find out who done it if it takes me a weak. i bet that out of a john bowley done it. john bowley is squawboo bowley you know, or posiably that peenut perkins or johnny kelly. so old j. ward is going to pich into them. enny way we dident meen to brake his winders and the terible hasent got ennything agenst old j. ward for he is a good feller and dont never drive us out of his carrige shop, but if we had sed we done it it mite let the hoal thing out. so i gess we done rite but we will even up with old j. albert sum time. his time will come unless he changes his ways. october , ---brite and fair. wenesday and so no school this afternoon. as it is warm the fish bit prety well and i went down to my boat and cougt ten shiners and a lot of minnis. it is prety lait for them. then i fed hork and spitt and you had augt to have see them eat. i dont know what i shall do when the fish stop biting. rats is scarce and i cant aford chickings. this afternoon after i had come back from fishing we had a meating of the terible . we met at pewts shop. pewt read the report whitch i had rote for him and he had coppied. then we talked about wether we had augt to use sling shots xcept in xstream cases. we desided never to use sling shots in a croud and never to ame hier than a fellers hind leg xcept when he is tirned back to for fear of puting out his ey. and we desided never to fire a sling shot without ameing nor rocks neether. but grean apples and all other vegtibles including both stail and roten egs espeshionally goos egs whitch is hard to get and ded fish whitch you swing round your tale by the head, no i meant whitch you swing round your head by the tale and let ding is all rite to plug without amein becaus they wont do enny harm and cant put out a fellers ey. i am going to have that rote into the record. october , ---brite and fair. spitt cougt a almost full groan chicking today. the chicking stuck his head between the slats and spitt grabed him with his claus and pulled him the rest of the way in and toar him in peaces and et most of him. it is verry xpensive to keep two mutch stock but i hait to let eether of them go. hork is all rite and spitt is all rite but hork and spitt together is moar than feller can feed unless he is a butcher or a fishcart man or a rat ketcher. tonite the terible dident comit enny crime becaus billy morris nigger ministrils give a show in the town hall and we all went. at oh clock there was a parade and there band plaid. it is a ripper and can play almost as loud as the exeter band. tonite we all went. it was the funiest show i ever went to. it beat comical brown all to peaces and the orchistry was splendid. they sung shoo fli dont bodder me and little maggy may, way down upon the swany river and massa is in the cold cold ground and they dansed clog danses and had funny direlogs. i tell you it was fine. so the terible dident do nothing. somehow when a feller is laffin he doesent feel like comitting crimes unless it is funny ones. october , ---missed in grammer today and got licked. not very bad only he shook me round until he toar my coller and neckti off. i jest wish the terible wood plug old francis sum time with bricks. old j. ward levitt has found out who broak his winders and has got his pay for them. he come over tonite and told me and father about it. he sed he went down to squawboo bowleys and asted him about it and squawboo proofed that he was down to charles grants store on hemloc square with peenut perkins all that evening. then he went down to old heads house and asted two stewcats about it and they sed they never done it then j. ward he told them they wood pay him for them winders or he wood go to doctor soule of the academy about it and them fellers sed they never done it but had ruther pay for winders than to have doctor soule asting them questions, and so j. ward sed they pade him cents for the winders and cents for the trubble he had in detecking them and maiking them confess. he sed they sed that they dident confess and never done it but he sed if they was onnest fellers they woodent pay for brakeing winders whitch they hadent never broak and he sed aint that rite geroge? to father and father he laffed and sed well i aint so sure about that. i was in the academy under docter soule and gess there wasent enny time i was ther after the ferst weak that i woodent rather pay for windows than to have docter soule ast me questions about what i had did. but i gess these fellers must have did it or they woodent have pade for it. aunt sarah sed father was xpelled from the academy twict. i asted him what he was xpelled for. he sed the ferst time was a case of religious persecution. i asted why they was persecuting him and he sed he and another feller thougt the students was having to pay too mutch atension to morning prairs in the chapil and so he and the other feller screwed up the doors of the chapil one nite and the nex morning they coodent get into the chapil for days and they found out that he and the other feller had bougt sum screws. so they persecuted him for that and xpelled him. then i asted him why he got xpelled the nd time and he sed it was edjucasional persecution of the wirst kind. i asted him what they done to persecute him that way and he sed that docter soule marked all the fellers down awful low and it dident make enny difference how hard he studded none of the fellers cood get a good mark. father sed it was dredful the amount of whale oil he birnt in lamps nites studding his greke and latin. he thinks he must have birnt about hoal whales full but it dident do enny good. he never cood get a good mark. well docter soule kep his marking sheets in his desk and eech day he marked the felers down feerful low and locked his sheets in the desk and at the end of the day he wood give the shets to anothr teecher to add them up and give out a list of the best scolars. well father and another feller got a kee that wood fit the lock of that desk and evry day they wood get the sheet and mark evry feller percent and doctor soule never looked at it and give them to the other teecher to add up and evrybody got perfict marks and evrybody sed it was the best class in the school. well bimeby one day father and the other feller marked themselfs percent and when the other teecher added the marks up he found sumthing was rong. so he spent a weak adding and substrackting and multipliing and dividing and reduceing to the leest common denominator and invirtin the diviser and perceeding as in multiplication and finding the leest common multipel of and xtracking the squair root of and at last he maid up his mind that there was a niger in the woodpile. so he took his figgers to old docter soule and they set a trap and cougt father and the other feller and they xpelled them and that was the last of father in the academy. but while he was there he was verry poplar becaus they wasent ennything he woodent do for his classmaits. so i gess he was rite when he told old j. ward what he did about old docter soule. father sed he tride to get back onct moar and he thougt they had augt to have gave him one moar chanct. if he cood have been xpelled onct moar he cood beet enny feller whitch ever went to the academy he was verry mutch disapointed when they woodent give him another try so he cood be xpelled onct moar. so when we had the nex meating of th teribl i wanted them to mark old docter soule to paist sum nite but they woodent do it becaus they sed we was all townies and we woodent notise the academy. pewt and beany was gelous becaus pewts father and beanys father hadent never been xpelled from nowhere. they thougt i was showing off but i wasent. october , ---brite and fair and hot as summer. it has been hot for almost a weak. rob bruce, skinnys brother and dan casidy went in swiming yesterday. they sed it was bully but i bet it was cold. tonite after school pewt maid sum sines whitch we put up after dark. one we put up in front of old ike shutes door. it sed bewair ike the terible is on your trale. that will be enuf to keep ike in nites. ike drives us out of his yard when he sees us. another one we put on bill eldriges door. it sed the vengence of the terible will folow you bill until you are ded or in jale. the last one we put on peeliky tiltons granfathers door becaus he put tin cans and broaken glass bottels and old hoopskerts and wire into the swiming hole at sandy bottom and we cant swim there enny moar. i dont know jest what we will do to him. it seams as if slingshots or roten egs aint bad enuf. we will try to scair him to deth ferst and then we will do sumthings to him that he will never forget in his life even if he lives to be years old. the sine sed this old man tilton say your prairs for the terible has got you on their list. when litening strikes it leaves no traices of its victims. bewair bewair. pewt rote them with sum stencil plaits his father has got so nobody will know his hand wrighting. october , ---this morning we had speaking in school. i spoke horatias at the brige. it made me think of the terible when it sed the three stood carm and staitly and looked upon there foes and a grat shout of laffter from all the vangard rose but all the saim they nocked the stuffing out of aunus from grean tifernum and seius and the other fellers and it wasent enny laffin matter for them and it wont be enny laffin matter with the terible . old man tilton dident laff this morning when he see that sine on his door. he has laid it onto old marco bazzris wadley and jack flinn and gimmy fitsgerald and moog carter all ready, and luke manix two and old ike shute has had old kize and old swane the poliseman up to see about his sine and old bill eldrige has been to see lawyers alvy wood and jug stickney. everybody but them is laffin and wundering who the terible is. sum of them may find out sum day. well this afternoon me and pewt and beany went up river fishing. we dident xpect to get ennything it was so lait in the fall but hork and spitt hadent been fed for days. we got a lot of shiners and perch and jest befoar we come back we got the bigest snaping tirtle i ever see in my life. it was a ripper and the madest one i ever see. it snaped rite and left and wood throw his head rite back on his shell trying to grab us. we had hard wirk to get a peace of closeline round his hind leg. the only way we cood do it was to let it bite a stick and hold on. we had desided to use a slingshot on old man tilton sum day when he was bending over a sawhorse and his britches were tite but pewt sed it wood be a good thing to scair him to deth with the snaping tirtle ferst. so we are going to tie him to old man tiltons doornob sum nite and ring the doorbell. we coodent do it tonite becaus evrybody goes down town saturday nite to the stores and sets up lait having baths and things. but look out for yourself mister old man tilton for the terible in on your trale. we xpect a bizzy weak nex weak. oct. , ---sunday. rainy and windy. had to go to chirch. the only fun i had was to see peeples umbrellas blow rongside out and to hear them sware. sum of them was chirch members two. they did not belong to the unitarial chirch. oct. , ---rany as time. i never gnew it to rane harder. evryone had on rubber boots and umbrelas. the wind blew terible and all the leeves is gone and sum branches of trees is blew down. buldy tasker pushed me into the gutter in front of old gim ellersons lacksmith shop and i went in over my rubber boots. when i got to school i puled off my boots and poared out the water and there was about quats in eech boot. it taiks a long time to dry rubber boots. they say the best way is to fill them full of otes and after the otes has been in about a day or poar out the otes and the boots is dry and the otes is wet. so when i got home i was going to do it but there wasent moar than a pec of otes in the baril and nellie had to be fed so i had to put the boots upside down behine the stove in the kitchen. the terible had a meating and went down to see our snaping tirtle. he was there all rite hiched by his old hine leg to a tree and he was out of site in a pudle of water that the rane had made. we pulled him out by the hine leg and he was awful mad and claued and scrached and snaped. so we let him go back in his pudle after we had saw that the closeline was all rite. i bet we will maik old man tilton gump out of his britches when he sees that old tirtle hanging to his doorgnob. i hope he will for enny man whitch will fill up a swimming hole with old tin cans and glass had augt to be bit by a ratlesnaik. october , ---it has stoped raning today. for a wunder neether me or beany or pewt missed in our lesons. it dont verry often hapen that way. i think old francis thougt we was playing sum sort of a trick on him for he acked sort of quear and looked at us sort of hard. tonite we aranged to meat at pewts at oh clock. after school we got a meel bag and went down for our snaping tirtle. it took nearly a hour to get him into the bag. ferst we had to ty up his mouth becaus we only want to scair old man tilton and not to kill him. it took a haff hour to do that. we never cood have did it if it hadent ben for pewt who can ty gnots like a sailer. ferst we got the old tirtle mad and then we give him a stick to bite and then i pulled at it and beany pulled at the roap on his hine leg. of coarse the snaper woodent let go of the stick and when his head was out strait pewt put a noos round his mouth and wound it round and round like ganging a fishhook on a line and he tide that old tirtles mouth up titer than a drumhead. then we tride to get him in the bag but it was all we cood do he claud so. bimby we got him in. then we tide the bag under a bush down behine old perry moultons yard. then we went home. i split up my kinlins and done my choars and studded till oh clock and then mother sed i cood go down town with beany. so i went over to beanys and it was dark. so we got pewt and went down and got the bag and carried it up court strete and throug old nat gordons woods until we got to the feeld oposite old man tiltons house. it was a awful lug and i bet we put it down to rest times but bimeby we got it there. then we tride to shaik the old snaper out of the bag and it seamed as if we never cood get him out. bimeby we got him out and lit sum maches to see his mouth was tide up tite and it was and the stick was still there he coodent spitt it out. gosh but he was mad and tride to snap. there was a lite in old man tiltons house and we cood see him setting by a table with a red cloth and a lamp with a red wick reading. sumwhere in the back of the house was another lite and we could hear peeliky tiltons uncles practising band tunes on their horns. they was making a feerful noise so nobody heard us when we tide the snapper to the dorgnob. it was all we cood do he claued so. then when we had him hanging head downwerds we rung the bell as hard as we cood and hipered acrost the strete and hid in the bushes behine the fense. we cood see old man tilton put down his paper and holler sumthing. i gess he told peeliky tiltons uncles to stop their noise. ennyway it stoped and he lit a little tin lamp and come to the door and opened it. we cood hear the old tirtle scraching at the door and banging his head agenst it as he tried to snap and the old man heard it and when he opened the door he looked round throug his old specks and dident see ennything and then he steped out on the porch and stuck his hed round the door and i gess it was lucky he dident take the big lamp for when he see that old snaper swinging this way and that way clauing and snaping he let out a yell you cood heard for miles and droped the lamp and almost tirned a back sumerset he tride so hard to get back into the house and slamed the door. then we heard him hollering for peeliky tiltons uncles and we cood see them come piling into the room and evryone talked. then they come out of the side door. peeliky tiltons uncle had a lantirn and a ax and his uncle george had a shot gun and a tin lamp and his uncle warren had a pichfork and a torchlite percession torch and old man tilton was looking out of the window. ed went first with the lantern and when he saw what it was he sed it is a snaping tirtle as big as a wash boiler. sum darn fool has tide it to the gnob. so george sed sumone cut the roap and we will get him and warrin he sed look out them snapers will taik a mans hine leg off at snap and ed sed hell i aint afrade and he cut the roap with his ax and the old snaper fell on the steps and begun to craul off and ed grabed the roap and yanked him onto the sidewaulk and he sed hold the lite warrin and let the snaper bite a stick and i will cut his hed off. so warrin he held a lite and george got a stick and poaked him and the old snaper snaped but dident ketch hold and ed he sed that is a hell of a snaper. so george poaked him again and he kep snaping and bimeby ed sed sum feller has tide up his mouth with a stick in it. so then nobody was afrade and they all gethered round and peeliky and his father come out of their house and old man tilton come out and sed things have come to a prety pass if a man cant go to his door without being et alive by a snaping tirtle or knawed by a rampaiging wilcat or pizened by a hoopskert. he meant a hoop snaik but he was xcited, and if the polise dident do there duty he wood put it in the hands of the county solissiter and see is respectible citisens cood be et and lose their lifes without nobody doing ennything to stop it. and he sed do we live in rooshy or prooshy and dont a man have enny petection of the law? and he waulked up and down the porch and banged his cain and hollered and while he was hollering ed and george and warrin and peeliky and peelikys father was taiking the old snaper into the back yard and they cut his head off and ed told peeliky that the head woodent die for days. then they come back and told the old man to shet up and ed sed they was going to have tirtle soop and fride chicking, and rost beef and boiled ham and sossige and quale on tost and clamb chowder and pigs feet and pork scraps and hogs head cheze all out of that tirtle. but the old man kep a hollering and asking if he lived in rooshy and ed sed the old man will feal better tomorrow when he has drunk about a quat of soop and et or pounds of diferent kinds of meet from that old snaper. well bimeby they went in and the old man went in and set down and they begun to play on their horns and we clim over the fense and went home. i gess we scart the old man most to deth. if you had saw him let out the yell and heard him tirn the back somerset you wood have thougt so. we aint throug with him yet. a man whitch will stop up a swiming hol with tin cans and broaken glass aint going to get off with lesson. and wire two whitch is cumtimes wirse. and hoopskerts. then we all went down town and come up throug coart strete laffing and talking about what we see in the store winders so our folks wood know we had been down town. mother sed i was prety lait and sed that father sed i hadent augt to be out so lait but she told him i asted if i cood go and she sed yes. she told me i must come home erlier next time. father had went to bed so i dident see him and he dident yip. it was the most sucesful meating the terible has had. i have got to wright out the report for pewt becaus i can spel so mutch beter than pewt can. so i cant wright moar tonite in this diry. october , ---today the ferst thing i see was old man tilton coming down town with his old cain. he glore at me when i met him and i sed how do you do mister tilton and he sed how do how do and waulked on. so i know he doesnt suspeck us. i bet he woodent say how do to gimmy fitzgerald or moog carter or luke mannix or ticky moses. i wached him and he went into the polise stasion. then he come out and talked with old swane and old mizzery durgin the polise oficers. his naim is ezry but we call him mizzery. he is the feller that throwed me out of the town hall the nite father was going to maik a speach and dident dass to. old man tilton pounded his cain on the ground and hollered. i coodent hear what he sed except rooshy and prooshy so i gess he was triing to find out where he lived becaus he wanted to know last nite and nobody told him. i gess he hasent et enny of that soop yet. i wish we cood have kep that tirtle. it wood have fed hork and spitt for weaks. i cougt a rat today. an old linger and they toar him up and et him. spitt had the ferst whack at him and i thougt he wasent going to leeve no coar so i poaked a part of it out with a stick and gave it to hork. if i kep hork and spitt together they wood eet eech other up. i wunder if they wood be ennything left when they got throug. ennyway a bullfrog can eet another bullfrog as big as he is. the one that gets the first snap gets the other and swalows him down his gozzle with his feet sticking out of the corner of his mouth. a bullfrog swalows the other bullfrog hoal. he chews him up inside like a hen or a boar constricter only he dont squash him ferst. i am glad i am not a bullfrog and havent enny teeth in my stomack. how cood a dentist pull a tooth in a fellers stomack if it aiked. how cood a feller tell wether it was a tooth aik or a stomack aik. wood a feller die if he maid a mistaik and had a dentist pull a tooth whitch was in his stomack when it dident aik but his stomack did. if i was a bullfrog i shood like to know them things. but i aint a bullfrog and i shant have enny teeth in my stomack unless when i am old and have false teeth i swalow them when i am aslep as old man collins did onct. tonite we had company. aunt mary and charles and helen and cad smith and steve and ann maria piper and annie piper, and so i coodent go out after supper but had to stay in and hear keene and cele sing. i can hear them enny day and i had agreed to go out with pewt and beany and try to brake sum of j. albert clarks windows to pay for telling father when i let out his rooster to fite mine and mine licked his. if his had licked mine old j. albert woodent have yipped. i dont blaim him for being mad becaus i let them fite when he wasent there to see and becaus mine licked but no feller that is a real feller will go tattle taleing to a fellers father and get him kep in the yard a hoal day. if he had given me a bat in the ear or had hit me a paist with his cain i woodent have caired but a feller that tells on another has got sumthing to learn and that is what the terible is for. to lern fellers to behave. so i coodent go out and pewt and beany sed they wood try to do it without me. they sed they wood go up to pewts yard again and wood try sum grean apples on a stick and aim more to the rite than they did when they broak old j. ward levitts windows whitch the stewdcats paid for brakeing. so i kep my ey pealed becaus j. albert lives in the other side of our house and i gnew if ennyone broak his winders old j. albert wood come piling in to tell father it was me and father cood tell him he was a dam lier becaus i wood be there with father all the time and father wood know i hadent went out for a minit. so i set in the parlor and father told the story about the feller whitch got the long hair in his mouth and lots of stories that maid us nearly kill ourselfs laffing. then cele and keene sung flow gently sweet afton and pass under the road and we shall meat but we shall miss him and my mother bids me bang my hair and then father maid me sing alone. i hait to sing alone. i cood have sung with keene but he maid me sing alone. i sed what shall i sing and he sed sing ennything. so i sung a new virse of if ever i ceese to love. it goes this way if ever i ceese to love if ever i ceese to love may horris greelys cat have kittens in his hat if ever i ceese to love well father and steve and ann maria and aunt sarah and aunt mary and charles and mother all laffed but cele and keene and annie piper sed i was very disgusting. ennyway father sed i cood sing ennything. well after i had sung cele and keene were playing a peace about napolion crossing the alps when there was a big gingle of glass and a hard apple came wizzing throug the window and came within a inch of taiking steve on the snoot. keene gave a screech and evryone gumped up jest as another hit the side of the house bang. father was out of the house and down the steps in minits and i after him. the stewdcats in old mister heads house were setting by their table studding in there shert sleaves and we heard sum one down the strete and father hipered down strete and i after him. we met nipper brown and his father and father he sed have you met enny fellers gus and nippers father he sed yes fellers ran down clifford strete and me and father went down clifford strete and coodent see enny fellers. so we went back and i picked up a rock and put it in my pocket. when i ran out after father i picked up the apple and nobody had seen it. i gnew if father see that apple with a hole in it he wood know it was throwed with a stick and he wood know in a minit who broak old j. ward levitts winders. so when we come back to the parlor they sed that more rocks had struck the house while we was gone and i pertended to pick up the rock i had brougt in under the otterman. father sed if that rock had hit you steven it wood have cooked your goos. and ann maria sed it is a mersy it dident and aunt may sed this is a serius matter george and father sed it is more than that mary it is a dam outrage and he and charles went out again and i folowed them. ferst they went over to beanys and asted his father if he had saw ennyone. he sed he hadent. then father asted where elbrige was. elbrige is beany you know and he sed he was up to pewts painting sumthing in the shop. so father come back. he was prety mad and sed he wood give dollers to find out who throwed them rocks. and he wood like to know what the polisemen was for enyway. so he and charles and steve talked about how bad the town was run and what a tuf set of rowdies there was now a days and how mutch better it was in the old days. then father he sed a few days ago sum one put a notise up on cousin isaks house sined by the terible and ike hadent been down town sence and hadent been out day times without having old mother moulton come in and set with his wife while he was gone. he sed ike had got a pistol and was going to lode it only he dident know whitch end of it loded and his wife was moar scart of the pistol than she was of the terible whoever the misable cusses was. father sed that old mother moulton was moar pertection than pistols and bull dogs and he wood pity enny terrible or terible whitch wood dass to interfear with her. then old steve he sed he had heard of sum things the desperrit villanes had did. they had tide a snaping tirtle to the doorgnob of old mister tilton and he had been prety badly bit by him and that docter perry and docter swet and docter perrum had all been called and it was moar than a hour befoar they stoped the flow of blood. i told them i guess that wasent so for i see him down town the next day all rite. i sed the fellers was talking it over at school and luke mannix sed that the fellers that tide the snaper to the doorgnob had tide up his mouth. he sed he see the snapers head after ed tilton peeliky tiltons uncle had cut it off and its mouth was tide up with a cord. steve sed a feller mite jest as well be bit as scart to deth and charles smith sed that may be so cussin stefen but if i had to be boath i wood ruther be one and i wood ruther be scared to deth becaus you cood get over being scart to deth but you mite not get over being bit if you had a hine leg or arm bit off. ennyway he sed it was time that the orthoritys of the town got together and offered a reward for ennybody whitch wood ketch those fellers. father sed onct he and gim melcher and bill young usted to get a pocket full of gravil and when the old fellers was setting round the stove in the stores smoaking and spitting and talking the fellers wood open the stoar door and plug a handful of gravil in and slam the door and run. they done that for quite a while and bimeby old boss langly whitch kep a store down by great brige offered a reward of dollers to ennyone whitch wood ketch them. so he hid nites oposite his store and neerly froze to deth for it was in november and a cold nite. bimeby father and bill and gim come along and they all got ready. father sed he peeked into the store and see all the old pods setting there and he opened the door and they all pluged the gravil and started to run and run rite into boss arms and boss grabed father by one neck and gim by the other and he waulked them down to fathers fathers house and sent for old dan melcher and he came hipering up from his house with his coat tales floating in the breaz. well after they had talked about an hour fathers father and old dan melcher paid dollers to old boss langly and agreed to tan the hide off of father and gim if old boss woodent persecute and woodent tell the other store keepers who pluged the gravil. and fathers father tanned the hide off of father and gims father tanned the hide off of gim and bill got off becaus old boss dident have but hands to grab with an had put his falce teeth in a glass of water behine the stove and he coodent hold bill without teeth or he wood have got bill two, and father and gim wasent tattletales. father had sed he thought old boss got prety good interest for nothing. he got dollers and dident have to pay enny reward and had the fun of ketching them and the way they put it on showed that they liked to do it. so evrybody was satisfide xcept father and gim. then aunt mary she sed well i guess you desirved it george and father laffed and sed i gess i desirved a good deal moar than i ever got aunt mary. father had augt to have licked me times as often as he did. and then hellen smith sed evrybody tells me george that you was the meanest boy in the town and father sed no hellen i dont think i was meen. i was bad enuf god knows but i always had lots of frends and kep them and a meen feller never has frends. and hellen she sed well if you wasent a meen boy i shood like to know what a meen boy was and father he sed a meen boy or man or girl or woman is one whitch does meen things to another or says meen things about them. i dont know whitch is the wirst but i gess the one whitch says meen things about peeple. so hellen she set up and nobody sed ennything for minits. then keene got up and went to the piano and set down and sung i'm the girl that's gay and happy where so ear i chanct to be and there's sumthing i will tell you if you will but list to me i tell you keene is rite on hand when there is ennything going on. bimeby they went home and i went upstairs. i wonder what pewt and beany will say when they find out that they broak fathers winders insted of old j. alberts. it seams funny to have to pay pewts father for putting in new panes of glass in plaice of them whitch pewt broak. if pewt can do this evry nite he can keep the old man bizzy all the time and make a pile of money. october , ---brite and fair and frost last nite. father waked me up hollering up the stairs. he sed come down here quick so i piled out of bed and put on my close as lifely as i cood and went down steps at a time. when i got there father told me to come out in front of the house and to look and i done it and there on old j. alberts side of the house was a sine whitch sed j. albert clark we have broak your win- ders. this is jest a beginning, moar anon. bewair. bewair the terible . i looked as sirprised as i cood and sed gosh father then it was the terible and they was trying to get even with j. albert insted of you. i wunder what he has did to them. but father sed i dont cair what he has did to them it cant go on this way verry long befoar sumone will be in jale. when he sed that i felt as if i dident have enny stomack. then he hollered for j. albert and old j. albert come down and when he saw the sine and father had told him about the broaken winder he sed he shood go down town to the polise stasion and make a complaint and see if innosent peeple aint going to have enny pertection under the law. then father sed have you did ennything rong to ennyone albert whitch mite want to get even with you and old j. albert he sed he hadent done rong to a living sole as far as he gnew and he sed i gess george they must have got in the rong side of the house and they ment it for you insted of me and father sed that may be so albert but it is almity quear that they shood call me j. albert clark and hang the sine on your side of the house and j. albert dident know what to say to this and so he sed i gess that is quear but peeple do quear things sumtimes. then father sed have you heard how they hung a snaping tirtle on old man tiltons doorgnob and rung his bell and he went to the door and got so badly bit that it took docters to sow him up. and old j. albert sed no i dident hear of it george. is it trew? and father sed i was told so last nite and i understand other peeple has been warned and assaulted, and in evry case it has been a prety meen man. and j. albert sed well i dont know what ennyone has got agenst me and if necesery i shall have a poliseman stay here nites and father sed it looks to as if it was only the beginning of sum prety desperit work but if ennything happens jest gnock on the wall and i will come in on the gump. and old j. albert sed thank you george i know i can alwys relie on you and father sed you can albert you can but i am afrade you are in for sumthing verry serius but we must hoap for the best. so then we went in to breckfast and when we got in father began to laff and sed there i have give miss nancy sumthing to wurry about to pay him for rasing my rent last month. he wont dass to go down town nites enny moar than old ike shute. i sed to father dont you think the terible will do sumthing feerful to him and father sed no they may roten eg him or sumthing like that but they wont hirt him. i sed do you supose it is big fellers or little fellers and father sed it must be big fellers becaus little fellers coodent ty up a snaping tirtles mouth and coodent ty him to a doorgnob. i figger it is sum big rowdys that want to be smart. it must be sum fellers that aint been to school mutch for that sine is spelt rong in or plaices. so i dident say enny moar and the hack come for father and he got in and went to the trane and i felt better. after breckfast i went up to pewts and he and beany sed to me gosh plupy we broak a lot of winders in old j. albert clarks house and put up a sine and when i told them what they had did they were suprised as time and they sed well all rite for you old j. albert your tirn will come. so i asted pewts father to come down and put in a new pane of glass. and he came down before i went to school. he sed that peeple were talking about the rain of lawlissness and that sumthing was going to be did about it. he sed it probly was being did by sumone we hadent the leestest idea of, most always when sum verry unusuel crime is comitted the pirpitraiter is found to be one of the most respective citisens of the town. pewts father sed he callated it wood be so in this case. he sed he was satisfide it wasent boys or rowdys but the last pirson we wood suspeck. the exeter newsleter had a peace in it today. beany read it to me and i cpppied it down for the record. this was what the peace in the newsleter sed. crime rammpent the waive of crime that has broaken out in our comunety is one that deserves the repribation of every wirthy citisen haveing the welfair of our town at hart. the unpreceedented boldness of the miss creants is sutch as reminds one verry forceably of the why ohs of new york that infaimus band of ruffans that plunged the city of new york into a riot of criminality that bid fair to rival the orgies of roam under the rane of nero. we have jest been regoiceing in the convicksion of the ring leeders of the band of garrotters that has terrorfide the naboring city of boston when we are confrunted with a serious of crimes in our own town that bid fair to rival the wirst of the above mensioned atrosities. the cowerdly assault upon our wirthy sittizen mister william hobbs a man whose mennifoaled and sterling trates of carackter intitle him to a very high rank as a cittisen. the dasterdly attact up on mister biley j. tilton whose open handed jennorosity has done so mutch to maik his naim ornnered in this community. the repperhensibel nature of their warning to mister isak shute a man whose jenerous wirth and moddist life has indeered him to evryone, the coarse thret to mister j. albert clark whose kinliness and good deads are as well knone as his finanshal ability and probbity, are sutch as maik the blud of evry onnest man boil in their vanes. it is indeed time that the ofisers of the law take the most astringint measures to deteck and stamp out the hoal infernal brood. when father come hoam tonite he redd it and laffed and sed i wunder what dam fool rote that. ennyone with branes enuf to fill a thimbel had augt to know that nobudy is going to be hirt. the fellers that tide up that mud tirtles mouth aint going to hirt ennyone. the moar the fools talk about it the moar the fellers that are doing it are going to do it sum moar. i bet old hobbs and ike and old biley tilton and j. albert bougt exeter newsleters apeace to send round to their friends if they have got enny. october , ---clowdy and cold. i dident get licked today in school whitch was a releef. last nite i woak up and got thinking about the terible and what wood hapen if we got cougt and i coodent go to sleep for moar than hours. i gess the peace in the newsleters wurrid me. i wundered if i had augt to have got up the terible . i had sevveral narow escaips from the reform school so father had sed and this was wirse if i got cougt. so i desided me and pewt and beany must be verry cairful and not leeve enny trase of our dedly wirk. bimeby i got to sleap and dident get up this morning untill mother come up and shook me. i hardly had time to get in my wood and water and eet my breckfast and hiper to school. i got there jest in time whitch was probably one reason why i dident get licked. i tell you when a feller knows his teecher is watching for a chanct to snach him balheaded he has to wauk pretty strate. this afternoon pewt had to help his father paint a fense and beany went down to ed toles and when beany is down there i dont go becaus it is ap to lead to trubble between me and beany on acount of lizzie tole eds sister. so when father come home early on the oh clock trane he had a lait dinner and we went down to see about getting my boat up for the winter. so we rew up river to the eddy and then rew back. we had to row hard to keep warm. well when we got back to the worf father sed less pull the old boat out and we got hold and pulled her haff way out on the worf and then father swang her round to get the stirn out and gnocked me rite into the river with my close on. gosh it was as cold as a ice and i swum to the worf and father the pulled me out and jawed me for being a fool to get in the way when he hadent told me what he was going to do. aint that jest like him. well he made me run all the way home and then took off my close and he rubed me with a ruf towel that neerly took my hide off. it was almost as tuf as when they rubed the black off of me with bristol brick and seesand when i thougt i was always going to be a niger. then he give me a glass of hot lemonaid and maid me go to bed. the lemonaid was all rite but i haited to go to bed. we was going to have a meating of the terible and then we was going down on the square to hear a peddler sell stuff from a wagon and a big torchlite. but father woodent let me go. but he brougt me up a new novil. it was a ripper. the naim of it is rattlesnaik redhead the red handed. we will have to have the meating of the terible tomorrow after chirch. october , ---sunday again and raning hard. it has raned hard all day. it always ranes sunday when a feller wants to do sumthing. none of the folks went to chirch xcept cele who is verry religus. she is throug with the palsams and is reading the provirbs. father asted me if i gnew what a provirb was and i sed yes it was a part of speach that modifide virbs ajectives and other advirbs. then he begun to laff and they all laffed. ennyway i bet evrybody but father and mother and aunt sarah and cele dident know. he sed the provirbs was the wize sayings of old king sollerman whitch was suposed to be the wizest man in the wirld. father sed he coodent quite beleeve that for he sed enny man whitch had as many wifes as sollerman coodent have had horse sence or been a repsective cittisen. ennyway he sed he was wizer than old man purington pewts grandfather who rew out to sea miles in a storm one day and when he got to the shoals where the litehouse and the big hotels was he landed and clim up the rocks and when they asted him where he come from he sed he come from america. last nite father went to hear the peddler on the square. father got a gold stem winder wach for dollers. when he got home he tride to wind it up and he cood wind it for minutes and it woodent be enny nearer wound up. so father looked into it and there wasent ennything in it but the winder. so father was mad and sed if the terible wood roten eg that pedler he gessed evrybody wood be glad of it gosh i dident say nothing but you bet the terible will have a meating tomorrow erly and they is going to be sum fun tomorrow nite. october , ---this has been a grate day for te terible . this time we have did sumthing that evrybody is glad of. xcept jest a few fellers and sum wimen whitch aint willing to maik enny sackrifise for the good of the town. bimeby peeple will see that the terible is able to do sum things that the poliseman cant do. father sed tonite after he got home that it sirved old swane the poliseman and old mizzery dirgin the poliseman that throwed me out of the hall that time that father was going to make a speech but dident dass to jest rite. that it was the law that a pedler coodent pedle things without a license and old swane and old mizzery dirgin knowed it and hadent augt to have aloud him to do it and if they had did their duty father woodnt have lost dollers in bying a tin wach without enny wirks in it. father sed he woodent have missed it for dollers and he wood like to know who done it. i sed peraps it was the terible and he sed if it is peeple had augt to forgive them for what they had did to old biley and old bill and old ike and old ward and old j. albert. i wanted to tell him but of coarse my othe woodent alow me to tell. i bet father wood make a awful good member. if he was a member we wood have to call it the terible and then peraps beany and pwet wood have to have there fathers in it and we wood have to call it the terible . so i gess it is all rite to leeve it as it is, but if we ever get up another one father will have to join. jest imagine ennyone ketching us and triing to lick us when father was round. i havent stoped laffing yet over it. if enny of the peeple whitch got pluged ever find out who done it they will kill us dead. but they wont never find it out. well this morning i got up and et my breckfast and done my choars and went over to beanys and got him and we went up to pewts and had a meating of the terible and i told them what father sed and what the pedler done to hime and that the pedler was going to pedle there tonite and that it was our chanct to do good wirk and to maik a naim for ourselfs. so pewt took us out to where his father had set a lot of hens and there was lots of hens and there was lots of egs that dident hach. sum of them was so lite that you coodent plug them verry far and sum of them whitch were heavy had ded chickings in them. we broke of eech kind to see whitch smelt the wirst and we coodent tell. both smelt so bad that we had to go out of the coop and wait till it aird out. then we pluged of eech kind agenst the fense. the lits one popped the loudest and the chicking one spatered the most. they was left. well beany sed his father was papering sum rooms in masonick block in the th story for general maston and that he was going to portsmuth tonite to a masonick meating. so beany sed he wood get the kee of the office and we wood go up there and lock the door and open the windows easy and not have enny lite birning and we cood see evrybody in the square and nobody cood see us and he gessed mister pedler wood think sumbody had throwed a skunk at him. well i have forgoten wether i got licked in school today or not. i dont think i did but i aint sure. i dident think of ennything but what we was to do to the pedler and old francis grabed me and shook me up and give me or bats and stood me on the platform for a hour. so i dident get licked after all. i thougt i wood remember it if i was licked. well after supper i studded until haff past seven and cele done all of my xamples if i wood let her read ratlesnaik red head the red handed after she had read provirbs. so i let her have it and after i had coppied the xamples i hipered over to beanys. he and pewt were ready. we devided the egs and filled our pockets with them and then we went down town. when we got there the pedler was standing in his wagon in the square. and he had a big torchlite and he was hollering and holding up things to sell. they was a crowd of peeple round him men and wimmen and boys and girls. we went down to masonick block and went up stairs. we dident meat ennybody and the stairs were pich dark. we unlocked the door of the office and went in and opened the winders eesy. it was lucky we did becaus beany run into a table in the dark and broak egs in his pocket. murder how they smelt. we had to stick our heads out of the window to breeth. beany sed what am i to say to father and mother when they smell me and find i have got roten eg on my close and pewt sed we fill say we were in the crowd and got hit and nobody will think we pluged ourselfs. i tell you pewt is awful smart to think up things. that is why he gits so few lickings in school and me and beany get so menny. so after we had got all the egs out of our pockets and in litle piles ready and cood breeth inside we all got ready. the old pedler had a bottle in his hand and sed now ladies and gentlemen i have here a bottel of my selibrated panyseer compounded by the most destinkwished chemists in europe and of the purist and most xpensive drugs and warranted to cure headake, earake, backake, bellyake, hartake, rumatism, growing panes, varicose vanes, bunions, corns, ingrowing tonales, scroffuler, siattikeer, lung fevers, scarlet feever, meezles, hooping coff mumps and croop. children cry for it, old maids sy for it, you must have it. waulk up, run up, gump up, tumble up ennyway to get up only fetch your money up and all for doller. jest as he sed that pewt let ding with a chicking eg as hard as he cood. it wood have took old mister pedler square in the head but jest then he leened down to take a doller and it went over his head and took old mizzery dirgin who was standing facing towerds us rite square in the mouth and spatered all over him. i bet he gumped feet in the air and then begun to hoop and gag and rushed for the horse troth and put his head in and soused it round and the peeple all begun to laff and holler and old mizzery gumped up all driping and arested mike prescot for being drunk and begun to drag him off and mike held back and fit and old swane grabed him to help old mizzery and we let ding as fast as we cood and old swane got one rite between the sholders and one rite in the back of his head that popped like a pistol and he let go of mike and rushed for the troth and put his head in and while the old pedler was laffing his head off he got chicking egs in his shert bosum and one rite square in the eye and i never heard sutch swaring and hooping and gaging in my life and and sheriff odlin who was standing on the curbstone got one in his stovepipe hat and of coarse he had to arest sumone and he took bill hartnitt and waulked him off and as soon as the old pedler got enuf of the eg out of his ey so he cood see and breeth he grabed the ranes and liked his horse round the corner. peeple were rushing round and triing to get out of the way and sum were hollering murder what a stink and sum were hollering hell what a stink and sum were laffing their heads off and bending over and slaping their gnees and leening agenst trees and holding their sides and sum were swaring and getting the polisemen to arest inosent peeple whitch hadent done nothing and one man with a streek of yellow down his back where he had got a popper was offering dollers for the man whitch wood tell him who throwed them rotten egs. i see father there talking with old swane and old mizzery and shaking his head. father dident get hit but pewts father did. he got a popper in the coat tale and he was mad. he wood have been madder if he had gnew it was his eg. of coarse we hit a good many peeple that we dident meen to hit. they shoodent have been in the way and they coodent blaim ennybody but themselfs. but i supose they wood about kill us if they gnew who done it. peeple is prety unreesonable sumtimes. but we drove the old pedler away and saved a grate del of money for the peeple and we pluged old swane and old mizzery dirgin and evrybody was glad of that. of coarse when a feller gets a roten eg in the ey or in the middle of his vest when he has got his best close on he dont feel xacly plesant towerds ennybody. after tonite i gess evrybody will ware their old close when they go out to hear a pedler pedle. well while the peeple was hollering and swaring and holding their nose and being arested for being drunk by old swane and old mizzery and sheriff odlin and being draged into the lockup me and beany and pewt shet the winders of the office and we come down stairs and went home. when we got to my house we all went in. mother and aunt sarah and keene and cele was setting up. well when he went in and begun to talk mother and aunt sarah begun to maik awful faces and keene and cele sed phew what a awful smell and mother sed keene open the windows quick and sumone birn a rag. what in the wirld have you stepped in boys, go out and scrape your feet on the scraper and wipe them on the mat. you had augt to be moar cairful where you step and beany he sed it aint that misses shute i got hit with a roten eg when sumone roten eged the pedled and mother sed i dont want to be unpolite elbrige, elbrige is beany you know, but i think you had better stand in teh doorway while you xplain. so beany stood there and we were telling about it while keene leened out of the window and hollered phew and mother and aunt sarah held their nose when father come in and the minit he come in he sed geerusalem the golden naim ever dear to me will that smell folow me all the days of my life till i dwell in the house of the lord forever, and mother sed george i realy wish you woodent talk so befoar the children and father sed all rite joey, he calls mother joey you know, i wont, but it is verry triiing to a man of my partickuler disposision to return to the buzum of his familiy to find the intire homested smeling like a combineasion of a glu factory, a fertilizer factory and a ded horse whitch has been left weaks in a hot july sun. and mother sed for heavens saik george dont say enny more. it is bad enuf without thinking of sutch dredful things. and father sed i wont joey only you shood not have interrupted me and tirned me from my religious medditasions. i was doing prety well. then aunt sarah sed if you aint moar choise in your langage you never will dwell in the house of the lord but sumwhere elce, and father sed tell me sumthing new and dont scair me to deth sarah. but how in the wirld did that smell get here, and me and beany and pewt all hollered beany got a eg in the side and father sed i shood think he did and the best thing beany can do is to go home and chainge his close. it is neerly oh clock and we have got to go to bed sumtime tonite. so pewet and beany went home and father set down and mother shet the winders and father told us about it and how meny got hit and what they sed and we all nearly dide laffing as we always do when father tells stories, and father sed gim ellison got hit in the middle of his vest and went home holding his nose up in the air so high that he run bang into a tree and broak his speckticles, and old bradbiry purington, pewts father went home holding his coat tale up like a woman holds up her trane. he sed that old mag mackflannery got hit and went rite down to old bill morrils house and maid so mutch fuss that bill promised her a new dress if she wood shet up and go home. he sed bill sed he will never run for selickman again. it keeps him in hot water all the time. he sed bill sed if he hadent agreed to by her a new dress she wood have drove him into a loonitick assilem. father he sed it was wirth dollers of enny mans money to see old swane and old dirgin get it and they hadent enny rite to arest mike and bill and gimmy josy whitch wasent doing nothing but standing round, and wasent drunk enuf to be arested, and he sed he and amos tuck went in and baled them all out and that was why he was lait. father sed he wished moar egs had hit the polisemen and he wished he gnew the fellers whitch throwed the egs he wood give them dollars. gosh i wanted to tell him but my othe forbid but i wish we cood get that dolers. father sed if the terible done it they hadent augt to be blaimed for ennything they had done to old biley and the others. then he told me and keene and cele to go to bed and we done it. while i was wrighting i remembered what father sed about baling out old mike and gimmy josy and bill hartnitt and i hollered down stairs and sed father how did you go to wirk to bale out them fellers. and father sed i used a stomack pump of coarse. how did you supose i done it, with a dipper. now you go to bed. so i went back and shet my door. i tell you father knows how to do things. he pumped all the rumm out of them fellers and when they are tride in coart tomorrow and old swane and old mizzery sware that they was drunk the jug will tell them they is dam liers and a disgraice to the perfession. i wish i cood go to coart and hear the jug say that but i supose i have got to go to school. tomorrow i will wright the report for pewt to copy becaus i can spel so mutch beter than pewt. october , ---brite and fair. gosh the funniest thing happened to pewt and to beany. when pewt got home his father was there and auful mad because he had got a poper on the coat tale becaus he was going to a temprunce meating tonite and was going to set on the platform and pewts mother sed it wood be a weak befoar he cood ware that coat again becaus she wood have to boil it in waters and rince it in and and then dry it and ion it. so pewts father coodent set on the platform at the temprunce meating and he was mad enuf to lick his grate granfather. if pewt had gnew enuf to keep still he wood have been all rite but he wanted to be funy and he sed that is a funy way to boil egs and old man purinton grabed him and lambasted him with his ratan can till you cood have heard pewt holler down town. it was tuf on pewt but he dident get a lot of lickings he ougt to have got and i gess he cant complane. and beany had tuf luck two for when he went into the house they maid him go out and take off his jaket and his father licked him for spoling his close and maiking sutch a smell until beany hollered as loud as pewt. for onct in my life i had sum good luck for i got up the hoal thing and they got licked for it. i supose it aint rite for of the terible to laff when the other gets licked but i cant help it. tonite we dident do nothing but put up another sine on old ikes house it sed. bewair isak the hour of retrobusion is at hand. the terible i xpect to hear sumthing from ike tomorrow. october , ---today neither pewt nor beany cood go out of the yard xcept to go to school. they boath sed they wood be willing to stay in the yard the hoal day if they cood stay away from school but they thougt it was tuf to have to go to school and run the risk of being licked and then stay in the yard when the other fellers was having a good time. but i done the best i cood to help them out. after school this morning i got a croud of fellers to go up to pewts. they was pop clark and hunny donovan and ham welsh and skinny bruce and jack and gim melvin and we staid there until pewts father drove us out and after school this afternoon i got the saim croud to go over to beanys so he woodent be loansum and we staid there till beanys father drove us out. beanys father told my father that it was more punishment for his family when he kep beany in the yard than it was to beany becaus evry time he kept beany in the yard all his frends come in and rased particklar hell. tonite old ike sent for father and wanted to know if he wood come up and stay with him until nine oh clock when he was going to have a poliseman stay all nite to perteck him from the terrible . father he sent him word that he wood be up after supper. he had to go down town a few minits and he sent me up to tell him and to say that he had better stay in and keep the doors locked. he told me to tell him he wood give gnocks but not to open the doer for enyone elce. aunt sarah sed george do you really think they is enny dainger. and father sed not a bit. sumone is having fun with ike and aunt sarah sed why do you want to scare him to deth and father sed sister mine our gentle cussin isak has had far two easy a life and it is a good thing to instil into his mind the idea that moths and rust do corrup and theeves braik throug and steel. then aunt sarah tride not to laff and sed i think it is a shaim to wurry so good a man as he is and father sed. sister thou wast mild and luvly gentle as the summer breaz. but it is hard to convinse you that desperrit cases need desperrit remmedies. now this is a desperrit case. verry desperrit. supose the terible shood kidnap ike and hold him for ransum. who wood give cents for ike? who wood give ten, have i enny offers. maik it / cents. no offers maik it six. do i have enny offers. no by saint bride of bothwel no let the portculis fall. and i wood have to go throug life uncheered by the companonship of ike. then aunt sarah sed george do be sensible for onct in your life. jest onct. are you going to scare that poor man to deth or not? and father he sed far from it sweet sister. i shall be kindness itself. is it kindness in the docter when he conceles the faital naiture of a diseeze from a diing man and alows him to go whooping into the vast beyond without a chanct to repent. is that kindnes sister? ecco answers not by a dam site sister. it aint kindnes. it wood have been kindnes to tell him the gig was up and give him a chanct to maik his will and pay a few notes and by sum paper with black eges and or yards of craip for a fale for his wife. so it will be my duty, sister, in spite of your prairs and teers, not to concele from isak the seerius nature of the thret maid by the terible . have you ever reelized how my boyhood was blited by the thrashings it received becaus i was a bit rude to my gentle cussen ike. and do you reelize how many hundred times he was held up to me as a moddle and how i was erged sumtimes prairfuly by mother and moar often strapfuly by father to emulait his vertus. and do you think, sweet but earring sister that i will alow sutch a opertunity of asureing him of my pertecksion and simpathy to pass. o the demon and his bride and the grate grate owl by all his curage tride in the popes sanbowl i gess not, sarah mine. i shall go up and convinse isak that the wicked stand in slepery plaices and that the way of the transgresor is hard. isak has called upon his cussen for pertecksion. wood you have me fale him, speek woman. then aunt sarah began to laff and sed there is no use in talking to you when you are fealing like that and i shall not say enny moar and she went off. i gnew there wood be sum fun for they always is when father talks like that and so i asted father if i cood go up to ikes with him. he sed i cood go but i must let him do the talking and not say a word unless i was asted to. so i sed i wood be cairful and we went up. it was not quite dark and when we got up there father gnocked gnocks and we heard sumone say who is there, and father sed it is me george and then ike unlocked or locks and opened it about inchs and it was held by a chane. then he peeped out and sed is it you george. who have you got with you and father sed this is my boy harry. then he sed to me this is cussen isak and i sed how do you do cussen isak and he sed how do you do and i sed i spoke to you one day and you dident know me and so i told father if he ever got a chanct to interduce me. the ike sed i am a little neer sited and i sed i see you are cussen isak and then father nugged me with his elbo and i dident say enything moar. then father sed you havent heard enything moar of the kidnapers and ike he give a sort of gump and sed do you think cussen george that they is kidnapers and father sed i have thought so from sum things i have heard. and old ike sed what have you heard and father sed well isak i dont want to friten you but you had augt to know this. jist then ikes wife mary come in. we call her mary isak becaus they is so mutch alike and never goes enywhere and jest sets and rocks in rocking chairs and looks at each other. when she come in father got up and shook hands with mary isak and interduced me and she asted him if he thougt they was verry daingerous men and father laffed and sed no cussen mary there isent the leest dainger in the wirld. it is only sum smart fellers that wants to have a little fun with sum of our best cittisens and they isent the leest need of wurrying. so you go to bed and i will set up and talk with isak until the poliseman comes up. so mary isak went up stairs and isak begun to perk up quite a lots until father sed as i was saying isak when cussen mary come in, i have read the papers cairfuly and there has been quite a number of cases cimmiler to this. in milton masschusetts and in lewiston maine and in new york state. in eech case warnings was hung up like these and in each case a verry ritch and promminent cittisen was kidnaped and held for ransum. the man in milton had to pay hundred dollars and the man in lewiston paid i think hundred dollars they wanted thousand dollars but all he cood rase was hundred and the in new york had to pay thousand apeace. but you know prises is higher in new york. probly you woodent have to pay moar than thousand. well all this time old ike had been setting ferst in one chair and then in another chair and puling his wiskers and when father sed this he gave a grone and sed aint there no pertection under the law? and father sed the matter is being vestigated and persecution will folow enny falce step that the villins make. the trubble is they are verry hard to ketch then ike sed isent there sum way out of it and father sed i have been thinking isak why dont you and j. albert clark and biley tilton and the other fellers whitch has been warned make up a purce like you and sum of the fellers done when they was afrade of being draffed in the civil war to hire substitoots. then if the scoundrils get one of you the others will help pay his ransum. well ike he thought that mite be a good idea and he sed he wood see sum of them tomorrow if the terible dident get him befoar morning. then father sed dont wurry a bit isak while i am here they will have to get you over my ded body and ike sed thank you george you were always a kind frend and father sed yes isak we was frends but not xactly damin and pithius. well bimeby the poliseman come up and it was old filander kize and he was smoaking a old black pipe that smelled wirse than one of our poppers that we pluged at the pedler and old ike sed have you got to smoak that mister kize and old filander sed yes it is the only thing that will keep me awake and so ike sed well i supose i shall have to stand it. so me and father come away after shaking hands with old ike and father told him to go to bed and to get a good nites rest and not to wurry and then we come away and we cood hear him locking all the locks and bolting all the bolts and puting up the chane so the terible coodent kidnap him. when we was going home father began to laff and sed i supose i was a meen cus to wurry cussen isak like that but all my life he has been held up to me as a moddle and if i thougt you wood tirn out like him i shood feal like throwing you over the brige in a bag with rocks in it. think of living a life without fun. gosh he mite have been a useful cittizen if he hadent been so cussed good. how ever i will go up tomorow and chirk him up a little. when we got home mother and sarah was setting up and darning stockings and sarah sed well george did you wurry the poar man out of his wits and father sed piece woman i treeted him with the uttmost kindness and was a grate cumfort to him. of coarse i was cairful not to under estimait the dainger for feer that ike mite be bold to rashniss and xpose himself needlessly to dainger. it wasent verry hard to perswuade him to stay in the house for a weak or . indeed i think i wood have had to fite hard to get him out. but when i left him i asured him taht if wirst come to wirst he cood probly be able to pay his ransum if it wasent moar than thousand dollers. i thougt he was going to faint ded away then and i told him with me and melander kize and old swane and mizzery dugin and old brown willing ot sackrifise our lifes for him he needent wurry. then aunt sarah sed and she coodent talk verry well because she was triing to bite a thred off, i think i shall go up and tell cussen isak that you are jest stirring him up and father sed he will not beleeve you for i told him the hoal family but me had tirned agenst him straingly becaus they thougt he has did sum dredfill thing that wont see the lite of day and that harry and i are the only ones that stand up for him and aunt sarah bit off the thred with a snap and sed george shute if i cood beleeve a single wird you say i shood be verry indignent, and father sed it is harroing to be so douted and missunderstood by them whitch is deer to you and he pertended to burst into teers and sed he wood go to bed and weap his piller sopping wet and he made up a auful face and winked at mother and went up stairs and aunt sarah sed to mother what a man he wood have been on the staige. he wood have beet comical brown and artimus ward and joshua billings all to peaces, and mother she sed yes he wood but i prefir him jest as he is. october , ---rany again. it hasent done enything but rane for weaks. it was so rany that we coodent put up eny sines or comit eny crimes. i saw old filander coming down from ikes this morning and when i went to school i say mary isak with all the winders open airing out the house. october , ---cold and windy. all the horse chesnuts in frunt of sheriff odlins place has fell down and all the fellers is stringing them on strings and pluging them over the telligraf wires. of coarse me and beany and pewt does it to pass away the time and devert suspishons. we have got moar serius things to think about. saw old filander come down from ikes again today and saw mary isak airing out the house again. tonite father went up again to cumfort ike. father says that he dont think ike cood et along without his sunny precence. every time father comes home from ikes he says ike sends down town for a man to put on a new chane or a new lock on the door. father says if he goes a few moar times he will get him to put iron bars in the winders. old mother moulton stays there days. father says he hasent had so mutch fun sence he took laffin gas and cleened out docter johnsons ofice and throwed docter johnson out of one winder and docter prey out of the other and gim melcher down stairs. october , ---hork and spit both dide today. give them a big ded rat that old mis dire give me. they toar it into bits and et it fir and all and when i come home from school they was both ded and all curled up. i asted old mis dire how she cougt the rat and she sed she poizened it with rat poisen only she called it rat poizen. i told her it killed my horks and she sed she was sorry but she forgot to tell me. i thougt at ferst that she done it perpose to pay me for sending her old cat to haverhill but i gess she dident. we had a meating of the terible today and if she had done it a perpose we wood have atended to her case even if she was a woman. while the terible dont maik war on wimmen, we dont perpose to have wimmin maik war on us. filander is still at ikes. tonite we drawed lots to see witch shood go up with a sine to biley tiltons. i got the shortest straw and had to go. pewt had printed a sine whitch sed. bewaire the vengunce of the terible it spairith not the wicked man. but it strikith in darkniss. bewair. when i got up there old biley was setting by his door with a gun over his gnees. i sed how do you do mister tilton and he sed how do how do. i pertended i come up to see luke mannix but he wasent to home and i come back. i dident leeve the sine you bet. november . j. albert clark has got a bull dog. he bougt it of old mike casidy. he keeps it to perteck him from the terible . father thougt he had augt to have moar pertecksion and told him so. father is verry kind to j. albert and to ike. we have maid father a onery member of the terible . woodent he be surprised if he gnew it. of coarse we cant tell him he is a onery member but he is. i asted pewt and beany if they dident want their fathers to be maid onery members and they sed no, that their fathers had licked them for nothing the nite we roten eged the pedler and they wood voat agenst it. so that is what they get for not helping the terible . well tonite when j. albert come home and tride to go into the house the bull dog grabed him by the hine leg and nearly toar his britches off and he slamed the door on his hed before he wood let go and j. albert had to set in the barn while he sent down to old mikes to get him to come up and make the bull dog let him in. so after a while old mike come up and maid the dog let him in. then he maid j. albert feed the dog and pat him and he told the dog j. albert was his frend and he sed the dog gnew moar than a man and they woodent be eny moar trubble with him after this. and he maid j. albert pay him anuther doller for coming up and maiking the dog mind j. albert. it was lucky j. albert had on his second best close and it wasent his best lavender britches that the dog toar. after supper tonite j. albert took the bull dog out for a walk hiched to him with a chane and a coller round his neck and ferst the dog chased a cat and draged old j. albert about rods befoar he cood stop him and the woman whitch oaned the cat come out and told j. albert he wasent eny gentleman for keaping a feerosius dog and j. albert was bowing and taiking off his hat and asting her parden when the ferosius dog started after another cat and j. albert lost his hat and had to hiper a long distence holding back with his hine legs sticking out in front and triing to stop him and hollering whoa. well when j. albert got him stoped he got a stick and was going to lick him but the dog grouled and j. albert thougt he woodent lick him after all so he went back after his hat puling the bull dog along and stoping evry time he come to a tree or a post, then he got his hat whitch had been run over by a dingle cart with a lode of hay. well j. albert got his hat and pushed it into shaip and brushed it and put it on and started off again with the dog. and when he was going by old si smith store old sis big white dog come out and piched into j. albert dog and you had augt to have saw that fite. it was a ripper. they stood up and toar at each others gozzles and rassled and rolled over in the dirt and bit and shook and knawed each other. and old si come out and lammed then with his cain and swoar at j. albert and old shep hogden and gimmy bedell pulled their tales and hine legs and throwed water on them and hit them with brickbats and j. albert pulled at the chane and hollered and lamp flood was a going to lick j. albert who hadent done nothing to him when father grabed him by the neck and neerly yanked his head off and throwed him in the guter. bimeby a feller from mager blakes stable told shep to pull on one dogs hine leg and gimmy to pull on the other and when they had the dogs rite out strate the feller lit a sulfer match rite under their noses and they let go prety quick and shep and gimmy pulled them apart. the sulfer maid them choak and they had to let go to breeth. it was a buly fite and old j. albert done well. i wish you cood have saw old lamp flood go fluking into the guter. november , ---sunday again. it comes round prety often i think. saturday dont seam to come round as often as sunday. today there was a little. this morning old j. albert started to go down stairs and the bull dog woodent let him. i ges in the xcitement of the fite and chaising the cats he had forgot that j. albert was his master. j. albert gnocked on the wall and wanted father to take the kee and open the door and get the bull dog out, and father sed are you saif j. albert where you are and j. albert sed yes he cant get me up here but i dont want to stay here the rest of my life, and father sed if you are saif you will have to stay there till i can send down for old mike to come up. i dont have eny grate hankering to have a bull dog hanging to me for the rest of my life eether. so maik yourself to home and reed a few chapters of the bible for this is sunday and i gess towerds supper time old mike will come up. then j. albert sed cant you get a gun and shoot him throug the winder and father sed it is sunday albert and i am verry perticler about using fire arms on this sacrid day but if you will posess your sole in pashents i will see what can be did. so j. albert shet the window and father told me to go down and get old mike and i done it and mike come up with me and j. albert throwed out the kee and old mike opened the door and the bull dog waged his tale when he saw old mike and wigled round jist like a puppy, he was so glad to see him, and j. albert come down and told mike he had ruther be kidnaped than et by a bull dog and he sed mike had got to taik back the dog and give back his dollers whitch j. albert had gave him and mike sed not by a dom site a bargin was a bargin and j. albert sed he dident bargin for a dog to eet breckfast dinner and supper off of him and old mike sed he asted for a dog that woodent let enybody into the house and he got one. and j. albert sed he xpected to be able to get into his oan house and old mike sed he dident say enything about that when they traded and after they had talked and jawed about it j. albert sed mike cood have the bull dog if he wood taik him off to onct and mike he done it and went off smoaking his old pipe and the bull dog gumped up on him and wigling his tale. enyway aunt clark j. alberts mother is coming home tomorow and i wood like to see enyone kidnap j. albert when she is around. filander is still at ikes. november , ---cold as time this morning. i saw a flock of robins eeting sum red berrys on a tree. the blackberds has all gone weaks ago. potter gorham says they follow the cost line down south stoping evry day somewhere to eet. the robins goes last and sumtimes stays here all winter. i have never saw a robin in winter but potter sed he see one onct. potter knows all about birds and animals and insex and things. he is going to be a natturalist sum day. i wood ruther be a natturalist than enything in this wirld xcept a band player. so i am going to be a band player and play the e flatulent cornet becaus that is the highest and the loudest and the eesiest to carry round. the trumboan is pretty good and if i cant play the cornet i shood like to play the trumboan. if sum feller wood maik a trumboan that wood have the parts slip into eech other so far that there woodent be enything left then a feller cood put in into his vest poket when he wasent playing it and nobody wood know he had it. it wood be grate fun to taik your trumboan sliped together in your vest poket to chirch and when the old minister was preeching auful tiresum and old mister blake and old han. dow and old steve gail and all the other men in the chirch are sleeping and injoying the sirmon verry mutch indeed thank you to taik the trumboan out of your vest poket and put it together and blow a auful toot ratetatoot as loud as you can and see all the old pods gump up and sum of them hit their heads on the phew in frunt of them where they has been leening their heads in an atitood of prair and the old minister loose his plaice and gump ten paiges to thly insted of thly. and when old c. lovell th whitch is sumtimes sexton and sumtimes suprintendent of the sunday school comes round to see who blowed the horn and to put him out they aint no horn enywhere and sum folks think it may be the last trump of gabril. if i ever get time i am going to try to maik a trumboan like that but i am so bizzy with the afairs of the terible that i cant spend eny time in sutch things as them. tonite we put the sine pewt rote for old biley tilton on ikes house. we had a meating of the terible and we desided that we woodent do eny moar at present to old biley becaus when a man sets in his garden with a shot gun on his gnees and dont ast the polise to help him they aint mutch use to do enything to him. bimeby peraps we may have a chanct. we also desided not to do eny moar to j. albert becaus he done so well in the dog fite and was so perlite to the woman when she sed he was no gentlemen when it wasent his falt becaus he coodent stop the dog from chaising her cat the ferst yank but done the best he cood. so we aint ging to bother him eny moar. so we put up a sine on his house and neerly got cougt but dident quite. it sed j. albert clark. the terible has desided that they has maid a mistaik in your case. you done splended in the dog fite and you hung on to the chane and dident let go when lamp flood was going to lick you whitch took grate curage. the terible think you are a good feller and are your frends for life. the terible . november , ---today ike got old swane to stay there. he smoaks a wirse smeling pipe than old filander. filander stays nites and old swane daytimes. ike sent for father and father advised him to have sumbody round all the time. it costs a lot of money but father says nobudy wood know the vallue of money unless they spends it. ike thinks sumthing is going to hapen prety soon. november , ---rany today. i gess it was lucky it was for if it hadent been for the rane ikes house wood have birne down. gosh the terible is fealing prety wurried. last nite at oh clock the bells begun to ring and in heard peeple hollering fire. i gumped up prety lifely and i cood hear father yelling for his britches. we got to the frunt door together and we cood see a big blaiz up towards ikes. gosh i was scart. when father sed them devils has did it at last i thougt it was all boys play but i gess it was real. it means stait prizon for life for sombudy. i was so scart that i cood hardly maik my hine legs go but i kep up. all the bells was ringing and evrybudy was hollering fire. when we got there pewts father and beanys father and old filander and old nat weaks and old bill greanleef and old printer smith and old parry moulton and old gus brown and pewt and beany and evryone were pumping water into lether buckets and pales and hollering where in hell is the ingines and this is a hell of a fire dipartment and rushing round and getting in each others way and swaring and luging out the firniture and throwing crockery through the windows. old bill greanleaf lowered his wife out of her chamber by tying her to a sheet and then clim down hisself when all he had to do was to go down stares and out of the door. and it was only feet high and they cood have gumped if necesary. old mrs. sawyer fainted ded away and sumbudy throwed a pale of water on her and she gumped up and called him all the naims she cood think of. jest then the torent no come down the strete with the men on the roap running on the cleen gump. they stoped by the reservor and run out the hoze and let down the pipe and then found that they had left the nozzle at the ingine house upon the plains and they sent a feller up there on horseback and all they cood do was to pump water into pales whitch helped sum but not mutch. then the fellers formed bucket lines and kep a pumping and pouring and wondering where the union no and fountain no were. it tirned out after the fire was over that the moon was rising in hamton falls and that they saw the lite and went down there as fast as they cood hiper thinking there was a big fire and when they got way up to isiar hanes house the moon was up so that they cood see what it was and they was so tuckered out runing a mile and a haff up hill that they coodent do a single thing but set down and sware and call each other dam fools. they was even two tuckered out to fite and most always firemen is ready to fite and so they must have been prety well used up. well we fellers whitch was at the fire wirking our heads off and triing to save old bill greanleef and his wife and ike and his wife and old bill morill was getting prety tuckered with pumping and hollering and throwing water on the flaims and throwing firniture throug the winders and runing ladders agenst peeples heads and saving hens by the hine legs squorking and flaping feerful and wondering where the union no and the fountain no was and what had become of the feller whitch had went for the nozzle and hadent come back when it begun to pour rane and i never gnew it to rane faster and in a few minits the fire was out. then we was going to move the thing back but we found that sum of the firemen had choped hoals in the roof of the house. the fire hadent got to the house but they thougt they wood have the hoals reddy for the union no and fountain no and the feller whitch had went for the nozzle and hadent got back when they got there. so the house was full of water and sum of the plastering had fell down on the heads of the fellers whitch were throwing things throug the winders and covered them with plaster. well after the fire was over we went home. father says they is going to have the best detecktives in boston to find out who the terible is. evrybuddy says they done it to get even with ike. father says they is jest as sure to go stait prizon as he is to get his breckfast tomorow. i went to bed but dident sleap a wink i coodent eet eny breckfast this morning. mother says i must be sick. gosh it is wirse than being sick. this morning the terible had a meating. we desided to give up the asociasion and to burn the records. it is a auful thing to have stait prizon stairing you in the face when you havent done nothing. we havent done nothing rong but if they find out who the terible is we will have to go to stait prizon. sumbuddy set fire to ikes house sure. they wasent eny stove in the barn. if it had started in the house it mite have cougt from the chimny. november , --- things is getting wirse evry day. i have lost the record of the terible . pewt sed he give it to me all rite but when i went to my desk it was gone. i know it was there days ago. i hunted evrywhere for it. i asted mother and aunt sarah and all of them if enyone had been in my desk and they all sed no. mother asted me what i had lost and i told her i had lost a story i had rote and she sed well you can remember it cant you and i sed yes but i dont want to wright it again. i have hunted evrywhere and so has beany and pewt. if enyone has found it our goos is cooked and we go to stait prizen. i have looked forward moar than oncet to going to the reform school or to jale but i never gnew what it was to xpect to go to stait prizon for sumthing you never have did. i cant eet and cant sleap. it is wirse than being ded. a grate deel wirse. november , ---the insurance men come and xamined the fire and took measurements. they desided it wasent ikes falt or bills falt and so they pade them. father sed ike and bill maid moar money than they had for six months. but he sed that the insurance companies was going to find out who done it and it looked to him that the terible would be looking throug bars before long. i cant hardly breeth when i think of it. i saw beany and pewt today and they are so scart that they cant eet or sleap just like me. of coarse we have got to laff and holler at fellers and play football but we only laff to concele a braking hart. i wood give a milion dollers to know what has become of them records. if i had birnt them we wood have had sum chanct. and if we had the sence to put sum other fellers naims in it peraps we mite escaip but i dont see enny hope. november , ---brite and fair. i wish i felt as good as the wether. it seams as if evrybody was looking at me and saying he done it. he is of the terible . evrytime i see a strainge man i think he is a detecktive and evrytime i see old swane or old mizzery or old filander or old brown i wunder if they is going to grab me and put the handcufs on my rists and drag me to the lockup. mother says she is going to see docter perry about me but i laff and say i am all rite. peraps she wood tirn from me with lothing like dolly bidwell done in east linn when she plaid it in the town hall last winter, if she gnew. jest think less than a year ago i was going to shows and having a good time and now i am wateing to be sent to stait prizen. i have often wundered how fellers felt whitch have to go to stait prizen but now i know. november , ---sunday again. it mite as well be sunday as eny other day. perhaps they woodent arest a feller on sunday. beany had the docter today. i asted lucy watson what was the matter with him and she sed docter perry sed he was in a low nervus stait. she sed docter perry sed if beany had eny mind he shood say sumthing was praying on it. the minister preeched on the wicked whitch fleas when no man persuith. that wood be all rite but detecktives is pursuing us. i wish he hadent sed enything about it. i wish i cood be let alone in chirch. november , ---pewt had the docter today. he had docter swet. docter swet thinks pewt is thretened with brane feever. father says that cant be. he sed he shood as soon xpect me to have brane feever as pewt. i think peraps we will all feal better when it is over. what i am afrade of is that pewt and beany may go crasy and say i done it all. what if they shood. i wood give a milion dollers if i gnew where them records have went to. november , ---beany aint eny better. i went over today to see him and see what cood be did and he sed he dident want to see enybudy. i went up to see pewt and asted old man purinton how he was and he sed he was getting no better verry fast. i wunder if he has heard enything. november , ---pewt aint enny better. beany aint et ennything but broth for days. i still eet to keep up my strenth. i am wurried about them. if they get two week peraps they will comfes and say i done it. i hoap they is man enuf to keep their othes. i am going to keep mine. i forgot to say wether it was brite or fair or rainy or enything fer a weak. i dont remember and i dont cair a dam. there i have sed it. november , ---father keeps looking at me quear. i wunder if he suspecks ennything. if i had only told him he was a onery member peraps i cood tell him about things without braking my othe. i bet he wood help us. we have got to have sum help. it wont do to let pewt and beany dy and leeve me to go to stait prizon alone. if of has got to go to stait prizon the hoal of us has got to go. beany and pewt aint going to sneek out of it by dying. that woodent be fair. november , ---i have gave up haop and dont cair now. i am only wateing till a poliseman grabs me. i got licked in school. it dident even hirt me. it maid me think of sumthing elce but stait prizon for a few minits. old francis says i am getting nummer evry day. he says if i dont waik up he will have to waik me. what is the use enyway. last sunday the minister sed evrybudy cood get the gratest cumfort from the bible whatever his truble was. he sed open the bible and reed the first virse you see and it will comfort you. so today i saw celes bible open where she had left it. she is reeding isiar. i dident know eny part of the bible was rote by isiar. isiar hanes was probably naimed after him, well i thougt i wood do as the minster sed. so i shet up the bible and then opened it and the ferst virse i saw was this. by these was the third part of men killed, by the fire and by the smoak it was in chapter virse of revellasions. you cood have gnocked me down with a fether. i shet up the book and set down. then i got out the dicksionery and looked up revellasions and it sed revellasions---the ack of disclosing to others that whitch was ungnew to them. so what is the use. i wish i was ded. november , ---the gratest thing has happened. i feel as if i cood fli to the moon. jest think i am in my room wateing for father to come and lick me and i aint wurrid a bit. i have et haff a mince pye and i never taisted enything so good in my life befoar. i feel so good that i wood like to holler. jest think i aint got to go to stait prizon nor beany nor pewt. this morning pewt and beany were faleing verry fast and the last i heard of them they was setting up in their shirt tales eeting meet and potatoes and pye and evrything. well tonite father went out and mother asted him where he was going and he sed low so i woodent hear him up to brads. i heard him and i thougt sumthing was up. so after he had went out i folowed on and saw him go into the paint shop. pewts father and beanys father and general mastin were there. so i crep up where there was a broaken winder and lissened. father set down and took out of his poket, what do you think, the records of the terible . i was so sirprized that i neerly hollered but dident. then father sed well gentlemen i have the infirnalist record of yuthfull depravity i ever read in my life. and then he read it and evry time he stoped to breeth old general mastin wood slap his gnee and holler god did you ever hear the like of that, the little devils. and father wood holler and laff and pewts father and beanys father wood two. then father wood read sum moar and then he sed i wish i had been a member and i almost sed you was an onery member but i gnew enuf not to. bimeby he finished and sed there general did you ever hear enything like that in your life and general sed he never did. then father sed he suspecked us from the ferst and peraps he was as mutch to blaim as we was becaus he stirred up old ike and j. albert but when the fire come he was wurrid as the devil althoug he felt sure we hadent done it he was afrade sum dam fool wood try to lay it onto us. and the very day of the fire he found the records where i had droped them. he told pewts father and beanys father and they thougt it woodent hirt us to wurry and they told the docters and the docters sed they was all rite and it woodent hirt them. then father sed it was only fair that he and pewts father and beanys father shood pay for eny damige we had did. and pewts father sed as long as i got it up father had augt to pay. and father sed why do you say that and pewts father sed becaus he always does get the other boys into truble and father kind of smiled and handed the records to him and sed whose writing is that. and pewts father looked at it and sed hum haw and that was all he cood say. father dident know that i rote them becaus i cood spel so mutch better than pewt and pewt coppid them. then general mastin sed ike and bill has maid money by the fire and these little devils dident have enything to do with that and that it cougt from hot ashes enyway. now i am counsil for the boys and i aint obliged to tell a thing about them or who they are. a lawyer aint obliged to. i will put a peace in the paper saying enyone whitch has sustaned eny damige from the so called terible can by proving there damige under othe to me will be pade. and you may be sure that they aint a man living that will be willing to sine the kind of a staitment i will draw up for him, and general laffed and they all did two. then father asted general what his bill was and general sed hell the only thing he wished was that he cood have been a member of the terible and if father wood give him that record to keep to look at when things was going rong to cheer him up he wood call it square. so father give them to him. then i started to creap away and i cougt my foot and come down with a bang and in a moment father come out on the cleen gump and grabed me. then he sed well sir what have you been doing lissening and i sed yes sir and he sed you start yourself for home and after clarence and elbrige, they is pewt and beany you know, have had there supper i will come hoam and atend to your case. so i come home and i am wateing for him to come and lick me and i dont cair. enybody whitch cant stand a licking when he knows he has escaiped stait prizon aint mutch of a feller. gosh aint it good to feel good. november , ---brite and fair. father dident lick me. it is fun to be alive. november , ---beany and pewt has got well again and has come to school today. we have been wundering if a onery member had eny rite to give them records to enybudy. of coarse we dont cair but we have been wundering. november , ---brite and fair. the end the real diary of a real boy by henry a. shute introduction in the winter of - , while rummaging an old closet in the shed-chamber of my father's house, i unearthed a salt-box which had been equipped with leather hinges at the expense of considerable ingenuity, and at a very remote period. in addition to this, a hasp of the same material, firmly fastened by carpet-tacks and a catch of bent wire, bade defiance to burglars, midnight marauders, and safe-breakers. with the aid of a tack-hammer the combination was readily solved, and an eager examination of the contents of the box disclosed:-- . fish-line of braided shoemaker's thread, with perch hook, to which adhered the mummied remains of a worm that lived and flourished many, many years ago. . popgun of pith elder and hoop-skirt wire. . horse-chestnut bolas, calculated to revolve in opposite directions with great velocity, by an up-and-down motion of the holder's wrist; also extensively used for the adornment of telegraph-wires,--there were no telephones in those days,--and the cause of great profanity amongst linemen. . more fish-hooks of the ring variety, now obsolete. . one blood alley, two chinees, a parti-colored glass agate, three pewees, and unnumbered drab-colored marbles. . small bow of whalebone, with two arrows. . six-inch bean-blower, for school use--a weapon of considerable range and great precision when used with judgment behind a guyot's common school geography. . unexpended ammunition for same, consisting of putty pellets. . frog's hind leg, extra dry. . wing of bluejay, very ditto. . letter from "beany," postmarked "biddeford, me." and expressing great indignation because "pewt" "hasent wrote." . copy-book inscribed "diry." the examination of this copy-book lasted the rest of the day, and it was read with the peculiar pleasure one experiences in reviewing some of the events of a happy boyhood. with the earnest hope that others may experience a little of the pleasure i gained from the reading, i submit the "diry" to the public. henry a. shute. exeter, n. h. sept. , . diry father thot i aught to keep a diry, but i sed i dident want to, because i coodent wright well enuf, but he sed he wood give $ dolars if he had kept a diry when he was a boy. mother said she gessed nobody wood dass to read it, but father said everybody would tumble over each other to read it, anyhow he wood give $ dolars if he had kept it. i told him i wood keep one regular if he wood give me a quarter of a dolar a week, but he said i had got to keep it anyhow and i woodent get no quarter for it neither, but he woodent ask to read it for a year, and i know he will forget it before that, so i am going to wright just what i want to in it. father always forgets everything but my lickins. he remembers them every time you bet. so i have got to keep it, but it seems to me that my diry is worth a quarter of a dolar a week if fathers is worth $ dolars, everybody says father was a buster when he was a boy and went round with gim melcher and charles talor. my grandmother says i am the best boy she ever see, if i dident go with beany watson and pewter purinton, it was beany and pewt made me tuf. there dos'nt seem to be much to put into a diry only fites and who got licked at school and if it ranes or snows, so i will begin today. december , - brite and fair, late to brekfast, but mother dident say nothing. father goes to boston and works in the custum house so i can get up as late as i want to. father says he works like time, but i went to boston once and father dident do anything but tell stories about what he and gim melcher usted to do when he was a boy. once or twice when a man came in they would all be wrighting fast, when the man came in again i sed why do you all wright so fast when he comes in and stop when he goes out, and the man sort of laffed and went out laffing, and the men were mad and told father not to bring that dam little fool again. december . skinny bruce got licked in school today. i told my granmother about it and she said she was glad i dident do enything to get punnished for and she felt sure i never wood. i dident tell her i had to stay in the wood box all the morning with the cover down, i dident tell father either you bet. december . rany. i forgot to say it raned yesterday too. i got cold and have a red rag round my gozzle. december . pretty near had a fite in schol today. skinny bruce and frank elliot got rite up with there fists up when the bell rung. it was two bad, it wood have been a buly fite. i bet on skinny. december , - brite and fair. went to church today. me and pewt and beany go to the unitarial church. we all joined sunday school to get into the crismas festerval. they have it in the town hall and have two trees and supper and presents for the scholars. so we are going to stay til after crismas anyway the unitarials have jest built a new church. pewt and beany's fathers painted it and so they go there. i don't know why we go there xcept because they don't have any church in the afternoon. nipper brown and micky gould go there. we all went into the same class. our teacher is mister winsor a student. we call them stewdcats. after we had said our lesson we all skinned out with mr. winsor. when we went down maple street we saw roosters fiting in dany wingates yard, and we stoped to see it. i knew more about fiting roosters than any of the fellers, because me and ed towle had fit roosters lots. mr. winsor said i was a sport, well while the roosters were fiting, sunday school let out and he skipped acros the street and walked off with one of the girls and we hollered for him to come and see the fite out, and he turned red and looked mad. the leghorn squorked and stuck his head into a corner. when a rooster squorks he wont fite any more. december . snowed today and school let out at noon. this afternoon went down to the library to plug stewdcats. there was me and beany and pewt, and whacker and pozzy chadwick and pricilla hobbs. pricilla is a feller you know, and pheby talor, pheby is a feller too, and lubbin smith and nigger bell, he is'nt a nigger only we call him nigger, and tommy tompson and dutchey seamans and chick chickering, and tady finton and chitter robinson. december . gim wingate has got a new bobtail coat. december , - got sent to bed last nite for smoking hayseed cigars and can't go with beany enny more. it is funny, my father wont let me go with beany becaus he is tuf, and pewts father wont let pewt go with me becaus im tuf, and beanys father says if he catches me or pewt in his yard he will lick time out of us. rany today. december . skinny bruce got licked in school today. skipy moses was in the wood box all the morning. december . brite and fair, speakin day today. missed in horatius at the brige. december . clowdy but no rane. went to church. lots of new fellers in sunday school. me and beany and pewt and pile woods and billy folsom and jimmy gad and lots of others. mister winsor dident teach today, gess they woodent let him on account of the rooster fite. december . my new boots from tommy gads came today. i tell you they are clumpers. no snow yet. december . crismas is pretty near, dont know wether i shall get ennything. father says i dont desirve ennything. you can get goozeberrys down to si smiths dozen for cents. he has a funny sine it is flour meal molasses sugar coffe tea spises pork & lard salt butter ham eggs &so december . fite at resess today, gran miller and ben rundlet. ben licked him easy. the fellers got to stumping each other to fite. micky gould said he cood lick me and i said he want man enuf and he said if i wood come out behind the school house after school he wood show me and i said i wood and all the fellers hollered and said they wood be there. but after school i thaught i aught to go home and split my kindlings and so i went home. a feller aught to do something for his family ennyway. i cood have licked him if i had wanted to. december . tady finton got licked in school today. snowed today a little. december . rained in the nite and then snowed a little. it was auful slipery and coming out of church squire lane fell down whak and mr burley cought hold of the fence and his feet went so fast that they seemed all fuzzy, i tell you if he cood run as fast as that he cood run a mile a minite. december . brite and fair. nothing particilar. o yes, skinny bruce got licked in school. december . cold as time. went to a sosiable tonite at the unitarial vestry. cant go again because keene told mother i was impident to the people. i want impident. you see they was making poetry and all sitting around the vestry. they wanted to play copenhagin and post office and clap in and clap out, but mister erl woodent let them because it was in church. so they had to play poetry. one person wood give a word and then the oppisite person wood give a word that rimed with it. it was auful silly. a girl wood give the word direxion and then a stewdcat wood say affexion and waul his eyes towards the girl. and then another wood say miss, and another stewdcat wood say kiss and then he wood waul his eyes, and when it came my turn i said what rimes with jellycake, and the girls turned red and the stewdcats looked funny, and mister burley said if i coodent behave i had better go home. keene needent have told mother anyway. you jest wait keene, and see what will happen some day. december . bully skating. went after school and skated way up to the eddy, was going to skate with lucy watson but pewt and beany hollered so that i dident dass to. john toomey got hit with a hockey block rite in the snoot and broke his nose. december . brite and fair. nothing particular to-day. nobody got licked. old francis had his hand done up in a sling. he said he had a bile on it. i tell you the fellers were glad. december . warm and rany and spoiled the skating. coodent do anything but think of crismas. december . saturday and no skating. went down to the library to get a book for sunday. me and beany were sticking pins into the fellers and making them holler and jo parsons the libarian jumped rite over the counter and chased us way down to mr. hams coffin shop. he dident catch us either. then we went down town and billy swett lent me a dime novel to read sunday. it was named billy bolegs a sequil to nat tod the traper. sequil means the things in nat tod that was not finished. december . brite and fair. crismas tomorrow. went to sunday school. mr. lovel is our teacher now. december . crismas. got a new nife, a red and white scarf and a bag of si smiths goozeberies. pretty good for me. december . crismas tree at the town hall. had supper and got a bag of candy and a long string of pop corn. mr. lovel took off the presents and his whiskers caught fire, and he hollered o hell right out. that was pretty good for a sunday school teacher, wasent it. jimmy gad et too much and was sick. december . beany has got a new striped shirt not a false bosom but a whole shirt. beany wont speak to me now. lucy watson has got a new blew hat with a fether. she wont speak to keene and cele eether. you jest wait beany and lucy and see. jan. , -had an awful time in school today. me and cawcaw harding set together. when we came in from resess cawcaw reached over and hit me a bat, and i lent him one in the snoot, and he hit me back. we was jest fooling, but old francis called cawcaw up front to lick him. i thought if i went up and told him he wood say, noble boy go to your seat, i wont lick neether of you. anyway i knew that cawcaw wood tell on me, and so i told old francis i hit cawcaw first, and old francis said harry i have had my eye on you for a long time, and he jest took us up and slammed us together, and then he wood put me down and shake cawcaw and then he wood put cawcaw down and shake me till my head wabbled and he turned me upside down and all the fellers looked upside down and went round and round and somehow i felt silly like and kind of like laffin. i dident want to laff but coodent help it. and then he talked to us and sent us to our seats and told us to study, and i tried to but all the words in the book went round and round and i felt awful funny and kind of wabbly, and when i went home mother said something was the matter and i told her and then i cried, i don't know what i cried for, becaus i dident ake any. father said he wood lick me at home when i got licked at school and perhaps that was why i cried. ennyway when father come home i asked him if he was a going to lick me and he said not by a dam sight, and he gave me ten cents and when i went to bed i got laffin and crying all to once, and coodent stop, and mother set in my room and kept her hand on my forred until i went to sleep. i drempt i was fiting all the time. when i get big enuf there is going to be a fite between me and old francis, you see if there aint. jan. , me and beany has made up. i told him i had ten cents and then he dident feel so big about his new shirt. ennyway we went down to si smiths and got a dozen goozeberries and then went down to doctor derborns and got a glass of sody water and took turns drinking it and seeing which cood gulp the loudest. beany beat. jan. . brite and fair. went down to pewts tonite to make hayseed cigars. we made kinds, hayseed, sweet firn, cornsilk, mullin leeves, and grape vine. my mouth taisted aufuly all nite. jan. . brite and fair. pewt dident come to school today. i gess he was sick. my mouth taisted aufuly all day. jan. . clowdy and aufuly cold. pewt came to school today and got a licking for puting gum on nigger bells seat. nig set in it til it dride and then tride to get up and coodent. then old francis come down the ile and snaiked nigger out and when he see the gum he asked us who put it there. we all said we dident, but he licked pewt becaus he had seen pewt chooing gum. jan. . it snowed last nite and today. speaking in school today. i spoke the berrial of sir john more. old francis said he never heard ennything wirse in his life. i hope he wont tell father. this afternoon we pluged stewdcats. jan. . ed towle has got a gote. the fellers stumped me to hold him by the horns and he buted me over in the slosh. mother said i had no bisiness to be playing on sunday. jan. . brite and fair. there is going to be a nigger show in the town hall tonite. father says i cant go becaus i sassed aunt sarah. it is uncle toms cabbin. jan. . brite and fair. beany went to the nigger show. he led one of the bludhouns in the prosession and got a ticket. beany had on a red coat jest like the dogs. he said it was buly. jan. . rany. nipper brown is the best scolar in my class. i am the wirst. i can lick nipper easy. jan. . brite and fair. after school me and beany and pewt and fatty melcher and pozzy chadwick and lots of fellers went skating on fresh river. i was skating backwerd and i got one leg in a eal hole, gosh the water was cold and before i got home my britches leg was all froze. jan. . nobody got licked in school today, gess why, becaus there wassent enny school. old francis was sick, i went skating. jan. . brite and--no it was rany. had a speling mach today in school. cele and genny morrison staid up til the last and then cele missed and set down balling, and genny beat. i cant stop to wright enny more becaus i am going to the levee with father. jan. , - went to a big levee last nite at the town hall. bill morrill and nuel head and dave quimby and frank hervey got it up. they had hook and pasons quadril band of haverhil. father bought a ticket becaus he was in the custum house and has to be frends with people. it was splendid. most everybody went all dressed up in blue silk and red and crokay slippers. ham perkins and charlie lane and charley piper and chick randall and dan ranlet and grace morril and the head girls and sweat girls and carrie towle and sarah clark, j. albert clarks sister and the melcher boys and they all hopped round pretty lively, i tell you. i staid until o'clock and listened to the band. i never had so good time in my life. jan. . i am all spekled over. mother says she is afrade i have got chicken pocks. i gess i have been in the hen koop to mutch. jan. . the speckles have all gone of. doctor perry says i et to many donuts. jan. . brite and fair. yesterday to and day before yesterday i have forgot. jan. . snowed all day. me and beany is mad. jan. . father is sick becaus he et to mutch salt fish and potato and pork. he is auful cross and hit me a bat today becaus i left the door open. i gess he will be sorry when i am ded. jan. . brite and fair. went to church in the morning and in the afternoon greeced some paper and trased some pictures. jan. . i had to stay in the wood-box today for whispering to whacker with the cover down. i like it becaus they is a peep hole in the box and you can see the fellers and they cant see you. by and by gimmy fitsgerald whispered and old francis put him in to and we took turns peeping. jan. . it raned hard all day and we had one sesion. beany came over and we made up and plaid in the barn making fly boxes. jan. . nothing much today, rany in the morning and froze at night. jan. . brite and fair. everything was covered with ice and when father started for the depot he tumbled down the front steps from the top to the botom. mother says he went bumpity bump and his hat went one way and his dinner box went the other. i herd him swaring aufuly about that dam boy, and i gess he wood have come up and licked time out of me, but he had to hurry to get the train. jan. . jest as soon as the skating comes it has to snow and spoil it. jan. . i coodent go out of the yard this afternoon becaus i dident put ashes on the front steps before father fell down and so pewt and beany and whacker and nibby hartwell and diddly colket and nipper and prisilla and gim wingit and lots of the fellers came over and we had a snowball fite. mother says she hops father wont keep me at home anuther afternoon. jan. . brite and fair. it never ranes sundays so a feller cant go to church. jan. . nothing puticular today. it always seams harder to go to school mundays, more fellers gets licked mundays than enny day in the weak. i got stood on the platform with my head in the corner for looking of my book today. jan. . brite and fair. i have got a auful chilblane on my heel. jan. . brite and fair. i was glad today was wensday in the afternoon i went skating. the students played baseball on the ice. feb. . brite and fair. pretty soon it will be washintons berthday, and then all the boys can ring the town bell at noon and at nite. feb. . clowdy but no snow. tomorror will be saterday they is only days in the weak that is wirth ennything and that is wensday and saterday except in vacation. feb. . snowed like time all the forenoon. in the afternoon me and pewt and beany rolled up some big snowballs. then tonite we put all the balls together and made a big snowman rite in front of mrs. lewises front door. then we put a old hat on it and hung a peace of paper on it and wrote man wanted on the paper. tomorrow all the people who go to church will see it and laff becaus mister lewis got a devorse. they will be some fun tomorrow. feb. . i coodent wright ennything last nite becaus i got sent to bed and got a licking. i tell you we got in a auful scrape. sunday morning me and pewt and beany went out erly to see our snowman. he was there and when people began to go by they began to laff, and most of the people said it was the funniest thing they ever see and who ever put it there was a pretty smart feller. so we said we did it and pewt said he thought of it ferst and beany said he did, and i said i did most of the werk. well, pretty soon some people came along and looked at it and said it was a shame and they went over to pull of the paper and she came out and see it, and she took a broom and nocked it over and broke it all up. and then she went rite down to my house to tell father. then she went over to beanys house and then up to pewts. well after church father took me over to her house. and beany was there with his father and pewt with his father. she said she wood have us arested for it. but they talked a long time and after a while she said if our fathers wood lick us and make us saw and split a cord of wood she woodent say no more about it. when we went out father said, i never see such dam boys did you brad, did you wats, and they said they never did. so we have got to saw and split that wood and we got licked two. feb. . brite and fair. me and pewt and beany sawed and split some wood for misses lewis. feb. . brite and fair. sawed some more wood, me and pewt and beany. feb. . brite and fair. split some more wood, me and pewt and beany. feb. . fatty melcher and caw-caw harding, chitter robinson and medo thurston helped saw some more wood. feb. . brite and fair. this afternoon whack pozzy and boog chadwick, dutchy semans, nigger bell pop clark, shinny thing and pile wood all come down with saws and axes and helped us saw that wood, we worked all the afternoon and got it done and piled up before dark. then misses lewis asked us in and gave us some buly donuts and some sweatened water and we sung and told stories and before we went we told her we was sorry we bilt the snowman and she said she was sorry two. then when we went away we give cheers for her. feb. . brite and fair. i shant forget last sunday very soon. feb. . rany today. i dont care becaus i havent got to saw enny more wood. feb. . still rany. i dont care. feb. . pretty cold today. going to have a new kind of speling mach tomorrow. feb. . got to the head in spelling today. old francis makes us all stand up in the ile and gives us a lot of words to spell and then we wright them down on our slates and then the head feller or girl changes slates with the foot feller or girl and so on and then old francis wrights the words on the blackboard and then we mark each others slates. john flanygin was the foot feller and had my slate. well most of johns words was wrong. but john marked mine all write. i gess john dident know it, but ther was or of my words speled wrong. i set out to tell old francis but dident dass to becaus he licked me for teling that i paisted cawcaw harding that time. so i kept still and kept at the head and john kept at the foot. i hope john will do it again tomorrow. feb. . beat in speling today. feb. . beat in speling today. feb. . beat in speling today. old francis is a going to give a prise tomorrow. i told father i was pretty sure to get it and he said it will be the first one. aunt sarah asked him if he took many prises. and he said he dident get much of a prise when he got me. i gess he wont say that tomorrow when i bring my prise home. feb. . i dident get the prise. you see yesterday john flanygin spelt more words write than gimmy fitsgerald and gimmy went to the foot. when we marked slates gimmy marked of my words wrong out of , and i had to go down most to where john flannygin was. old francis said he dident beleave i had aught to have staid at the head so long as i did and i was afraid he wood lick me and john but he dident. he said he was ashamed and disapointed in me but i gess he was not the only one who was disapointed. i had told pewt and beany i wood treat on what father wood give me for getting the prise. pewt and beany was both mad, and are going to lay for gimmy. feb. , i forgot to say what the wether was most every day this weak. it has been brite and fair most of the time, only it snowed two days and raned most of one day. brite and fair today and cold as time. feb. , clowdy and cold. pop clark had to crawl through a chair today. he went through so fast old francis only hit him bats. tady finton and nigger bell both got licked. tady dident cry or holler a bit, but nigger hollered just like a girl. i supposed nigger was more of a man than that. feb. , beany and pewt got punching today in school and old francis made them stand on the platform with their arms round each others neck all the forenoon, i bet they felt pretty cheep. brite and fair. feb. , i have got a new pair of britches at erl and cutts. i gess beany aint the only one which has good clothes eather. feb. . nothing particular today. went down to old heads shop to see the stewdcats ride velosipedes. there is going to be a race in the town hall tomorrow night. feb. . father said i cood go to the velosipede race if i woodent miss splitting my kindlings for a week. i did miss them twice but mother dident tell him and if he dont ask her before tonight i am all right. feb. . last night went to the velosipede race. it was jest ripping. i got down before the door opened. bob carter came pretty soon but he woodent let us in until the ticket man came. mr. watson was the ticket man and he let me and beany and shinny thing in free. they had a lot of seats in the center of the hall, and the rest round the edges, and a open track around the hall. on the platform set bill morrill and dave quimby and john getchell and eben folsom. most of the fellers in the race were stewdcats and most of the stewdcats and the girls had the seats in the center of the hall. the stewdcats who were to race were stone and stuart and lee and clifford and august belmont and swift and nichols and george kent and cutler and johnny heald and gear and burly and bob morison. the townies were charlie gerish and doctor prey. each feller rode round the hall twice to get going like time, and then dave quimby hollered go and he had to ride around the hall until he had rid a quarter of a mile. when the stewdcats rode all the other stewdcats yelled and the girls waved their handkerchiefs and the band played and the excitement was dreadful. after a while doctor prey came out and all the townies got up and cheered and the band played the star spangled banner, because doctor fit in the war, and doctor took of his hat and bowed and then rode round like time. he rode faster than most every one of them except stone and stuart and lee and clifford and belmont and swift. i guess if doc hadent fit so hard in the war he wood have beat them all. and then charlie gerish came out and all the townies hollered again and charlie made his legs go so fast that they coodent hardly see them, and jest before the last time around his velosipede slipped and charlie went fluking over three settees. he jumped on his velosipede again and went around with his britches all torn but he dident get around quite quick enuf to beat stone, then the townies yelled and said it was a cheat and the stewdcats hissed, and some of the townies said they could lick the stewdcats, and the stewdcats said they wasent man enuf and it looked as if there was a going to be a row when charlie gerrish got up and said he was beat fair and there wasent anything to get mad about, and that he would like to shake hands with the stewdcat which beat him, and he wood like to race him another time but he coodent then because he hurt his leg, and then they shook hands and every one felt buly, and the stewdcats said hooray for charlie and the townies hollered hooray for stone, and bill morrill made a speech and give the prise to stone and the band played and we all went home. i bet doc. prey and charlie gerrish can lick any two stewdcats in the hall. mar. . i went to a show in the town hall tonight. it was a singing show called the haymakers. it was splendid. mr. gale got it up. they have been practising all winter. alice gewell was a dary maid and charlie lane was a katydid, and lots of others sung. it was splendid. mar. . cloudy but no rane. went down to langley's store for some juju paste, saw a fite. old kize tried to arest bill hartnit and bill lammed time out of him and after a while old swain came up and arrested him. mar. . brite and fair. went to church to-day, the fernace smoked so the people had to come home. they say they will have it fixed before next sunday. i hope not. mar. . school closes tomorrow. i got kept after school tonight for whispering to cawcaw. mar. . school closed today and we voted for prises. mr. gordon give prizes for the best fellers and best girls for the term. so we voted for them. most of the fellers wanted to vote for jenny morrison because she was the prettiest girl there and can go the greeshun bend better than enny girl in the school. and most of the girls dident like jenny morrison and wanted to vote for dora moses and mary luverin, and the girls wanted to vote for lees moses because he was polite to them and rather go with the girls than the boys and we holler at him, but he can fite for i saw him lick gim erly one day, and gim erly can rassle better than enny one but jack melvil. well most of the fellows wanted to vote for tady finton or pop clark or skinny bruce because they never get mad or cry when they are licked and make lots of fun, but we knew they coodent get the prize for they are all the time raising time and getting licked and so we voted for honey donovan and moses gordon, and when the votes was counted dora moses and mary luvering got the prizes for the girls and mose gordon and nigger bell for the boys. that was all write about dora moses and mary luverin because they was the best girls and always went together, but we dident like it very well about mose and nigger, only we thought that so long as mose's father give the prizes mose ought to have one. i gess most of the girls must have voted for nig, because they was mad with lees moses. i know what they was mad at too. then the first class give old francis a present of some books and when he turned over the leaves there was twenty dollars there, and old francis was surprised and made a fine speech, and the people all clapped becaus he made such a good speech. i heard him saying it over the night before when i was kept after school. no school for weeks. mar. . when my father was a boy he was the best fiter in this town. mar. . went down to fatty melchers today to make a violin, we cut a piece of wood the shape of a violin then take some horsehairs and strech them over a brige and you can play a tune on them. in school i learnt to play on a piece of india rubber. you pull a piece of elastic out of your congres boot and hold it in your teeth and pull it tite and snap it with your fingers and you can play tunes that you can hear but no one else can. old francis saw me snapping the elastic and came and took it away. i have got plenty more in my boot. i am saving money to buy me a cornet. when i get enuf i am a going to play in the band. +++ mar. . plesent day. old si smiths big white dog and a bull dog had an awful fite today. neether licked and they had to squert water on them to seperate them. they dident make no noise, only jest hung write on to each others gozzles. my aunt sarah said it was dredful, and she staid to the window to see how dredful it was. mar. , - went to church in the morning. the fernace was all write. mister lennard preeched about loving our ennymies, and told every one if he had any angry feelings toward ennyone to go to him and shake hands and see how much better you wood feel. i know how it is becaus when me and beany are mad we dont have eny fun and when we make up the one who is to blam always wants to treet. why when beany was mad with me becaus i went home from gil steels surprise party with lizzie towle, ed towles sister, he woodent speak to me for days, and when we made up he treated me to ice cream with spoons and he let me dip twice to his once. he took pretty big dips to make up. beany is mad if enny of the fellers go with lizzie towle. she likes beany better than she does enny of the fellers and beany ought to be satisfied, but sometimes he acks mad when i go down there to fite roosters with ed. i gess he needent worry much, no feller isnt going to leave of fiting roosters to go with no girls. well i most forgot what i was going to say, but after church i went up to micky gould who was going to fite me behind the school house, and said micky lets be friends and micky said. huh old skinny, i can lick you in minits and i said you aint man enuf and he called me a nockneed puke, and i called him a wall eyed lummix and he give me a paist in the eye and i gave him a good one in the mouth, and then we rassled and micky threw me and i turned him, and he got hold of my new false bosom and i got hold of his hair, and the fellers all hollered hit him micky, paist him skinny, and mister purington, pewts father pulled us apart and i had mickys paper collar and necktie and some of his hair and he had my false bosom and when i got home father made me go to bed and stay there all the afternoon for fiting, but i gess he dident like my losing my false bosom. ennyway he asked me how many times i hit micky and which licked. he let me get up at supper time. next time i try to love my ennymy i am a going to lick him first. went to a sunday school concert in the evening. keene and cele sung now i lay me down to sleep. they was a lot of people sung together and mister gale beat time. charlie gerish played the violin and miss packerd sung. i was scart when keene and cele sung for i was afraid they would break down, but they dident, and people said they sung like night horks. i gess if they knowed how night horks sung they woodent say much. father felt pretty big and to hear him talk you wood think he did the singing. he give them ten cents apeace. i dident get none. you gest wait, old man till i get my cornet. went to a corcus last night. me and beany were in the hall in the afternoon helping bob carter sprinkle the floor and put on the sordust. the floor was all shiny with wax and aufully slipery. so bob got us to put on some water to take off the shiny wax. well write in front of the platform there is a low platform where they get up to put in their votes and then step down and beany said, dont put any water there only jest dry sordust. so i dident. well that night we went erly to see the fun. gim luverin got up and said there was one man which was the oldest voter in town and he ought to vote the first, the name of this destinkuished sitizen was john quincy ann pollard. then old mister pollard got up and put in his vote and when he stepped down his heels flew up and he went down whak on the back of his head and men lifted him up and lugged him to a seat, and then ed derborn, him that rings the town bell, stepped up pretty lively and went flat and swore terrible, and me and beany nearly died we laffed so. well it kept on, people dident know what made them fall, and gim odlin sat write down in his new umbrella and then they sent me down stairs for a pail of wet sordust and when i was coming up i heard an auful whang, and when i got up in the hall they were lugging old mister stickney off to die and they put water on his head and lugged him home in a hack. they say bob carter will lose his place. me and beany dont know what to do. if we dont tell, bob will lose his place and if we do we will get licked. mar. . mister stickney is all write today. gosh you bet me and beany are glad. mar. , - brite and fair. mr. gravel has bought old heads carrige shop. he is a dandy and wears shiny riding boots and a stove pipe hat and a velvet coat and goes with dan ranlet and george perkins and johny gibson and the other dandies. i went down today and watched fatty walker stripe some wheels. mar. . clowdy. elkins and graves had an oxion to-night. beany got ten cents for going round town ringing a bell and hollering oxion. i went with beany and it was lots of fun. beany wouldent treet. he says he is saving money for something. i know what it is it is a valintine for lizzie tole. it was mean of beany not to treet becaus i did as much hollering as he did. mar. . the funniest thing hapened to-day you ever saw. after brekfast me and father took a walk and then went and set down on the big school steps. father was telling me some of the things he and gim melcher used to do. father must have been a ripper when he was young. well ennyway while we was talking old ike shute came along through the school yard. ike wears specks and always carries a little basket on his arm. he cant see very well, and father said to me, now you jest keep still and you will see some fun and when ike came along father changed his voice so that it sounded awfully growly and said where in the devil are you going with that basket, and ike was scart most to deth and said only a little way down here sir and father said, move on sir and move dam lively and i nearly died laffing to see ike hiper. well after a while i see ike coming back with old swane and old kize the policemen. i tell you i was scart but father only laffed and said you keep still and i will fix it all right. so when they came up he said to old kize what is the trouble filander and he said mr. shute here has been thretened by some drunken rascal, and father looked aufuly surprised and said that is an infernal shame, when did it happen isak, and ike said about fifteen minits ago and father said we have been here about as long as that and i dident see the scoundrel. how did he look isak, and ike said i coodent see him very well george but he was a big man and he had a awfu deep voice and father said did he stagger enny and ike said i coodent see wether he did or not but i cood tell he was drunk by his voice. so old swain and old kize went down behind the school house and off thru the carrige shop yard to see if they cood find him, and me and father walked home with ike to protect him and father said now isak if ennyone insults you again jest come to me and if i can catch him i will break every bone in his body, and father and ike shook hands and ike shook hands with me and then we went home and father began to laff and laffed all the way home and then he told mother and aunt sarah and they said it was a shame to play such a trick upon him and father laffed all the more and said ike hadent had so much exercise for a year and it wood do him good and give him something to think about. ennyway they said it was a shame to teech me such things, and father said he would rather i wood be tuf than be like ike, and aunt sarah said i never wood be half as good as ike for he never did a wrong thing in his life, and father laffed and said he dident dass to for his mother wood shet him in the closet. it was aufully funny, but i gess they was right. i shall never be half as good as ike. i wonder if old swane and old kize have caught that man yet. mar. . pewt dreened marbles and chinees out of me to-day. we was playing first in a hole. school today. sailed boats in the brook in j. albert clark's garden and got pretty wet. mar. . scott briggam has got some little flying squirrels. he is going to get me one for thirty-five cents. i am going to take it out of my cornet money. mar. . father wont let me play marbles in ernest. it aint enny fun dreening a feller and then giving them back. i bet father didnt when he was a boy. mar. . scott briggam brought my squirrel today and i paid him cents, ten cents scrips and five cents. i have got it in a bird cage. mar. . my squirrel got out of the cage last nite and father found him in the water pail drownded. father got up in the night and got a dipper and drank some water out of that pail, he dident eat any brekfast because he was thinking that the squirrel might have been in the pail then. i wonder if it was. ennyway cents of my cornet money has gone up. mar. . school today. went down to pewts to draw pictures. charlie woodbury can draw the best, then pewt, and then me. beany dont like to draw. we was talking about what we was going to be when we grew up. charlie woodbury is going to be a picture painter, pewt is going to be a lawyer, potter gorham and chick chickering are going to stuff birds for a living, beany is going to be a hack driver, gim wingit is going to run a newspaper, cawcaw harding is going to be a piscopal minister becaus he says they only have to read their speaches out of a book, nipper brown is going to be a professer, priscilla hobbs is going to play a organ in the baptis church. prisil can play tunes now on a little organ. i am going to be a cornet player like bruce briggam. cornet players can go to all the dances and fairs and prosessions and are invited in and treated when people are married and they serrinade them at night, and they don't have to work either. mar. . almost as warm as summer, went to church and sunday school. beany has got a job blowing the organ for kate wells. he only let the wind go out times today. it was funny becaus when the organ stopped mister wood who was singing let out an auful hoot before he knowed what he was doing beany will lose his job if he does it again. mar. , - the toads has come out. fine warm day. me and potter gorham have been ketching toads this afternoon. they sit in the pudles and peep. folks think it is frogs but most of it is toads. potter got and i got . tonite i put my toads in a box in the kitchen after the folks went to bed. in the night they all got out of the box and began to hop round and peep mother heard it and waked father and they lissened. when i waked up father was coming threw my room with a big cane and a little tin lamp. he had put on his britches and was in his shirt tale, and i said, what are you going to lick me for now i havent done nothing and he said, keep still there is some one down stairs and mother said dont go down george and father said, lissen i can hear him giving a whistle for his confedrit, i will jump in and give him a whack on the cokonut. i had forgot all about the toads and you bet i was scart. well father he crep down easy and blowed out his lite and opened the door quick and jest lammed round with his club. then i heard him say what in hell have i stepped on, bring a lite here. then i though of the toads and you bet i was scarter than before, mother went down with a lite and then i heard him say, i will be cussed the whole place is ful of toads. then mother said did you ever. and father said he never did, and it was some more of that dam boys works and he yelled upstairs for me to come down and ketch them. so i went down and caught them and put them out all but that father had stepped on and they had to be swep up. then all the folks came down in their nitegounds and i went up stairs lively and got into bed and pulled the clothes round me tite, but it dident do enny good for father came up and licked me. he dident lick me very hard becaus i gess he was glad it wasent a berglar and if it hadent been for me it might have been berglars insted of toads. mar. . brite and fair, went out with potter gorham. saw some toads robins and a blewbird. gosh it makes a feller feel good to see birds and toads and live things. mar. . april fool day tomorrow. i am laying for beany. old francis licked fellers today becaus they sung rong when we was singing speek kindly it is better far to rule by luv than feer. april . auful cold and rainy. i was going to wright a love letter to beany and sine lizzie toles name to it but i told father about it for fun and he said that it was fourgery and that i cood be prostecuted and sent to jale. so i dident. tonite me and beany rung five door bells for april fool. april . been trying to get rid of some warts. pewt says if you hook a piece of pork after dark, rub it on the warts and say arum erum irum orum urum and nurum times turn round twice and throw the pork thru a window, then the warts will all be gone the next day. me and beany is going to try it tomorrow. april . brite and fair. dident get a chance to hook the pork. april . the band played in the band room to-nite. it was warm enuf to have the windows open and we cood hear it. i sat out in the school yard til oclock to hear it and father came out and walked me home. beany was mad becaus i cared more for the band than for getting rid of the warts. april . dident wright anything last nite, was too scart. i never was so scart in all my life before. me and beany came awful near getting in jale. we dident know where to hook the pork. i went to our cellar but father was down there making vinigar all the evening, then we went to beanys cellar but mister watson was sitting on the cellar door. so beany told his father that a man was looking for him to see about a horse and mister watson started down to the club stable. then beany hooked the pork and rubbed it over his warts and then i rubbed it over my warts and we said arum erum irum orum urum and nururn times jest as pewt said, turned round twice and i plugged the pork right threw a gaslite jest then the gasman came along, he yelled at us and jumped out of his wagon and went for us. we ran down threw the school yard as fast as we cood hiper. there is a hollow in the corner of the school yard by bill morrills back yard and there is a little hole in the bottom of the fence where the fellers crawl threw when the football goes into his garden. we skinned threw that hole jest in time. the gasman tried to crawl threw but he coodent, then he clim the high fence but while he was doing that we ran across the carrige factory yard and down by the old brewery up bow street and home. i went to bed pretty lively and so did beany. gosh but we was scart. april . one of beanys warts has gone. april . brite and fair. my warts have not gone. april . brite and fair. my warts have not gone. april . clowdy but no rane. my warts have not gone. april . rany. i have got more warts. i gess i hadent ought to have broke that gaslite. april . i have got another. april . bully day. me and potter gorharn and chick chickering went out after toads today. i got but i dident take them home you bet. april . brite and fair. we all went to church today to see the lanes. they come from new york and when they go to church everybody goes to see them. there was a boy with them named willie. i bet i cood lick him. april . nothing particular today. dont feel very well, kind of headaky and backaky. april . have been sick for days. went to school monday and had to come home. when i got home i fell down on the steps and mother and aunt sarah came out and got me in the house and put water on my head and rubbed my hands, and then the doctor came and said, well joanna, children are a good deel of truble and then he felt of my rist and said hum, and then he looked at my tung and said hum again, and then he pride open my mouth and looked down my throte and said hum, and then he pulled off my close and looked me over rite before mother and aunt sarah and said well he aint spekled eny. then he said what have you given him joanna and mother said, nothing, and the docter said, all right give him some more, and mother said i havent given him enything docter, and then he walked around the room and picked up some things and looked at them and then he gave me some of the wirst tasting stuff i ever took. then he said i gess he will be better tomorrow, and then he looked at some more things and went home. i dident sleep very well that nite but was auful hot and my head aked fearful. mother was in my room every time i waked up, and sarah too. next day i had the docter again he looked at some pictures and things and told mother to give me some more. i always feel better when the docter comes in. he dont scare a feller to deth. well the next day i felt a little better and tried to sit up and have my britches on, but i had to lay down again my head aked so, and after awhile my head felt better and as i laid there i could look out of the window and it seamed as if little chains that you could see through like glass, were floating up and down they were about an inch long. well i wached them till i almost went to sleep and jest as i was most asleep i heard beany out in the street holler, say pewt, did you know that plupy is going to die, and pewt said course i did, why dont you tell me some news, and beany said i heard he swalowed a peach stone and pewt said it was liver complaint, and then i heard some one say, you boys shet up. gosh you bet i was scart. i hadent thought of dying. i began to howl and holler for mother. she came running in and i told her i was going to die and i told her about breaking the gaslite and a lot of other things and she told me the docter said i was getting better and i wood sit up tomorrow. well i better then and wished i hadent told mother about the gaslite becaus i knew she wood make me tell father. well mother set by my bed all the afternoon and read me some out of billy bolegs, jest think of her doing that, so when supper time came i et a lettle tost and had some current jelly. when father come home mother told him about the gaslite and all he said was i wood have to pay for it out of my cornet money. i thought he wood keep me in for a month. i gess mother must have talked to him. that nite father slep on a lounge in my room. i went to sleep most as soon as he come in. after awhile i dremp i was tied on a sawlog jest going nearer and nearer to the saw and the saw was a going skratch-zoo, skratch-zoo, skratch-zoo. well i tride to pull away but i coodent move and i tride to holler and i coodent make a yip, and jest before the saw sawed into me i woke up. gosh you bet i was glad, but the funny part was that i could hear the saw going skratch-zoo, skratch-zoo, skratch-zoo, and what do you think it was. it was father snoring. gosh you ought to have heard him. well at first i laffed, but by and by i wanted to go to sleep and father snoring so loud i coodent till mother came in and told him to go to bed and she laid on the sofa all nite. the next day i set up and had my britches on and set up to the window all day. i saw beany and pewt and i nocked on the window and waved my claw at them. i am going out tomorrow. april . i went out today. it was real warm. i dident go to church becaus i had been sick. i let my rooster out to fite j. albert clark's. they were fiting good when i looked up and there was father looking over the fence. he made me stop the fite and shet my rooster up. i wonder if he wood have stoped them if i hadent been there. i got eggs today, the old brama that i swaped for with ed tole and a bolten gray that john adams give me. april . i went to school today. i dident have to resite becaus i had been sick. if i dont get wirse i can goto mis packerds concert tomorow. hope it wont rane. april . brite and fair and it dident rane tonite, so i went to the concert. all the girls was flowers. keene was a crocuss and had to come out and sing first becaus the crocuss is the first flower that comes out. she sung i am the first of all the flowers to greet the eyes of spring. jenny morison was a tuch me not and set in the top of a rock and sung tuch me not, tuch me not let me alone. nell tole was a piny or a sunflower i have forgot whitch. jenny morison and keene and nell tole are the best singers for their size in town. father thinks keene can sing the best. he feels pretty big about keene. i told him so one day and he said he had to becaus i dident amount to enything. i think jenny morison can sing the best but dont tell him so for he wood give me a bat. april , - cant go down town for a week becaus i sassed j. albert clark, that is j. albert clark says i sassed him but i dident. beany had been working for j. albert raking up leaves in his garden. j. albert was a going to give him cents for it and me and beany was a going to divide up on goozeberries and juju paist, but beany dident dass to ask j. albert for his pay because he had raked all the leaves under j. alberts front steps and he was afraid j. albert wood find out about it and not pay him. beany wanted me to ask him but i dident dass to because i let my rooster out to fite j. alberts last sunday and j. albert dont believe in fiting roosters. last night he was setting on his steps with some company and he had on his best lavender britches and his best blew coat. so beany said, tell you what plupy, you set on your steps and i will set on my steps and we will holler across the street about the money that j. albert owes me. so beany he went across the street to his steps and he hollered over, hi there plupy have you got any chink, and i hollered back, no beany i havent got a cent, and beany he hollered i shood have cents if j. albert clark wood pay me what he owes me, and i hollered why in time dont he pay you, and beany hollered i gess he hasent got any chink, and i hollered he has probably spent all his chink in buying them lavender britches, and beany he hollered, well if j. albert clark needs the money more than i do he can have it. well while we was hollering mister head and the head girls who was setting on their steps got up and went into the house laffing, and the company at j. alberts all laffed, and j. albert came down and beckoned to beany and beany he went running over to get his cents and j. albert he said, elbridge, that is beanys name, elbridge you cood have your money enny time if you had asked me for it decently, but now i shall not pay you for a week and i shall not imploy you enny more. tell you what, beany came over to my steps feeling pretty cheap and we was talking about it when mother called me in and sent me up stairs, and said she wood tell father as soon as he came home. so i went up stairs and looked out of the window jest in time to see beanys father lugging beany in by the neck. well that nite after father got home he jawed me and said i coodent go down town for a week and made me go to j. alberts right before the company and ask his forgiveness, and beany had to to. j. albert was a pretty good fellow and said it was all right, and dident want our fathers not to let us go down town, but father said i must learn to be respectable to my elders. gosh we dident know j. albert was a elder. we knowed elder stevens and elder stewart and deacon gooch and we always was respectable to them, and if we had knowed that j. albert clark was a elder we woodent have sassed him for nothing. april . yesterday and day before it was brite and fair, and yesterday was as warm as summer. today, it was cold and it snowed a little. jest enuf to make the ground look as if it was covered with salt. the birds looked all humped up. i bet the frogs hind legs is about froze. it is raining now. if i was a frog i woodent come out of the mud until summer. perhaps they cant stay under more than six months. april . warm again. eggs today. i have got another hen. willyam perry molton gave it to me. it is a leghorn and his other hens licked it and made its comb bludy and so he gave it to me. it was on the nest today but did not lay. i went to church. mr. cram preeched. he talked all about birds and flowers and i liked it. april . brite and fair. all hens were on the nest but dident lay. april . no eggs today. mother said the hens cackled all the morning. brite and fair. april . i dont see what the mater is with my hens. i havent got egg this week. father said there was a rat in the koop. i got a steel trap of sam diar and tonite i set it in the koop. i put a peace of cheeze on it. tomorrow morning i ges mister rat wont steal any more eggs. may . what do you think. this morning i got up to get my rat and i found that my best hen, the bolton gray that john adams gave me had tried to pick the cheeze out of the trap and the trap had caught her by the neck and killed her. i felt most bad enuf to cry. i thought i cood get up before the hen did. i went to the may brekfast today. it was may-fair day and they had a brekfast. me and pewt, beany, whacker and pozzy chadwick, micky gould, pop clark, prisilla hobbs, chick chick-ering, potter gorham, pile wood, curly conner and all the fellers were there. we had a good time and et till just before school time and we had to hiper so as not to be late. may . no eggs today. both hens went on the nest. i am going to lay for that rat with my bowgun. may . what do you think. this noon i set in the hen koop hour. the brama went on the nest and set a while and came off and cakled, then i looked and she had lade an egg. i left the egg there and hid behind a barrel and got my bowgun ready for the rat. well the leghorn hen went on the nest and i suposed she was a going to lay, but she broke rite into that egg and began to gobble it up. i was so mad that i let ding at her with the bowgun and just then she stuck up her head and the arrow took her rite in the back of the head. well i wish you cood have seen her. she hollered one little pip and then went rite out of the nest backwards and flapped round awful. i picked her up and she was dead. i dident mean to kill her, i only wanted to make her jump and learn her not to eat eggs. o dear, i dont know what father will say when he finds it out. may , - saw a bully fite today. cris staples and charlie clark. charlie is visiting his uncle j. albert clark, the feller that we sassed. that is he said we did but we dident. charlie is a city feller, he lives in chelsy and think he knows a pile about things and gets mad if we call him names. now every feller who amounts to anything has a nickname, and some of them have or . my nicknames are plupy and skinny and polelegs, and beany is called bullethead and sometimes fatty. i told charlie that if i called him charlie the fellers would call him sissy or mary and he better agree to let me call him bulldog or tomcat or diddly or gobbler or some nickname whitch wood mean something. but he said he would lam the head off of enny feller which called him names. well you jest see what trouble he got into for not having a nickname. he would have knowed better than that if he hadent lived in chelsy. well today me and charlie was setting on his steps. beany was mad because i was going with charlie and he had gone riding with his father and he felt pretty big because his father let him drive. well while we were setting there along came cris staples who carries papers for lane and rollins store, and cris hollered over, hullo polelegs. charlie hadent heard enyone call me polelegs. and i said, i woodent stand that if i was you charlie, now less see you lam the head off of him, and charlie he started across the road and walked up to cris and said who in time are you calling polelegs and cris wasent going to back down and said, you, and charlie said jest drop them papers and i will nock your face rite off, and cris dropped his papers and they went at it. it was the best fite i have seen this year. they fit from mr. head's down to gim ellisons corner, and cris licked time out of charlie, and charlie began to yell and give up and then cris let go of his hair and told him he was to smart, and that it was me he was calling polelegs and not him, and he better not be so smart another time, and cris he picked up his papers and went off with a great slit in his jacket and his necktie way round on one side, and charlie came home howling and aunt clark, charlie's grandmother came out and said, that is what you get charlie for quareling. see how much better harry feels, and i said, yes mam. charlie is never going to speak to me again. may . beany was pretty mad when i told him about the fite because he dident see it. i gess he will find it don't pay to get mad with me. i saw charlie today but he dident speak. he has got a black eye. cris has got a funny looking nose on one side. may . chitter robinson went in swiming today. i bet it was cold. may . went down to the high school yard tonite to hear the band play. they have got a new leader a mister ashman of boston. he can play the cornet with hand. i went down today to pay the gasman for the gaslite i broke. it cost dollar and i have only got cents for my cornet. sometimes i dont believe i shall ever get that cornet. scott brigam can blow a bugle. a bugle is like a cornet only a cornet has keys and a bugle is all covered with flappers and curly things where you put your fingers. rashe belnap can play a cornet splendid but he dont play very often. frank hirvey plays one that goes over his shoulder way behind his back. gosh i wish i cood get a cornet. may . father has found out about my killing that hen. he dident get mad but said i ought to have cut her head off and she wood be good to eat, but i supose it is to late now for it is almost a week ago and i burried her the next day. may . me and potter gorham went mayflowering today. i got a bunch and sold them to a student named chizzum for cents. i put it with my cornet money. i have now got $ . . i can get a cornet for dollars a second hand one. i am afraid i shall never get that cornet. may . rany last nite and this morning. in the afternoon it cleared up. gosh i wish you cood see the licking beany got tonite. me and beany went out to go up to see pewt and make some sweet fern sigars. beany came over for me and went up to pewts. on the way beany went up an rung his doorbell and we hid behind the fence and mister watson, beany's father, came out holding a light and shading it with his hand. the wind blew the lite out and in going in again he hit his head an awful bump against the door. me and beany nearly died laffing only we tride not to laff too loud. well we went up to pewts and pewt had been sent to bed for something and so we started back and met a man who said is this you elbridge, it was pretty dark and beany said yes and mister watson grabbed us both by the collar and said, so you are the boys who rung my doorbell and then he give beany a rap on the side of the head and began to shake him round lively and while he was shaking beany up i put for home. i hid behind the fence and i cood hear him say i will learn you to asosiate with that misable shute boy and wast your time ringing doorbells, and beany was saying, o father i will never do it again. i nearly died laffing to hear beany a rattling round on the sidewalk. i hope mister watson wont tell father. i gess he wont for he gets over his mad pretty quick. every time i think of beanys legs flying round in the air i giggle rite out and when i think of mister watson bumping his head i nearly die. sometimes i think it pays to be tuff. may , - keene and cele have got some new crokay slippers. you bet they feel pretty big about it. may . nothing particular today. may . went in swimming today. the water was pretty cold but i swum acros the river twise. may . the suckers have come. potter gorham caught three yesterday. me and potter was going yesterday after school but father woodent let me becaus i dident split my kindlings. may . the band played tonight. father made me go to bed at nine but i cood hear it becaus my window is jest acros the road. they are playing a new peace. it is the woodup quickstep, they say ned kendall cood play it on a bugle better than ennybody. old robinson cood and mister ashman can play it splendid. it goes ta-ta tata, ta-ta tata, ta-ta tata tatatatatatata. ta-te-ta-te-tiddle iddle-a ta-te-ta-te-tiddle iddle-a ta-te-ta-te-tiddle-iddle-a tiddle-iddle-iddle-iddle-ata it is the best peace they play except departed days. that always makes me feel like crying it is kinder sad like. i hope i can get my cornet some day. may . had a auful toothake today and had to go down to docter pitman and he pulled it out. i tell you it hurt. docter pitman said the roots must have reached way to the back of my neck. beany went with me and then told all round that i hollered. you jest wait beany. may . erly this afternoon me and fatty melcher got some real segars at henry simsons store and went down behind old man churchills store and smoked them. we were both auful sick and laid there all the afternoon. when i went home i walked wobbly and mother asked me if i was sick and she put me to bed and was going to send for the docter, but father came in and when he found out what aled me he laffed and said it served me rite. then after supper he set out on the steps rite under my window and smoked a old pipe and i cood smell it and i thought i shood die. then mother asked him to go away and he laffed and said all rite, but he gessed i had enuf for one day and she said she gessed so and i gess so too. he said if it hadent made me sick he wood have licked me. i dont see why it is so, father swears sometimes when he hits his thum with a hammer and once when he was in the dark he was walking towards the door with his arms out to feel for the door, one arm went on one side of the door and the other arm on the other side and he hit his nose a fearful bump rite on the ege of the door, and i wish you cood have heard him swear, well if i swear he licks me, and he smokes and if i do he says he will lick me and he dont go to church and if i dont go he says he will lick me. o dear i gess i wont smoke enny more. may . went in swimming today twise, once down to the raceway and once up to the gravel. may . went butterflying with chick chickering today, it is a little early for them, but we got two blew and black ones and three little red ones. me and chick are making aquariams. chick has got a splendid glass one. i made mine out of a butter firkin. i sawed it off half way and then washed it out with soft soap and rensed it or times and then i put in some white sand and stones and i have got some little minnies and kivies and a little pickerel. it looks splendid and i change the water every days. may . nothing particular today. may . i can swim under water from the big tree on moulton's side of the river at the gravel to the tree on the bank on gilman's side. i went in times today. may . my rooster is sick. he has et something. he sits all humped up. i went in swimming times today. may . my rooster is pretty sick. i tride to give him some kiann pepper tonite. father said kiann pepper was good for sick hens, so i held his mouth open and give him a spoonful. when i let him go he kept his mouth open and sorter sneezed pip-craw pip-craw pip-craw, and then he went to the water dish and began to drink. i think he is better because he hadent drank any water for days before. he was still drinking when i went away. i gess he will be a lot better tomorrow. may . what do you think, this morning when i went out to feed my hens i found my rooster dead. he had drank up all the water and he was all puffed up. i felt pretty bad. father says i gave him enuf kiann pepper for a horse. he aught to have told me. he was a pretty good rooster too. i am having pretty tuff luck. may . i read over my diary today. i have forgot to tell whether it was brite and fair or rany, i cant say now. may , - nothing particular today. brite and fair. may . brite and fair. went up to whacker chadwicks today after school to help him plant his garden. we had about a bushel of potatoes to plant and it was fun to sit round a basket and cut up the potatoes. after a while gim erly and luke mannux cume along and we began to plug potatoes at them, they plugged them back and we had a splendid fite, me and whack and pozzy and boog chadwick on one side and gim erly and luke mannux and bob ridly on the other. luke mannux hit me twice rite in the back of the head. i am going up tomorrow to help them some more. went in swimming once to-day. may no i mean june . i went up to chadwicks after school. captin chadwick was there and they wasent enny pluggin potatoes. went in swimming. june . rany. beany is mad with me. i dont care. june . went to church today. june . clowdy but no rane. went up to chadwicks today and sawed wood. boog and pozzy fit while me and whack sawed wood then we went in swiming down to sandy bottom. some body tide some hard gnots in my shirt. i forgot to split my kindlings tonite. june . brite and fair. beany is still mad. june . brite and fair. i know what beany is mad about. he thinks i told about his getting a licking. i dident tell. he can stay mad if he wants to. june . father has bought a horse of dan randlet. i rode up to brentwood with sam diar to get it. it is the prettiest horse i ever saw. i rode it down from brentwood and it goes jest as easy as sitting on a spring board. when i got home beany got over his mad and came over and i gave him a ride. me and beany never were mad so long before. june . rany. this afternoon me and beany and father went to ride with the new horse. her name is nellie. june . brite and fair. we keep nellie down to jo hanes stable. frank hanes is learning me how to clean her off. she nipped my arm today and made a black and blew spot. went in swimming today. i have to get up every morning and harnes nelly and drive father to the depot. i like it because i always race with the men coming down front street. there is george dergin and fred sellivan and gim wingit and i can beat them all. i dont tell father that i race. i rode nellie this afternoon with frank hanes and ed tole. i dident go in swimming today. june . brite and fair. nellie kicked me today. i gess i scrached her today to hard with the curycomb. it dident hurt me much. i went in swimming twise. june . brite and fair. me and chick chickering went bullfroging today, we got dozen hind legs and sold them to mr. hirvey for cents and took our pay in icecream. june . rode nellie this noon. i have to go to the half past five train every nite for father. i like to drive but i dont like to go every nite. june . rashe belnap and horris cobbs go in swimming every morning at six o'clock. i got a licking today that beat the one beany got. last summer me and tomtit tomson and cawcaw harding and whack and poz and boog chadwick went in swimming in may and all thru the summer until october. one day i went in times. well i dident say anything about it to father so as not to scare him. well today he did go to boston and he said i am going to teech you to swim. when i was as old as you i cood swim said he, and you must lern, i said i have been wanting to lern to swim, for all the other boys can swim. so we went down to the gravil and i peeled off my close and got ready, now said he, you jest wade in up to your waste and squat down and duck your head under. i said the water will get in my nose. he said no it wont jest squat rite down. i cood see him laffin when he thought i wood snort and sputter. so i waded out a little ways and then div in and swam under water most across, and when i came up i looked to see if father was supprised. gosh you aught to have seen him. he had pulled off his coat and vest and there he stood up to his waste in the water with his eyes jest bugging rite out as big as hens eggs, and he was jest a going to dive for my dead body. then i turned over on my back and waved my hand at him. he dident say anything for a minute, only he drawed in a long breth. then he began to look foolish, and then mad, and then he turned and started to slosh back to the bank where he slipped and went in all over. when he got to the bank he was pretty mad and yelled for me to come out. when i came out he cut a stick and whaled me, and as soon as i got home he sent me to bed for lying, but i gess he was mad becaus i about scart the life out of him. but that nite i heard him telling mother about it and he said that he div times for me in about thirty feet of water. but he braged about my swiming and said i cood swim like a striped frog. i shall never forget how his boots went kerslosh kerslosh kerslosh when we were skinning home thru cros-lots. i shall never forget how that old stick hurt either. ennyhow he dident say ennything about not going in again, so i gess i am all rite. june , - johnny heeld, a student, came to me and wanted me to carry some tickets to a dance round to the girls in the town. there was about hundred of them. he read the names over to me and i said i knew them all. so after school me and beany started out and walked all over town and give out the tickets. i had a long string of names and every time i wood leave one i wood mark out the name. i dident give the head girls any because they told father about some things that me and beany and pewt did and the farmer girls and the cilley girls lived way up on the plains and i dident want to walk up there, so when i went over to hemlock side to give one, i went over to the factory boarding house and give some to them. they was auful glad to get them too and said they would go to the dance. some people was not at home and so i gave their tickets to the next house. it took me till o'clock and i got dollar for it. i dont beleive those girls that dident get their tickets will care much about going ennyway. i gess the head girls wont want to tell on me another time. june . dennis cokely and tomtit tomson had a fite behind hirvey's resterent today. hirvey stopped them jest as they were having a good one. thats jest the way. i dont see why they always want to stop a fite. all fellers fite for is to see which can lick, and how can they tell unless they fite it out. june . brite and fair. they is going to be a big cattle show here this fall. they are going to have it in a field up by the depot. they are going to have horse trots and shows and everything. we are going to have no school. it dont come for an auful while yet. charles taylor is going to have nelly to ride. june . me and mickey gould had a race horseback. he had one of ben merril's little black horses, we raced way round kensington ring. i cood beat trotting and he cood beat running. when i got home nelly was so swetty that father told me not to ride her for a week. june . went up to chadwicks after school. boog and whack got willie fiting with johnny rogers. willie licked him. willie is whack's little brother. he is a auful cunning little feller. he can fite too. all the chadwick's can fite. june . brite and fair. i am going fishing tonite with potter gorham. june . brite and fair. went fishing today with potter gorham. i cought pirch and pickeril. i cleaned them and we had them for supper. father said they was the best fish he ever et. i also cought the biggest roach i ever saw, almost as big as a sucker, and i cant tell what i did with him. i thought potter had hooked him for fun, but he said he dident, and we hunted everywhere for him. i dont know where i put that roach. june . the students had their dance last nite. they had a auful time. some of the girls which dident get no tickets was mad, and the students which wanted them to go was mad and they went to johnny heeld and give him time. then he went round and told them how it was and give them tickets. well the nite of the dance everything was all rite until lots of people came which hadent been on the list, but which we had given tickets. well the students dident want to let them in and they were mad, and chick randal hit a student named pendry rite in the nose and nocked his glasses off and nichols nocked johnny lord way acros the entry and they was going to have a big fite when bob carter and or men stoped it. today johnny heeld came down to the house and said i had got things all mixed up and father made me give back the dollar. but he told johnny heeld he hadent ought to have let me try such a hard job. gosh, i am glad father thinks it was a mistake, and dont know that i did it on purpose. june . there is a dead rat in the wall in my room. it smells auful. june . rany. most time for vacation. the smell in my room is fearful. june . more trouble today. it seems as if there wasent any use in living. nothing but trouble all the time. mother said i coodent sleep in that room until the rat was taken out. well father he came into my room and sniffed once and said, whew, what a almity smell. then he held his nose and went out and came back with mister staples the father of the feller that called me polelegs. well he came in and put his nose up to the wall and sniffed round until he came to where my old close hung. then he said, thunder george, this is the place, rite behind this jacket, it is the wirst smell i ever smelt. then he threw my close in a corner and took out his tools and began to dig a hole in the wall, while father and mother and aunt sarah stood looking at him and holding their nose. after he dug the hole he reached in but dident find ennything, then he stuck in his nose and said, it dont smell enny in there. then they all let go of their nose and took a sniff and said murder it is wirse than ever it must be rite in the room somewhere. then father said to me, look in those close and see if there is ennything there. so i looked and found in the poket of my old jaket that big roach that i lost, when i went fishing with potter gorham. it was all squashy and smelt auful. father was mad and made me throw the jaket out of the window and wont let me go fishing for a week. ennyway i know now what became of my roach. june . keene and cele are going to sing in the unitarial quire. father says he will give them some bronze boots. mother got them some new nets for their hair today. girls has lots more done for them than fellers. june , - brite and fair. school closed today. we dont have enny more school til september. snapcrackers have come. cents a bunch at old langlys store. lane and rollins sell them for cents. torpedos cents a bunch. pin wheels cent each. pewt is going to have a cannon. father wont let me have a cannon. he says i dont know enny more than to look into it and blow my head off. june . clowdy but no rane. th of july pretty soon. father says when he was a boy all they had for fireworks was balls of wool soaked in tirpentine whitch they lit and fired round. i am glad i did not live then. june . clowdy but no rane. went in swimming times today. i am going bullfroging monday. june . no july . went to church today. july . i went bullfroging today. thunder storm today. i have got bunches of snapcrackers and some slowmatch. i spent a dolar of my cornet money. i gess i shall never get that cornet. i hope it wont rane the th. july . nite before th. pewt and beany can stay out all nite. father took my snapcrackers into his room and said if i get up before i cant have enny. july . i am to tired to wright ennything. i never had so much fun in my life. i only got burned times. snapcracker went off rite in my face and i coodent see ennything til mother washed my eyes out. zee smith fired a torpedo and a peace of it flew rite in the corner of my eye and made a blew spot there. i fired every one of my snapcrackers. it took me all day. july . brite and fair. i dident wake up today til o'clock. i was pretty sore and my eyes felt as if they was sawdust in them. july . brite and fair. father staid home today. i wanted him to go fishing but he woodent. july . father told me i cood go fishing and stay all day. i dont know what had come over him becaus most always he raises time when i go fishing and dont come home erly. so i went and cought pickerels and pirch and hogbacks and went in swiming times. well as i was a coming home or people met me and said they was company at my house, so when i got home i skined in the back way so as not to see the company til i got on my best britches, but i met father in the door and he told me to go rite up to mothers room and see the company. so i skined up to her room holding my hand behind me becaus i had tore my britches auful getting over a fence and i dident want the company to see. well what do you think the company was. it was the homliest baby you ever see, it looked jest like a munky and made feerful faces and kinder squeaked like. mother was sick and they was a old fat woman who told me to go out, but mother said she wanted to see me and she kissed me and asked me to kiss the baby. i dident want to but i did it becaus mother was sick. mother asked me how many fish i caught and what kind and i told her and said she shood have some for her supper, but she said she gessed she woodent have enny jest then. then i went down stairs and father did i like the baby and i said it was homly, and he said it was times as good looking as i was and he said he was glad that when the baby grode up it woodent have beany and pewt to play with and woodent be tuff like me, and then aunt sarah said she gessed me and beany and pewt wasent enny tuffer than father and gim melcher were when they was boys, and then father laffed and told me to go to bed and i went. that was a auful homly baby ennyway. july . nothing particular today. you bet that baby can howl. went to church. july . brite and fair. most every morning we go up in mothers room to see the old fat woman wash the baby and hear it howl. it turns black in the face. i bet it will be a fiter. july . i have got a new nickname. it is yallerlegs. that is becaus father bought me a pair of kinder yellow britches, and made me wear them. i bet he woodent like to be called yallerlegs. july . brite and fair. went in swiming today to a new place. we call it the stump. it is up by the eddy. july . a thunder storm. in the afternoon went fishing but dident get a bite. pewts father says fish wont bite after a thunder storm. july . a auful hot day. tonite i went up to the depot to see majer blake and charles tole fite over passengers to the beach. july . i am going to the beach to stop with beany in his fathers tent. it is called hotel de pig. july . i gess i will go tomorrow. july . me and beany went to the beach and stopped all day and all nite. we had a bully time. july . another hot day. went in swiming times. my back is all burned. july . me and beany got in the newsleter today. the paper said the siamese twins was at the beach stoping at watsons tent. pewt was mad becaus we got in the paper and he dident and told all round that it dident mean me and beany but rashe belnap and horris cobbs. july . hot as time. nothing particular today. july . hot as time. nothing particular today. july . auful hot. big thunder shower and litening struck a tree in front of perry moltons house. july . went to church. beany let the wind out of the organ and it squeaked and made everybody laff. keene and cele sing in the quire. father feels pretty big about it. july . i got stung by hornets today. i went in swiming at the eddy and when i was drying my close i set rite down on a stump where there was a nest of yellow bellied hornets. they all lit on me and i thought i was afire for a minit. i ran and div rite off the bank and swam way out under water. when i came up they were buzing round jest where i went down. when i came out the fellers put mud on my bites and after a while they stoped hurting. i tell you the fellers jest died laffing to see me run and holler. july . brite and fair. i was all sweled up with hornet bites but they dident hurt enny, i looked jest like beany when he had the mumps. everyone laffed at me. july . i got a fishhook in my leg today. me and fatty melcher was a fishing when we got our lines tangled, i hollered first cut, but i dident have enny nife and fatty woodent let me have his nife. so we got jerking our lines kinder mad like and all of a suddin the hook got into my leg. gosh you bet it hurt. me and fatty got the hook out but it bled some. the worst of it was there was a wirm on the hook and when we got the hook out they wasent enny wirm there. fatty says people sometimes dies from having wirms in them. i bet this one has crawled way in. it may grow inside of me. something is always hapening to me. when i got home i went down to docter derborns store and bought some wirm medicine and swalowed sum. it was auful bitter. it cost cents out of my cornet money. july . brite and fair. i was all rite today except my leg was stiff mother asked what made me lame and she put on a peace of pork. i told her about the wirm and she said the pork wood draw him out if he was there but she gessed he dident go in. when i told her about the wirm medecine she jest set down and laffed. so i gess i needent wory about having wirms. i went down to doctor derborns and tride to get him to take the medicine back but he said he woodent. i think he is pretty mean not to. july . i coodent go in swiming today on account of my leg. all the fellers went in and i had to set on the bank and see them. july . coodent go in swiming today either. my leg is nearly well. mother took off the pork today. it was all white where the pork was. i can go in swiming monday. i went down to the library tonite. it is the first time i have been down since joe parsons chased me out. i gess he has forgotten it. i got out bush boys to read. it is a splendid book about shooting lions and zebras and gerafs and everything. july . i tried to have father let me stay away from church today because my leg was sore but he said all rite you can stay, but i gess that leg will be too sore to let you go in swiming this week. so i went to church and dident limp enny. this afternoon i set under the apple tree and read bush boys. father and mother went to ride with nellie. it is the first time mother has been out. aunt sarah took care of the baby. they gess they will name it edward ashman shute. i gess it is named ashman after the leader of the band. i am going to tell him tomorrow and see if he wont sell me a cornet on trust. brite and fair. july . brite and fair. i told father i was going down to see mr. ashman, and he said if you ever do i will lick you. the babys name is edward ashton shute and not ashman. i woodent name him for enny cornet player. it is pretty tuff luck. if i cood have got that cornet i woodent have minded a licking. went in swiming today. july . franky had the croop last nite. i waked up and heard him cough auful funny and kinder as if his throte was tite. i called mother and she came in and hollered for aunt sarah and father and they rushed round lively and gave him egg and sugar and put hot cloths on his throte til he howled and after he cood howl he was all well. aunt sarah took him in with her the rest of the nite. father said i was a brick to wake up and call them. i dont know when he has called me a brick before. went in swimming times to-day. aug. . brite and fair. annie tumbled down the front steps from the top to the bottom. she howled and mother thought she was about killed but she was so fat that she dident hurt her. aug. . father came home early to-day and took mother and aunt sarah and keene & georgie to ride. me and cele staid to look after the house. cele went up stairs to look after the baby and when she was gone i got annie and franky fiting. it was the funniest fite i ever saw. they jest pushed each other round and tried to claw each other. while they was fiting cele came down stairs and pulled them apart and boxed their ears and made them go in different rooms. she jawed me and said she wood tell father. when father came home she told on me and father sent me to bed at six o'clock. you jest wait cele and you will find out. aug. , - brite and fair. the fellers played a pretty mean trick on me tonite. they played it on nibby hartwel last nite. nibby is visiting his aunt and comes from the city and is pretty green like most folks from the city. you see if i hadent got sent to bed becaus cele told on me i wood have been there and seen them play it on nibby. well last nite all the fellers was out. whack and boog and pozzy and pewt and beany and nipper and cawcaw and pile and chick and micky and pricilla and fatty. nibby he was there too. they wanted to play lead the old blind horse to water and i was to be the blind horse. they said they had some fun playing it the nite before, that was when they played it on nibby but i dident know that. well you blindfole a feller and give him a rope and a swich and the other fellers get on the other end of the rope and the feller nearest you has a bell and rings it and you pull and if you can pull him up to you, you can paist time out of him with your swich, only if you pull off your blindfole all the fellers can paist time out of you. well they blindfoled me and hollered ready and i began to yank and pull and the feller rung his bell and he came pretty hard at first but i kept yanking and bimeby he come so quick that i nearly fell over back wards and i felt him and grabed him and began to paist time out of him when he grabed away my swich and began to paist me, and that wasent fair and i pulled off my blindfole and who do you suppose it was, well it was wiliam perry molton and he was mad. they had tied me to his door bell and i had yanked out almost ten feet of wire. when i saw who it was gosh i began to holler and he stoped licking me. i gess he never licked anyone before because he dident know just how to lay it on. well when he found out how it was he let me go but he said he shood have to do something about the boys distirbing him so. it was a pretty mean trick to play on a feller. we are going to try and play it on pop clark tomorrow nite. aug. . brite and fair. me and hiram mingo had a race today to see whitch cood swim the furtherest under water. i beat him easy. he can lick me but i can beat him swiming. aug. . nothing particular today. only church. aug. . the baby was sick today had the doctor. aug. . the baby was sicker. i dident go in swiming. aug. . the baby is better today. i went in swiming times. aug. . raned all day. the baby is all rite. i went bullfroging with chick chickering. aug. . nellie is sick. joe hanes cut a hole in her and put in a onion and some braded hair and then father took her out to pastur. i cant ride her for a month. aug. . brite and fair. mister watson, beanys father got throwed off of his horse today and renched his rist. the horse coodent have throwed him but the gert broke. mister watson can ride splendid. aug. . brite and fair. no more church this month. bully. aug. . brite and fair. i went down to ed toles and me and ed rode on the hack with joe parmer. aug. . ed tole and frank hanes are mad. frank hollered over to ed, ed tole fell in a hole and coodent get out to save his sole, and ed hollered back frank hanes aint got no branes. and then they was mad. aug. . wiliam perry molton has got some ripe apples in his back yard. me and pewt helped him ketch some hens today and he said we cood have some apples if they was any on the ground. they was only wirmy ones but before we left or fell off i gess it was because pewt pushed me agenst the tree. they was pretty good apples too. aug. . rany. i went fishing with potter gorham. caught roach and hornpowt. we et them for supper. father said i can clean fish most as well as he can. he says he will come home some day erly and go a fishing. aug. . john gardner has hung up a grant and colfax flag. they will be some fun this fall. aug. . brite and fair. today i went fishing with fatty melcher. we caught some ells and some hornpowt. ells and hornpowt can live a long time out of water and so when i got home i put that were alive in the rane water barril. aug. . brite and fair. it is fun to sit round all day sunday and not have to go to church. aug. . brite and fair. i had to spend the whole morning in going to the river for water for washing. it was wash day and when mother went to the rane water barril there was dead hornpowt floting on the top. she made me tip the barrel over and get water from the river. they was some fun for beany helped me and he stood in the hand cart and filled the tubs and all of a sudden i let go and the old cart flew up and beany and the tub and the pail and everything went rite in. beany isent going to speak to me ever again. aug. , - gosh, we are having fun now. what do you think. they is going to be a big mass meeting this fall. ben butler and jake ely and lots of old pelters are going to be here, and they is going to be or bands and lots of fun. well before that comes they is going to be lots of political meetings and the first one is to be next week, and father is going to make a speach. gim luverin and bil morrill and general marsten and tom levitt, and he is a ripper to holler. and they want father to make a speach. father says he must work for the party and perhaps he can get his salery rased. so he has been a riting every nite and mumbling it over to hisself and last nite he said he had got it. tonite he is a going to speak it to us. aug. . last nite father studed his speach over and let us stay up to hear it. he stood up and looked auful stirn and put one hand in the buzum of his shert. i coodent help laffin, but he told me to shet up or i cood go to bed and so i shet up. i tell you it was fine. it begun mister moddirator had i supposed, or for moment dremp that i a humble offis holder under this glorious government, wood have been called upon to speak, i shood have remained at home with my wife and my children. i said, if you dont want to make a speach why dont you stay at home that nite, and he said more word from you sir and you go to bed. so i dident yip again. then he went on like this, were it not that a crool axident in my erly youth, in my far away boyhood days prevented me from voluntearing and desecrating my life to my countrys welfare, in the strugle jest ended i wood have poared out evry drop of my blud to have maintaned her owner and the owner of her flag. mother began to laff and said george how can you tell such feerful stories, you know you were scart most to deth becaus you was afraid you wood be drafted. father said they was a lot of old fellows traveling round the country and talking that way who coodent have been drug into the war with a ox chane. then he stood on the other leg a while and said, it is peculiarly aproprate that exeter, the berth place of lewis cas, the educater of webster, the home of amos tuck, of general marston shood be fourmost in the party strife, and as for me i wirk only for my partys good, my countrys good, without feer or hope of reward. they was a lot more to it, and some of it you cood hear about a mile he hollered so. aug. . we are all going the nite of the rally. mother says she wont go for she wood be ashamed to hear father tell such dredful stories. aunt sarah dont want to go because she is afraid father will brake down. but she has got to go with me and keene and cele and georgie. aug. . father practised his speach tonite and we all hollered and claped at the fine parts. he has got a new pair of boots. they hurt like time and he only wears them nites when he is practising his speach. aug. . father licked me tonite becaus i spoke some of his speach to beany. he was auful mad and said i was the bigest fool he ever see. the fellers have got up a grant club. pricilla cant belong because he is a demicrat. aug. . father called me and beany out behind the barn tonite and gave us cents apeace if we woodent say anything about his speach. after supper father practised again but he dident holler so loud becaus he was afraid some body wood hear him and mother dident want him to wake up the baby, and it was sunday too. aug. . it has been brite and fair all the week and hot as time. i have to go to the river for soft water because it hasent raned eny since i had to tip over the rane water barril. i have got a little tirtle as big as a cent. father went down to general marstons office tonite to arrange about the rally. he came home and practised about an hour. i gess he wood have practised all nite if the baby hadent waked up an hollered. aug. . we are all getting ready for the rally. keene and cele and georgie have got some new plad dresses. father has got a pair of gray britches and a black coat. mother said the rally was a good thing becaus it was the first time she had seen father dressed up since he was married. aug. . they was a big thunder shower last nite. we all got up in the nite and went into mothers room. mother sat on the fether bed and all them that was scart cood set there. i wasent scart. father said it would be jest the cussid luck to have it rane the nite of the rally. aug. . we had the last practise tonite, father put on his best close and new boots and the girls had on their plad dresses and i had on a new paper coller. we all set down and father came in and stood up. i tell you he looked fine. well he begun, mister modderater had i suposed or for moment dremp, and then he forgot the rest. i tell you he was mad. i wanted to laff but dident dass to. well after a while he remembered and went through it all rite, and then he went over it times more. gosh what if he shood forget it tomorrow nite. he is going to wright some of it on his cufs and he practised tonite making jestures so as to bring his cufs up so that he cood read it. aug. . the rally is tonite. father woke us all up last nite hollering in his sleep. he dremp about the speach. this morning he went to boston without eating his brekfast. i gess he is begining to be scart. i am a going to make his boots shine today. gosh what if he shood brake down. i gess i am getting a little scart too. brite and fair. sept. . last nite father came home and the first thing he did was to send me down to miss pratts for his shert. it was all pollished and shone like glass. then he asked if i had blacked his boots and then he et supper. he dident eat much though. he said mr. tuck came down from boston with him. mr. tuck was a going to make a speach first and then he was going to introduce gim loverin as chairman and then gim loverin was a going to call on father. father said he bet dollars he wood call him gim instead of mister modderator. father was pretty cross at supper. i gess he was getting scart. the baby began to cry and father asked mother why she dident choak the squawling brat and mother sorter laffed and put the baby into fathers lap and said i gess you had better choak him. father laffed and began to toss the baby up and down. he likes the baby and while he was playing with it he was all rite. but after supper he was cross and said he hed an auful headake. then he went practising his speach again so as not to call the modderator gim. well we got ready and went down erly to get some good seats so as to hear father and see him come in with them that was to set on the platform. we wanted to go down with father but he said he coodent bother with us. but before we went he came down stairs with his new close on and he looked fine but his face looked auful white. he said he had a headake but as soon as he got started to speak it wood all go off. so we went down. cele had her hair curled and keene had a new red silk ribbon on her hair becaus her hair wont curl and aunt sarah had on a new dolman with beeds on it and some long coral earrings and they all looked fine. aunt sarah took georgie by the hand becaus she was the littlest and me and keene and cele followed on. when we got there the band was playing in front of the town hall and aunt sarah said i cood stay out and hear it and then said i cood sit with gim wingit and willy swet if i wood behave. i said i wood and we lissened and after the band went in we went too. most all the seats were taken and we got some bully seats way up in front. i looked for father but coodent see him becaus the speakers hadent come in. well jest as soon as we got in the policeman was up in front and he said they has been to much whisling and stamping and the next one that whisles or stamps will get put out. well they was old swane and brown and kize and dirgin and every body kept quiet. after a few minits the band began to play hale to the chief and the speakers came marching up the middle ile. i looked for father but he wasnt there. evrybody began to clap and stamp and gim and willy asked me where my old man was. i stood up to see if he was there and jest then i saw the policeman a rushing at me. he grabed me by the collar and shook me round till i dident know which end my head was on and he draged me down the ile and threw me out. as we were going down the ile i saw aunt sarah running down the other ile as fast as she cood go with her bonnet on the back of her head and keene and cele and georgie following along all bawling. she got out in the entry jest as he was going to put me out of the front door and she grabed me away from him and said you misable cowardly retch to treat a boy that way. he said i whisled and she said he dident and you knew it only you dident dass take ennyone else. then she told us to come home and we went home as fast as we cood all bawling. when we got home mother was sitting up alone and aunt sarah started to tell her and keene and cele and georgie all bawled and you never heard such a noise, and father was in bed with a headake and hollered out what in time is the matter. and she told him and i heard him jump out of bed and in a minit he came out buttoning up his suspenders. mother said where in the world are you going george, and he said things is come to a pretty pass if a boy cant go and hear his father make a speach without being banged round by a policeman. i am going down to knock the heads off every policeman there. and he reeched for his vest. mother said george, dont you go near the hall, and father said he cood lick anny men on the police force easy and he would show them how to slam people round and he reeched for his coat, and keene and cele and georgia began to bawl again to think he wood get hurt and aunt sarah and mother said you had better not go george, and father said he wood give them more fun in minits than they had seen in a political rally in years and he reeched for his boots and mother said what will they think of you after you have sent word that you are too sick to make a speach, to see you come rushing into the hall and go punching the policemen and father had got on boot and when she said that he began to look kinder sick and said, thunder that is so. and then his headake got wirse and he gave me a twenty five cent scrip and keene and cele and georgie ten cents each and he went to bed and so did we. i wonder if his head aked really so he coodent make a speach or if he was scart. i bet he was scart. school commences monday. father hasent asked once about my diry, so i aint going to wright enny more. thirty years (or more) after on looking back over the pages of the "diary" it appears to me that some sort of an amende honorable is due to those citizens now living, and the relatives and friends of those now dead, whose names have appeared in the "diary" and who have, so to speak, been handled without gloves. that i have been neither mobbed, nor horsewhipped, nor sued, nor prosecuted, but that i have enjoyed many a good laugh with--and have received many pleasant words from--the victims, and their friends, is good evidence that they, and their more fortunate brothers who have not been therein mentioned, have taken the "diary" in the very spirit in which it was published, that of affectionate and amusing retrospect. and it is indeed with affection that i recall those men, at that time in their prime. that i could not then understand the reason why they did not fully enter into and appreciate the spirit that prompted me and my boon companions to transgress so many rules, laws, and statutes is not surprising. boys seldom can understand it. but, although i now fully appreciate it, i often wonder at the spirit that prompted so many of those men in after years to show me so many kindnesses, so much encouragement, and such great forbearance. so many inquiries have been made of me about that cornet, the soul-filling ambition of my early years, that i feel that the uncertainty in regard to that delightful instrument ought to be cleared up. i never did save up enough money to buy a cornet. i haven't to this day. but many years afterwards, when my ambition had been turned into other and equally profitless channels, upon the death of a dear friend his beautiful cornet was sent me. i have it now, as the neighbors and the members of my family can testify fully and with deep feeling, if called upon. h. a. s. dramatis personae a good many years ago, during my college days, it was my custom and that of my room-mate, brown of exeter, to make our room the gathering-place for exeter boys, both "stewdcats" and homesick exeter youths then filling positions in boston. it happened that frequently undergraduates from other towns and cities came in at these saturday evening gatherings and it was a matter of wonder to them that we had so much to talk about in relation to our native town; and it was their frequent remark that "either exeter is a remarkable place, or you are a remarkably loyal set of fellows." that exeter is a remarkable place is an axiom, and no better evidence of the fact can be found (were evidence necessary to sustain an axiom) than in the loyalty that every citizen displays, and the sincere love that prompts every one who has ever come under the spell of our dear old town to revisit her at every opportunity. where else could a diary of this nature, dealing with actual persons and actual events, be published and be received with such absolute goodnature and even enthusiasm by the persons now living who are mentioned therein? it is therefore with affection as well as amusement that i append the following brief biographical sketches of persons mentioned in the "diary," preserving as nearly as possible the order of their appearance in the book. as many readers of the "diary" have expressed a desire to know more of the subsequent histories and achievements of those therein mentioned, it is hoped this information will satisfy a curiosity and interest which, to a loyal son of exeter, appear quite natural:-- . father. george s. shute. a native of exeter. for twenty-six years a clerk in the boston naval office. still living in exeter, an old man with a young tongue; in fact, the quickest man at repartee in exeter. . mother. my mother died in the winter of . no words can do justice to her qualities. "a sweeter woman ne'er drew breath." . "gim" melcher. an old friend of my father's. died in maiden a few years ago. . some of the men who were "wrighting fast" in the custom house were the following:-- george davis, of lexington, who a year ago celebrated his fiftieth consecutive year of service in the naval office; colonel ivory pope, of cambridge; benjamin a. sidwell, of east boston; jacob a. howe, of maiden; frank harriman, a brother of the late governor harriman of concord, n. h. hiram barrus, of reading, mass. deceased; c. c. whittemore, of portsmouth, n. h.; charles mudge, of maiden; matthew f. whittier, of medford, a brother of the poet whittier, and a newspaper-writer of considerable prominence, writing under the pen-name of "ethan spike"; and tristram talbot, of newburyport, with others whom the writer does not now recall. a few years later the writer spent several of his college vacations as deputy clerk in the same naval office, and made pleasant acquaintances with all of the above-named men. he found them very competent clerks, courteous gentlemen, and the best story-tellers that he ever knew, and recollects those vacations as very pleasant periods in his school life. some of them still hold positions in the custom house. . charles "talor": charles taylor. a great friend of the family. died in exeter about ten years ago. . "beany": e. l. watson. in business at williamstown, mass. attained his boyhood ambition and married lizzie "tole," ed's sister. . "pewter": c. e. purington. my near neighbor, a decorative painter, who early displayed talent in this direction. . "skinny bruce": wm. j. bruce. a tinsmith of exeter who still thinks he could have licked frank elliott. . frank elliott. a successful mechanic in boston, who is confident that he could have licked "skinny" bruce. . "nipper": john a. brown. exeter. chairman of the school board. trustee of the seminary. trustee of the library. my room-mate at harvard. . "micky" gould. i do not know what became of "mickey." wherever he is, there is a good-natured, jolly man. . mr. winsor. address not known. how he could throw a snowball. . "ed" towle. exeter, n. h. with a keen memory for old days. . "dany" wingate. a very prominent man. the father of j. d. p. and c. e. l. wingate of the boston journal. died at exeter many years ago. . "whacker": col. a. m. chadwick. lowell, mass. . "pozzy": austin k. chadwick. lowell, mass. two of the best known and most respected citizens of lowell. dignified and sedate, but just touch on old exeter days and watch their eyes twinkle and their tongues loosen. . "pricilla": prof. charles a. hobbs. boston. has written some dreadful mathematical works, and revisits exeter often, but not often enough. . "pheby": charles a. taylor. has inherited the very qualities that made his father so good a friend. . "lublin." address not known. . "nigger" bell. so called because his hair was so very white. professor of chemistry in a western university. died recently in maiden. . tommy thompson: r. g. thompson. new london, conn. . "dutchy": dr. william a. seamans. new york city. fullback on the harvard ' eleven. there are several ex-principals of the exeter high school who will remember thompson and seamans in very clear and vivid colors. . "chick" chickering: prof. john j. checkering. flushing, l. i. commissioner of public education of new york state. . "tody": timothy finton. exeter. an expert wood-worker with a leaning for politics. . "gim" wingate: james d. p. wingate. winchester, mass. the business manager of the boston journal. . "skipy": h. c. moses. exeter. for many years in the wholesale wool business in boston. one of the keenest sportsmen and best wing shots in new hampshire. . "pile": john g. wood. chicago. manager of the mckay cordage factory in chicago. promises to return to exeter when he has made his "pile" ($ , ). from present indications, the prospect is favorable. . billy folsom: wm. h. folsom. exeter. member of the firm of e. folsom & co. brass works. one of harvard's greatest pitchers. . "hoppy" gadd. a very eccentric but sterling citizen, who could make cowhide boots which, like the panels in the "one-horse shay," "would last like iron for things like these." died in exeter a few years ago. . "si" smith. the man with the "funny sine." died in exeter nearly thirty years ago. . "gran" miller and "ben" rundlet. addresses not known. . squire lane. died in lynn. . charles burley. died in exeter. for many years treasurer of phillips exeter academy, and superintendent of the "unitarial" sunday school. . "keene": my sister, mrs. c. e. byington. exeter. a very able and accomplished woman. the one to whom all members of the family go when in trouble. . lucy watson. mrs. frank conner of lynn. . "curley" conner: mr. frank conner. lynn. husband of the aforesaid. , "jo" parsons: mr. joseph s. parsons. boston. an expert bookkeeper. . "billy" swett: mr. wm. swett. jamaica plain. i remember him as one of the most polite and affable boys i ever met. . mr. "lovel," who said, "o hell": c. lovell, d. one of the best amateur actors and jolliest men i ever knew. died recently. . john flanagan. exeter. a tinsmith and co-laborer with "skinny" bruce. . "gimmy" fitzgerald. died at exeter thirty years ago. . "old" head: oren head. many students will affectionately remember him. deceased. . "bob" carter. the old janitor of the town hall. gruff, but very kind-hearted. deceased. . "wats": irving m. watson. father of "beany," and pleasantly like him. . john getchell. a liberal, free, and kind-hearted exeter merchant. deceased. . eben folsom. uncle of "billy," and head of the firm of which billy is a member. . "charlie": dr. c. h. gerrish. . "doc" prey: dr. j. e. s. pray. gentlemen both, of whom the writer can say everything good. . alice "gewett," who was "a dairy maid": miss alice jewell instructor of singing in the schools of exeter. . "old kize": philander keyes. a policeman of thirty years ago. deceased. . "bill" hartnett. who used to make it lively for the last mentioned. a man of many good qualities notwithstanding. deceased. . "old" swain. a contemporary of "old kize," and a co-laborer in the same vineyard. . "mister" gordon: hon. nathaniel gordon. a retired lawyer of exeter. . dora moses. . mary "loverin": mrs. mary lethbeidge. two beautiful girls and inseparable companions, whose deaths were untimely and irreparable. . "cele": my sister, celia e. shute. exeter. a stenographer, and a writer of short stories for magazines. . "caxcaw" harding: prof. b. f. harding. boston. an early advocate of those methods of instruction that result in "mens sana in corpore sano." . "doctor" dearborn. a most eccentric old apothecary. died in exeter a few years ago. . "aunt sarah": miss sarah f. shute. exeter. the favorite aunt of a large family, all of whose geese are swans. . "fatty" melcher: f. a. melcher. boston. so named because he was not fat. . "genny" morrison: mrs. john j. joyce. andover, mass. by not appearing at our grammar school reunion "genny" disappointed five hundred people. . j. albert clark. exeter. one of the proprietors of the exeter machine works. he has always had a very kindly interest in "beany" and "plupy," in spite of the many annoyances he suffered at their boyish hands. . "bill" morrill: mr. wm. b. morrill. for many years selectman of exeter. died in . . "dave" quimby. every student will recollect him. died at exeter recently. . "chitter"': james robinson. a truckman in boston. . "boog" chadwick. a new york broker, whose "heart's in the highlands;" to wit, exeter. . "pop" clark: will clark. roxbury, mass. a born comedian and a delightfully entertaining man. . "shinny" thyng. one of the few exeter boys who continues his father's business at the old stand. if more did the same, the prosperity of country towns would be assured. . "gim" erly. lives somewhere in the west. . "honey" donovan: william donovan. providence. . "mose" gordon. a texas cattle-man. . mr. lamed. unitarian clergyman. deceased. . "gil" steels. a merchant in denver. . "mis packer a": mrs. mary packard. a famous local singer, now living in california. . "gim loverin": james m. lovering. a very shrewd politician. deceased. . "old mister stickney": judge w. w. stickney. with whom i studied law. deceased; not, however, because of that fact. judge stickney was a sound lawyer and an upright, kind-hearted man. . "ed" dearborn. the old bell-ringer. deceased. . john quincy "ann" pollard: j. q. a. pollard. a very old man, upon whom the boys were wont to play tricks, but who had developed wonderful precision of aim with a knotted cane. deceased. . dan ranlet; d. w. ranlet. boston produce exchange. . george m. perkins for many years an expressman between boston and exeter. . john e. gibson. master of the agassiz school, boston. residence, jamaica plain. i take the opportunity to notify him that the exeter high school holds its quinquennial reunion june, . . isaac shute. a retired merchant of exeter. deceased. . major blake. a famous boniface, and for many years proprietor of the squamscott. deceased. . charles d. towle. an equally famous livery-stable keeper, who periodically fought to a finish with major blake for passengers to hampton beach. deceased. . frank haines. a farmer. residence, exeter. . "the baby": edward a. shute. exeter. who can now handle his elder brother with ease. . "frankie": frank f. shute. who thinks he can do likewise, but cannot. a hotel-keeper at lakewood, new jersey. . "annie": miss annie p. shute. who, by virtue of a clerkship in my office, owns the entire establishment. . "georgie" instructor in latin and french in the albany academy, albany, n. y. . "nibby." a summer visitor named hartwell. deceased. . hiram mingo. a colored boy. address not known. . joe palmer. a hackman with whom the boys used to ride. address not known. . john e. gardner. a member of an old family of merchants in exeter. deceased. brother of elizabeth gardner bouguereau, the artist. . general marston. a famous new hampshire lawyer and veteran of the civil war. deceased. . amos tuck. a famous lawyer, politician, financier, and member of congress. deceased. . mr. gravel. address not known. . elkins and graves. famous auctioneers at that period. deceased. . scott "briggam." one of the boys then, one of the boys now. exeter. . charlie woodbury. deceased. . "potter" gorham: arthur gorham. killed by an accidental discharge of his gun nearly thirty years ago. a born naturalist. . "old francis." for thirty-three years principal at the grammar school at exeter. on his resignation, a few years ago, a reunion was held which was attended by old pupils from every state in the union, to do him honor. still hale and hearty, and living in exeter. . doctor perry. an old family physician, who has ushered more children and children's children into the world than any man in the county, and who is beloved and revered by every one of them. miss jewett, in her "country doctor," based her delightful description upon dr. william g. perry, her uncle. living in exeter. . john adams. who his trimmed enough carriages to set all new hampshire awheel, and who still practises his trade in exeter. . nell towle: mbs. george w. hooper. exeter. as rosy, good-natured, and musically inclined as she was in the good old days. . william perry moulton. a prosperous real-estate and insurance man, who unfortunately for his peace of mind tried to raise bartlett pears, concord grapes, and astrachan apples in the neighborhood that was infested by "plupy" and his associates; who frequently tracked, chased, and caught them red-handed, but who was too kind-hearted even then to deprive them of their ill-gotten gains. . "chris" staples. who remembers the fight with charlie clark. . charlie clark. deceased. just before he died he read the "diary" and sent word to the author that he remembered the scene in which he figured and much enjoyed the book. . mr. ashman. a veteran band-leader of boston. . frank hervey. a veteran restaurant-keeper in exeter. new living in concord, n. h. . "rashe belnap": william h. belknap. a retired banker and real-estate man of exeter. town clerk of exeter for twenty-five years. . henry simpson. periodical dealer in the late sixties. living in maine. . luke maniac. now living in texas. as a boy he could curve a snowball round the corner, like t. b. aldrich's "binny wallace." . "bob ridley": george elliott. exeter. a right good fellow. . sam dyer. a rather eccentric blacksmith. died in the west. . horace cobb. a good-natured, short, and extremely fat man. a native of exeter, and last of a very prominent family. died several years ago. . dennis cokely. address not known. i have always felt badly "to think the fight was throwed away, and neither of them licked." . johnnie rogers. a cousin of the chadwicks. deceased. . cap. john w. chadwick. a retired sea-captain. father of "poz," "boog," "whack," and "willie," "whack's little brother." a most cultivated gentleman, whose heart was kind, but whose word was law. deceased. . "zee" smith: frank smith. deceased in lowell. . miss pratt. a laundress much patronized by students. she accumulated much property by practising the gentle art of polishing shirts. . "old durgin": me. ezra durgin. a rather quick-tempered but worthy policeman, contemporary with "old swain" and "old kize." . various "stewdcats." who have played their parts and gone. . "plupy," "skinny," "polelegs": the author. de minimis non curat lex. transcribed from the gay and bird edition by david price, email ccx @pglaf.org a cathedral courtship by kate douglas wiggin with five illustrations by clifford carleton london: gay and bird chandos street strand _all rights reserved_ first edition june . second edition july . third edition september . fourth edition november . fifth edition october . to my boston friend salemina no anglomaniac, but a true briton she winchester, _may_ , the royal garden inn. we are doing the english cathedral towns, aunt celia and i. aunt celia has an intense desire to improve my mind. papa told her, when we were leaving cedarhurst, that he wouldn't for the world have it too much improved, and aunt celia remarked that, so far as she could judge, there was no immediate danger; with which exchange of hostilities they parted. we are traveling under the yoke of an iron itinerary, warranted neither to bend nor break. it was made out by a young high church curate in new york, and if it had been blessed by all the bishops and popes it could not be more sacred to aunt celia. she is awfully high church, and i believe she thinks this tour of the cathedrals will give me a taste for ritual and bring me into the true fold. i have been hearing dear old dr. kyle a great deal lately, and aunt celia says that he is the most dangerous unitarian she knows, because he has leanings towards christianity. long ago, in her youth, she was engaged to a young architect. he, with his triangles and t-squares and things, succeeded in making an imaginary scale-drawing of her heart (up to that time a virgin forest, an unmapped territory), which enabled him to enter in and set up a pedestal there, on which he has remained ever since. he has been only a memory for many years, to be sure, for he died at the age of twenty-six, before he had had time to build anything but a livery stable and a country hotel. this is fortunate, on the whole, because aunt celia thinks he was destined to establish american architecture on a higher plane,--rid it of its base, time-serving, imitative instincts, and waft it to a height where, in the course of centuries, we should have been revered and followed by all the nations of the earth. i went to see the livery stable, after one of these miriam-like flights of prophecy on the might-have-been. it isn't fair to judge a man's promise by one performance, and that one a livery stable, so i shall say nothing. this sentiment about architecture and this fondness for the very toppingest high church ritual cause aunt celia to look on the english cathedrals with solemnity and reverential awe. she has given me a fat notebook, with "katharine schuyler" stamped in gold letters on the russia leather cover, and a lock and key to protect its feminine confidences. i am not at all the sort of girl who makes notes, and i have told her so; but she says that i must at least record my passing impressions, if they are ever so trivial and commonplace. i wanted to go directly from southampton to london with the abbotts, our ship friends, who left us yesterday. roderick abbott and i had had a charming time on board ship (more charming than aunt celia knows, because she was very ill, and her natural powers of chaperoning were severely impaired), and the prospect of seeing london sights together was not unpleasing; but roderick abbott is not in aunt celia's itinerary, which reads: "winchester, salisbury, wells, bath, bristol, gloucester, oxford, london, ely, lincoln, york, durham." aunt celia is one of those persons who are born to command, and when they are thrown in contact with those who are born to be commanded all goes as merry as a marriage bell; otherwise not. so here we are at winchester; and i don't mind all the roderick abbotts in the universe, now that i have seen the royal garden inn, its pretty coffee-room opening into the old-fashioned garden, with its borders of clove pinks, its aviaries, and its blossoming horse-chestnuts, great towering masses of pink bloom! aunt celia has driven to st. cross hospital with mrs. benedict, an estimable lady tourist whom she "picked up" en route from southampton. i am tired, and stayed at home. i cannot write letters, because aunt celia has the guide-books, so i sit by the window in indolent content, watching the dear little school laddies, with their short jackets and wide white collars; they all look so jolly, and rosy, and clean, and kissable! i should like to kiss the chambermaid, too! she has a pink print dress; no bangs, thank goodness (it's curious our servants can't leave that deformity to the upper classes), but shining brown hair, plump figure, soft voice, and a most engaging way of saying, "yes, miss? anythink more, miss?" i long to ask her to sit down comfortably and be english, while i study her as a type, but of course i mustn't. sometimes i wish i could retire from the world for a season and do what i like, "surrounded by the general comfort of being thought mad." an elegant, irreproachable, high-minded model of dignity and reserve has just knocked and inquired what we will have for dinner. it is very embarrassing to give orders to a person who looks like a judge of the supreme court, but i said languidly, "what would you suggest?" "how would you like a clear soup, a good spring soup, to begin with, miss?" "very much." "and a bit of turbot next, miss?" "yes, turbot, by all means," i said, my mouth watering at the word. "and what for a roast, miss? would you enjoy a young duckling, miss?" "just the thing; and for dessert"--i couldn't think what we ought to have for dessert in england, but the high-minded model coughed apologetically and said, "i was thinking you might like gooseberry tart and cream for a sweet, miss." oh that i could have vented my new world enthusiasm in a shriek of delight as i heard those intoxicating words, heretofore met only in english novels! "ye-es," i said hesitatingly, though i was palpitating with joy, "i fancy we should like gooseberry tart (here a bright idea entered my mind) and perhaps in case my aunt doesn't care for the gooseberry tart, you might bring a lemon squash, please." now i had never met a lemon squash personally, but i had often heard of it, and wished to show my familiarity with british culinary art. "one lemon squash, miss?" "oh, as to that, it doesn't matter," i said haughtily; "bring a sufficient number for two persons." * * * * * aunt celia came home in the highest feather. she had twice been taken for an englishwoman. she said she thought that lemon squash was a drink; i thought it was a pie; but we shall find out at dinner, for, as i said, i ordered a sufficient number for two persons. at four o'clock we attended even-song at the cathedral. i shall not say what i felt when the white-surpliced boy choir entered, winding down those vaulted aisles, or when i heard for the first time that intoned service, with all its "witchcraft of harmonic sound." i sat quite by myself in a high carved-oak seat, and the hour was passed in a trance of serene delight. i do not have many opinions, it is true, but papa says i am always strong on sentiments; nevertheless, i shall not attempt to tell even what i feel in these new and beautiful experiences, for it has been better told a thousand times. there were a great many people at service, and a large number of americans among them, i should think, though we saw no familiar faces. there was one particularly nice young man, who looked like a bostonian. he sat opposite me. he didn't stare,--he was too well bred; but when i looked the other way, he looked at me. of course i could feel his eyes,--anybody can, at least any girl can; but i attended to every word of the service, and was as good as an angel. when the procession had filed out and the last strain of the great organ had rumbled into silence, we went on a tour through the cathedral, a heterogeneous band, headed by a conscientious old verger who did his best to enlighten us, and succeeded in virtually spoiling my pleasure. after we had finished (think of "finishing" a cathedral in an hour or two!), aunt celia and i, with one or two others, wandered through the beautiful close, looking at the exterior from every possible point, and coming at last to a certain ruined arch which is very famous. it did not strike me as being remarkable. i could make any number of them with a pattern, without the least effort. but at any rate, when told by the verger to gaze upon the beauties of this wonderful relic and tremble, we were obliged to gaze also upon the beauties of the aforesaid nice young man, who was sketching it. as we turned to go away, aunt celia dropped her bag. it is one of those detestable, all-absorbing, all-devouring, thoroughly respectable, but never proud boston bags, made of black cloth with leather trimmings, "c. van t." embroidered on the side, and the top drawn up with stout cords which pass over the boston wrist or arm. as for me, i loathe them, and would not for worlds be seen carrying one, though i do slip a great many necessaries into aunt celia's. i hastened to pick up the horrid thing, for fear the nice young man would feel obliged to do it for me; but, in my indecorous haste, i caught hold of the wrong end and emptied the entire contents on the stone flagging. aunt celia didn't notice; she had turned with the verger, lest she should miss a single word of his inspired testimony. so we scrambled up the articles together, the nice young man and i; and oh, i hope i may never look upon his face again! there were prayer-books and guide-books, a bottle of soda mint tablets, a spool of dental floss, a bath bun, a bit of gray frizz that aunt celia pins into her steamer cap, a spectacle case, a brandy flask, and a bonbon box, which broke and scattered cloves and cardamom seeds. (i hope he guessed aunt celia is a dyspeptic, and not intemperate!) all this was hopelessly vulgar, but i wouldn't have minded anything if there had not been a duchess novel. of course he thought that it belonged to me. he couldn't have known aunt celia was carrying it for that accidental mrs. benedict, with whom she went to st. cross hospital. after scooping the cardamom seeds out of the cracks in the stone flagging, he handed me the tattered, disreputable-looking copy of "a modern circe" with a bow that wouldn't have disgraced a chesterfield, and then went back to his easel, while i fled after aunt celia and her verger. memoranda: the winchester cathedral has the longest nave. the inside is more superb than the outside. izaak walton and jane austen are buried there. he winchester, _may_ , the white swan. as sure as my name is jack copley, i saw the prettiest girl in the world to-day,--an american, too, or i'm greatly mistaken. it was in the cathedral, where i have been sketching for several days. i was sitting in the end of a seat, at afternoon service, when two ladies entered by the side door. the ancient maiden, evidently the head of the family, settled herself devoutly, and the young one stole off by herself to one of the old carved seats back of the choir. she was worse than pretty! i took a sketch of her during service, as she sat under the dark carved-oak canopy, with this latin inscription over her head:-- carlton cum dolby letania ix solidorum super flumina confitebor tibi duc probati there ought to be a law against a woman's making a picture of herself, unless she is willing to sit and be sketched. a black and white sketch doesn't give any definite idea of this charmer's charms, but some time i'll fill it in,--hair, sweet little hat, gown, and eyes, all in golden brown, a cape of tawny sable slipping off her arm, a knot of yellow primroses in her girdle, carved-oak background, and the afternoon sun coming through a stained-glass window. great jove! she had a most curious effect on me, that girl! i can't explain it,--very curious, altogether new, and rather pleasant! when one of the choir boys sang, "oh for the wings of a dove!" a tear rolled out of one of her lovely eyes and down her smooth brown cheek. i would have given a large portion of my modest monthly income for the felicity of wiping away that teardrop with one of my new handkerchiefs, marked with a tremendous "c" by my pretty sister. an hour or two later they appeared again,--the dragon, who answers to the name of "aunt celia," and the "nut-brown mayde," who comes when you call her "katharine." i was sketching a ruined arch. the dragon dropped her unmistakably boston bag. i expected to see encyclopaedias and russian tracts fall from it, but was disappointed. the nut-brown mayde (who has been brought up rigidly) hastened to pick up the bag, for fear that i should serve her by doing it. she was punished by turning it inside out, and i was rewarded by helping her pick up the articles, which were many and ill assorted. my little romance received the first blow when i found that she reads the duchess novels. i think, however, she has the grace to be ashamed of it, for she blushed scarlet when i handed her "a modern circe." i could have told her that such a blush on such a cheek would atone for reading mrs. southworth, but i refrained. after she had gone i discovered a slip of paper which had blown under some stones. it proved to be an itinerary. i didn't return it. i thought they must know which way they were going; and as this was precisely what i wanted to know, i kept it for my own use. she is doing the cathedral towns. i am doing the cathedral towns. happy thought! why shouldn't we do them together,--we and aunt celia? i had only ten minutes--to catch my train for salisbury, but i concluded to run in and glance at the registers of the principal hotels. found my nut-brown mayde at once on the pages of the royal garden inn register: "miss celia van tyck, beverly, mass.; miss katharine schuyler, new york." i concluded to stay over another train, ordered dinner, and took an altogether indefensible and inconsistent pleasure in writing "john quincy copley, cambridge, mass.," directly beneath the charmer's autograph. she salisbury, _june_ the white hart inn. we left winchester on the . train yesterday, and here we are within sight of another superb and ancient pile of stone. i wanted so much to stop at the highflyer inn in lark lane, but aunt celia said that if we were destitute of personal dignity, we at least owed something to our ancestors. aunt celia has a temperamental distrust of joy as something dangerous and ensnaring. she doesn't realize what fun it would be to date one's letters from the highflyer inn, lark lane, even if one were obliged to consort with poachers and cockneys in order to do it. we attended service at three. the music was lovely, and there were beautiful stained-glass windows by burne-jones and morris. the verger (when wound up with a shilling) talked like an electric doll. if that nice young man is making a cathedral tour, like ourselves, he isn't taking our route, for he isn't here. if he has come over for the purpose of sketching, he wouldn't stop at sketching one cathedral. perhaps he began at the other end and worked down to winchester. yes, that must be it, for the ems sailed yesterday from southampton. * * * june . we intended to go to stonehenge this morning, but it rained, so we took a "growler" and went to the earl of pembroke's country place to see the pictures. had a delightful morning with the magnificent antiques, curios, and portraits. the van dyck room is a joy forever. there were other visitors; nobody who looked especially interesting. don't like salisbury so well as winchester. don't know why. we shall drive this afternoon, if it is fair, and go to wells to-morrow. must read baedeker on the bishop's palace. oh dear! if one could only have a good time and not try to know anything! memoranda: _this cathedral has the highest spire_. _remember_: _winchester_, _longest nave_; _salisbury_, _highest spire_. _the lancet style is those curved lines meeting in a rounding or a sharp point like this_ [drawing like two very circular n's next to each other] _and then joined together like this_: [drawing like \/\/\/] _the way they used to scallop flannel petticoats_. _gothic looks like triangles meeting together in various spots and joined with beautiful sort of ornamented knobs_. _i think i know gothic when i see it_. _then there is norman_, _early english_, _fully developed early english_, _early and late perpendicular_, _and transition_. _aunt celia knows them all apart_. he salisbury, _june_ the red lion. i went off on a long tramp this afternoon, and coming on a pretty river flowing through green meadows, with a fringe of trees on either side, i sat down to make a sketch. i heard feminine voices in the vicinity, but, as these are generally a part of the landscape in the tourist season, i paid no special notice. suddenly a dainty patent-leather shoe floated towards me on the surface of the stream. it evidently had just dropped in, for it was right side up with care, and was disporting itself right merrily. "did ever jove's tree drop such fruit?" i quoted, as i fished it out on my stick; and just then i heard a distressed voice saying, "oh, aunt celia, i've lost my smart little london shoe. i was sitting in a tree, taking a pebble out of the heel, when i saw a caterpillar, and i dropped it into the river, the shoe, you know, not the caterpillar." hereupon she came in sight, and i witnessed the somewhat unusual spectacle of my nut-brown mayde hopping on one foot, like a divine stork, and ever and anon emitting a feminine shriek as her off foot, clad in a delicate silk stocking, came in contact with the ground. i rose quickly, and, polishing the patent leather ostentatiously, inside and out, with my handkerchief, i offered it to her with distinguished grace. she swayed on her one foot with as much dignity as possible, and then recognizing me as the person who picked up the contents of aunt celia's bag, she said, dimpling in the most distracting manner (that's another thing there ought to be a law against), "thank you again; you seem to be a sort of knight-errant!" "shall i--assist you?" i asked. (i might have known that this was going too far.) "no, thank you," she said, with polar frigidity. "good-afternoon." and she hopped back to her aunt celia without another word. i don't know how to approach aunt celia. she is formidable. by a curious accident of feature, for which she is not in the least responsible, she always wears an unfortunate expression as of one perceiving some offensive odor in the immediate vicinity. this may be a mere accident of high birth. it is the kind of nose often seen in the "first families," and her name betrays the fact that she is of good old knickerbocker origin. we go to wells to-morrow. at least i think we do. she gloucester, _june_ the spread eagle. i met him at wells, and again at bath. we are always being ridiculous, and he is always rescuing us. aunt celia never really sees him, and thus never recognizes him when he appears again, always as the flower of chivalry and guardian of ladies in distress. i will never again travel abroad without a man, even if i have to hire one from a feeble-minded asylum. we work like galley slaves, aunt celia and i, finding out about trains and things. neither of us can understand bradshaw, and i can't even grapple with the lesser intricacies of the a b c railway guide. the trains, so far as i can see, always arrive before they go out, and i can never tell whether to read up the page or down. it is certainly very queer that the stupidest man that breathes, one that barely escapes idiocy, can disentangle a railway guide, when the brightest woman fails. even the boots at the inn in wells took my book, and, rubbing his frightfully dirty finger down the row of puzzling figures, found the place in a minute, and said, "there ye are, miss." it is very humiliating. all the time i have left from the study of routes and hotels i spend on guide-books. now i'm sure that if any one of the men i know were here, he could tell me all that is necessary as we walk along the streets. i don't say it in a frivolous or sentimental spirit in the least, but i do affirm that there is hardly any juncture in life where one isn't better off for having a man about. i should never dare divulge this to aunt celia, for she doesn't think men very nice. she excludes them from conversation as if they were indelicate subjects. but, to go on, we were standing at the door of ye olde bell and horns, at bath, waiting for the fly which we had ordered to take us to the station, when who should drive up in a four-wheeler but the flower of chivalry. aunt celia was saying very audibly, "we shall certainly miss the train if the man doesn't come at once." "pray take this fly," said the flower of chivalry. "i am not leaving till the next train." aunt celia got in without a murmur; i sneaked in after her. i don't think she looked at him, though she did vouchsafe the remark that he seemed to be a civil sort of person. at bristol, i was walking about by myself, and i espied a sign, "martha huggins, licensed victualer." it was a nice, tidy little shop, with a fire on the hearth and flowers in the window, and, as it was raining smartly, i thought no one would catch me if i stepped inside to chat with martha. i fancied it would be so delightful and dickensy to talk quietly with a licensed victualer by the name of martha huggins. just after i had settled myself, the flower of chivalry came in and ordered ale. i was disconcerted at being found in a dramshop alone, for i thought, after the bag episode, he might fancy us a family of inebriates. but he didn't evince the slightest astonishment; he merely lifted his hat, and walked out after he had finished his ale. he certainly has the loveliest manners! and so it goes on, and we never get any further. i like his politeness and his evident feeling that i can't be flirted and talked with like a forward boarding-school miss, but i must say i don't think much of his ingenuity. of course one can't have all the virtues, but, if i were he, i would part with my distinguished air, my charming ease, in fact almost anything, if i could have in exchange a few grains of common sense, just enough to guide me in the practical affairs of life. i wonder what he is? he might be an artist, but he doesn't seem quite like an artist; or a dilettante, but he doesn't seem in the least like a dilettante. or he might be an architect; i think that is the most probable guess of all. perhaps he is only "going to be" one of these things, for he can't be more than twenty-five or twenty-six. still he looks as if he were something already; that is, he has a kind of self-reliance in his mien,--not self-assertion, nor self-esteem, but belief in self, as if he were able, and knew that he was able, to conquer circumstances. he gloucester, _june_ the bell. nothing accomplished yet. her aunt is a van tyck, and a stiff one, too. i am a copley, and that delays matters. much depends upon the manner of approach. a false move would be fatal. we have six more towns (as per itinerary), and if their thirst for cathedrals isn't slaked when these are finished we have the entire continent to do. if i could only succeed in making an impression on the retina of aunt celia's eye! though i have been under her feet for ten days, she never yet has observed me. this absent-mindedness of hers serves me ill now, but it may prove a blessing later on. she oxford, _june_ the mitre. it was here in oxford that a grain of common sense entered the brain of the flower of chivalry. you might call it the dawn of reason. we had spent part of the morning in high street, "the noblest old street in england," as our dear hawthorne calls it. as wordsworth had written a sonnet about it, aunt celia was armed for the fray,--a volume of wordsworth in one hand, and one of hawthorne in the other. (i wish baedeker didn't give such full information about what one ought to read before one can approach these places in a proper spirit.) when we had done high street, we went to magdalen college, and sat down on a bench in addison's walk, where aunt celia proceeded to store my mind with the principal facts of addison's career, and his influence on the literature of the something or other century. the cramming process over, we wandered along, and came upon "him" sketching a shady corner of the walk. aunt celia went up behind him, and, van tyck though she is, she could not restrain her admiration of his work. i was surprised myself: i didn't suppose so good looking a youth could do such good work. i retired to a safe distance, and they chatted together. he offered her the sketch; she refused to take advantage of his kindness. he said he would "dash off" another that evening, and bring it to our hotel,--"so glad to do anything for a fellow-countryman," etc. i peeped from behind a tree and saw him give her his card. it was an awful moment; i trembled, but she read it with unmistakable approval, and gave him her own with an expression that meant, "yours is good, but beat that if you can!" she called to me, and i appeared. mr. john quincy copley, cambridge, was presented to her niece, miss katharine schuyler, new york. it was over, and a very small thing to take so long about, too. he is an architect, and of course has a smooth path into aunt celia's affections. theological students, ministers, missionaries, heroes, and martyrs she may distrust, but architects never! "he is an architect, my dear katharine, and he is a copley," she told me afterwards. "i never knew a copley who was not respectable, and many of them have been more." after the introduction was over, aunt celia asked him guilelessly if he had visited any other of the english cathedrals. any others, indeed! this to a youth who had been all but in her lap for a fortnight! it was a blow, but he rallied bravely, and, with an amused look in my direction, replied discreetly that he had visited most of them at one time or another. i refused to let him see that i had ever noticed him before; that is, particularly. memoranda: "the very stones and mortar of this historic town seem impregnated with the spirit of restful antiquity." (extract from one of aunt celia's letters.) among the great men who have studied here are the prince of wales, duke of wellington, gladstone, sir robert peel, sir philip sidney, william penn, john locke, the two wesleys, ruskin, ben jonson, and thomas otway. (look otway up.) he oxford, _june_ the angel. i have done it, and if i hadn't been a fool and a coward i might have done it a week ago, and spared myself a good deal of delicious torment. i have just given two hours to a sketch of addison's walk and carried it to aunt celia at the mitre. object, to find out whether they make a long stay in london (our next point), and if so where. it seems they go directly through. i said in the course of conversation, "so miss schuyler is willing to forego a london season? marvelous self-denial!" "my niece did not come to europe for a london season," replied miss van tyck. "we go through london this time merely as a cathedral town, simply because it chances to be where it is geographically. we shall visit st. paul's and westminster abbey, and then go directly on, that our chain of impressions may have absolute continuity and be free from any disturbing elements." oh, but she is lovely, is aunt celia! lincoln, _june_ the black boy inn. i am stopping at a beastly little hole, which has the one merit of being opposite miss schuyler's lodgings. my sketch-book has deteriorated in artistic value during the last two weeks. many of its pages, while interesting to me as reminiscences, will hardly do for family or studio exhibition. if i should label them, the result would be something like this:-- . sketch of a footstool and desk where i first saw miss schuyler kneeling. . sketch of a carved-oak chair, miss schuyler sitting in it. . "angel choir." heads of miss schuyler introduced into the carving. . altar screen. full length figure of miss schuyler holding lilies. . tomb of a bishop, where i tied miss schuyler's shoe. . tomb of another bishop, where i had to tie it again because i did it so badly the first time. . sketch of the shoe; the shoe-lace worn out with much tying. . sketch of the blessed verger who called her "madam," when we were walking together. . sketch of her blush when he did it the prettiest thing in the world. . sketch of j. q. copley contemplating the ruins of his heart. "how are the mighty fallen!" she lincoln, _june_ at miss brown's, castle garden. mr. copley _has_ done something in the world; i was sure that he had. he has a little income of his own, but he is too proud and ambitious to be an idler. he looked so manly when he talked about it, standing up straight and strong in his knickerbockers. i like men in knickerbockers. aunt celia doesn't. she says she doesn't see how a well-brought-up copley can go about with his legs in that condition. i would give worlds to know how aunt celia ever unbent sufficiently to get engaged. but, as i was saying, mr. copley has accomplished something, young as he is. he has built three picturesque suburban churches suitable for weddings, and a state lunatic asylum. aunt celia says we shall have no worthy architecture until every building is made an exquisitely sincere representation of its deepest purpose,--a symbol, as it were, of its indwelling meaning. i should think it would be very difficult to design a lunatic asylum on that basis, but i didn't dare say so, as mr. copley seemed to think it all right. their conversation is absolutely sublimated when they get to talking of architecture. i have just copied two quotations from emerson, and am studying them every night for fifteen minutes before i go to sleep. i'm going to quote them some time offhand, just after morning service, when we are wandering about the cathedral grounds. the first is this: "the gothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone, subdued by the insatiable demand of harmony in man. the mountain of granite blooms into an eternal flower, with the lightness and delicate finish as well as the aerial proportion and perspective of vegetable beauty." then when he has recovered from the shock of this, here is my second: "nor can any lover of nature enter the old piles of oxford and english cathedrals without feeling that the forest overpowered the mind of the builder, and that his chisel, his saw and plane, still reproduced its ferns, its spikes of flowers, its locust, elm, pine, and spruce." memoranda: _lincoln choir is an example of early english or first pointed_, _which can generally be told from something else by bold projecting buttresses and dog-tooth moulding round the abacusses_. (the plural is my own, and it does not look right.) _lincoln castle was the scene of many prolonged sieges_, _and was once taken by oliver cromwell_. he york, _june_ the black swan. kitty schuyler is the concentrated essence of feminine witchery. intuition strong, logic weak, and the two qualities so balanced as to produce an indefinable charm; will-power large, but docility equal, if a man is clever enough to know how to manage her; knowledge of facts absolutely nil, but she is exquisitely intelligent in spite of it. she has a way of evading, escaping, eluding, and then gives you an intoxicating hint of sudden and complete surrender. she is divinely innocent, but roguishness saves her from insipidity. her looks? she looks as you would imagine a person might look who possessed these graces; and she is worth looking at, though every time i do it i have a rush of love to the head. when you find a girl who combines all the qualities you have imagined in the ideal, and who has added a dozen or two on her own account, merely to distract you past all hope, why stand up and try to resist her charm? down on your knees like a man, say i! * * * * * i'm getting to adore aunt celia. i didn't care for her at first, but she is so deliciously blind! anything more exquisitely unserviceable as a chaperon i can't imagine. absorbed in antiquity, she ignores the babble of contemporaneous lovers. that any man could look at kitty when he could look at a cathedral passes her comprehension. i do not presume too greatly on her absent-mindedness, however, lest she should turn unexpectedly and rend me. i always remember that inscription on the backs of the little mechanical french toys,--"quoiqu'elle soit tres solidement montee, il faut ne pas brutaliser la machine." and so my courtship progresses under aunt celia's very nose. i say "progresses," but it is impossible to speak with any certainty of courting, for the essence of that gentle craft is hope, rooted in labor and trained by love. i set out to propose to her during service this afternoon by writing my feelings on the fly-leaf of the hymn-book, or something like that; but i knew that aunt celia would never forgive such blasphemy, and i thought that kitty herself might consider it wicked. besides, if she should chance to accept me, there was nothing i could do, in a cathedral, to relieve my feelings. no; if she ever accepts me, i wish it to be in a large, vacant spot of the universe, peopled by two only, and those two so indistinguishably blended, as it were, that they would appear as one to the casual observer. so i practiced repression, though the wall of my reserve is worn to the thinness of thread-paper, and i tried to keep my mind on the droning minor canon, and not to look at her, "for that way madness lies." she york, _june_ high petersgate street. my taste is so bad! i just begin to realize it, and i am feeling my "growing pains," like gwendolen in "daniel deronda." i admired the stained glass in the lincoln cathedral, especially the nuremberg window. i thought mr. copley looked pained, but he said nothing. when i went to my room, i looked in a book and found that all the glass in that cathedral is very modern and very bad, and the nuremberg window is the worst of all. aunt celia says she hopes that it will be a warning to me to read before i speak; but mr. copley says no, that the world would lose more in one way than it would gain in the other. i tried my quotations this morning, and stuck fast in the middle of the first. mr. copley says that aunt celia has been feeing the vergers altogether too much, and i wrote a song about it called "the ballad of the vergers and the foolish virgin," which i sang to my guitar. mr. copley says it is cleverer than anything he ever did with his pencil, but of course he says that only to be agreeable. we all went to an evening service last night. coming home, aunt celia walked ahead with mrs. benedict, who keeps turning up at the most unexpected moments. she's going to build a gothicky memorial chapel somewhere. i don't know for whom, unless it's for benedict arnold. i don't like her in the least, but four is certainly a more comfortable number than three. i scarcely ever have a moment alone with mr. copley; for go where i will and do what i please, aunt celia has the most perfect confidence in my indiscretion, so she is always _en evidence_. just as we were turning into the quiet little street where we are lodging i said, "oh dear, i wish that i knew something about architecture!" "if you don't know anything about it, you are certainly responsible for a good deal of it," said mr. copley. "i? how do you mean?" i asked quite innocently, because i couldn't see how he could twist such a remark as that into anything like sentiment. "i have never built so many castles in my life as since i've known you, miss schuyler," he said. "oh," i answered as lightly as i could, "air-castles don't count." "the building of air-castles is an innocent amusement enough, i suppose," he said, "but i'm committing the folly of living in mine. i"-- then i was frightened. when, all at once, you find you have something precious you only dimly suspected was to be yours, you almost wish it hadn't come so soon. but just at that moment mrs. benedict called to us, and came tramping back from the gate, and hooked her supercilious, patronizing arm in mr. copley's, and asked him into the sitting-room to talk over the "lady chapel" in her new memorial church. then aunt celia told me they would excuse me, as i had had a wearisome day; and there was nothing for me to do but to go to bed, like a snubbed child, and wonder if i should ever know the end of that sentence. and i listened at the head of the stairs, shivering, but all that i could hear was that mrs. benedict asked mr. copley to be her own architect. her architect indeed! that woman ought not to be at large! durham, _july_ at farmer hendry's. we left york this morning, and arrived here about eleven o'clock. it seems there is some sort of an election going on in the town, and there was not a single fly at the station. mr. copley walked about in every direction, but neither horse nor vehicle was to be had for love nor money. at last we started to walk to the village, mr. copley so laden with our hand-luggage that he resembled a pack-mule. we made a tour of the inns, but not a single room was to be had, not for that night nor for three days ahead, on account of that same election. "hadn't we better go on to edinburgh, aunt celia?" i asked. "edinburgh? never!" she replied. "do you suppose that i would voluntarily spend a sunday in those bare presbyterian churches until the memory of these past ideal weeks has faded a little from my memory? what, leave out durham and spoil the set?" (she spoke of the cathedrals as if they were souvenir spoons.) "i intended to stay here for a week or more, and write up a record of our entire trip from winchester while the impressions were fresh in my mind." "and i had intended doing the same thing," said mr. copley. "that is, i hoped to finish off my previous sketches, which are in a frightful state of incompletion, and spend a good deal of time on the interior of this cathedral, which is unusually beautiful." (at this juncture aunt celia disappeared for a moment to ask the barmaid if, in her opinion, the constant consumption of malt liquors prevents a more dangerous indulgence in brandy and whiskey. she is gathering statistics, but as the barmaids can never collect their thoughts while they are drawing ale, aunt celia proceeds slowly.) "for my part," said i, with mock humility, "i am a docile person who never has any intentions of her own, but who yields herself sweetly to the intentions of other people in her immediate vicinity." "are you?" asked mr. copley, taking out his pencil. "yes, i said so. what are you doing?" "merely taking note of your statement, that's all.--now, miss van tyck, i have a plan to propose. i was here last summer with a couple of harvard men, and we lodged at a farmhouse half a mile from the cathedral. if you will step into the coffee-room of the shoulder of mutton and cauliflower for an hour, i'll walk up to farmer hendry's and see if they will take us in. i think we might be fairly comfortable." "can aunt celia have apollinaris and black coffee after her morning bath?" i asked. "i hope, katharine," said aunt celia majestically,--"i hope that i can accommodate myself to circumstances. if mr. copley can secure lodgings for us, i shall be more than grateful." so here we are, all lodging together in an ideal english farmhouse. there is a thatched roof on one of the old buildings, and the dairy house is covered with ivy, and farmer hendry's wife makes a real english courtesy, and there are herds of beautiful sleek durham cattle, and the butter and cream and eggs and mutton are delicious; and i never, never want to go home any more. i want to live here forever, and wave the american flag on washington's birthday. i am so happy that i feel as if something were going to spoil it all. twenty years old to-day! i wish mamma were alive to wish me many happy returns. memoranda: casual remark for breakfast table or perhaps for luncheon,--it is a trifle heavy for breakfast: "since the sixteenth century and despite the work of inigo jones and the great wren (not jenny wren--christopher), architecture has had, in england especially, no legitimate development." he durham, _july_ o child of fortune, thy name is j. q. copley! how did it happen to be election time? why did the inns chance to be full? how did aunt celia relax sufficiently to allow me to find her a lodging? why did she fall in love with the lodging when found? i do not know. i only know fate smiles; that kitty and i eat our morning bacon and eggs together; that i carve kitty's cold beef and pour kitty's sparkling ale at luncheon; that i go to vespers with kitty, and dine with kitty, and walk in the gloaming with kitty--and aunt celia. and after a day of heaven like this, like lorna doone's lover,--ay, and like every other lover, i suppose,--i go to sleep, and the roof above me swarms with angels, having kitty under it! we were coming home from afternoon service, kitty and i. (i am anticipating for she was "miss schuyler" then, but never mind.) we were walking through the fields, while mrs. benedict and aunt celia were driving. as we came across a corner of the bit of meadow land that joins the stable and the garden, we heard a muffled roar, and as we looked round we saw a creature with tossing horns and waving tail making for us, head down, eyes flashing. kitty gave a shriek. we chanced to be near a pair of low bars. i hadn't been a college athlete for nothing. i swung kitty over the bars, and jumped after her. but she, not knowing in her fright where she was nor what she was doing; supposing, also, that the mad creature, like the villain in the play, would "still pursue her," flung herself bodily into my arms, crying, "jack! jack! save me!" "it was the first time she had called me jack," and i needed no second invitation. i proceeded to save her,--in the usual way, by holding her to my heart and kissing her lovely hair reassuringly, as i murmured: "you are safe, my darling; not a hair of your precious head shall be hurt. don't be frightened." she shivered like a leaf. "i am frightened," she said. "i can't help being frightened. he will chase us, i know. where is he? what is he doing now?" looking up to determine if i need abbreviate this blissful moment, i saw the enraged animal disappearing in the side door of the barn; and it was a nice, comfortable durham cow,--that somewhat rare but possible thing, a sportive cow! "is he gone?" breathed kitty from my waistcoat. "yes, he is gone--she is gone, darling. but don't move; it may come again." my first too hasty assurance had calmed kitty's fears, and she raised her charming flushed face from its retreat and prepared to withdraw. i did not facilitate the preparations, and a moment of awkward silence ensued. "might i inquire," i asked, "if the dear little person at present reposing in my arms will stay there (with intervals for rest and refreshment) for the rest of her natural life?" she withdrew entirely now, all but her hand, and her eyes sought the ground. "i suppose i shall have to now,--that is, if you think--at least, i suppose you do think--at any rate, you look as if you were thinking--that this has been giving you encouragement." "i do indeed,--decisive, undoubted, barefaced encouragement." "i don't think i ought to be judged as if i were in my sober senses," she replied. "i was frightened within an inch of my life. i told you this morning that i was dreadfully afraid of bulls, especially mad ones, and i told you that my nurse frightened me, when i was a child, with awful stories about them, and that i never outgrew my childish terror. i looked everywhere about: the barn was too far, the fence too high, i saw him coming, and there was nothing but you and the open country; of course i took you. it was very natural, i'm sure,--any girl would have done it." "to be sure," i replied soothingly, "any girl would have run after me, as you say." "i didn't say any girl would have run after you,--you needn't flatter yourself; and besides, i think i was really trying to protect you as well as to gain protection; else why should i have cast myself on you like a catamount, or a catacomb, or whatever the thing is?" "yes, darling, i thank you for saving my life, and i am willing to devote the remainder of it to your service as a pledge of my gratitude; but if you should take up life-saving as a profession, dear, don't throw yourself on a fellow with"-- "jack! jack!" she cried, putting her hand over my lips, and getting it well kissed in consequence. "if you will only forget that, and never, never taunt me with it afterwards, i'll--i'll--well, i'll do anything in reason; yes, even marry you!" canterbury, _july_ the royal fountain. i was never sure enough of kitty, at first, to dare risk telling her about that little mistake of hers. she is such an elusive person that i spend all my time in wooing her, and can never lay flattering unction to my soul that she is really won. but after aunt celia had looked up my family record and given a provisional consent, and papa schuyler had cabled a reluctant blessing, i did not feel capable of any further self-restraint. it was twilight here in canterbury, and we were sitting on the vine-shaded veranda of aunt celia's lodging. kitty's head was on my shoulder. there is something very queer about that; when kitty's head is on my shoulder, i am not capable of any consecutive train of thought. when she puts it there i see stars, then myriads of stars, then, oh! i can't begin to enumerate the steps by which ecstasy mounts to delirium; but at all events, any operation which demands exclusive use of the intellect is beyond me at these times. still i gathered my stray wits together and said, "kitty!" "yes, jack?" "now that nothing but death or marriage can separate us, i have something to confess to you." "yes," she said serenely, "i know what you are going to say. he was a cow." i lifted her head from my shoulder sternly, and gazed into her childlike, candid eyes. "you mountain of deceit! how long have you known about it?" "ever since the first. oh, jack, stop looking at me in that way! not the very first, not when i--not when you--not when we--no, not then, but the next morning i said to farmer hendry, 'i wish you would keep your savage bull chained up while we are here; aunt celia is awfully afraid of them, especially those that go mad, like yours!' 'lor', miss,' said farmer hendry, 'he haven't been pastured here for three weeks. i keep him six mile away. there ben't nothing but gentle cows in the home medder.' but i didn't think that you knew, you secretive person! i dare say you planned the whole thing in advance, in order to take advantage of my fright!" "never! i am incapable of such an unnecessary subterfuge! besides, kitty, i could not have made an accomplice of a cow, you know." "then," she said, with great dignity, "if you had been a gentleman and a man of honor, you would have cried, 'unhand me, girl! you are clinging to me under a misunderstanding!'" she chester, _august_ the grosvenor. jack and i are going over this same ground next summer, on our wedding trip. we shall sail for home next week, and we haven't half done justice to the cathedrals. after the first two, we saw nothing but each other on a general background of architecture. i hope my mind is improved, but oh, i am so hazy about all the facts i have read since i knew jack! winchester and salisbury stand out superbly in my memory. they acquired their ground before it was occupied with other matters. i shall never forget, for instance, that winchester has the longest spire and salisbury the highest nave of all the english cathedrals. and i shall never forget so long as i live that jane austen and isaac newt--oh dear! was it isaac newton or izaak walton that was buried in winchester and salisbury? to think that that interesting fact should have slipped from my mind, after all the trouble i took with it! but i know that it was isaac somebody, and that he was buried in--well, he was buried in one of those two places. i am not certain which, but i can ask jack; he is sure to know. extracts from adam's diary translated from the original ms. by mark twain [note.--i translated a portion of this diary some years ago, and a friend of mine printed a few copies in an incomplete form, but the public never got them. since then i have deciphered some more of adam's hieroglyphics, and think he has now become sufficiently important as a public character to justify this publication.--m. t.] monday this new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. it is always hanging around and following me about. i don't like this; i am not used to company. i wish it would stay with the other animals. cloudy to-day, wind in the east; think we shall have rain.... where did i get that word?... i remember now --the new creature uses it. tuesday been examining the great waterfall. it is the finest thing on the estate, i think. the new creature calls it niagara falls--why, i am sure i do not know. says it looks like niagara falls. that is not a reason; it is mere waywardness and imbecility. i get no chance to name anything myself. the new creature names everything that comes along, before i can get in a protest. and always that same pretext is offered--it looks like the thing. there is the dodo, for instance. says the moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it "looks like a dodo." it will have to keep that name, no doubt. it wearies me to fret about it, and it does no good, anyway. dodo! it looks no more like a dodo than i do. wednesday built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it to myself in peace. the new creature intruded. when i tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with the back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals make when they are in distress. i wish it would not talk; it is always talking. that sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur; but i do not mean it so. i have never heard the human voice before, and any new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. and this new sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my ear, first on one side and then on the other, and i am used only to sounds that are more or less distant from me. friday the naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything i can do. i had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty --garden-of-eden. privately, i continue to call it that, but not any longer publicly. the new creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. says it looks like a park, and does not look like anything but a park. consequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named --niagara falls park. this is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. and already there is a sign up: keep off the grass my life is not as happy as it was. saturday the new creature eats too much fruit. we are going to run short, most likely. "we" again--that is its word; mine too, now, from hearing it so much. good deal of fog this morning. i do not go out in the fog myself. the new creature does. it goes out in all weathers, and stumps right in with its muddy feet. and talks. it used to be so pleasant and quiet here. sunday pulled through. this day is getting to be more and more trying. it was selected and set apart last november as a day of rest. i already had six of them per week, before. this morning found the new creature trying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree. monday the new creature says its name is eve. that is all right, i have no objections. says it is to call it by when i want it to come. i said it was superfluous, then. the word evidently raised me in its respect; and indeed it is a large, good word, and will bear repetition. it says it is not an it, it is a she. this is probably doubtful; yet it is all one to me; what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by herself and not talk. tuesday she has littered the whole estate with execrable names and offensive signs: this way to the whirlpool. this way to goat island. cave of the winds this way. she says this park would make a tidy summer resort, if there was any custom for it. summer resort--another invention of hers--just words, without any meaning. what is a summer resort? but it is best not to ask her, she has such a rage for explaining. friday she has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the falls. what harm does it do? says it makes her shudder. i wonder why. i have always done it--always liked the plunge, and the excitement, and the coolness. i supposed it was what the falls were for. they have no other use that i can see, and they must have been made for something. she says they were only made for scenery--like the rhinoceros and the mastodon. i went over the falls in a barrel--not satisfactory to her. went over in a tub--still not satisfactory. swam the whirlpool and the rapids in a fig-leaf suit. it got much damaged. hence, tedious complaints about my extravagance. i am too much hampered here. what i need is change of scene. saturday i escaped last tuesday night, and travelled two days, and built me another shelter, in a secluded place, and obliterated my tracks as well as i could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she has tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again, and shedding that water out of the places she looks with. i was obliged to return with her, but will presently emigrate again, when occasion offers. she engages herself in many foolish things: among others, trying to study out why the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate that they were intended to eat each other. this is foolish, because to do that would be to kill each other, and that would introduce what, as i understand it, is called "death;" and death, as i have been told, has not yet entered the park. which is a pity, on some accounts. sunday pulled through. monday i believe i see what the week is for: it is to give time to rest up from the weariness of sunday. it seems a good idea.... she has been climbing that tree again. clodded her out of it. she said nobody was looking. seems to consider that a sufficient justification for chancing any dangerous thing. told her that. the word justification moved her admiration--and envy too, i thought. it is a good word. thursday she told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body. this is at least doubtful, if not more than that. i have not missed any rib.... she is in much trouble about the buzzard; says grass does not agree with it; is afraid she can't raise it; thinks it was intended to live on decayed flesh. the buzzard must get along the best it can with what is provided. we cannot overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the buzzard. saturday she fell in the pond yesterday, when she was looking at herself in it, which she is always doing. she nearly strangled, and said it was most uncomfortable. this made her sorry for the creatures which live in there, which she calls fish, for she continues to fasten names on to things that don't need them and don't come when they are called by them, which is a matter of no consequence to her, as she is such a numskull anyway; so she got a lot of them out and brought them in last night and put them in my bed to keep warm, but i have noticed them now and then all day, and i don't see that they are any happier there than they were before, only quieter. when night comes i shall throw them out-doors. i will not sleep with them again, for i find them clammy and unpleasant to lie among when a person hasn't anything on. sunday pulled through. tuesday she has taken up with a snake now. the other animals are glad, for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them; and i am glad, because the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest. friday she says the snake advises her to try the fruit of that tree, and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education. i told her there would be another result, too--it would introduce death into the world. that was a mistake--it had been better to keep the remark to myself; it only gave her an idea--she could save the sick buzzard, and furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers. i advised her to keep away from the tree. she said she wouldn't. i foresee trouble. will emigrate. wednesday i have had a variegated time. i escaped that night, and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear out of the park and hide in some other country before the trouble should begin; but it was not to be. about an hour after sunup, as i was riding through a flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or playing with each other, according to their wont, all of a sudden they broke into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was in a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor. i knew what it meant--eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into the world.... the tigers ate my horse, paying no attention when i ordered them to desist, and they would even have eaten me if i had stayed--which i didn't, but went away in much haste.... i found this place, outside the park, and was fairly comfortable for a few days, but she has found me out. found me out, and has named the place tonawanda--says it looks like that. in fact, i was not sorry she came, for there are but meagre pickings here, and she brought some of those apples. i was obliged to eat them, i was so hungry. it was against my principles, but i find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed.... she came curtained in boughs and bunches of leaves, and when i asked her what she meant by such nonsense, and snatched them away and threw them down, she tittered and blushed. i had never seen a person titter and blush before, and to me it seemed unbecoming and idiotic. she said i would soon know how it was myself. this was correct. hungry as i was, i laid down the apple half eaten--certainly the best one i ever saw, considering the lateness of the season--and arrayed myself in the discarded boughs and branches, and then spoke to her with some severity and ordered her to go and get some more and not make such a spectacle of herself. she did it, and after this we crept down to where the wild-beast battle had been, and collected some skins, and i made her patch together a couple of suits proper for public occasions. they are uncomfortable, it is true, but stylish, and that is the main point about clothes. ... i find she is a good deal of a companion. i see i should be lonesome and depressed without her, now that i have lost my property. another thing, she says it is ordered that we work for our living hereafter. she will be useful. i will superintend. ten days later she accuses me of being the cause of our disaster! she says, with apparent sincerity and truth, that the serpent assured her that the forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts. i said i was innocent, then, for i had not eaten any chestnuts. she said the serpent informed her that "chestnut" was a figurative term meaning an aged and mouldy joke. i turned pale at that, for i have made many jokes to pass the weary time, and some of them could have been of that sort, though i had honestly supposed that they were new when i made them. she asked me if i had made one just at the time of the catastrophe. i was obliged to admit that i had made one to myself, though not aloud. it was this. i was thinking about the falls, and i said to myself, "how wonderful it is to see that vast body of water tumble down there!" then in an instant a bright thought flashed into my head, and i let it fly, saying, "it would be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble up there!"--and i was just about to kill myself with laughing at it when all nature broke loose in war and death, and i had to flee for my life. "there," she said, with triumph, "that is just it; the serpent mentioned that very jest, and called it the first chestnut, and said it was coeval with the creation." alas, i am indeed to blame. would that i were not witty; oh, would that i had never had that radiant thought! next year we have named it cain. she caught it while i was up country trapping on the north shore of the erie; caught it in the timber a couple of miles from our dug-out--or it might have been four, she isn't certain which. it resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation. that is what she thinks, but this is an error, in my judgment. the difference in size warrants the conclusion that it is a different and new kind of animal--a fish, perhaps, though when i put it in the water to see, it sank, and she plunged in and snatched it out before there was opportunity for the experiment to determine the matter. i still think it is a fish, but she is indifferent about what it is, and will not let me have it to try. i do not understand this. the coming of the creature seems to have changed her whole nature and made her unreasonable about experiments. she thinks more of it than she does of any of the other animals, but is not able to explain why. her mind is disordered--everything shows it. sometimes she carries the fish in her arms half the night when it complains and wants to get to the water. at such times the water comes out of the places in her face that she looks out of, and she pats the fish on the back and makes soft sounds with her mouth to soothe it, and betrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways. i have never seen her do like this with any other fish, and it troubles me greatly. she used to carry the young tigers around so, and play with them, before we lost our property; but it was only play; she never took on about them like this when their dinner disagreed with them. sunday she doesn't work sundays, but lies around all tired out, and likes to have the fish wallow over her; and she makes fool noises to amuse it, and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes it laugh. i have not seen a fish before that could laugh. this makes me doubt.... i have come to like sunday myself. superintending all the week tires a body so. there ought to be more sundays. in the old days they were tough, but now they come handy. wednesday it isn't a fish. i cannot quite make out what it is. it makes curious, devilish noises when not satisfied, and says "goo-goo" when it is. it is not one of us, for it doesn't walk; it is not a bird, for it doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for it doesn't hop; it is not a snake, for it doesn't crawl; i feel sure it is not a fish, though i cannot get a chance to find out whether it can swim or not. it merely lies around, and mostly on its back, with its feet up. i have not seen any other animal do that before. i said i believed it was an enigma, but she only admired the word without understanding it. in my judgment it is either an enigma or some kind of a bug. if it dies, i will take it apart and see what its arrangements are. i never had a thing perplex me so. three months later the perplexity augments instead of diminishing. i sleep but little. it has ceased from lying around, and goes about on its four legs now. yet it differs from the other four-legged animals in that its front legs are unusually short, consequently this causes the main part of its person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and this is not attractive. it is built much as we are, but its method of travelling shows that it is not of our breed. the short front legs and long hind ones indicate that it is of the kangaroo family, but it is a marked variation of the species, since the true kangaroo hops, whereas this one never does. still, it is a curious and interesting variety, and has not been catalogued before. as i discovered it, i have felt justified in securing the credit of the discovery by attaching my name to it, and hence have called it kangaroorum adamiensis.... it must have been a young one when it came, for it has grown exceedingly since. it must be five times as big, now, as it was then, and when discontented is able to make from twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise it made at first. coercion does not modify this, but has the contrary effect. for this reason i discontinued the system. she reconciles it by persuasion, and by giving it things which she had previously told it she wouldn't give it. as already observed, i was not at home when it first came, and she told me she found it in the woods. it seems odd that it should be the only one, yet it must be so, for i have worn myself out these many weeks trying to find another one to add to my collection, and for this one to play with; for surely then it would be quieter, and we could tame it more easily. but i find none, nor any vestige of any; and strangest of all, no tracks. it has to live on the ground, it cannot help itself; therefore, how does it get about without leaving a track? i have set a dozen traps, but they do no good. i catch all small animals except that one; animals that merely go into the trap out of curiosity, i think, to see what the milk is there for. they never drink it. three months later the kangaroo still continues to grow, which is very strange and perplexing. i never knew one to be so long getting its growth. it has fur on its head now; not like kangaroo fur, but exactly like our hair, except that it is much finer and softer, and instead of being black is red. i am like to lose my mind over the capricious and harassing developments of this unclassifiable zoological freak. if i could catch another one--but that is hopeless; it is a new variety, and the only sample; this is plain. but i caught a true kangaroo and brought it in, thinking that this one, being lonesome, would rather have that for company than have no kin at all, or any animal it could feel a nearness to or get sympathy from in its forlorn condition here among strangers who do not know its ways or habits, or what to do to make it feel that it is among friends; but it was a mistake--it went into such fits at the sight of the kangaroo that i was convinced it had never seen one before. i pity the poor noisy little animal, but there is nothing i can do to make it happy. if i could tame it--but that is out of the question; the more i try, the worse i seem to make it. it grieves me to the heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow and passion. i wanted to let it go, but she wouldn't hear of it. that seemed cruel and not like her; and yet she may be right. it might be lonelier than ever; for since i cannot find another one, how could it? five months later it is not a kangaroo. no, for it supports itself by holding to her finger, and thus goes a few steps on its hind legs, and then falls down. it is probably some kind of a bear; and yet it has no tail--as yet--and no fur, except on its head. it still keeps on growing--that is a curious circumstance, for bears get their growth earlier than this. bears are dangerous--since our catastrophe--and i shall not be satisfied to have this one prowling about the place much longer without a muzzle on. i have offered to get her a kangaroo if she would let this one go, but it did no good--she is determined to run us into all sorts of foolish risks, i think. she was not like this before she lost her mind. a fortnight later i examined its mouth. there is no danger yet; it has only one tooth. it has no tail yet. it makes more noise now than it ever did before--and mainly at night. i have moved out. but i shall go over, mornings, to breakfast, and to see if it has more teeth. if it gets a mouthful of teeth, it will be time for it to go, tail or no tail, for a bear does not need a tail in order to be dangerous. four months later i have been off hunting and fishing a month, up in the region that she calls buffalo; i don't know why, unless it is because there are not any buffaloes there. meantime the bear has learned to paddle around all by itself on its hind legs, and says "poppa" and "momma." it is certainly a new species. this resemblance to words may be purely accidental, of course, and may have no purpose or meaning; but even in that case it is still extraordinary, and is a thing which no other bear can do. this imitation of speech, taken together with general absence of fur and entire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new kind of bear. the further study of it will be exceedingly interesting. meantime i will go off on a far expedition among the forests of the north and make an exhaustive search. there must certainly be another one somewhere, and this one will be less dangerous when it has company of its own species. i will go straightway; but i will muzzle this one first. three months later it has been a weary, weary hunt, yet i have had no success. in the mean time, without stirring from the home estate, she has caught another one! i never saw such luck. i might have hunted these woods a hundred years, i never should have run across that thing. next day i have been comparing the new one with the old one, and it is perfectly plain that they are the same breed. i was going to stuff one of them for my collection, but she is prejudiced against it for some reason or other; so i have relinquished the idea, though i think it is a mistake. it would be an irreparable loss to science if they should get away. the old one is tamer than it was, and can laugh and talk like the parrot, having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so much, and having the imitative faculty in a highly developed degree. i shall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot, and yet i ought not to be astonished, for it has already been everything else it could think of, since those first days when it was a fish. the new one is as ugly now as the old one was at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat complexion and the same singular head without any fur on it. she calls it abel. ten years later they are boys; we found it out long ago. it was their coming in that small, immature shape that puzzled us; we were not used to it. there are some girls now. abel is a good boy, but if cain had stayed a bear it would have improved him. after all these years, i see that i was mistaken about eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the garden with her than inside it without her. at first i thought she talked too much; but now i should be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life. blessed be the chestnut that brought us near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the sweetness of her spirit! the diary of a superfluous man and other stories by ivan turgenev _translated from the russian by constance garnett_ contents the diary of a superfluous man a tour in the forest yakov pasinkov andrei kolosov a correspondence the diary of a superfluous man village of sheep's springs, _march_ , --. the doctor has just left me. at last i have got at something definite! for all his cunning, he had to speak out at last. yes, i am soon, very soon, to die. the frozen rivers will break up, and with the last snow i shall, most likely, swim away ... whither? god knows! to the ocean too. well, well, since one must die, one may as well die in the spring. but isn't it absurd to begin a diary a fortnight, perhaps, before death? what does it matter? and by how much are fourteen days less than fourteen years, fourteen centuries? beside eternity, they say, all is nothingness--yes, but in that case eternity, too, is nothing. i see i am letting myself drop into metaphysics; that's a bad sign--am i not rather faint-hearted, perchance? i had better begin a description of some sort. it's damp and windy out of doors. i'm forbidden to go out. what can i write about, then? no decent man talks of his maladies; to write a novel is not in my line; reflections on elevated topics are beyond me; descriptions of the life going on around me could not even interest me; while i am weary of doing nothing, and too lazy to read. ah, i have it, i will write the story of all my life for myself. a first-rate idea! just before death it is a suitable thing to do, and can be of no harm to any one. i will begin. i was born thirty years ago, the son of fairly well-to-do landowners. my father had a passion for gambling; my mother was a woman of character ... a very virtuous woman. only, i have known no woman whose moral excellence was less productive of happiness. she was crushed beneath the weight of her own virtues, and was a source of misery to every one, from herself upwards. in all the fifty years of her life, she never once took rest, or sat with her hands in her lap; she was for ever fussing and bustling about like an ant, and to absolutely no good purpose, which cannot be said of the ant. the worm of restlessness fretted her night and day. only once i saw her perfectly tranquil, and that was the day after her death, in her coffin. looking at her, it positively seemed to me that her face wore an expression of subdued amazement; with the half-open lips, the sunken cheeks, and meekly-staring eyes, it seemed expressing, all over, the words, 'how good to be at rest!' yes, it is good, good to be rid, at last, of the wearing sense of life, of the persistent, restless consciousness of existence! but that's neither here nor there. i was brought up badly and not happily. my father and mother both loved me; but that made things no better for me. my father was not, even in his own house, of the slightest authority or consequence, being a man openly abandoned to a shameful and ruinous vice; he was conscious of his degradation, and not having the strength of will to give up his darling passion, he tried at least, by his invariably amiable and humble demeanour and his unswerving submissiveness, to win the condescending consideration of his exemplary wife. my mother certainly did bear her trial with the superb and majestic long-suffering of virtue, in which there is so much of egoistic pride. she never reproached my father for anything, gave him her last penny, and paid his debts without a word. he exalted her as a paragon to her face and behind her back, but did not like to be at home, and caressed me by stealth, as though he were afraid of contaminating me by his presence. but at such times his distorted features were full of such kindness, the nervous grin on his lips was replaced by such a touching smile, and his brown eyes, encircled by fine wrinkles, shone with such love, that i could not help pressing my cheek to his, which was wet and warm with tears. i wiped away those tears with my handkerchief, and they flowed again without effort, like water from a brimming glass. i fell to crying, too, and he comforted me, stroking my back and kissing me all over my face with his quivering lips. even now, more than twenty years after his death, when i think of my poor father, dumb sobs rise into my throat, and my heart beats as hotly and bitterly and aches with as poignant a pity as if it had long to go on beating, as if there were anything to be sorry for! my mother's behaviour to me, on the contrary, was always the same, kind, but cold. in children's books one often comes across such mothers, sermonising and just. she loved me, but i did not love her. yes! i fought shy of my virtuous mother, and passionately loved my vicious father. but enough for to-day. it's a beginning, and as for the end, whatever it may be, i needn't trouble my head about it. that's for my illness to see to. _march_ . to-day it is marvellous weather. warm, bright; the sunshine frolicking gaily on the melting snow; everything shining, steaming, dripping; the sparrows chattering like mad things about the drenched, dark hedges. sweetly and terribly, too, the moist air frets my sick chest. spring, spring is coming! i sit at the window and look across the river into the open country. o nature! nature! i love thee so, but i came forth from thy womb good for nothing--not fit even for life. there goes a cock-sparrow, hopping along with outspread wings; he chirrups, and every note, every ruffled feather on his little body, is breathing with health and strength.... what follows from that? nothing. he is well and has a right to chirrup and ruffle his wings; but i am ill and must die--that's all. it's not worth while to say more about it. and tearful invocations to nature are mortally absurd. let us get back to my story. i was brought up, as i have said, very badly and not happily. i had no brothers or sisters. i was educated at home. and, indeed, what would my mother have had to occupy her, if i had been sent to a boarding-school or a government college? that's what children are for--that their parents may not be bored. we lived for the most part in the country, and sometimes went to moscow. i had tutors and teachers, as a matter of course; one, in particular, has remained in my memory, a dried-up, tearful german, rickmann, an exceptionally mournful creature, cruelly maltreated by destiny, and fruitlessly consumed by an intense pining for his far-off fatherland. sometimes, near the stove, in the fearful stuffiness of the close ante-room, full of the sour smell of stale kvas, my unshaved man-nurse, vassily, nicknamed goose, would sit, playing cards with the coachman, potap, in a new sheepskin, white as foam, and superb tarred boots, while in the next room rickmann would sing, behind the partition-- herz, mein herz, warum so traurig? was bekümmert dich so sehr? 'sist ja schön im fremden lande-- herz, mein herz--was willst du mehr?' after my father's death we moved to moscow for good. i was twelve years old. my father died in the night from a stroke. i shall never forget that night. i was sleeping soundly, as children generally do; but i remember, even in my sleep, i was aware of a heavy gasping noise at regular intervals. suddenly i felt some one taking hold of my shoulder and poking me. i opened my eyes and saw my nurse. 'what is it?' 'come along, come along, alexey mihalitch is dying.' ... i was out of bed and away like a mad thing into his bedroom. i looked: my father was lying with his head thrown back, all red, and gasping fearfully. the servants were crowding round the door with terrified faces; in the hall some one was asking in a thick voice: 'have they sent for the doctor?' in the yard outside, a horse was being led from the stable, the gates were creaking, a tallow candle was burning in the room on the floor, my mother was there, terribly upset, but not oblivious of the proprieties, nor of her own dignity. i flung myself on my father's bosom, and hugged him, faltering: 'papa, papa...' he lay motionless, screwing up his eyes in a strange way. i looked into his face--an unendurable horror caught my breath; i shrieked with terror, like a roughly captured bird--they picked me up and carried me away. only the day before, as though aware his death was at hand, he had caressed me so passionately and despondently. a sleepy, unkempt doctor, smelling strongly of spirits, was brought. my father died under his lancet, and the next day, utterly stupefied by grief, i stood with a candle in my hands before a table, on which lay the dead man, and listened senselessly to the bass sing-song of the deacon, interrupted from time to time by the weak voice of the priest. the tears kept streaming over my cheeks, my lips, my collar, my shirt-front. i was dissolved in tears; i watched persistently, i watched intently, my father's rigid face, as though i expected something of him; while my mother slowly bowed down to the ground, slowly rose again, and pressed her fingers firmly to her forehead, her shoulders, and her chest, as she crossed herself. i had not a single idea in my head; i was utterly numb, but i felt something terrible was happening to me.... death looked me in the face that day and took note of me. we moved to moscow after my father's death for a very simple cause: all our estate was sold up by auction for debts--that is, absolutely all, except one little village, the one in which i am at this moment living out my magnificent existence. i must admit that, in spite of my youth at the time, i grieved over the sale of our home, or rather, in reality, i grieved over our garden. almost my only bright memories are associated with our garden. it was there that one mild spring evening i buried my best friend, an old bob-tailed, crook-pawed dog, trix. it was there that, hidden in the long grass, i used to eat stolen apples--sweet, red, novgorod apples they were. there, too, i saw for the first time, among the ripe raspberry bushes, the housemaid klavdia, who, in spite of her turned-up nose and habit of giggling in her kerchief, aroused such a tender passion in me that i could hardly breathe, and stood faint and tongue-tied in her presence; and once at easter, when it came to her turn to kiss my seignorial hand, i almost flung myself at her feet to kiss her down-trodden goat-skin slippers. my god! can all that be twenty years ago? it seems not long ago that i used to ride on my shaggy chestnut pony along the old fence of our garden, and, standing up in the stirrups, used to pick the two-coloured poplar leaves. while a man is living he is not conscious of his own life; it becomes audible to him, like a sound, after the lapse of time. oh, my garden, oh, the tangled paths by the tiny pond! oh, the little sandy spot below the tumbledown dike, where i used to catch gudgeons! and you tall birch-trees, with long hanging branches, from beyond which came floating a peasant's mournful song, broken by the uneven jolting of the cart, i send you my last farewell!... on parting with life, to you alone i stretch out my hands. would i might once more inhale the fresh, bitter fragrance of the wormwood, the sweet scent of the mown buckwheat in the fields of my native place! would i might once more hear far away the modest tinkle of the cracked bell of our parish church; once more lie in the cool shade under the oak sapling on the slope of the familiar ravine; once more watch the moving track of the wind, flitting, a dark wave over the golden grass of our meadow!... ah, what's the good of all this? but i can't go on to-day. enough till to-morrow. _march_ . to-day it's cold and overcast again. such weather is a great deal more suitable. it's more in harmony with my task. yesterday, quite inappropriately, stirred up a multitude of useless emotions and memories within me. this shall not occur again. sentimental out-breaks are like liquorice; when first you suck it, it's not bad, but afterwards it leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth. i will set to work simply and serenely to tell the story of my life. and so, we moved to moscow.... but it occurs to me, is it really worth while to tell the story of my life? no, it certainly is not.... my life has not been different in any respect from the lives of numbers of other people. the parental home, the university, the government service in the lower grades, retirement, a little circle of friends, decent poverty, modest pleasures, unambitious pursuits, moderate desires--kindly tell me, is that new to any one? and so i will not tell the story of my life, especially as i am writing for my own pleasure; and if my past does not afford even me any sensation of great pleasure or great pain, it must be that there is nothing in it deserving of attention. i had better try to describe my own character to myself. what manner of man am i?... it may be observed that no one asks me that question--admitted. but there, i'm dying, by jove!--i'm dying, and at the point of death i really think one may be excused a desire to find out what sort of a queer fish one really was after all. thinking over this important question, and having, moreover, no need whatever to be too bitter in my expressions in regard to myself, as people are apt to be who have a strong conviction of their valuable qualities, i must admit one thing. i was a man, or perhaps i should say a fish, utterly superfluous in this world. and that i propose to show to-morrow, as i keep coughing to-day like an old sheep, and my nurse, terentyevna, gives me no peace: 'lie down, my good sir,' she says, 'and drink a little tea.'... i know why she keeps on at me: she wants some tea herself. well! she's welcome! why not let the poor old woman extract the utmost benefit she can from her master at the last ... as long as there is still the chance? _march_ . winter again. the snow is falling in flakes. superfluous, superfluous.... that's a capital word i have hit on. the more deeply i probe into myself, the more intently i review all my past life, the more i am convinced of the strict truth of this expression. superfluous--that's just it. to other people that term is not applicable.... people are bad, or good, clever, stupid, pleasant, and disagreeable; but superfluous ... no. understand me, though: the universe could get on without those people too... no doubt; but uselessness is not their prime characteristic, their most distinctive attribute, and when you speak of them, the word 'superfluous' is not the first to rise to your lips. but i ... there's nothing else one can say about me; i'm superfluous and nothing more. a supernumerary, and that's all. nature, apparently, did not reckon on my appearance, and consequently treated me as an unexpected and uninvited guest. a facetious gentleman, a great devotee of preference, said very happily about me that i was the forfeit my mother had paid at the game of life. i am speaking about myself calmly now, without any bitterness.... it's all over and done with! throughout my whole life i was constantly finding my place taken, perhaps because i did not look for my place where i should have done. i was apprehensive, reserved, and irritable, like all sickly people. moreover, probably owing to excessive self-consciousness, perhaps as the result of the generally unfortunate cast of my personality, there existed between my thoughts and feelings, and the expression of those feelings and thoughts, a sort of inexplicable, irrational, and utterly insuperable barrier; and whenever i made up my mind to overcome this obstacle by force, to break down this barrier, my gestures, the expression of my face, my whole being, took on an appearance of painful constraint. i not only seemed, i positively became unnatural and affected. i was conscious of this myself, and hastened to shrink back into myself. then a terrible commotion was set up within me. i analysed myself to the last thread, compared myself with others, recalled the slightest glances, smiles, words of the people to whom i had tried to open myself out, put the worst construction on everything, laughed vindictively at my own pretensions to 'be like every one else,'--and suddenly, in the midst of my laughter, collapsed utterly into gloom, sank into absurd dejection, and then began again as before--went round and round, in fact, like a squirrel on its wheel. whole days were spent in this harassing, fruitless exercise. well now, tell me, if you please, to whom and for what is such a man of use? why did this happen to me? what was the reason of this trivial fretting at myself?--who knows? who can tell? i remember i was driving once from moscow in the diligence. it was a good road, but the driver, though he had four horses harnessed abreast, hitched on another, alongside of them. such an unfortunate, utterly useless, fifth horse--fastened somehow on to the front of the shaft by a short stout cord, which mercilessly cuts his shoulder, forces him to go with the most unnatural action, and gives his whole body the shape of a comma--always arouses my deepest pity. i remarked to the driver that i thought we might on this occasion have got on without the fifth horse.... he was silent a moment, shook his head, lashed the horse a dozen times across his thin back and under his distended belly, and with a grin responded: 'ay, to be sure; why do we drag him along with us? what the devil's he for?' and here am i too dragged along. but, thank goodness, the station is not far off. superfluous.... i promised to show the justice of my opinion, and i will carry out my promise. i don't think it necessary to mention the thousand trifles, everyday incidents and events, which would, however, in the eyes of any thinking man, serve as irrefutable evidence in my support--i mean, in support of my contention. i had better begin straight away with one rather important incident, after which probably there will be no doubt left of the accuracy of the term superfluous. i repeat: i do not intend to indulge in minute details, but i cannot pass over in silence one rather serious and significant fact, that is, the strange behaviour of my friends (i too used to have friends) whenever i met them, or even called on them. they used to seem ill at ease; as they came to meet me, they would give a not quite natural smile, look, not into my eyes nor at my feet, as some people do, but rather at my cheeks, articulate hurriedly, 'ah! how are you, tchulkaturin!' (such is the surname fate has burdened me with) or 'ah! here's tchulkaturin!' turn away at once and positively remain stockstill for a little while after, as though trying to recollect something. i used to notice all this, as i am not devoid of penetration and the faculty of observation; on the whole i am not a fool; i sometimes even have ideas come into my head that are amusing, not absolutely commonplace. but as i am a superfluous man with a padlock on my inner self, it is very painful for me to express my idea, the more so as i know beforehand that i shall express it badly. it positively sometimes strikes me as extraordinary the way people manage to talk, and so simply and freely.... it's marvellous, really, when you think of it. though, to tell the truth, i too, in spite of my padlock, sometimes have an itch to talk. but i did actually utter words only in my youth; in riper years i almost always pulled myself up. i would murmur to myself: 'come, we'd better hold our tongue.' and i was still. we are all good hands at being silent; our women especially are great in that line. many an exalted russian young lady keeps silent so strenuously that the spectacle is calculated to produce a faint shudder and cold sweat even in any one prepared to face it. but that's not the point, and it's not for me to criticise others. i proceed to my promised narrative. a few years back, owing to a combination of circumstances, very insignificant in themselves, but very important for me, it was my lot to spend six months in the district town o----. this town is all built on a slope, and very uncomfortably built, too. there are reckoned to be about eight hundred inhabitants in it, of exceptional poverty; the houses are hardly worthy of the name; in the chief street, by way of an apology for a pavement, there are here and there some huge white slabs of rough-hewn limestone, in consequence of which even carts drive round it instead of through it. in the very middle of an astoundingly dirty square rises a diminutive yellowish edifice with black holes in it, and in these holes sit men in big caps making a pretence of buying and selling. in this place there is an extraordinarily high striped post sticking up into the air, and near the post, in the interests of public order, by command of the authorities, there is kept a cartload of yellow hay, and one government hen struts to and fro. in short, existence in the town of o---- is truly delightful. during the first days of my stay in this town, i almost went out of my mind with boredom. i ought to say of myself that, though i am, no doubt, a superfluous man, i am not so of my own seeking; i'm morbid myself, but i can't bear anything morbid.... i'm not even averse to happiness-- indeed, i've tried to approach it right and left.... and so it is no wonder that i too can be bored like any other mortal. i was staying in the town of o---- on official business. terentyevna has certainly sworn to make an end of me. here's a specimen of our conversation:-- terentyevna. oh--oh, my good sir! what are you for ever writing for? it's bad for you, keeping all on writing. i. but i'm dull, terentyevna. she. oh, you take a cup of tea now and lie down. by god's mercy you'll get in a sweat and maybe doze a bit. i. but i'm not sleepy. she. ah, sir! why do you talk so? lord have mercy on you! come, lie down, lie down; it's better for you. i. i shall die any way, terentyevna! she. lord bless us and save us!... well, do you want a little tea? i. i shan't live through the week, terentyevna! she. eh, eh! good sir, why do you talk so?... well, i'll go and heat the samovar. oh, decrepit, yellow, toothless creature! am i really, even in your eyes, not a man? _march . sharp frost_. on the very day of my arrival in the town of o----, the official business, above referred to, brought me into contact with a certain kirilla matveitch ozhogin, one of the chief functionaries of the district; but i became intimate, or, as it is called, 'friends' with him a fortnight later. his house was in the principal street, and was distinguished from all the others by its size, its painted roof, and the lions on its gates, lions of that species extraordinarily resembling unsuccessful dogs, whose natural home is moscow. from those lions alone, one might safely conclude that ozhogin was a man of property. and so it was; he was the owner of four hundred peasants; he entertained in his house all the best society of the town of o----, and had a reputation for hospitality. at his door was seen the mayor with his wide chestnut-coloured droshky and pair--an exceptionally bulky man, who seemed as though cut out of material that had been laid by for a long time. the other officials, too, used to drive to his receptions: the attorney, a yellowish, spiteful creature; the land surveyor, a wit--of german extraction, with a tartar face; the inspector of means of communication--a soft soul, who sang songs, but a scandalmonger; a former marshal of the district--a gentleman with dyed hair, crumpled shirt front, and tight trousers, and that lofty expression of face so characteristic of men who have stood on trial. there used to come also two landowners, inseparable friends, both no longer young and indeed a little the worse for wear, of whom the younger was continually crushing the elder and putting him to silence with one and the same reproach. 'don't you talk, sergei sergeitch! what have you to say? why, you spell the word cork with two _k_'s in it.... yes, gentlemen,' he would go on, with all the fire of conviction, turning to the bystanders, 'sergei sergeitch spells it not cork, but kork.' and every one present would laugh, though probably not one of them was conspicuous for special accuracy in orthography, while the luckless sergei sergeitch held his tongue, and with a faint smile bowed his head. but i am forgetting that my hours are numbered, and am letting myself go into too minute descriptions. and so, without further beating about the bush,--ozhogin was married, he had a daughter, elizaveta kirillovna, and i fell in love with this daughter. ozhogin himself was a commonplace person, neither good-looking nor bad-looking; his wife resembled an aged chicken; but their daughter had not taken after her parents. she was very pretty and of a bright and gentle disposition. her clear grey eyes looked out kindly and directly from under childishly arched brows; she was almost always smiling, and she laughed too, pretty often. her fresh voice had a very pleasant ring; she moved freely, rapidly, and blushed gaily. she did not dress very stylishly, only plain dresses suited her. i did not make friends quickly as a rule, and if i were at ease with any one from the first--which, however, scarcely ever occurred--it said, i must own, a great deal for my new acquaintance. i did not know at all how to behave with women, and in their presence i either scowled and put on a morose air, or grinned in the most idiotic way, and in my embarrassment turned my tongue round and round in my mouth. with elizaveta kirillovna, on the contrary, i felt at home from the first moment. it happened in this way. i called one day at ozhogin's before dinner, asked, 'at home?' was told, 'the master's at home, dressing; please to walk into the drawing-room.' i went into the drawing-room; i beheld standing at the window, with her back to me, a girl in a white gown, with a cage in her hands. i was, as my way was, somewhat taken aback; however, i showed no sign of it, but merely coughed, for good manners. the girl turned round quickly, so quickly that her curls gave her a slap in the face, saw me, bowed, and with a smile showed me a little box half full of seeds. 'you don't mind?' i, of course, as is the usual practice in such cases, first bowed my head, and at the same time rapidly crooked my knees, and straightened them out again (as though some one had given me a blow from behind in the legs, a sure sign of good breeding and pleasant, easy manners), and then smiled, raised my hand, and softly and carefully brandished it twice in the air. the girl at once turned away from me, took a little piece of board out of the cage, began vigorously scraping it with a knife, and suddenly, without changing her attitude, uttered the following words: 'this is papa's parrot.... are you fond of parrots?' 'i prefer siskins,' i answered, not without some effort. 'i like siskins, too; but look at him, isn't he pretty? look, he's not afraid.' (what surprised me was that i was not afraid.) 'come closer. his name's popka.' i went up, and bent down. 'isn't he really sweet?' she turned her face to me; but we were standing so close together, that she had to throw her head back to get a look at me with her clear eyes. i gazed at her; her rosy young face was smiling all over in such a friendly way that i smiled too, and almost laughed aloud with delight. the door opened; mr. ozhogin came in. i promptly went up to him, and began talking to him very unconstrainedly. i don't know how it was, but i stayed to dinner, and spent the whole evening with them; and next day the ozhogins' footman, an elongated, dull-eyed person, smiled upon me as a friend of the family when he helped me off with my overcoat. to find a haven of refuge, to build oneself even a temporary nest, to feel the comfort of daily intercourse and habits, was a happiness i, a superfluous man, with no family associations, had never before experienced. if anything about me had had any resemblance to a flower, and if the comparison were not so hackneyed, i would venture to say that my soul blossomed from that day. everything within me and about me was suddenly transformed! my whole life was lighted up by love, the whole of it, down to the paltriest details, like a dark, deserted room when a light has been brought into it. i went to bed, and got up, dressed, ate my breakfast, and smoked my pipe--differently from before. i positively skipped along as i walked, as though wings were suddenly sprouting from my shoulders. i was not for an instant, i remember, in uncertainty with regard to the feeling elizaveta kirillovna inspired in me. i fell passionately in love with her from the first day, and from the first day i knew i was in love. during the course of three weeks i saw her every day. those three weeks were the happiest time in my life; but the recollection of them is painful to me. i can't think of them alone; i cannot help dwelling on what followed after them, and the intensest bitterness slowly takes possession of my softened heart. when a man is very happy, his brain, as is well known, is not very active. a calm and delicious sensation, the sensation of satisfaction, pervades his whole being; he is swallowed up by it; the consciousness of personal life vanishes in him--he is in beatitude, as badly educated poets say. but when, at last, this 'enchantment' is over, a man is sometimes vexed and sorry that, in the midst of his bliss, he observed himself so little; that he did not, by reflection, by recollection, redouble and prolong his feelings ... as though the 'beatific' man had time, and it were worth his while to reflect on his sensations! the happy man is what the fly is in the sunshine. and so it is that, when i recall those three weeks, it is almost impossible for me to retain in my mind any exact and definite impression, all the more so as during that time nothing very remarkable took place between us.... those twenty days are present to my imagination as something warm, and young, and fragrant, a sort of streak of light in my dingy, greyish life. my memory becomes all at once remorselessly clear and trustworthy, only from the instant when, to use the phrase of badly-educated writers, the blows of destiny began to fall upon me. yes, those three weeks.... not but what they have left some images in my mind. sometimes when it happens to me to brood a long while on that time, some memories suddenly float up out of the darkness of the past--like stars which suddenly come out against the evening sky to meet the eyes straining to catch sight of them. one country walk in a wood has remained particularly distinct in my memory. there were four of us, old madame ozhogin, liza, i, and a certain bizmyonkov, a petty official of the town of o----, a light-haired, good-natured, and harmless person. i shall have more to say of him later. mr. ozhogin had stayed at home; he had a headache, from sleeping too long. the day was exquisite; warm and soft. i must observe that pleasure-gardens and picnic-parties are not to the taste of the average russian. in district towns, in the so-called public gardens, you never meet a living soul at any time of the year; at the most, some old woman sits sighing and moaning on a green garden seat, broiling in the sun, not far from a sickly tree--and that, only if there is no greasy little bench in the gateway near. but if there happens to be a scraggy birchwood in the neighbourhood of the town, tradespeople and even officials gladly make excursions thither on sundays and holidays, with samovars, pies, and melons; set all this abundance on the dusty grass, close by the road, sit round, and eat and drink tea in the sweat of their brows till evening. just such a wood there was at that time a mile and a half from the town of o---. we repaired there after dinner, duly drank our fill of tea, and then all four began to wander about the wood. bizmyonkov walked with madame ozhogin on his arm, i with liza on mine. the day was already drawing to evening. i was at that time in the very fire of first love (not more than a fortnight had passed since our first meeting), in that condition of passionate and concentrated adoration, when your whole soul innocently and unconsciously follows every movement of the beloved being, when you can never have enough of her presence, listen enough to her voice, when you smile with the look of a child convalescent after sickness, and a man of the smallest experience cannot fail at the first glance to recognise a hundred yards off what is the matter with you. till that day i had never happened to have liza on my arm. we walked side by side, stepping slowly over the green grass. a light breeze, as it were, flitted about us between the white stems of the birches, every now and then flapping the ribbon of her hat into my face. i incessantly followed her eyes, until at last she turned gaily to me and we both smiled at each other. the birds were chirping approvingly above us, the blue sky peeped caressingly at us through the delicate foliage. my head was going round with excess of bliss. i hasten to remark, liza was not a bit in love with me. she liked me; she was never shy with any one, but it was not reserved for me to trouble her childlike peace of mind. she walked arm in arm with me, as she would with a brother. she was seventeen then.... and meanwhile, that very evening, before my eyes, there began that soft inward ferment which precedes the metamorphosis of the child into the woman.... i was witness of that transformation of the whole being, that guileless bewilderment, that agitated dreaminess; i was the first to detect the sudden softness of the glance, the sudden ring in the voice--and oh, fool! oh, superfluous man! for a whole week i had the face to imagine that i, i was the cause of this transformation! this was how it happened. we walked rather a long while, till evening, and talked little. i was silent, like all inexperienced lovers, and she, probably, had nothing to say to me. but she seemed to be pondering over something, and shook her head in a peculiar way, as she pensively nibbled a leaf she had picked. sometimes she started walking ahead, so resolutely...then all at once stopped, waited for me, and looked round with lifted eyebrows and a vague smile. on the previous evening we had read together. _the prisoner of the caucasus_. with what eagerness she had listened to me, her face propped in both hands, and her bosom pressed against the table! i began to speak of our yesterday's reading; she flushed, asked me whether i had given the parrot any hemp-seed before starting, began humming some little song aloud, and all at once was silent again. the copse ended on one side in a rather high and abrupt precipice; below coursed a winding stream, and beyond it, over an immense expanse, stretched the boundless prairies, rising like waves, spreading wide like a table-cloth, and broken here and there by ravines. liza and i were the first to come out at the edge of the wood; bizmyonkov and the elder lady were behind. we came out, stood still, and involuntarily we both half shut our eyes; directly facing us, across a lurid mist, the vast, purple sun was setting. half the sky was flushed and glowing; red rays fell slanting on the meadows, casting a crimson reflection even on the side of the ravines in shadow, lying in gleams of fire on the stream, where it was not hidden under the overhanging bushes, and, as it were, leaning on the bosom of the precipice and the copse. we stood, bathed in the blazing brilliance. i am not capable of describing all the impassioned solemnity of this scene. they say that by a blind man the colour red is imagined as the sound of a trumpet. i don't know how far this comparison is correct, but really there was something of a challenge in this glowing gold of the evening air, in the crimson flush on sky and earth. i uttered a cry of rapture and at once turned to liza. she was looking straight at the sun. i remember the sunset glow was reflected in little points of fire in her eyes. she was overwhelmed, deeply moved. she made no response to my exclamation; for a long while she stood, not stirring, with drooping head.... i held out my hand to her; she turned away from me, and suddenly burst into tears. i looked at her with secret, almost delighted amazement.... the voice of bizmyonkov was heard a couple of yards off. liza quickly wiped her tears and looked with a faltering smile at me. the elder lady came out of the copse leaning on the arm of her flaxen-headed escort; they, in their turn, admired the view. the old lady addressed some question to liza, and i could not help shuddering, i remember, when her daughter's broken voice, like cracked glass, sounded in reply. meanwhile the sun had set, and the afterglow began to fade. we turned back. again i took liza's arm in mine. it was still light in the wood, and i could clearly distinguish her features. she was confused, and did not raise her eyes. the flush that overspread her face did not vanish; it was as though she were still standing in the rays of the setting sun.... her hand scarcely touched my arm. for a long while i could not frame a sentence; my heart was beating so violently. through the trees there was a glimpse of the carriage in the distance; the coachman was coming at a walking pace to meet us over the soft sand of the road. 'lizaveta kirillovna,' i brought out at last, 'what did you cry for?' 'i don't know,' she answered, after a short silence. she looked at me with her soft eyes still wet with tears--her look struck me as changed, and she was silent again. 'you are very fond, i see, of nature,' i pursued. that was not at all what i meant to say, and the last words my tongue scarcely faltered out to the end. she shook her head. i could not utter another word.... i was waiting for something ... not an avowal--how was that possible? i waited for a confiding glance, a question.... but liza looked at the ground, and kept silent. i repeated once more in a whisper: 'why was it?' and received no reply. she had grown, i saw that, ill at ease, almost ashamed. a quarter of an hour later we were sitting in the carriage driving to the town. the horses flew along at an even trot; we were rapidly whirled along through the darkening, damp air. i suddenly began talking, more than once addressing first bizmyonkov, and then madame ozhogin. i did not look at liza, but i could see that from her corner in the carriage her eyes did not once rest on me. at home she roused herself, but would not read with me, and soon went off to bed. a turning-point, that turning-point i have spoken of, had been reached by her. she had ceased to be a little girl, she too had begun ... like me ... to wait for something. she had not long to wait. but that night i went home to my lodgings in a state of perfect ecstasy. the vague half presentiment, half suspicion, which had been arising within me, had vanished. the sudden constraint in liza's manner towards me i ascribed to maidenly bashfulness, timidity.... hadn't i read a thousand times over in many books that the first appearance of love always agitates and alarms a young girl? i felt supremely happy, and was already making all sorts of plans in my head. if some one had whispered in my ear then: 'you're raving, my dear chap! that's not a bit what's in store for you. what's in store for you is to die all alone, in a wretched little cottage, amid the insufferable grumbling of an old hag who will await your death with impatience to sell your boots for a few coppers...'! yes, one can't help saying with the russian philosopher--'how's one to know what one doesn't know?' enough for to-day. _march . a white winter day._ i have read over what i wrote yesterday, and was all but tearing up the whole manuscript. i think my story's too spun out and too sentimental. however, as the rest of my recollections of that time presents nothing of a pleasurable character, except that peculiar sort of consolation which lermontov had in view when he said there is pleasure and pain in irritating the sores of old wounds, why not indulge oneself? but one must know where to draw the line. and so i will continue without any sort of sentimentality. during the whole of the week after the country excursion, my position was in reality in no way improved, though the change in liza became more noticeable every day. i interpreted this change, as i have said before, in the most favourable way for me.... the misfortune of solitary and timid people--who are timid from self-consciousness--is just that, though they have eyes and indeed open them wide, they see nothing, or see everything in a false light, as though through coloured spectacles. their own ideas and speculations trip them up at every step. at the commencement of our acquaintance, liza behaved confidingly and freely with me, like a child; perhaps there may even have been in her attitude to me something more than mere childish liking.... but after this strange, almost instantaneous change had taken place in her, after a period of brief perplexity, she felt constrained in my presence; she unconsciously turned away from me, and was at the same time melancholy and dreamy.... she was waiting ... for what? she did not know ... while i ... i, as i have said above, was delighted at this change.... yes, by god, i was ready to expire, as they say, with rapture. though i am prepared to allow that any one else in my place might have been deceived.... who is free from vanity? i need not say that all this was only clear to me in the course of time, when i had to lower my clipped and at no time over-powerful wings. the misunderstanding that had arisen between liza and me lasted a whole week--and there is nothing surprising in that: it has been my lot to be a witness of misunderstandings that have lasted for years and years. who was it said, by the way, that truth alone is powerful? falsehood is just as living as truth, if not more so. to be sure, i recollect that even during that week i felt from time to time an uneasy gnawing astir within me ... but solitary people like me, i say again, are as incapable of understanding what is going on within them as what is taking place before their eyes. and, besides, is love a natural feeling? is it natural for man to love? love is a sickness; and for sickness there is no law. granting that there was at times an unpleasant pang in my heart; well, everything inside me was turned upside down. and how is one to know in such circumstances, what is all right and what is all wrong? and what is the cause, and what the significance, of each separate symptom? but, be that as it may, all these misconceptions, presentiments, and hopes were shattered in the following manner. one day--it was in the morning about twelve o'clock--i had hardly entered mr. ozhogin's hall, when i heard an unfamiliar, mellow voice in the drawing-room, the door opened, and a tall and slim man of five-and-twenty appeared in the doorway, escorted by the master of the house. he rapidly put on a military overcoat which lay on the slab, and took cordial leave of kirilla matveitch. as he brushed past me, he carelessly touched his foraging cap, and vanished with a clink of his spurs. 'who is that?' i asked ozhogin. 'prince n., 'the latter responded, with a preoccupied face; 'sent from petersburg to collect recruits. but where are the servants?' he went on in a tone of annoyance; 'no one handed him his coat.' we went into the drawing-room. 'has he been here long?' i inquired. 'arrived yesterday evening, i'm told. i offered him a room here, but he refused. he seems a very nice fellow, though.' 'has he been long with you?' 'about an hour. he asked me to introduce him to olimpiada nikitishna.' 'and did you introduce him?' 'of course.' 'and lizaveta kirillovna, too, did he ...' 'he made her acquaintance, too, of course.' i was silent for a space. 'has he come here for long, do you know?' 'yes, i believe he has to be here for a fortnight.' and kirilla matveitch hurried away to dress. i walked several times up and down the drawing-room. i don't recollect that prince n.'s arrival made any special impression on me at the time, except that feeling of hostility which usually possesses us on the appearance of any new person in our domestic circle. possibly there was mingled with this feeling something too of the nature of envy--of a shy and obscure person from moscow towards a brilliant officer from petersburg. 'the prince,' i mused, 'is an upstart from the capital; he'll look down upon us....' i had not seen him for more than an instant, but i had had time to perceive that he was good-looking, clever, and at his ease. after pacing the room for some time, i stopped at last before a looking-glass, pulled a comb out of my pocket, gave a picturesque carelessness to my hair, and, as sometimes happens, became suddenly absorbed in the contemplation of my own face. i remember my attention centred anxiously about my nose; the soft and undefined outlines of that feature afforded me no great satisfaction, when suddenly in the dark depths of the sloping mirror, which reflected almost the whole room, the door opened, and the slender figure of liza appeared. i don't know why i did not stir, and kept the same expression on my face. liza craned her head forward, looked intently at me, and raising her eyebrows, biting her lips, and holding her breath as any one does who is glad at not being noticed, she cautiously drew back and stealthily drew the door to after her. the door creaked slightly. liza started and stood rooted to the spot... i still kept from stirring ... she pulled the handle again and vanished. there was no possibility of doubt: the expression of liza's face at the sight of my figure, that expression in which nothing could be detected except a desire to get away again successfully, to escape a disagreeable interview, the quick flash of delight i had time to catch in her eyes when she fancied she really had managed to creep away unnoticed--it all spoke too clearly; that girl did not love me. for a long, long while i could not take my eyes off that motionless, dumb door, which was once more a patch of white in the looking-glass. i tried to smile at my own long face--dropped my head, went home again, and flung myself on the sofa. i felt extraordinarily heavy at heart, so much so that i could not cry ... and, besides, what was there to cry about...? 'is it possible?' i repeated incessantly, lying, as though i were murdered, on my back with my hands folded on my breast--'is it possible?'...don't you think that's rather good, that 'is it possible?' _march . thaw._ when, next day, after long hesitation and with a low sinking at my heart, i went into the ozhogins' familiar drawing-room, i was no longer the same man as they had known during the last three weeks. all my old peculiarities, which i had begun to get over, under the influence of a new feeling, reappeared and took possession of me, like proprietors returning to their house. people of my sort are usually guided, not so much by positive facts, as by their own impressions: i, who no longer ago than the day before had been dreaming of the 'raptures of love returned,' was that day no less convinced of my 'unhappiness,' and was absolutely despairing, though i was not myself able to find any rational ground for my despair. i could not as yet be jealous of prince n., and whatever his qualities might be, his mere arrival was not sufficient to extinguish liza's good-will towards me at once.... but stay, was there any good-will on her part? i recalled the past. 'what of the walk in the wood?' i asked myself. 'what of the expression of her face in the glass?' 'but,' i went on, 'the walk in the wood, i think ... fie on me! my god, what a wretched creature i am!' i said at last, out loud. of such sort were the unphrased, incomplete thoughts that went round and round a thousand times over in a monotonous whirl in my head. i repeat, i went back to the ozhogins' the same hypersensitive, suspicious, constrained creature i had been from my childhood up.... i found the whole family in the drawing-room; bizmyonkov was sitting there, too, in a corner. every one seemed in high good-humour; ozhogin, in particular, positively beamed, and his first word was to tell me that prince n. had spent the whole of the previous evening with them. liza gave me a tranquil greeting. 'oh,' said i to myself; 'now i understand why you're in such spirits.' i must own the prince's second visit puzzled me. i had not anticipated it. as a rule fellows like me anticipate everything in the world, except what is bound to occur in the natural order of things; i sulked and put on the air of an injured but magnanimous person; i tried to punish liza by showing my displeasure, from which one must conclude i was not yet completely desperate after all. they do say that in some cases when one is really loved, it's positively of use to torment the adored one; but in my position it was indescribably stupid. liza, in the most innocent way, paid no attention to me. no one but madame ozhogin observed my solemn taciturnity, and she inquired anxiously after my health. i replied, of course, with a bitter smile, that i was thankful to say i was perfectly well. ozhogin continued to expatiate on the subject of their visitor; but noticing that i responded reluctantly, he addressed himself principally to bizmyonkov, who was listening to him with great attention, when a servant suddenly came in, announcing the arrival of prince n. our host jumped up and ran to meet him; liza, upon whom i at once turned an eagle eye, flushed with delight, and made as though she would move from her seat. the prince came in, all agreeable perfume, gaiety, cordiality.... as i am not composing a romance for a gentle reader, but simply writing for my own amusement, it stands to reason i need not make use of the usual dodges of our respected authors. i will say straight out without further delay that liza fell passionately in love with the prince from the first day she saw him, and the prince fell in love with her too--partly from having nothing to do, and partly from a propensity for turning women's heads, and also owing to the fact that liza really was a very charming creature. there was nothing to be wondered at in their falling in love with each other. he had certainly never expected to find such a pearl in such a wretched shell (i am alluding to the god-forsaken town of o----), and she had never in her wildest dreams seen anything in the least like this brilliant, clever, fascinating aristocrat. after the first courtesies, ozhogin introduced me to the prince, who was very affable in his behaviour to me. he was as a rule very affable with every one; and in spite of the immeasurable distance between him and our obscure provincial circle, he was clever enough to avoid being a source of constraint to any one, and even to make a show of being on our level, and only living at petersburg, as it were, by accident. that first evening.... oh, that first evening! in our happy days of childhood our teachers used to describe and set up before us as an example the manly fortitude of the young spartan, who, having stolen a fox and hidden it under his tunic, without uttering one shriek let it devour all his entrails, and so preferred death itself to disgrace.... i can find no better comparison for my indescribable sufferings during the evening on which i first saw the prince by liza's side. my continual forced smile and painful vigilance, my idiotic silence, my miserable and ineffectual desire to get away--all that was doubtless something truly remarkable in its own way. it was not one wild beast alone gnawing at my vitals; jealousy, envy, the sense of my own insignificance, and helpless hatred were torturing me. i could not but admit that the prince really was a very agreeable young man.... i devoured him with my eyes; i really believe i forgot to blink as usual, as i stared at him. he talked not to liza alone, but all he said was of course really for her. he must have felt me a great bore. he most likely guessed directly that it was a discarded lover he had to deal with, but from sympathy for me, and also a profound sense of my absolute harmlessness, he treated me with extraordinary gentleness. you can fancy how this wounded me! in the course of the evening i tried, i remember, to smooth over my mistake. i positively (don't laugh at me, whoever you may be, who chance to look through these lines--especially as it was my last illusion...) ... i, positively, in the midst of my different sufferings, imagined all of a sudden that liza wanted to punish me for my haughty coldness at the beginning of my visit, that she was angry with me and only flirting with the prince from pique.... i seized my opportunity and with a meek but gracious smile, i went up to her, and muttered--'enough, forgive me, not that i'm afraid ...' and suddenly, without awaiting her reply, i gave my features an extraordinarily cheerful and free-and-easy expression, with a set grin, passed my hand above my head in the direction of the ceiling (i wanted, i remember, to set my cravat straight), and was even on the point of pirouetting round on one foot, as though to say, 'all is over, i am happy, let's all be happy,'--i did not, however, execute this manoeuvre, as i was afraid of losing my balance, owing to an unnatural stiffness in my knees.... liza failed absolutely to understand me; she looked in my face with amazement, gave a hasty smile, as though she wanted to get rid of me as quickly as possible, and again approached the prince. blind and deaf as i was, i could not but be inwardly aware that she was not in the least angry, and was not annoyed with me at that instant: she simply never gave me a thought. the blow was a final one. my last hopes were shattered with a crash, just as a block of ice, thawed by the sunshine of spring, suddenly falls into tiny morsels. i was utterly defeated at the first skirmish, and, like the prussians at jena, lost everything at once in one day. no, she was not angry with me!... alas, it was quite the contrary! she too--i saw that--was being swept off her feet by the torrent. like a young tree, already half torn from the bank, she bent eagerly over the stream, ready to abandon to it for ever the first blossom of her spring and her whole life. a man whose fate it has been to be the witness of such a passion, has lived through bitter moments if he has loved himself and not been loved. i shall for ever remember that devouring attention, that tender gaiety, that innocent self-oblivion, that glance, still a child's and already a woman's, that happy, as it were flowering smile that never left the half-parted lips and glowing cheeks.... all that liza had vaguely foreshadowed during our walk in the wood had come to pass now--and she, as she gave herself up utterly to love, was at once stiller and brighter, like new wine, which ceases to ferment because its full maturity has come.... i had the fortitude to sit through that first evening and the subsequent evenings ... all to the end! i could have no hope of anything. liza and the prince became every day more devoted to each other ... but i had absolutely lost all sense of personal dignity, and could not tear myself away from the spectacle of my own misery. i remember one day i tried not to go, swore to myself in the morning that i would stay at home, and at eight o'clock in the evening (i usually set off at seven) leaped up like a madman, put on my hat, and ran breathless into kirilla matveitch's drawing-room. my position was excessively absurd. i was obstinately silent; sometimes for whole days together i did not utter a sound. i was, as i have said already, never distinguished for eloquence; but now everything i had in my mind took flight, as it were, in the presence of the prince, and i was left bare and bereft. besides, when i was alone, i set my wretched brain working so hard, slowly going over everything i had noticed or surmised during the preceding day, that when i went back to the ozhogins' i scarcely had energy left to observe again. they treated me considerately, as a sick person; i saw that. every morning i adopted some new, final resolution, for the most part painfully hatched in the course of a sleepless night. at one time i made up my mind to have it out with liza, to give her friendly advice ... but when i chanced to be alone with her, my tongue suddenly ceased to work, froze as it were, and we both, in great discomfort, waited for the entrance of some third person. another time i meant to run away, of course for ever, leaving my beloved a letter full of reproaches, and i even one day began this letter; but the sense of justice had not yet quite vanished in me. i realised that i had no right to reproach any one for anything, and i flung what i had written in the fire. then i suddenly offered myself up wholly as a sacrifice, gave liza my benediction, praying for her happiness, and smiled in meek and friendly fashion from my corner at the prince. but the cruel-hearted lovers not only never thanked me for my self-sacrifice, they never even noticed me, and were, apparently, quite ready to dispense with my smiles and my blessings.... then, in wrath, i suddenly flew into quite the opposite mood. i swore to myself, wrapping my cloak about me like a spaniard, to rush out from some dark corner and stab my lucky rival, and with brutal glee i imagined liza's despair.... but, in the first place, such corners were few in the town of o----; and, secondly--the wooden fence, the street lamp, the policeman in the distance.... no! in such corners it was somehow far more suitable to sell buns and oranges than to shed human blood. i must own that, among other means of deliverance, as i very vaguely expressed it in my colloquies with myself, i did entertain the idea of having recourse to ozhogin himself ... of calling the attention of that nobleman to the perilous situation of his daughter, and the mournful consequences of her indiscretion.... i even once began speaking to him on a certain delicate subject; but my remarks were so indirect and misty, that after listening and listening to me, he suddenly, as it were, waking up, rubbed his hand rapidly and vigorously all over his face, not sparing his nose, gave a snort, and walked away from me. it is needless to say that in resolving on this step i persuaded myself that i was acting from the most disinterested motives, was desirous of the general welfare, and was doing my duty as a friend of the house.... but i venture to think that even had kirilla matveitch not cut short my outpourings, i should in any case not have had courage to finish my monologue. at times i set to work with all the solemnity of some sage of antiquity, weighing the qualities of the prince; at times i comforted myself with the hope that it was all of no consequence, that liza would recover her senses, that her love was not real love ... oh, no! in short, i know no idea that i did not worry myself with at that time. there was only one resource which never, i candidly admit, entered my head: i never once thought of taking my life. why it did not occur to me i don't know.... possibly, even then, i had a presentiment i should not have long to live in any case. it will be readily understood that in such unfavourable circumstances my manner, my behaviour with people, was more than ever marked by unnaturalness and constraint. even madame ozhogin--that creature dull-witted from her birth up--began to shun me, and at times did not know in what way to approach me. bizmyonkov, always polite and ready to do services, avoided me. i fancied even at that time that i had in him a companion in misfortune--that he too loved liza. but he never responded to my hints, and altogether showed a reluctance to converse with me. the prince behaved in a very friendly way to him; the prince, one might say, respected him. neither bizmyonkov nor i was any obstacle to the prince and liza; but he did not shun them as i did, nor look savage nor injured--and readily joined them when they desired it. it is true that on such occasions he was not conspicuous for any special mirthfulness; but his good-humour had always been somewhat subdued in character. in this fashion about a fortnight passed by. the prince was not only handsome and clever: he played the piano, sang, sketched fairly well, and was a good hand at telling stories. his anecdotes, drawn from the highest circles of petersburg society, always made a great impression on his audience, all the more so from the fact that he seemed to attach no importance to them.... the consequence of this, if you like, simple accomplishment of the prince's was that in the course of his not very protracted stay in the town of o---- he completely fascinated all the neighbourhood. to fascinate us poor dwellers in the steppes is at all times a very easy task for any one coming from higher spheres. the prince's frequent visits to the ozhogins (he used to spend his evenings there) of course aroused the jealousy of the other worthy gentry and officials of the town. but the prince, like a clever person and a man of the world, never neglected a single one of them; he called on all of them; to every married lady and every unmarried miss he addressed at least one flattering phrase, allowed them to feed him on elaborately solid edibles, and to make him drink wretched wines with magnificent names; and conducted himself, in short, like a model of caution and tact. prince n---- was in general a man of lively manners, sociable and genial by inclination, and in this case incidentally from prudential motives also; he could not fail to be a complete success in everything. ever since his arrival, all in the house had felt that the time had flown by with unusual rapidity; everything had gone off beautifully. papa ozhogin, though he pretended that he noticed nothing, was doubtless rubbing his hands in private at the idea of such a son-in-law. the prince, for his part, managed matters with the utmost sobriety and discretion, when, all of a sudden, an unexpected incident.... till to-morrow. to-day i'm tired. these recollections irritate me even at the edge of the grave. terentyevna noticed to-day that my nose has already begun to grow sharp; and that, they say, is a bad sign. _march . thaw continuing._ things were in the position described above: the prince and liza were in love with each other; the old ozhogins were waiting to see what would come of it; bizmyonkov was present at the proceedings--there was nothing else to be said of him. i was struggling like a fish on the ice, and watching with all my might,--i remember that at that time i set myself the task of preventing liza at least from falling into the snares of a seducer, and consequently began paying particular attention to the maidservants and the fateful 'back stairs'--though, on the other hand, i often spent whole nights in dreaming with what touching magnanimity i would one day hold out a hand to the betrayed victim and say to her, 'the traitor has deceived thee; but i am thy true friend ... let us forget the past and be happy!'--when sudden and glad tidings overspread the whole town. the marshal of the district proposed to give a great ball in honour of their respected guest, on his private estate gornostaevka. all the official world, big and little, of the town of o---- received invitations, from the mayor down to the apothecary, an excessively emaciated german, with ferocious pretensions to a good russian accent, which led him into continually and quite inappropriately employing racy colloquialisms.... tremendous preparations were, of course, put in hand. one purveyor of cosmetics sold sixteen dark-blue jars of pomatum, which bore the inscription _à la jesmin_. the young ladies provided themselves with tight dresses, agonising in the waist and jutting out sharply over the stomach; the mammas put formidable erections on their heads by way of caps; the busy papas were half dead with the bustle. the longed-for day arrived at last. i was among those invited. from the town to gornostaevka was reckoned between seven and eight miles. kirilla matveitch offered me a seat in his coach; but i refused.... in the same way children, who have been punished, wishing to pay their parents out, refuse their favourite dainties at table. besides, i felt that my presence would be felt as a constraint by liza. bizmyonkov took my place. the prince drove in his own carriage, and i in a wretched little droshky, hired for an immense sum for this solemn occasion. i am not going to describe that ball. everything about it was just as it always is. there was a band, with trumpets extraordinarily out of tune, in the gallery; there were country gentlemen, greatly flustered, with their inevitable families, mauve ices, viscous lemonade; servants in boots trodden down at heel and knitted cotton gloves; provincial lions with spasmodically contorted faces, and so on and so on. and all this little world was revolving round its sun--round the prince. lost in the crowd, unnoticed even by the young ladies of eight-and-forty, with red pimples on their brows and blue flowers on the top of their heads, i stared incessantly, first at the prince, then at liza. she was very charmingly dressed and very pretty that evening. they only twice danced together (it is true, he danced the mazurka with her); but it seemed, to me at least, that there was a sort of secret, continuous communication between them. even while not looking at her, while not speaking to her, he was still, as it were, addressing her, and her alone. he was handsome and brilliant and charming with other people--for her sake only. she was apparently conscious that she was the queen of the ball, and that she was loved. her face at once beamed with childlike delight and innocent pride, and was suddenly illuminated by another, deeper feeling. happiness radiated from her. i observed all this.... it was not the first time i had watched them.... at first this wounded me intensely; afterwards it, as it were, touched me; but, finally, it infuriated me. i suddenly felt extraordinarily wrathful, and, i remember, was extraordinarily delighted at this new sensation, and even conceived a certain respect for myself. 'we'll show them we're not crushed yet,' i said to myself. when the first inviting notes of the mazurka sounded, i looked about me with composure, and with a cool and easy air approached a long-faced young lady with a red and shiny nose, a mouth that stood awkwardly open, as though it had come unbuttoned, and a scraggy neck that recalled the handle of a bass-viol. i went up to her, and, with a perfunctory scrape of my heels, invited her to the dance. she was wearing a dress of faded rosebud pink, not full-blown rose colour; on her head quivered a striped and dejected beetle of some sort on a thick bronze pin; and altogether this lady was, if one may so express it, soaked through and through with a sort of sour ennui and inveterate lack of success. from the very commencement of the evening she had not once stirred from her seat; no one had thought of asking her to dance. one flaxen-headed youth of sixteen had, through lack of a partner, been on the point of addressing this lady, and had taken a step in her direction, but had thought better of it, stared at her, and hurriedly dived into the crowd. you can fancy with what joyful amazement she agreed to my proposal! i led her in triumph right across the ballroom, picked out two chairs, and sat down with her in the ring of the mazurka, among ten couples, almost opposite the prince, who had, of course, been offered the first place. the prince, as i have said already, was dancing with liza. neither i nor my partner was disturbed by invitations; consequently, we had plenty of time for conversation. to tell the truth, my partner was not conspicuous for her capacity for the utterance of words in consecutive speech; she used her mouth principally for the achievement of a strange downward smile such as i had never till then beheld; while she raised her eyes upward, as though some unseen force were pulling her face in two. but i did not feel her lack of eloquence. happily i felt full of wrath, and my partner did not make me shy. i fell to finding fault with everything and every one in the world, with especial emphasis on town-bred youngsters and petersburg dandies; and went to such lengths at last, that my partner gradually ceased smiling, and instead of turning her eyes upward, began suddenly--from astonishment, i suppose--to squint, and that so strangely, as though she had for the first time observed the fact that she had a nose on her face. and one of the lions, referred to above, who was sitting next me, did not once take his eyes off me; he positively turned to me with the expression of an actor on the stage, who has waked up in an unfamiliar place, as though he would say, 'is it really you!' while i poured forth this tirade, i still, however, kept watch on the prince and liza. they were continually invited; but i suffered less when they were both dancing; and even when they were sitting side by side, and smiling as they talked to each other that sweet smile which hardly leaves the faces of happy lovers, even then i was not in such torture; but when liza flitted across the room with some desperate dandy of an hussar, while the prince with her blue gauze scarf on his knees followed her dreamily with his eyes, as though delighting in his conquest;--then, oh! then, i went through intolerable agonies, and in my anger gave vent to such spiteful observations, that the pupils of my partner's eyes simply fastened on her nose! meanwhile the mazurka was drawing to a close. they were beginning the figure called _la confidente_. in this figure the lady sits in the middle of a circle, chooses another lady as her confidant, and whispers in her ear the name of the gentleman with whom she wishes to dance. her partner conducts one after another of the dancers to her; but the lady, who is in the secret, refuses them, till at last the happy man fixed on beforehand arrives. liza sat in the middle of the circle and chose the daughter of the host, one of those young ladies of whom one says, 'god help them!'... the prince proceeded to discover her choice. after presenting about a dozen young men to her in vain (the daughter of the house refused them all with the most amiable of smiles), he at last turned to me. something extraordinary took place within me at that instant; i, as it were, twitched all over, and would have refused, but got up and went along. the prince conducted me to liza.... she did not even look at me; the daughter of the house shook her head in refusal, the prince turned to me, and, probably incited by the goose-like expression of my face, made me a deep bow. this sarcastic bow, this refusal, transmitted to me through my triumphant rival, his careless smile, liza's indifferent inattention, all this lashed me to frenzy.... i moved up to the prince and whispered furiously, 'you think fit to laugh at me, it seems?' the prince looked at me with contemptuous surprise, took my arm again, and making a show of re-conducting me to my seat, answered coldly, 'i?' 'yes, you!' i went on in a whisper, obeying, however--that is to say, following him to my place; 'you; but i do not intend to permit any empty-headed petersburg up-start----' the prince smiled tranquilly, almost condescendingly, pressed my arm, whispered, 'i understand you; but this is not the place; we will have a word later,' turned away from me, went up to bizmyonkov, and led him up to liza. the pale little official turned out to be the chosen partner. liza got up to meet him. sitting beside my partner with the dejected beetle on her head, i felt almost a hero. my heart beat violently, my breast heaved gallantly under my starched shirt front, i drew deep and hurried breaths, and suddenly gave the local lion near me such a magnificent glare that there was an involuntary quiver of his foot in my direction. having disposed of this person, i scanned the whole circle of dancers.... i fancied two or three gentlemen were staring at me with some perplexity; but, in general, my conversation with the prince had passed unnoticed.... my rival was already back in his chair, perfectly composed, and with the same smile on his face. bizmyonkov led liza back to her place. she gave him a friendly bow, and at once turned to the prince, as i fancied, with some alarm. but he laughed in response, with a graceful wave of his hand, and must have said something very agreeable to her, for she flushed with delight, dropped her eyes, and then bent them with affectionate reproach upon him. the heroic frame of mind, which had suddenly developed in me, had not disappeared by the end of the mazurka; but i did not indulge in any more epigrams or 'quizzing.' i contented myself with glancing occasionally with gloomy severity at my partner, who was obviously beginning to be afraid of me, and was utterly tongue-tied and continuously blinking by the time i placed her under the protection of her mother, a very fat woman with a red cap on her head. having consigned the scared maiden lady to her natural belongings, i turned away to a window, folded my arms, and began to await what would happen. i had rather long to wait. the prince was the whole time surrounded by his host--surrounded, simply, as england is surrounded by the sea,--to say nothing of the other members of the marshal's family and the rest of the guests. and besides, he could hardly go up to such an insignificant person as me and begin to talk without arousing a general feeling of surprise. this insignificance, i remember, was positively a joy to me at the time. 'all right,' i thought, as i watched him courteously addressing first one and then another highly respected personage, honoured by his notice, if only for an 'instant's flash,' as the poets say;--'all right, my dear ... you'll come to me soon--i've insulted you, anyway.' at last the prince, adroitly escaping from the throng of his adorers, passed close by me, looked somewhere between the window and my hair, was turning away, and suddenly stood still, as though he had recollected something. 'ah, yes!' he said, turning to me with a smile, 'by the way, i have a little matter to talk to you about.' two country gentlemen, of the most persistent, who were obstinately pursuing the prince, probably imagined the 'little matter' to relate to official business, and respectfully fell back. the prince took my arm and led me apart. my heart was thumping at my ribs. 'you, i believe,' he began, emphasising the word _you,_ and looking at my chin with a contemptuous expression, which, strange to say, was supremely becoming to his fresh and handsome face, 'you said something abusive to me?' 'i said what i thought,' i replied, raising my voice. 'sh ... quietly,' he observed; 'decent people don't bawl. you would like, perhaps, to fight me?' 'that's your affair,' i answered, drawing myself up. 'i shall be obliged to challenge you,' he remarked carelessly, 'if you don't withdraw your expressions....' 'i do not intend to withdraw from anything,' i rejoined with pride. 'really?' he observed, with an ironical smile. 'in that case,' he continued, after a brief pause, 'i shall have the honour of sending my second to you to-morrow.' 'very good, 'i said in a voice, if possible, even more indifferent. the prince gave a slight bow. 'i cannot prevent you from considering me empty-headed,' he added, with a haughty droop of his eyelids; 'but the princes n---- cannot be upstarts. good-bye till we meet, mr.... mr. shtukaturin.' he quickly turned his back on me, and again approached his host, who was already beginning to get excited. mr. shtukaturin!... my name is tchulkaturin.... i could think of nothing to say to him in reply to this last insult, and could only gaze after him with fury. 'till to-morrow,' i muttered, clenching my teeth, and i at once looked for an officer of my acquaintance, a cavalry captain in the uhlans, called koloberdyaev, a desperate rake, and a very good fellow. to him i related, in few words, my quarrel with the prince, and asked him to be my second. he, of course, promptly consented, and i went home. i could not sleep all night--from excitement, not from cowardice. i am not a coward. i positively thought very little of the possibility confronting me of losing my life--that, as the germans assure us, highest good on earth. i could think only of liza, of my ruined hopes, of what i ought to do. 'ought i to try to kill the prince?' i asked myself; and, of course, i wanted to kill him--not from revenge, but from a desire for liza's good. 'but she will not survive such a blow,' i went on. 'no, better let him kill me!' i must own it was an agreeable reflection, too, that i, an obscure provincial person, had forced a man of such consequence to fight a duel with me. the morning light found me still absorbed in these reflections; and, not long after it, appeared koloberdyaev. 'well,' he asked me, entering my room with a clatter, 'where's the prince's second?' 'upon my word,' i answered with annoyance, 'it's seven o'clock at the most; the prince is still asleep, i should imagine.' 'in that case,' replied the cavalry officer, in nowise daunted, 'order some tea for me. my head aches from yesterday evening.... i've not taken my clothes off all night. though, indeed,' he added with a yawn, 'i don't as a rule often take my clothes off.' some tea was given him. he drank off six glasses of tea and rum, smoked four pipes, told me he had on the previous day bought, for next to nothing, a horse the coachman refused to drive, and that he was meaning to drive her out with one of her fore legs tied up, and fell asleep, without undressing, on the sofa, with a pipe in his mouth. i got up and put my papers to rights. one note of invitation from liza, the one note i had received from her, i was on the point of putting in my bosom, but on second thoughts i flung it in a drawer. koloberdyaev was snoring feebly, with his head hanging from the leather pillow.... for a long while, i remember, i scrutinised his unkempt, daring, careless, and good-natured face. at ten o'clock the man announced the arrival of bizmyonkov. the prince had chosen him as second. we both together roused the soundly sleeping cavalry officer. he sat up, stared at us with dim eyes, in a hoarse voice demanded vodka. he recovered himself, and exchanging greetings with bizmyonkov, he went with him into the next room to arrange matters. the consultation of the worthy seconds did not last long. a quarter of an hour later, they both came into my bedroom. koloberdyaev announced to me that 'we're going to fight to-day at three o'clock with pistols.' in silence i bent my head, in token of my agreement. bizmyonkov at once took leave of us, and departed. he was rather pale and inwardly agitated, like a man unused to such jobs, but he was, nevertheless, very polite and chilly. i felt, as it were, conscience-stricken in his presence, and did not dare look him in the face. koloberdyaev began telling me about his horse. this conversation was very welcome to me. i was afraid he would mention liza. but the good-natured cavalry officer was not a gossip, and, moreover, he despised all women, calling them, god knows why, green stuff. at two o'clock we had lunch, and at three we were at the place fixed upon--the very birch copse in which i had once walked with liza, a couple of yards from the precipice. we arrived first; but the prince and bizmyonkov did not keep us long waiting. the prince was, without exaggeration, as fresh as a rose; his brown eyes looked out with excessive cordiality from under the peak of his cap. he was smoking a cigar, and on seeing koloberdyaev shook his hand in a friendly way. even to me he bowed very genially. i was conscious, on the contrary, of being pale, and my hands, to my terrible vexation, were slightly trembling ... my throat was parched.... i had never fought a duel before. 'o god!' i thought; 'if only that ironical gentleman doesn't take my agitation for timidity!' i was inwardly cursing my nerves; but glancing, at last, straight in the prince's face, and catching on his lips an almost imperceptible smile, i suddenly felt furious again, and was at once at my ease. meanwhile, our seconds were fixing the barrier, measuring out the paces, loading the pistols. koloberdyaev did most; bizmyonkov rather watched him. it was a magnificent day--as fine as the day of that ever-memorable walk. the thick blue of the sky peeped, as then, through the golden green of the leaves. their lisping seemed to mock me. the prince went on smoking his cigar, leaning with his shoulder against the trunk of a young lime-tree.... 'kindly take your places, gentlemen; ready,' koloberdyaev pronounced at last, handing us pistols. the prince walked a few steps away, stood still, and, turning his head, asked me over his shoulder, 'you still refuse to take back your words, then?' i tried to answer him; but my voice failed me, and i had to content myself with a contemptuous wave of the hand. the prince smiled again, and took up his position in his place. we began to approach one another. i raised my pistol, was about to aim at my enemy's chest--but suddenly tilted it up, as though some one had given my elbow a shove, and fired. the prince tottered, and put his left hand to his left temple--a thread of blood was flowing down his cheek from under the white leather glove, bizmyonkov rushed up to him. 'it's all right,' he said, taking off his cap, which the bullet had pierced; 'since it's in the head, and i've not fallen, it must be a mere scratch.' he calmly pulled a cambric handkerchief out of his pocket, and put it to his blood-stained curls. i stared at him, as though i were turned to stone, and did not stir. 'go up to the barrier, if you please!' koloberdyaev observed severely. i obeyed. 'is the duel to go on?' he added, addressing bizmyonkov. bizmyonkov made him no answer. but the prince, without taking the handkerchief from the wound, without even giving himself the satisfaction of tormenting me at the barrier, replied with a smile. 'the duel is at an end,' and fired into the air. i was almost crying with rage and vexation. this man by his magnanimity had utterly trampled me in the mud; he had completely crushed me. i was on the point of making objections, on the point of demanding that he should fire at me. but he came up to me, and held out his hand. 'it's all forgotten between us, isn't it?' he said in a friendly voice. i looked at his blanched face, at the blood-stained handkerchief, and utterly confounded, put to shame, and annihilated, i pressed his hand. 'gentlemen!' he added, turning to the seconds, 'everything, i hope, will be kept secret?' 'of course!' cried koloberdyaev; 'but, prince, allow me ...' and he himself bound up his head. the prince, as he went away, bowed to me once more. but bizmyonkov did not even glance at me. shattered--morally shattered--went homewards with koloberdyaev. 'why, what's the matter with you?' the cavalry captain asked me. 'set your mind at rest; the wound's not serious. he'll be able to dance by to-morrow, if you like. or are you sorry you didn't kill him? you're wrong, if you are; he's a first-rate fellow.' 'what business had he to spare me!' i muttered at last. 'oh, so that's it!' the cavalry captain rejoined tranquilly... 'ugh, you writing fellows are too much for me!' i don't know what put it into his head to consider me an author. i absolutely decline to describe my torments during the evening following upon that luckless duel. my vanity suffered indescribably. it was not my conscience that tortured me; the consciousness of my imbecility crushed me. 'i have given myself the last decisive blow by my own act!' i kept repeating, as i strode up and down my room. 'the prince, wounded by me, and forgiving me... yes, liza is now his. now nothing can save her, nothing can hold her back on the edge of the abyss.' i knew very well that our duel could not be kept secret, in spite of the prince's words; in any case, it could not remain a secret for liza. 'the prince is not such a fool,' i murmured in a frenzy of rage, 'as not to profit by it.'... but, meanwhile, i was mistaken. the whole town knew of the duel and of its real cause next day, of course. but the prince had not blabbed of it; on the contrary, when, with his head bandaged and an explanation ready, he made his appearance before liza, she had already heard everything.... whether bizmyonkov had betrayed me, or the news had reached her by other channels, i cannot say. though, indeed, can anything ever be concealed in a little town? you can fancy how liza received him, how all the family of the ozhogins received him! as for me, i suddenly became an object of universal indignation and loathing, a monster, a jealous bloodthirsty madman. my few acquaintances shunned me as if i were a leper. the authorities of the town promptly addressed the prince, with a proposal to punish me in a severe and befitting manner. nothing but the persistent and urgent entreaties of the prince himself averted the calamity that menaced me. that man was fated to annihilate me in every way. by his generosity he had shut, as it were, a coffin-lid down upon me. it's needless to say that the ozhogins' doors were at once closed against me. kirilla matveitch even sent me back a bit of pencil i had left in his house. in reality, he, of all people, had no reason to be angry with me. my 'insane' (that was the expression current in the town) jealousy had pointed out, defined, so to speak, the relations of the prince to liza. both the old ozhogins themselves and their fellow-citizens began to look on him almost as betrothed to her. this could not, as a fact, have been quite to his liking. but he was greatly attracted by liza; and meanwhile, he had not at that time attained his aims. with all the adroitness of a clever man of the world, he took advantage of his new position, and promptly entered, as they say, into the spirit of his new part.... but i!... for myself, for my future, i renounced all hopes, at that time. when suffering reaches the point of making our whole being creak and groan, like an overloaded cart, it ought to cease to be ridiculous ... but no! laughter not only accompanies tears to the end, to exhaustion, to the impossibility of shedding more--it even rings and echoes, where the tongue is dumb, and complaint itself is dead.... and so, as in the first place i don't intend to expose myself as ridiculous, even to myself, and secondly as i am fearfully tired, i will put off the continuation, and please god the conclusion, of my story till tomorrow.... _march . a slight frost; yesterday it was thawing._ yesterday i had not the strength to go on with my diary; like poprishtchin, i lay, for the most part, on my bed, and talked to terentyevna. what a woman! sixty years ago she lost her first betrothed from the plague, she has outlived all her children, she is inexcusably old, drinks tea to her heart's desire, is well fed, and warmly clothed; and what do you suppose she was talking to me about, all day yesterday? i had sent another utterly destitute old woman the collar of an old livery, half moth-eaten, to put on her vest (she wears strips over the chest by way of vest) ... and why wasn't it given to her? 'but i'm your nurse; i should think... oh ... oh, my good sir, it's too bad of you ... after i've looked after you as i have!' ... and so on. the merciless old woman utterly wore me out with her reproaches.... but to get back to my story. and so, i suffered like a dog, whose hindquarters have been run over by a wheel. it was only then, only after my banishment from the ozhogins' house, that i fully realised how much happiness a man can extract from the contemplation of his own unhappiness. o men! pitiful race, indeed! ... but, away with philosophical reflections.... i spent my days in complete solitude, and could only by the most roundabout and even humiliating methods find out what was passing in the ozhogins' household, and what the prince was doing. my man had made friends with the cousin of the latter's coachman's wife. this acquaintance afforded me some slight relief, and my man soon guessed, from my hints and little presents, what he was to talk about to his master when he pulled his boots off every evening. sometimes i chanced to meet some one of the ozhogins' family, bizmyonkov, or the prince in the street.... to the prince and to bizmyonkov i bowed, but i did not enter into conversation with them. liza i only saw three times: once, with her mamma, in a fashionable shop; once, in an open carriage with her father and mother and the prince; and once, in church. of course, i was not impudent enough to approach her, and only watched her from a distance. in the shop she was very much preoccupied, but cheerful.... she was ordering something for herself, and busily matching ribbons. her mother was gazing at her, with her hands folded on her lap, and her nose in the air, smiling with that foolish and devoted smile which is only permissible in adoring mothers. in the carriage with the prince, liza was ... i shall never forget that meeting! the old people were sitting in the back seats of the carriage, the prince and liza in the front. she was paler than usual; on her cheek two patches of pink could just be seen. she was half facing the prince; leaning on her straight right arm (in the left hand she was holding a sunshade), with her little head drooping languidly, she was looking straight into his face with her expressive eyes. at that instant she surrendered herself utterly to him, intrusted herself to him for ever. i had not time to get a good look at his face--the carriage galloped by too quickly,--but i fancied that he too was deeply touched. the third time i saw her in church. not more than ten days had passed since the day when i met her in the carriage with the prince, not more than three weeks since the day of my duel. the business upon which the prince had come to o---- was by now completed. but he still kept putting off his departure. at petersburg, he was reported to be ill. in the town, it was expected every day that he would make a proposal in form to kirilla matveitch. i was myself only awaiting this final blow to go away for ever. the town of o---- had grown hateful to me. i could not stay indoors, and wandered from morning to night about the suburbs. one grey, gloomy day, as i was coming back from a walk, which had been cut short by the rain, i went into a church. the evening service had only just begun, there were very few people; i looked round me, and suddenly, near a window, caught sight of a familiar profile. for the first instant, i did not recognise it: that pale face, that spiritless glance, those sunken cheeks--could it be the same liza i had seen a fortnight before? wrapped in a cloak, without a hat on, with the cold light from the broad white window falling on her from one side, she was gazing fixedly at the holy image, and seemed striving to pray, striving to awake from a sort of listless stupor. a red-cheeked, fat little page with yellow trimmings on his chest was standing behind her, and, with his hands clasped behind his back, stared in sleepy bewilderment at his mistress. i trembled all over, was about to go up to her, but stopped short. i felt choked by a torturing presentiment. till the very end of the evening service, liza did not stir. all the people went out, a beadle began sweeping out the church, but still she did not move from her place. the page went up to her, said something to her, touched her dress; she looked round, passed her hand over her face, and went away. i followed her home at a little distance, and then returned to my lodging. 'she is lost!' i cried, when i had got into my room. as a man, i don't know to this day what my sensations were at that moment. i flung myself, i remember, with clasped hands, on the sofa and fixed my eyes on the floor. but i don't know--in the midst of my woe i was, as it were, pleased at something.... i would not admit this for anything in the world, if i were not writing only for myself.... i had been tormented, certainly, by terrible, harassing suspicions ... and who knows, i should, perhaps, have been greatly disconcerted if they had not been fulfilled. 'such is the heart of man!' some middle-aged russian teacher would exclaim at this point in an expressive voice, while he raises a fat forefinger, adorned with a cornelian ring. but what have we to do with the opinion of a russian teacher, with an expressive voice and a cornelian on his finger? be that as it may, my presentiment turned out to be well founded. suddenly the news was all over the town that the prince had gone away, presumably in consequence of a summons from petersburg; that he had gone away without making any proposal to kirilla matveitch or his wife, and that liza would have to deplore his treachery till the end of her days. the prince's departure was utterly unexpected, for only the evening before his coachman, so my man assured me, had not the slightest suspicion of his master's intentions. this piece of news threw me into a perfect fever. i at once dressed, and was on the point of hastening to the ozhogins', but on thinking the matter over i considered it more seemly to wait till the next day. i lost nothing, however, by remaining at home. the same evening, there came to see me in all haste a certain pandopipopulo, a wandering greek, stranded by some chance in the town of o----, a scandalmonger of the first magnitude, who had been more indignant with me than any one for my duel with the prince. he did not even give my man time to announce him; he fairly burst into my room, warmly pressed my hand, begged my pardon a thousand times, called me a paragon of magnanimity and courage, painted the prince in the darkest colours, censured the old ozhogins, who, in his opinion, had been punished as they deserved, made a slighting reference to liza in passing, and hurried off again, kissing me on my shoulder. among other things, i learned from him that the prince, _en vrai grand seigneur_, on the eve of his departure, in response to a delicate hint from kirilla matveitch, had answered coldly that he had no intention of deceiving any one, and no idea of marrying, had risen, made his bow, and that was all.... next day i set off to the ozhogins'. the shortsighted footman leaped up from his bench on my appearance, with the rapidity of lightning. i bade him announce me; the footman hurried away and returned at once. 'walk in,' he said; 'you are begged to go in.' i went into kirilla matveitch's study.... the rest to-morrow. _march . frost._ and so i went into kirilla matveitch's study. i would pay any one handsomely, who could show me now my own face at the moment when that highly respected official, hurriedly flinging together his dressing-gown, approached me with outstretched arms. i must have been a perfect picture of modest triumph, indulgent sympathy, and boundless magnanimity.... i felt myself something in the style of scipio africanus. ozhogin was visibly confused and cast down, he avoided my eyes, and kept fidgeting about. i noticed, too, that he spoke unnaturally loudly, and in general expressed himself very vaguely. vaguely, but with warmth, he begged my forgiveness, vaguely alluded to their departed guest, added a few vague generalities about deception and the instability of earthly blessings, and, suddenly feeling the tears in his eyes, hastened to take a pinch of snuff, probably in order to deceive me as to the cause of his tearfulness.... he used the russian green snuff, and it's well known that that article forces even old men to shed tears that make the human eye look dull and senseless for several minutes. i behaved, of course, very cautiously with the old man, inquired after the health of his wife and daughter, and at once artfully turned the conversation on to the interesting subject of the rotation of crops. i was dressed as usual, but the feeling of gentle propriety and soft indulgence which filled me gave me a fresh and festive sensation, as though i had on a white waistcoat and a white cravat. one thing agitated me, the thought of seeing liza.... ozhogin, at last, proposed of his own accord to take me up to his wife. the kind-hearted but foolish woman was at first terribly embarrassed on seeing me; but her brain was not capable of retaining the same impression for long, and so she was soon at her ease. at last i saw liza ... she came into the room.... i had expected to find in her a shamed and penitent sinner, and had assumed beforehand the most affectionate and reassuring expression of face.... why lie about it? i really loved her and was thirsting for the happiness of forgiving her, of holding out a hand to her; but to my unutterable astonishment, in response to my significant bow, she laughed coldly, observed carelessly, 'oh, is that you?' and at once turned away from me. it is true that her laugh struck me as forced, and in any case did not accord well with her terribly thin face ... but, all the same, i had not expected such a reception.... i looked at her with amazement ... what a change had taken place in her! between the child she had been and the woman before me, there was nothing in common. she had, as it were, grown up, straightened out; all the features of her face, especially her lips, seemed defined ... her gaze had grown deeper, harder, and gloomier. i stayed on at the ozhogins' till dinner-time. she got up, went out of the room, and came back again, answered questions with composure, and designedly took no notice of me. she wanted, i saw, to make me feel that i was not worth her anger, though i had been within an ace of killing her lover. i lost patience at last; a malicious allusion broke from my lips.... she started, glanced swiftly at me, got up, and going to the window, pronounced in a rather shaky voice, 'you can say anything you like, but let me tell you that i love that man, and always shall love him, and do not consider that he has done me any injury, quite the contrary.'... her voice broke, she stopped ... tried to control herself, but could not, burst into tears, and went out of the room.... the old people were much upset.... i pressed the hands of both, sighed, turned my eyes heavenward, and withdrew. i am too weak, i have too little time left, i am not capable of describing in the same detail the new range of torturing reflections, firm resolutions, and all the other fruits of what is called inward conflict, that arose within me after the renewal of my acquaintance with the ozhogins. i did not doubt that liza still loved, and would long love, the prince ... but as one reconciled to the inevitable, and anxious myself to conciliate, i did not even dream of her love. i desired only her affection, i desired to gain her confidence, her respect, which, we are assured by persons of experience, forms the surest basis for happiness in marriage.... unluckily, i lost sight of one rather important circumstance, which was that liza had hated me ever since the day of the duel. i found this out too late. i began, as before, to be a frequent visitor at the house of the ozhogins. kirilla matveitch received me with more effusiveness and affability than he had ever done. i have even ground for believing that he would at that time have cheerfully given me his daughter, though i was certainly not a match to be coveted. public opinion was very severe upon him and liza, while, on the other hand, it extolled me to the skies. liza's attitude to me was unchanged. she was, for the most part, silent; obeyed, when they begged her to eat, showed no outward signs of sorrow, but, for all that, was wasting away like a candle. i must do kirilla matveitch the justice to say that he spared her in every way. old madame ozhogin only ruffled up her feathers like a hen, as she looked at her poor nestling. there was only one person liza did not shun, though she did not talk much even to him, and that was bizmyonkov. the old people were rather short, not to say rude, in their behaviour to him. they could not forgive him for having been second in the duel. but he went on going to see them, as though he did not notice their unamiability. with me he was very chilly, and--strange to say--i felt, as it were, afraid of him. this state of things went on for a fortnight. at last, after a sleepless night, i resolved to have it out with liza, to open my heart to her, to tell her that, in spite of the past, in spite of all possible gossip and scandal, i should consider myself only too happy if she would give me her hand, and restore me her confidence. i really did seriously imagine that i was showing what they call in the school reading-books an unparalleled example of magnanimity, and that, from sheer amazement alone, she would consent. in any case, i resolved to have an explanation and to escape, at last, from suspense. behind the ozhogins' house was a rather large garden, which ended in a little grove of lime-trees, neglected and overgrown. in the middle of this thicket stood an old summer-house in the chinese style: a wooden paling separated the garden from a blind alley. liza would sometimes walk, for hours together, alone in this garden. kirilla matveitch was aware of this, and forbade her being disturbed or followed; let her grief wear itself out, he said. when she could not be found indoors, they had only to ring a bell on the steps at dinner-time and she made her appearance at once, with the same stubborn silence on her lips and in her eyes, and some little leaf crushed up in her hand. so, noticing one day that she was not in the house, i made a show of going away, took leave of kirilla matveitch, put on my hat, and went out from the hall into the courtyard, and from the courtyard into the street, but promptly darted in at the gate again with extraordinary rapidity and hurried past the kitchen into the garden. luckily no one noticed me. without losing time in deliberation, i went with rapid steps into the grove. in a little path before me was standing liza. my heart beat violently. i stood still, drew a deep sigh, and was just on the point of going up to her, when suddenly she lifted her hand without turning round, and began listening.... from behind the trees, in the direction of the blind alley, came a distinct sound of two knocks, as though some one were tapping at the paling. liza clapped her hands together, there was heard the faint creak of the gate, and out of the thicket stepped bizmyonkov. i hastily hid behind a tree. liza turned towards him without speaking.... without speaking, he drew her arm in his, and the two walked slowly along the path together. i looked after them in amazement. they stopped, looked round, disappeared behind the bushes, reappeared again, and finally went into the summer-house. this summer-house was a diminutive round edifice, with a door and one little window. in the middle stood an old one-legged table, overgrown with fine green moss; two discoloured deal benches stood along the sides, some distance from the damp and darkened walls. here, on exceptionally hot days, in bygone times, perhaps once a year or so, they had drunk tea. the door did not quite shut, the window-frame had long ago come out of the window, and hung disconsolately, only attached at one corner, like a bird's broken wing. i stole up to the summer-house, and peeped cautiously through the chink in the window. liza was sitting on one of the benches, with her head drooping. her right hand lay on her knees, the left bizmyonkov was holding in both his hands. he was looking sympathetically at her. 'how do you feel to-day?' he asked her in a low voice. 'just the same,' she answered, 'not better, nor worse.--the emptiness, the fearful emptiness!' she added, raising her eyes dejectedly. bizmyonkov made her no answer. 'what do you think,' she went on: 'will he write to me once more?' 'i don't think so, lizaveta kirillovna!' she was silent. 'and after all, why should he write? he told me everything in his first letter. i could not be his wife; but i have been happy ... not for long ... i have been happy ...' bizmyonkov looked down. 'ah,' she went on quickly, 'if you knew how i loathe that tchulkaturin ... i always fancy i see on that man's hands ... his blood.' (i shuddered behind my chink.) 'though indeed,' she added, dreamily, 'who knows, perhaps, if it had not been for that duel.... ah, when i saw him wounded i felt at once that i was altogether his.' 'tchulkaturin loves you,' observed bizmyonkov. 'what is that to me? i don't want any one's love.'... she stopped and added slowly, 'except yours. yes, my friend, your love is necessary to me; except for you, i should be lost. you have helped me to bear terrible moments ...' she broke off ... bizmyonkov began with fatherly tenderness stroking her hand. 'there's no help for it! what is one to do! what is one to do, lizaveta kirillovna!' he repeated several times. 'and now indeed,' she went on in a lifeless voice, 'i should die, i think, if it were not for you. it's you alone that keep me up; besides, you remind me of him.... you knew all about it, you see. do you remember how fine he was that day.... but forgive me; it must be hard for you....' 'go on, go on! nonsense! bless you!' bizmyonkov interrupted her. she pressed his hand. 'you are very good, bizmyonkov,' she went on;' you are good as an angel. what can i do! i feel i shall love him to the grave. i have forgiven him, i am grateful to him. god give him happiness! may god give him a wife after his own heart'--and her eyes filled with tears--'if only he does not forget me, if only he will sometimes think of his liza!--let us go,' she added, after a brief silence. bizmyonkov raised her hand to his lips. 'i know,' she began again hotly, 'every one is blaming me now, every one is throwing stones at me. let them! i wouldn't, any way, change my misery for their happiness ... no! no!... he did not love me for long, but he loved me! he never deceived me, he never told me i should be his wife; i never dreamed of it myself. it was only poor papa hoped for it. and even now i am not altogether unhappy; the memory remains to me, and however fearful the results ... i'm stifling here ... it was here i saw him the last time.... let's go into the air.' they got up. i had only just time to skip on one side and hide behind a thick lime-tree. they came out of the summer-house, and, as far as i could judge by the sound of their steps, went away into the thicket. i don't know how long i went on standing there, without stirring from my place, plunged in a sort of senseless amazement, when suddenly i heard steps again. i started, and peeped cautiously out from my hiding-place. bizmyonkov and liza were coming back along the same path. both were greatly agitated, especially bizmyonkov. i fancied he was crying. liza stopped, looked at him, and distinctly uttered the following words: 'i do consent, bizmyonkov. i would never have agreed if you were only trying to save me, to rescue me from a terrible position, but you love me, you know everything--and you love me. i shall never find a trustier, truer friend. i will be your wife.' bizmyonkov kissed her hand: she smiled at him mournfully and moved away towards the house. bizmyonkov rushed into the thicket, and i went my way. seeing that bizmyonkov had apparently said to liza precisely what i had intended to say to her, and she had given him precisely the reply i was longing to hear from her, there was no need for me to trouble myself further. within a fortnight she was married to him. the old ozhogins were thankful to get any husband for her. now, tell me, am i not a superfluous man? didn't i play throughout the whole story the part of a superfluous person? the prince's part ... of that it's needless to speak; bizmyonkov's part, too, is comprehensible.... but i--with what object was i mixed up in it?... a senseless fifth wheel to the cart!... ah, it's bitter, bitter for me!... but there, as the barge-haulers say, 'one more pull, and one more yet,'--one day more, and one more yet, and there will be no more bitter nor sweet for me. _march _. i'm in a bad way. i am writing these lines in bed. since yesterday evening there has been a sudden change in the weather. to-day is hot, almost a summer day. everything is thawing, breaking up, flowing away. the air is full of the smell of the opened earth, a strong, heavy, stifling smell. steam is rising on all sides. the sun seems beating, seems smiting everything to pieces. i am very ill, i feel that i am breaking up. i meant to write my diary, and, instead of that, what have i done? i have related one incident of my life. i gossiped on, slumbering reminiscences were awakened and drew me away. i have written, without haste, in detail, as though i had years before me. and here now, there's no time to go on. death, death is coming. i can hear her menacing _crescendo_. the time is come ... the time is come!... and indeed, what does it matter? isn't it all the same whatever i write? in sight of death the last earthly cares vanish. i feel i have grown calm; i am becoming simpler, clearer. too late i've gained sense!... it's a strange thing! i have grown calm--certainly, and at the same time ... i'm full of dread. yes, i'm full of dread. half hanging over the silent, yawning abyss, i shudder, turn away, with greedy intentness gaze at everything about me. every object is doubly precious to me. i cannot gaze enough at my poor, cheerless room, saying farewell to each spot on my walls. take your fill for the last time, my eyes. life is retreating; slowly and smoothly she is flying away from me, as the shore flies from the eyes of one at sea. the old yellow face of my nurse, tied up in a dark kerchief, the hissing samovar on the table, the pot of geranium in the window, and you, my poor dog, tresór, the pen i write these lines with, my own hand, i see you now ... here you are, here.... is it possible ... can it be, to-day ... i shall never see you again! it's hard for a live creature to part with life! why do you fawn on me, poor dog? why do you come putting your forepaws on the bed, with your stump of a tail wagging so violently, and your kind, mournful eyes fixed on me all the while? are you sorry for me? or do you feel already that your master will soon be gone? ah, if i could only keep my thoughts, too, resting on all the objects in my room! i know these reminiscences are dismal and of no importance, but i have no other. 'the emptiness, the fearful emptiness!' as liza said. o my god, my god! here i am dying.... a heart capable of loving and ready to love will soon cease to beat.... and can it be it will be still for ever without having once known happiness, without having once expanded under the sweet burden of bliss? alas! it's impossible, impossible, i know.... if only now, at least, before death--for death after all is a sacred thing, after all it elevates any being--if any kind, sad, friendly voice would sing over me a farewell song of my own sorrow, i could, perhaps, be resigned to it. but to die stupidly, stupidly.... i believe i'm beginning to rave. farewell, life! farewell, my garden! and you, my lime-trees! when the summer comes, do not forget to be clothed with flowers from head to foot ... and may it be sweet for people to lie in your fragrant shade, on the fresh grass, among the whispering chatter of your leaves, lightly stirred by the wind. farewell, farewell! farewell, everything and for ever! farewell, liza! i wrote those two words, and almost laughed aloud. this exclamation strikes me as taken out of a book. it's as though i were writing a sentimental novel and ending up a despairing letter.... to-morrow is the first of april. can i be going to die to-morrow? that would be really too unseemly. it's just right for me, though ... how the doctor did chatter to-day. _april_ . it is over.... life is over. i shall certainly die to-day. it's hot outside ... almost suffocating ... or is it that my lungs are already refusing to breathe? my little comedy is played out. the curtain is falling. sinking into nothing, i cease to be superfluous ... ah, how brilliant that sun is! those mighty beams breathe of eternity ... farewell, terentyevna!... this morning as she sat at the window she was crying ... perhaps over me ... and perhaps because she too will soon have to die. i have made her promise not to kill tresór. it's hard for me to write.... i will put down the pen.... it's high time; death is already approaching with ever-increasing rumble, like a carriage at night over the pavement; it is here, it is flitting about me, like the light breath which made the prophet's hair stand up on end. i am dying.... live, you who are living, 'and about the grave may youthful life rejoice, and nature heedless glow with eternal beauty. _note by the editor_.--under this last line was a head in profile with a big streak of hair and moustaches, with eyes _en face_, and eyelashes like rays; and under the head some one had written the following words: 'this manuscript was read and the contents of it not approved by peter zudotyeshin my my my my dear sir, peter zudotyeshin, dear sir.' but as the handwriting of these lines was not in the least like the handwriting in which the other part of the manuscript was written, the editor considers that he is justified in concluding that the above lines were added subsequently by another person, especially since it has come to his (the editor's) knowledge that mr. tchulkaturin actually did die on the night between the st and nd of april in the year --, at his native place, sheep's springs. * * * * * a tour in the forest first day the sight of the vast pinewood, embracing the whole horizon, the sight of the 'forest,' recalls the sight of the ocean. and the sensations it arouses are the same; the same primaeval untouched force lies outstretched in its breadth and majesty before the eyes of the spectator. from the heart of the eternal forest, from the undying bosom of the waters, comes the same voice: 'i have nothing to do with thee,'--nature says to man, 'i reign supreme, while do thou bestir thyself to thy utmost to escape dying.' but the forest is gloomier and more monotonous than the sea, especially the pine forest, which is always alike and almost soundless. the ocean menaces and caresses, it frolics with every colour, speaks with every voice; it reflects the sky, from which too comes the breath of eternity, but an eternity as it were not so remote from us.... the dark, unchanging pine-forest keeps sullen silence or is filled with a dull roar--and at the sight of it sinks into man's heart more deeply, more irresistibly, the sense of his own nothingness. it is hard for man, the creature of a day, born yesterday, and doomed to death on the morrow, it is hard for him to bear the cold gaze of the eternal isis, fixed without sympathy upon him: not only the daring hopes and dreams of youth are humbled and quenched within him, enfolded by the icy breath of the elements; no--his whole soul sinks down and swoons within him; he feels that the last of his kind may vanish off the face of the earth--and not one needle will quiver on those twigs; he feels his isolation, his feebleness, his fortuitousness;--and in hurried, secret panic, he turns to the petty cares and labours of life; he is more at ease in that world he has himself created; there he is at home, there he dares yet believe in his own importance and in his own power. such were the ideas that came into my mind, some years ago, when, standing on the steps of a little inn on the bank of the marshy little river ressetta, i first gazed upon the forest. the bluish masses of fir-forest lay in long, continuous ridges before me; here and there was the green patch of a small birch-copse; the whole sky-line was hugged by the pine-wood; nowhere was there the white gleam of a church, nor bright stretches of meadow--it was all trees and trees, everywhere the ragged edge of the tree-tops, and a delicate dim mist, the eternal mist of the forest, hung over them in the distance. it was not indolent repose this immobility of life suggested; no--the absence of life, something dead, even in its grandeur, was what came to me from every side of the horizon. i remember big white clouds were swimming by, slowly and very high up, and the hot summer day lay motionless upon the silent earth. the reddish water of the stream glided without a splash among the thick reeds: at its bottom could be dimly discerned round cushions of pointed moss, and its banks sank away in the swampy mud, and sharply reappeared again in white hillocks of fine crumbling sand. close by the little inn ran the trodden highroad. on this road, just opposite the steps, stood a cart, loaded with boxes and hampers. its owner, a thin pedlar with a hawk nose and mouse-like eyes, bent and lame, was putting in it his little nag, lame like himself. he was a gingerbread-seller, who was making his way to the fair at karatchev. suddenly several people appeared on the road, others straggled after them ... at last, quite a crowd came trudging into sight; all of them had sticks in their hands and satchels on their shoulders. from their fatigued yet swinging gait, and from their sun-burnt faces, one could see they had come from a long distance. they were leatherworkers and diggers coming back from working for hire. an old man of seventy, white all over, seemed to be their leader. from time to time he turned round and with a quiet voice urged on those who lagged behind. 'now, now, now, lads,' he said, 'no--ow.' they all walked in silence, in a sort of solemn hush. only one of them, a little man with a wrathful air, in a sheepskin coat wide open, and a lambswool cap pulled right over his eyes, on coming up to the gingerbread man, suddenly inquired: 'how much is the gingerbread, you tomfool?' 'what sort of gingerbread will it be, worthy sir?' the disconcerted gingerbread--man responded in a thin, little voice. 'some are a farthing--and others cost a halfpenny. have you a halfpenny in your purse?' 'but i guess it will sweeten the belly too much,' retorted the sheepskin, and he retreated from the cart. 'hurry up, lads, hurry up,' i heard the old man's voice: 'it's far yet to our night's rest.' 'an uneducated folk,' said the gingerbread-man, with a squint at me, directly all the crowd had trudged past: 'is such a dainty for the likes of them?' and quickly harnessing his horse, he went down to the river, where a little wooden ferry could be seen. a peasant in a white felt 'schlik' (the usual headgear in the forest) came out of a low mud hut to meet him, and ferried him over to the opposite bank. the little cart, with one wheel creaking from time to time, crawled along the trodden and deeply rutted road. i fed my horses, and i too was ferried over. after struggling for a couple of miles through the boggy prairie, i got at last on to a narrow raised wooden causeway to a clearing in the forest. the cart jolted unevenly over the round beams of the causeway: i got out and went along on foot. the horses moved in step snorting and shaking their heads from the gnats and flies. the forest took us into its bosom. on the outskirts, nearer to the prairie, grew birches, aspens, limes, maples, and oaks. then they met us more rarely, the dense firwood moved down on us in an unbroken wall. further on were the red, bare trunks of pines, and then again a stretch of mixed copse, overgrown with underwood of hazelnut, mountain ash, and bramble, and stout, vigorous weeds. the sun's rays threw a brilliant light on the tree-tops, and, filtering through the branches, here and there reached the ground in pale streaks and patches. birds i scarcely heard--they do not like great forests. only from time to time there came the doleful, thrice-repeated call of a hoopoe, and the angry screech of a nuthatch or a jay; a silent, always solitary bird kept fluttering across the clearing, with a flash of golden azure from its lovely feathers. at times the trees grew further apart, ahead of us the light broke in, the cart came out on a cleared, sandy, open space. thin rye was growing over it in rows, noiselessly nodding its pale ears. on one side there was a dark, dilapidated little chapel, with a slanting cross over a well. an unseen brook was babbling peaceably with changing, ringing sounds, as though it were flowing into an empty bottle. and then suddenly the road was cut in half by a birch-tree recently fallen, and the forest stood around, so old, lofty, and slumbering, that the air seemed pent in. in places the clearing lay under water. on both sides stretched a forest bog, all green and dark, all covered with reeds and tiny alders. ducks flew up in pairs--and it was strange to see those water-birds darting rapidly about among the pines. 'ga, ga, ga, ga,' their drawn-out call kept rising unexpectedly. then a shepherd drove a flock through the underwood: a brown cow with short, pointed horns broke noisily through the bushes and stood stockstill at the edge of the clearing, her big, dark eyes fixed on the dog running before me. a slight breeze brought the delicate, pungent smell of burnt wood. a white smoke in the distance crept in eddying rings over the pale, blue forest air, showing that a peasant was charcoal-burning for a glass-factory or for a foundry. the further we went on, the darker and stiller it became all round us. in the pine-forest it is always still; there is only, high overhead, a sort of prolonged murmur and subdued roar in the tree-tops. one goes on and on, and this eternal murmur of the forest never ceases, and the heart gradually begins to sink, and a man longs to come out quickly into the open, into the daylight; he longs to draw a full breath again, and is oppressed by the fragrant damp and decay.... for about twelve miles we drove on at a walking pace, rarely at a trot. i wanted to get by daylight to svyatoe, a hamlet lying in the very heart of the forest. twice we met peasants with stripped bark or long logs on carts. 'is it far to svyatoe?' i asked one of them. 'no, not far.' 'how far?' 'it'll be a little over two miles.' another hour and a half went by. we were still driving on and on. again we heard the creak of a laden cart. a peasant was walking beside it. 'how far, brother, is it still to svyatoe?' 'what?' 'how far to svyatoe?' 'six miles.' the sun was already setting when at last i got out of the forest and saw facing me a little village. about twenty homesteads were grouped close about an old wooden church, with a single green cupola, and tiny windows, brilliantly red in the evening glow. this was svyatoe. i drove into its outskirts. a herd returning homewards overtook my cart, and with lowing, grunting and bleating moved by us. young girls and bustling peasant women came to meet their beasts. whiteheaded boys with merry shrieks went in chase of refractory pigs. the dust swirled along the street in light clouds, flushed crimson as they rose higher in the air. i stopped at the house of the village elder, a crafty and clever 'forester,' one of those foresters of whom they say he can see two yards into the ground. early next morning, accompanied by the village elder's son, and another peasant called yegor, i set off in a little cart with a pair of peasant's horses, to shoot woodcocks and moorhens. the forest formed a continuous bluish ring all round the sky-line; there was reckoned to be two hundred acres, no more, of ploughed land round svyatoe; but one had to go some five miles to find good places for game. the elder's son was called kondrat. he was a flaxen-haired, rosy-cheeked young fellow, with a good-natured, peaceable expression of face, obliging and talkative. he drove the horses. yegor sat by my side. i want to say a few words about him. he was considered the cleverest sportsman in the whole district. every step of the ground for fifty miles round he had been over again and again. he seldom fired at a bird, for lack of powder and shot; but it was enough for him to decoy a moorhen or to detect the track of a grouse. yegor had the character of being a straightforward fellow and 'no talker.' he did not care for talking and never exaggerated the number of birds he had taken--a trait rare in a sportsman. he was of medium height, thin, and had a pale, long face, and big, honest eyes. all his features, especially his straight and never-moving lips, were expressive of untroubled serenity. he gave a slight, as it were inward smile, whenever he uttered a word--very sweet was that quiet smile. he never drank spirits, and worked industriously; but nothing prospered with him. his wife was always ailing, his children didn't live; he got poorer and poorer and could never pick up again. and there is no denying that a passion for the chase is no good for a peasant, and any one who 'plays with a gun' is sure to be a poor manager of his land. either from constantly being in the forest, face to face with the stern and melancholy scenery of that inhuman country, or from the peculiar cast and formation of his character, there was noticeable in every action of yegor's a sort of modest dignity and stateliness--stateliness it was, and not melancholy--the stateliness of a majestic stag. he had in his time killed seven bears, lying in wait for them in the oats. the last he had only succeeded in killing on the fourth night of his ambush; the bear persisted in not turning sideways to him, and he had only one bullet. yegor had killed him the day before my arrival. when kondrat brought me to him, i found him in his back yard; squatting on his heels before the huge beast, he was cutting the fat out with a short, blunt knife. 'what a fine fellow you've knocked over there!' i observed. yegor raised his head and looked first at me, then at the dog, who had come with me. 'if it's shooting you've come after, sir, there are woodcocks at moshnoy--three coveys, and five of moorhens,' he observed, and set to work again. with yegor and with kondrat i went out the next day in search of sport. we drove rapidly over the open ground surrounding svyatoe, but when we got into the forest we crawled along at a walking pace once more. 'look, there's a wood-pigeon,' said kondrat suddenly, turning to me: 'better knock it over!' yegor looked in the direction kondrat pointed, but said nothing. the wood-pigeon was over a hundred paces from us, and one can't kill it at forty paces; there is such strength in its feathers. a few more remarks were made by the conversational kondrat; but the forest hush had its influence even on him; he became silent. only rarely exchanging a word or two, looking straight ahead, and listening to the puffing and snorting of the horses, we got at last to 'moshnoy.' that is the name given to the older pine-forest, overgrown in places by fir saplings. we got out; kondrat led the cart into the bushes, so that the gnats should not bite the horses. yegor examined the cock of his gun and crossed himself: he never began anything without the sign of the cross. the forest into which we had come was exceedingly old. i don't know whether the tartars had wandered over it, but russian thieves or lithuanians, in disturbed times, might certainly have hidden in its recesses. at a respectful distance from one another stood the mighty pines with their slightly curved, massive, pale-yellow trunks. between them stood in single file others, rather younger. the ground was covered with greenish moss, sprinkled all over with dead pine-needles; blueberries grew in dense bushes; the strong perfume of the berries, like the smell of musk, oppressed the breathing. the sun could not pierce through the high network of the pine-branches; but it was stiflingly hot in the forest all the same, and not dark; like big drops of sweat the heavy, transparent resin stood out and slowly trickled down the coarse bark of the trees. the still air, with no light or shade in it, stung the face. everything was silent; even our footsteps were not audible; we walked on the moss as on a carpet. yegor in particular moved as silently as a shadow; even the brushwood did not crackle under his feet. he walked without haste, from time to time blowing a shrill note on a whistle; a woodcock soon answered back, and before my eyes darted into a thick fir-tree. but in vain yegor pointed him out to me; however much i strained my eyes, i could not make him out. yegor had to take a shot at him. we came upon two coveys of moorhens also. the cautious birds rose at a distance with an abrupt, heavy sound. we succeeded, however, in killing three young ones. at one _meidan_ [footnote : _meidan_ is the name given to a place where tar has been made.--author's note.] yegor suddenly stopped and called me up. 'a bear has been trying to get water,' he observed, pointing to a broad, fresh scratch, made in the very middle of a hole covered with fine moss. 'is that the print of his paw?' i inquired. 'yes; but the water has dried up. that's the track of him too on that pine; he has been climbing after honey. he has cut into it with his claws as if with a knife.' we went on making our way into the inner-most depths of the forest. yegor only rarely looked upwards, and walked on serenely and confidently. i saw a high, round rampart, enclosed by a half-choked-up ditch. 'what's that? a _meidan_ too?' i inquired. 'no,' answered yegor; 'here's where the thieves' town stood.' 'long ago?' 'long ago; our grandfathers remember it. here they buried their treasure. and they took a mighty oath: on human blood.' we went on another mile and a half; i began to feel thirsty. 'sit down a little while,' said yegor: 'i will go for water; there is a well not far from here.' he went away; i was left alone. i sat down on a felled stump, leaned my elbows on my knees, and after a long stillness, raised my head and looked around me. oh, how still and sullenly gloomy was everything around me--no, not gloomy even, but dumb, cold, and menacing at the same time! my heart sank. at that instant, at that spot, i had a sense of death breathing upon me, i felt i almost touched its perpetual closeness. if only one sound had vibrated, one momentary rustle had arisen, in the engulfing stillness of the pine-forest that hemmed me in on all sides! i let my head sink again, almost in terror; it was as though i had looked in, where no man ought to look.... i put my hand over my eyes--and all at once, as though at some mysterious bidding, i began to remember all my life.... there passed in a flash before me my childhood, noisy and peaceful, quarrelsome and good-hearted, with hurried joys and swift sorrows; then my youth rose up, vague, queer, self-conscious, with all its mistakes and beginnings, with disconnected work, and agitated indolence.... there came back, too, to my memory the comrades who shared those early aspirations ... then like lightning in the night there came the gleam of a few bright memories ... then the shadows began to grow and bear down on me, it was darker and darker about me, more dully and quietly the monotonous years ran by--and like a stone, dejection sank upon my heart. i sat without stirring and gazed, gazed with effort and perplexity, as though i saw all my life before me, as though scales had fallen from my eyes. oh, what have i done! my lips involuntarily murmured in a bitter whisper. o life, life, where, how have you gone without a trace? how have you slipped through my clenched fingers? have you deceived me, or was it that i knew not how to make use of your gifts? is it possible? is this fragment, this poor handful of dusty ashes, all that is left of you? is this cold, stagnant, unnecessary something--i, the i of old days? how? the soul was athirst for happiness so perfect, she rejected with such scorn all that was small, all that was insufficient, she waited: soon happiness would burst on her in a torrent--and has not one drop moistened the parched lips? oh, my golden strings, you that once so delicately, so sweetly quivered,--i have never, it seems, heard your music ... you had but just sounded--when you broke. or, perhaps, happiness, the true happiness of all my life, passed close by me, smiled a resplendent smile upon me--and i failed to recognise its divine countenance. or did it really visit me, sit at my bedside, and is forgotten by me, like a dream? like a dream, i repeated disconsolately. elusive images flitted over my soul, awakening in it something between pity and bewilderment ... you too, i thought, dear, familiar, lost faces, you, thronging about me in this deadly solitude, why are you so profoundly and mournfully silent? from what abyss have you arisen? how am i to interpret your enigmatic glances? are you greeting me, or bidding me farewell? oh, can it be there is no hope, no turning back? why are these heavy, belated drops trickling from my eyes? o heart, why, to what end, grieve more? try to forget if you would have peace, harden yourself to the meek acceptance of the last parting, to the bitter words 'good-bye' and 'for ever.' do not look back, do not remember, do not strive to reach where it is light, where youth laughs, where hope is wreathed with the flowers of spring, where dovelike delight soars on azure wings, where love, like dew in the sunrise, flashes with tears of ecstasy; look not where is bliss, and faith and power--that is not our place! 'here is water for you,' i heard yegor's musical voice behind me: 'drink, with god's blessing.' i could not help starting; this living speech shook me, sent a delightful tremor all through me. it was as though i had fallen into unknown, dark depths, where all was hushed about me, and nothing could be heard but the soft, persistent moan of some unending grief.... i was faint and could not struggle, and all at once there floated down to me a friendly voice, and some mighty hand with one pull drew me up into the light of day. i looked round, and with unutterable consolation saw the serene and honest face of my guide. he stood easily and gracefully before me, and with his habitual smile held out a wet flask full of clear liquid.... i got up. 'let's go on; lead the way,' i said eagerly. we set off and wandered a long while, till evening. directly the noonday heat was over, it became cold and dark so rapidly in the forest that one felt no desire to remain in it. 'away, restless mortals,' it seemed whispering sullenly from each pine. we came out, but it was some time before we could find kondrat. we shouted, called to him, but he did not answer. all of a sudden, in the profound stillness of the air, we heard his 'wo, wo,' sound distinctly in a ravine close to us.... the wind, which had suddenly sprung up, and as suddenly dropped again, had prevented him from hearing our calls. only on the trees which stood some distance apart were traces of its onslaught to be seen; many of the leaves were blown inside out, and remained so, giving a variegated look to the motionless foliage. we got into the cart, and drove home. i sat, swaying to and fro, and slowly breathing in the damp, rather keen air; and all my recent reveries and regrets were drowned in the one sensation of drowsiness and fatigue, in the one desire to get back as soon as possible to the shelter of a warm house, to have a good drink of tea with cream, to nestle into the soft, yielding hay, and to sleep, to sleep, to sleep.... second day the next morning the three of us set off to the 'charred wood.' ten years before, several thousand acres in the 'forest' had been burnt down, and had not up to that time grown again; here and there, young firs and pines were shooting up, but for the most part there was nothing but moss and ashes. in this 'charred wood,' which is reckoned to be about nine miles from svyatoe, there are all sorts of berries growing in great profusion, and it is a favourite haunt of grouse, who are very fond of strawberries and bilberries. we were driving along in silence, when suddenly kondrat raised his head. 'ah!' he exclaimed: 'why, that's never efrem standing yonder! 'morning to you, alexandritch,' he added, raising his voice, and lifting his cap. a short peasant in a short, black smock, with a cord round the waist, came out from behind a tree, and approached the cart. 'why, have they let you off?' inquired kondrat. 'i should think so!' replied the peasant, and he grinned. 'you don't catch them keeping the likes of me.' 'and what did piotr filippitch say to it?' 'filippov, is it? oh, he's all right.' 'you don't say so! why, i thought, alexandritch--well, brother, thought i, now you 're the goose that must lie down in the frying-pan!' 'on account of piotr filippov, hey? get along! we've seen plenty like him. he tries to pass for a wolf, and then slinks off like a dog.--going shooting your honour, hey?' the peasant suddenly inquired, turning his little, screwed-up eyes rapidly upon me, and at once dropping them again. 'yes.' 'and whereabouts, now?' 'to the charred wood,' said kondrat. 'you 're going to the charred wood? mind you don't get into the fire.' 'eh?' 'i've seen a lot of woodcocks,' the peasant went on, seeming all the while to be laughing, and making kondrat no answer. 'but you'll never get there; as the crow flies it'll be fifteen miles. why, even yegor here--not a doubt but he's as at home in the forest as in his own back-yard, but even he won't make his way there. hullo, yegor, you honest penny halfpenny soul!' he shouted suddenly. 'good morning, efrem,' yegor responded deliberately. i looked with curiosity at this efrem. it was long since i had seen such a queer face. he had a long, sharp nose, thick lips, and a scanty beard. his little blue eyes positively danced, like little imps. he stood in a free-and-easy pose, his arms akimbo, and did not touch his cap. 'going home for a visit, eh?' kondrat questioned him. 'go on! on a visit! it's not the weather for that, my lad; it's set fair. it's all open and free, my dear; one may lie on the stove till winter time, not a dog will stir. when i was in the town, the clerk said: "give us up," says he, "'lexandritch; you just get out of the district, we'll let you have a passport, first-class one ..." but there, i'd pity on you svyatoe fellows: you'd never get another thief like me.' kondrat laughed. 'you will have your joke, uncle, you will, upon my word,' he said, and he shook the reins. the horses started off. 'wo,' said efrem. the horses stopped. kondrat did not like this prank. 'enough of your nonsense, alexandritch,' he observed in an undertone: 'don't you see we're out with a gentleman? you mind; he'll be angry.' 'get on with you, sea-drake! what should he be angry about? he's a good-natured gentleman. you see, he'll give me something to drink. hey, master, give a poor scoundrel a dram! won't i drink it!' he added, shrugging his shoulder up to his ear, and grating his teeth. i could not help smiling, gave him a copper, and told kondrat to drive on. 'much obliged, your honour,' efrem shouted after us in soldierly fashion. 'and you'll know, kondrat, for the future from whom to learn manners. faint heart never wins; 'tis boldness gains the day. when you come back, come to my place, d'ye hear? there'll be drinking going on three days at home; there'll be some necks broken, i can tell you; my wife's a devil of a woman; our yard's on the side of a precipice.... ay, magpie, have a good time till your tail gets pinched.' and with a sharp whistle, efrem plunged into the bushes. 'what sort of man is he?' i questioned kondrat, who, sitting in the front, kept shaking his head, as though deliberating with himself. 'that fellow?' replied kondrat, and he looked down. 'that fellow?' he repeated. 'yes. is he of your village?' 'yes, he's a svyatoe man. he's a fellow.... you wouldn't find the like of him, if you hunted for a hundred miles round. a thief and cheat--good lord, yes! another man's property simply, as it were, takes his eye. you may bury a thing underground, and you won't hide it from him; and as to money, you might sit on it, and he'd get it from under you without your noticing it.' 'what a bold fellow he is!' 'bold? yes, he's not afraid of any one. but just look at him; he's a beast by his physiognomy; you can see by his nose.' (kondrat often used to drive with gentlemen, and had been in the chief town of the province, and so liked on occasion to show off his attainments.) 'there's positively no doing anything with him. how many times they've taken him off to put him in the prison!--it's simply trouble thrown away. they start tying him up, and he'll say, "come, why don't you fasten that leg? fasten that one too, and a little tighter: i'll have a little sleep meanwhile; and i shall get home before your escort." and lo and behold! there he is back again, yes, back again, upon my soul! well as we all about here know the forest, being used to it from childhood, we're no match for him there. last summer he came at night straight across from altuhin to svyatoe, and no one had ever been known to walk it--it'll be over thirty miles. and he steals honey too; no one can beat him at that; and the bees don't sting him. there's not a hive he hasn't plundered.' 'i expect he doesn't spare the wild bees either?' 'well, no, i won't lay a false charge against him. that sin's never been observed in him. the wild bees' nest is a holy thing with us. a hive is shut in by fences; there's a watch kept; if you get the honey--it's your luck; but the wild bee is a thing of god's, not guarded; only the bear touches it.' 'because he is a bear,' remarked yegor. 'is he married?' 'to be sure. and he has a son. and won't he be a thief too, the son! he's taken after his father. and he's training him now too. the other day he took a pot with some old coppers in it, stolen somewhere, i've no doubt, went and buried it in a clearing in the forest, and went home and sent his son to the clearing. "till you find the pot," says he, "i won't give you anything to eat, or let you into the place." the son stayed the whole day in the forest, and spent the night there, but he found the pot. yes, he's a smart chap, that efrem. when he's at home, he's a civil fellow, presses every one; you may eat and drink as you will, and there'll be dancing got up at his place and merry-making of all sorts. and when he comes to the meeting--we have a parish meeting, you know, in our village--well, no one talks better sense than he does; he'll come up behind, listen, say a word as if he chopped it off, and away again; and a weighty word it'll be, too. but when he's about in the forest, ah! that means trouble! we've to look out for mischief. though, i must say, he doesn't touch his own people unless he's in a fix. if he meets a svyatoe man: "go along with you, brother," he'll shout, a long way away; "the forest devil's upon me: i shall kill you!"--it's a bad business!' 'what can you all be thinking about? a whole district can't get even with one man?' 'well, that's just how it is, any way.' 'is he a sorcerer, then?' 'who can say! here, some days ago, he crept round at night to the deacon's near, after the honey, and the deacon was watching the hive himself. well, he caught him, and in the dark he gave him a good hiding. when he'd done, efrem, he says to him: "but d'you know who it is you've been beating?" the deacon, when he knew him by his voice, was fairly dumfoundered. "well, my good friend," says efrem, "you won't get off so easily for this." the deacon fell down at his feet. "take," says he, "what you please." "no," says he. "i'll take it from you at my own time and as i choose." and what do you think? since that day the deacon's as though he'd been scalded; he wanders about like a ghost. "it's taken," says he, "all the heart out of me; it was a dreadful, powerful saying, to be sure, the brigand fastened upon me." that's how it is with him, with the deacon.' 'that deacon must be a fool,' i observed. 'a fool? well, but what do you say to this? there was once an order issued to seize this fellow, efrem. we had a police commissary then, a sharp man. and so a dozen chaps went off into the forest to take efrem. they look, and there he is coming to meet them.... one of them shouts, "here he is, hold him, tie him!" but efrem stepped into the forest and cut himself a branch, two fingers' thickness, like this, and then out he skips into the road again, looking so frightful, so terrible, and gives the command like a general at a review: "on your knees!" all of them fairly fell down. "but who," says he, "shouted hold him, tie him? you, seryoga?" the fellow simply jumped up and ran ... and efrem after him, and kept swinging his branch at his heels.... for nearly a mile he stroked him down. and afterwards he never ceased to regret: "ah," he'd say, "it is annoying i didn't lay him up for the confession." for it was just before st. philip's day. well, they changed the police commissary soon after, but it all ended the same way.' 'why did they all give in to him?' 'why! well, it is so....' 'he has frightened you all, and now he does as he likes with you.' 'frightened, yes.... he'd frighten any one. and he's a wonderful hand at contrivances, my goodness, yes! i once came upon him in the forest; there was a heavy rain falling; i was for edging away.... but he looked at me, and beckoned to me with his hand like this. "come along," says he, "kondrat, don't be afraid. let me show you how to live in the forest, and to keep dry in the rain." i went up to him, and he was sitting under a fir-tree, and he'd made a fire of damp twigs: the smoke hung about in the fir-tree, and kept the rain from dripping through. i was astonished at him then. and i'll tell you what he contrived one time' (and kondrat laughed); 'he really did do a funny thing. they'd been thrashing the oats at the thrashing-floor, and they hadn't finished; they hadn't time to rake up the last heap; well, they 'd set two watch-men by it for the night, and they weren't the boldest-hearted of the chaps either. well, they were sitting and gossiping, and efrem takes and stuffs his shirt-sleeves full of straw, ties up the wrist-bands, and puts the shirt up over his head. and so he steals up in that shape to the thrashing-floor, and just pops out from behind the corner and gives them a peep of his horns. one chap says to the other: "do you see?" "yes," says the other, and didn't he give a screech all of a sudden ... and then the fences creaked and nothing more was seen of them. efrem shovelled up the oats into a bag and dragged it off home. he told the story himself afterwards. he put them to shame, he did, the chaps.... he did really!' kondrat laughed again. and yegor smiled. 'so the fences creaked and that was all?' he commented. 'there was nothing more seen of them,' kondrat assented. 'they were simply gone in a flash.' we were all silent again. suddenly kondrat started and sat up. 'eh, mercy upon us!' he ejaculated; 'surely it's never a fire!' 'where, where?' we asked. 'yonder, see, in front, where we 're going.... a fire it is! efrem there, efrem--why, he foretold it! if it's not his doing, the damned fellow!...' i glanced in the direction kondrat was pointing. two or three miles ahead of us, behind a green strip of low fir saplings, there really was a thick column of dark blue smoke slowly rising from the ground, gradually twisting and coiling into a cap-shaped cloud; to the right and left of it could be seen others, smaller and whiter. a peasant, all red and perspiring, in nothing but his shirt, with his hair hanging dishevelled about his scared face, galloped straight towards us, and with difficulty stopped his hastily bridled horse. 'mates,' he inquired breathlessly, 'haven't you seen the foresters?' 'no, we haven't. what is it? is the forest on fire?' 'yes. we must get the people together, or else if it gets to trosnoe ...' the peasant tugged with his elbows, pounded with his heels on the horse's sides.... it galloped off. kondrat, too, whipped up his pair. we drove straight towards the smoke, which was spreading more and more widely; in places it suddenly grew black and rose up high. the nearer we moved to it, the more indefinite became its outlines; soon all the air was clouded over, there was a strong smell of burning, and here and there between the trees, with a strange, weird quivering in the sunshine, gleamed the first pale red tongues of flame. 'well, thank god,' observed kondrat, 'it seems it's an overground fire.' 'what's that?' 'overground? one that runs along over the earth. with an underground fire, now, it's a difficult job to deal. what's one to do, when the earth's on fire for a whole yard's depth? there's only one means of safety--digging ditches,--and do you suppose that's easy? but an overground fire's nothing. it only scorches the grasses and burns the dry leaves! the forest will be all the better for it. ouf, though, mercy on us, look how it flares!' we drove almost up to the edge of the fire. i got down and went to meet it. it was neither dangerous nor difficult. the fire was running over the scanty pine-forest against the wind; it moved in an uneven line, or, to speak more accurately, in a dense jagged wall of curved tongues. the smoke was carried away by the wind. kondrat had told the truth; it really was an overground fire, which only scorched the grass and passed on without finishing its work, leaving behind it a black and smoking, but not even smouldering, track. at times, it is true, when the fire came upon a hole filled with dry wood and twigs, it suddenly and with a kind of peculiar, rather vindictive roar, rose up in long, quivering points; but it soon sank down again and ran on as before, with a slight hiss and crackle. i even noticed, more than once, an oak-bush, with dry hanging leaves, hemmed in all round and yet untouched, except for a slight singeing at its base. i must own i could not understand why the dry leaves were not burned. kondrat explained to me that it was owing to the fact that the fire was overground, 'that's to say, not angry.' 'but it's fire all the same,' i protested. 'overground fire,' repeated kondrat. however, overground as it was, the fire, none the less, produced its effect: hares raced up and down with a sort of disorder, running back with no sort of necessity into the neighbourhood of the fire; birds fell down in the smoke and whirled round and round; horses looked back and neighed, the forest itself fairly hummed--and man felt discomfort from the heat suddenly beating into his face.... 'what are we looking at?' said yegor suddenly, behind my back. 'let's go on.' 'but where are we to go?' asked kondrat. 'take the left, over the dry bog; we shall get through.' we turned to the left, and got through, though it was sometimes difficult for both the horses and the cart. the whole day we wandered over the charred wood. at evening--the sunset had not yet begun to redden in the sky, but the shadows from the trees already lay long and motionless, and in the grass one could feel that chill that comes before the dew--i lay down by the roadside near the cart in which kondrat, without haste, was harnessing the horses after their feed, and i recalled my cheerless reveries of the day before. everything around was as still as the previous evening, but there was not the forest, stifling and weighing down the spirit. on the dry moss, on the crimson grasses, on the soft dust of the road, on the slender stems and pure little leaves of the young birch-trees, lay the clear soft light of the no longer scorching, sinking sun. everything was resting, plunged in soothing coolness; nothing was yet asleep, but everything was getting ready for the restoring slumber of evening and night-time. everything seemed to be saying to man: 'rest, brother of ours; breathe lightly, and grieve not, thou too, at the sleep close before thee.' i raised my head and saw at the very end of a delicate twig one of those large flies with emerald head, long body, and four transparent wings, which the fanciful french call 'maidens,' while our guileless people has named them 'bucket-yokes.' for a long while, more than an hour, i did not take my eyes off her. soaked through and through with sunshine, she did not stir, only from time to time turning her head from side to side and shaking her lifted wings ... that was all. looking at her, it suddenly seemed to me that i understood the life of nature, understood its clear and unmistakable though, to many, still mysterious significance. a subdued, quiet animation, an unhasting, restrained use of sensations and powers, an equilibrium of health in each separate creature--there is her very basis, her unvarying law, that is what she stands upon and holds to. everything that goes beyond this level, above or below--it makes no difference--she flings away as worthless. many insects die as soon as they know the joys of love, which destroy the equilibrium. the sick beast plunges into the thicket and expires there alone: he seems to feel that he no longer has the right to look upon the sun that is common to all, nor to breathe the open air; he has not the right to live;--and the man who from his own fault or from the fault of others is faring ill in the world--ought, at least, to know how to keep silence. 'well, yegor!' cried kondrat all at once. he had already settled himself on the box of the cart and was shaking and playing with the reins. 'come, sit down. what are you so thoughtful about? still about the cow?' 'about the cow? what cow?' i repeated, and looked at yegor: calm and stately as ever, he certainly did seem thoughtful, and was gazing away into the distance towards the fields already beginning to get dark. 'don't you know?' answered kondrat; 'his last cow died last night. he has no luck.--what are you going to do?'.... yegor sat down on the box, without speaking, and we drove off. 'that man knows how to bear in silence,' i thought. yakov pasinkov i it happened in petersburg, in the winter, on the first day of the carnival. i had been invited to dinner by one of my schoolfellows, who enjoyed in his youth the reputation of being as modest as a maiden, and turned out in the sequel a person by no means over rigid in his conduct. he is dead now, like most of my schoolfellows. there were to be present at the dinner, besides me, konstantin alexandrovitch asanov, and a literary celebrity of those days. the literary celebrity kept us waiting for him, and finally sent a note that he was not coming, and in place of him there turned up a little light-haired gentleman, one of the everlasting uninvited guests with whom petersburg abounds. the dinner lasted a long while; our host did not spare the wine, and by degrees our heads were affected. everything that each of us kept hidden in his heart--and who is there that has not something hidden in his heart?--came to the surface. our host's face suddenly lost its modest and reserved expression; his eyes shone with a brazen-faced impudence, and a vulgar grin curved his lips; the light-haired gentleman laughed in a feeble way, with a senseless crow; but asanov surprised me more than any one. the man had always been conspicuous for his sense of propriety, but now he began by suddenly rubbing his hand over his forehead, giving himself airs, boasting of his connections, and continually alluding to a certain uncle of his, a very important personage.... i positively should not have known him; he was unmistakably jeering at us ... he all but avowed his contempt for our society. asanov's insolence began to exasperate me. 'listen,' i said to him; 'if we are such poor creatures to your thinking, you'd better go and see your illustrious uncle. but possibly he's not at home to you.' asanov made me no reply, and went on passing his hand across his forehead. 'what a set of people!' he said again; 'they've never been in any decent society, never been acquainted with a single decent woman, while i have here,' he cried, hurriedly pulling a pocket-book out of his side-pocket and tapping it with his hand, 'a whole pack of letters from a girl whom you wouldn't find the equal of in the whole world.' our host and the light-haired gentleman paid no attention to asanov's last words; they were holding each other by their buttons, and both relating something; but i pricked up my ears. 'oh, you 're bragging, mr. nephew of an illustrious personage,' i said, going up to asanov; 'you haven't any letters at all.' 'do you think so?' he retorted, and he looked down loftily at me; 'what's this, then?' he opened the pocket-book, and showed me about a dozen letters addressed to him.... a familiar handwriting, i fancied.... i feel the flush of shame mounting to my cheeks ... my self-love is suffering horribly.... no one likes to own to a mean action.... but there is nothing for it: when i began my story, i knew i should have to blush to my ears in the course of it. and so, i am bound to harden my heart and confess that.... well, this was what passed: i took advantage of the intoxicated condition of asanov, who had carelessly dropped the letters on the champagne-stained tablecloth (my own head was dizzy enough too), and hurriedly ran my eyes over one of the letters.... my heart stood still.... alas! i was myself in love with the girl who had written to asanov, and i could have no doubt now that she loved him. the whole letter, which was in french, expressed tenderness and devotion.... 'mon cher ami constantin!' so it began ... and it ended with the words: 'be careful as before, and i will be yours or no one's.' stunned as by a thunderbolt, i sat for a few instants motionless; at last i regained my self-possession, jumped up, and rushed out of the room. a quarter of an hour later i was back at home in my own lodgings. * * * * * the family of the zlotnitskys was one of the first whose acquaintance i made on coming to petersburg from moscow. it consisted of a father and mother, two daughters, and a son. the father, a man already grey, but still vigorous, who had been in the army, held a fairly important position, spent the morning in a government office, went to sleep after dinner, and in the evening played cards at his club.... he was seldom at home, spoke little and unwillingly, looked at one from under his eyebrows with an expression half surly, half indifferent, and read nothing except books of travels and geography. sometimes he was unwell, and then he would shut himself up in his own room, and paint little pictures, or tease the old grey parrot, popka. his wife, a sickly, consumptive woman, with hollow black eyes and a sharp nose, did not leave her sofa for days together, and was always embroidering cushion-covers in canvas. as far as i could observe, she was rather afraid of her husband, as though she had somehow wronged him at some time or other. the elder daughter, varvara, a plump, rosy, fair-haired girl of eighteen, was always sitting at the window, watching the people that passed by. the son, who was being educated in a government school, was only seen at home on sundays, and he, too, did not care to waste his words. even the younger daughter, sophia, the girl with whom i was in love, was of a silent disposition. in the zlotnitskys' house there reigned a perpetual stillness; it was only broken by the piercing screams of popka, but visitors soon got used to these, and were conscious again of the burden and oppression of the eternal stillness. visitors, however, seldom looked in upon the zlotnitskys; their house was a dull one. the very furniture, the red paper with yellow patterns in the drawing-room, the numerous rush-bottomed chairs in the dining-room, the faded wool-work cushions, embroidered with figures of girls and dogs, on the sofa, the branching lamps, and the gloomy-looking portraits on the walls--everything inspired an involuntary melancholy, about everything there clung a sense of chill and flatness. on my arrival in petersburg, i had thought it my duty to call on the zlotnitskys. they were relations of my mother's. i managed with difficulty to sit out an hour with them, and it was a long while before i went there again. but by degrees i took to going oftener and oftener. i was drawn there by sophia, whom i had not cared for at first, and with whom i finally fell in love. she was a slender, almost thin, girl of medium height, with a pale face, thick black hair, and big brown eyes, always half closed. her severe and well-defined features, especially her tightly shut lips, showed determination and strength of will. at home they knew her to be a girl with a will of her own.... 'she's like her eldest sister, like katerina,' madame zlotnitsky said one day, as she sat alone with me (in her husband's presence she did not dare to mention the said katerina). 'you don't know her; she's in the caucasus, married. at thirteen, only fancy, she fell in love with her husband, and announced to us at the time that she would never marry any one else. we did everything we could--nothing was of any use. she waited till she was three-and-twenty, and braved her father's anger, and so married her idol. there is no saying what sonitchka might not do! the lord preserve her from such stubbornness! but i am afraid for her; she's only sixteen now, and there's no turning her....' mr. zlotnitsky came in, and his wife was instantly silent. what had captivated me in sophia was not her strength of will--no; but with all her dryness, her lack of vivacity and imagination, she had a special charm of her own, the charm of straightforwardness, genuine sincerity, and purity of heart. i respected her as much as i loved her.... it seemed to me that she too looked with friendly eyes on me; to have my illusions as to her feeling for me shattered, and her love for another man proved conclusively, was a blow to me. the unlooked-for discovery i had made astonished me the more as asanov was not often at the zlotnitskys' house, much less so than i, and had shown no marked preference for sonitchka. he was a handsome, dark fellow, with expressive but rather heavy features, with brilliant, prominent eyes, with a large white forehead, and full red lips under fine moustaches. he was very discreet, but severe in his behaviour, confident in his criticisms and utterances, and dignified in his silence. it was obvious that he thought a great deal of himself. asanov rarely laughed, and then with closed teeth, and he never danced. he was rather loosely and clumsily built. he had at one time served in the --th regiment, and was spoken of as a capable officer. 'a strange thing!' i ruminated, lying on the sofa; 'how was it i noticed nothing?' ... 'be careful as before': those words in sophia's letter suddenly recurred to my memory. 'ah!' i thought: 'that's it! what a sly little hussy! and i thought her open and sincere.... wait a bit, that's all; i'll let you know....' but at this point, if i can trust my memory, i began weeping bitterly, and could not get to sleep all night. * * * * * next day at two o'clock i set off to the zlotnitskys'. the father was not at home, and his wife was not sitting in her usual place; after the pancake festival of the preceding day, she had a headache, and had gone to lie down in her bedroom. varvara was standing with her shoulder against the window, looking into the street; sophia was walking up and down the room with her arms folded across her bosom; popka was shrieking. 'ah! how do you do?' said varvara lazily, directly i came into the room, and she added at once in an undertone, 'there goes a peasant with a tray on his head.' ... (she had the habit of keeping up a running commentary on the passers-by to herself.) 'how do you do?' i responded; 'how do you do, sophia nikolaevna? where is tatiana vassilievna?' 'she has gone to lie down,' answered sophia, still pacing the room. 'we had pancakes,' observed varvara, without turning round. 'why didn't you come? ... where can that clerk be going?' 'oh, i hadn't time.' ('present arms!' the parrot screeched shrilly.) 'how popka is shrieking to-day!' 'he always does shriek like that,' observed sophia. we were all silent for a time. 'he has gone in at the gate,' said varvara, and she suddenly got up on the window-sill and opened the window. 'what are you about?' asked sophia. 'there's a beggar,' responded varvara. she bent down, picked up a five-copeck piece from the window; the remains of a fumigating pastille still stood in a grey heap of ashes on the copper coin, as she flung it into the street; then she slammed the window to and jumped heavily down to the floor.... 'i had a very pleasant time yesterday,' i began, seating myself in an arm-chair. 'i dined with a friend of mine; konstantin alexandritch was there.... (i looked at sophia; not an eyebrow quivered on her face.) 'and i must own,' i continued, 'we'd a good deal of wine; we emptied eight bottles between the four of us.' 'really!' sophia articulated serenely, and she shook her head. 'yes,' i went on, slightly irritated at her composure: 'and do you know what, sophia nikolaevna, it's a true saying, it seems, that in wine is truth.' 'how so?' 'konstantin alexandritch made us laugh. only fancy, he began all at once passing his hand over his forehead like this, and saying: "i'm a fine fellow! i've an uncle a celebrated man!"....' 'ha, ha!' came varvara's short, abrupt laugh. ....'popka! popka! popka!' the parrot dinned back at her. sophia stood still in front of me, and looked me straight in the face. 'and you, what did you say?' she asked; 'don't you remember?' i could not help blushing. 'i don't remember! i expect i was pretty absurd too. it certainly is dangerous to drink,' i added with significant emphasis; 'one begins chattering at once, and one's apt to say what no one ought to know. one's sure to be sorry for it afterwards, but then it's too late.' 'why, did you let out some secret?' asked sophia. 'i am not referring to myself.' sophia turned away, and began walking up and down the room again. i stared at her, raging inwardly. 'upon my word,' i thought, 'she is a child, a baby, and how she has herself in hand! she's made of stone, simply. but wait a bit....' 'sophia nikolaevna ...' i said aloud. sophia stopped. 'what is it?' 'won't you play me something on the piano? by the way, i've something i want to say to you,' i added, dropping my voice. sophia, without saying a word, walked into the other room; i followed her. she came to a standstill at the piano. 'what am i to play you?' she inquired. 'what you like ... one of chopin's nocturnes.' sophia began the nocturne. she played rather badly, but with feeling. her sister played nothing but polkas and waltzes, and even that very seldom. she would go sometimes with her indolent step to the piano, sit down, let her coat slip from her shoulders down to her elbows (i never saw her without a coat), begin playing a polka very loud, and without finishing it, begin another, then she would suddenly heave a sigh, get up, and go back again to the window. a queer creature was that varvara! i sat down near sophia. 'sophia nikolaevna,' i began, watching her intently from one side. 'i ought to tell you a piece of news, news disagreeable to me.' 'news? what is it?' 'i'll tell you.... up till now i have been mistaken in you, completely mistaken.' 'how was that?' she rejoined, going on playing, and keeping her eyes fixed on her fingers. 'i imagined you to be open; i imagined that you were incapable of hypocrisy, of hiding your feelings, deceiving....' sophia bent her face closer over the music. 'i don't understand you.' 'and what's more,' i went on; 'i could never have conceived that you, at your age, were already quite capable of acting a part in such masterly fashion.' sophia's hands faintly trembled above the keys. 'why are you saying this?' she said, still not looking at me; 'i play a part?' 'yes, you do.' (she smiled ... i was seized with spiteful fury.) ... 'you pretend to be indifferent to a man and ... and you write letters to him,' i added in a whisper. sophia's cheeks grew white, but she did not turn to me: she played the nocturne through to the end, got up, and closed the piano. 'where are you going?' i asked her in some perplexity. 'you have no answer to make me?' 'what answer can i make you? i don't know what you 're talking about.... and i am not good at pretending....' she began putting by the music. the blood rushed to my head. 'no; you know what i am talking about,' i said, and i too got up from my seat; 'or if you like, i will remind you directly of some of your expressions in one letter: "be as careful as before"....' sophia gave a faint start. 'i never should have expected this of you,' she said at last. 'i never should have expected,' i retorted, 'that you, sophia nikolaevna, would have deigned to notice a man who ...' sophia turned with a rapid movement to me; i instinctively stepped back a little from her; her eyes, always half closed, were so wide open that they looked immense, and they glittered wrathfully under her frowning brows. 'oh! if that's it,' she said, 'let me tell you that i love that man, and that it's absolutely no consequence to me what you think about him or about my love for him. and what business is it of yours? ... what right have you to speak of this? if i have made up my mind ...' she stopped speaking, and went hurriedly out of the room. i stood still. i felt all of a sudden so uncomfortable and so ashamed that i hid my face in my hands. i realised all the impropriety, all the baseness of my behaviour, and, choked with shame and remorse, i stood as it were in disgrace. 'mercy,' i thought, 'what i've done!' 'anton nikititch,' i heard the maid-servant saying in the outer-room, 'get a glass of water, quick, for sophia nikolaevna.' 'what's wrong?' answered the man. 'i fancy she's crying....' i started up and went into the drawing-room for my hat. 'what were you talking about to sonitchka?' varvara inquired indifferently, and after a brief pause she added in an undertone, 'here's that clerk again.' i began saying good-bye. 'why are you going? stay a little; mamma is coming down directly.' 'no; i can't now,' i said: 'i had better call and see her another time.' at that instant, to my horror, to my positive horror, sophia walked with resolute steps into the drawing-room. her face was paler than usual, and her eyelids were a little red. she never even glanced at me. 'look, sonia,' observed varvara; 'there's a clerk keeps continually passing our house.' 'a spy, perhaps...' sophia remarked coldly and contemptuously. this was too much. i went away, and i really don't know how i got home. i felt very miserable, wretched and miserable beyond description. in twenty-four hours two such cruel blows! i had learned that sophia loved another man, and i had for ever forfeited her respect. i felt myself so utterly annihilated and disgraced that i could not even feel indignant with myself. lying on the sofa with my face turned to the wall, i was revelling in the first rush of despairing misery, when i suddenly heard footsteps in the room. i lifted my head and saw one of my most intimate friends, yakov pasinkov. i was ready to fly into a rage with any one who had come into my room that day, but with pasinkov i could never be angry. quite the contrary; in spite of the sorrow devouring me, i was inwardly rejoiced at his coming, and i nodded to him. he walked twice up and down the room, as his habit was, clearing his throat, and stretching out his long limbs; then he stood a minute facing me in silence, and in silence he seated himself in a corner. i had known pasinkov a very long while, almost from childhood. he had been brought up at the same private school, kept by a german, winterkeller, at which i had spent three years. yakov's father, a poor major on the retired list, a very honest man, but a little deranged mentally, had brought him, when a boy of seven, to this german; had paid for him for a year in advance, and had then left moscow and been lost sight of completely.... from time to time there were dark, strange rumours about him. eight years later it was known as a positive fact that he had been drowned in a flood when crossing the irtish. what had taken him to siberia, god knows. yakov had no other relations; his mother had long been dead. he was simply left stranded on winterkeller's hands. yakov had, it is true, a distant relation, a great-aunt; but she was so poor, that she was afraid at first to go to her nephew, for fear she should have the care of him thrust upon her. her fears turned out to be groundless; the kind-hearted german kept yakov with him, let him study with his other pupils, fed him (dessert, however, was not offered him except on sundays), and rigged him out in clothes cut out of the cast-off morning-gowns--usually snuff-coloured--of his mother, an old livonian lady, still alert and active in spite of her great age. owing to all these circumstances, and owing generally to yakov's inferior position in the school, his schoolfellows treated him in rather a casual fashion, looked down upon him, and used to call him 'mammy's dressing-gown,' the 'nephew of the mob-cap' (his aunt invariably wore a very peculiar mob-cap with a bunch of yellow ribbons sticking straight upright, like a globe artichoke, upon it), and sometimes the 'son of yermak' (because his father had, like that hero, been drowned in the irtish). but in spite of those nicknames, in spite of his ridiculous garb, and his absolute destitution, every one was fond of him, and indeed it was impossible not to be fond of him; a sweeter, nobler nature, i imagine, has never existed upon earth. he was very good at lessons too. when i saw him first, he was sixteen years old, and i was only just thirteen. i was an exceedingly selfish and spoilt boy; i had grown up in a rather wealthy house, and so, on entering the school, i lost no time in making friends with a little prince, an object of special solicitude to winterkeller, and with two or three other juvenile aristocrats; while i gave myself great airs with all the rest. pasinkov i did not deign to notice at all. i regarded the long, gawky lad, in a shapeless coat and short trousers, which showed his coarse thread stockings, as some sort of page-boy, one of the house-serfs--at best, a person of the working class. pasinkov was extremely courteous and gentle to everybody, though he never sought the society of any one. if he were rudely treated, he was neither humiliated nor sullen; he simply withdrew and held himself aloof, with a sort of regretful look, as it were biding his time. this was just how he behaved with me. about two months passed. one bright summer day i happened to go out of the playground after a noisy game of leap-frog, and walking into the garden i saw pasinkov sitting on a bench under a high lilac-bush. he was reading. i glanced at the cover of the book as i passed, and read _schiller's werke_ on the back. i stopped short. 'do you mean to say you know german?' i questioned pasinkov.... i feel ashamed to this day as i recall all the arrogance there was in the very sound of my voice.... pasinkov softly raised his small but expressive eyes and looked at me. 'yes,' he answered; 'do you?' 'i should hope so!' i retorted, feeling insulted at the question, and i was about to go on my way, but something held me back. 'what is it you are reading of schiller?' i asked, with the same haughty insolence. 'at this moment i am reading "resignation," a beautiful poem. would you like me to read it to you? come and sit here by me on the bench.' i hesitated a little, but i sat down. pasinkov began reading. he knew german far better than i did. he had to explain the meaning of several lines for me. but already i felt no shame at my ignorance and his superiority to me. from that day, from the very hour of our reading together in the garden, in the shade of the lilac-bush, i loved pasinkov with my whole soul, i attached myself to him and fell completely under his sway. i have a vivid recollection of his appearance in those days. he changed very little, however, later on. he was tall, thin, and rather awkwardly built, with a long back, narrow shoulders, and a hollow chest, which made him look rather frail and delicate, although as a fact he had nothing to complain of on the score of health. his large, dome-shaped head was carried a little on one side; his soft, flaxen hair straggled in lank locks about his slender neck. his face was not handsome, and might even have struck one as absurd, owing to the long, full, and reddish nose, which seemed almost to overhang his wide, straight mouth. but his open brow was splendid; and when he smiled, his little grey eyes gleamed with such mild and affectionate goodness, that every one felt warmed and cheered at heart at the very sight of him. i remember his voice too, soft and even, with a peculiar sort of sweet huskiness in it. he spoke, as a rule, little, and with noticeable difficulty. but when he warmed up, his words flowed freely, and--strange to say!--his voice grew still softer, his glance seemed turned inward and lost its fire, while his whole face faintly glowed. on his lips the words 'goodness,' 'truth,' 'life,' 'science,' 'love,' however enthusiastically they were uttered, never rang with a false note. without strain, without effort, he stepped into the realm of the ideal; his pure soul was at any moment ready to stand before the 'holy shrine of beauty'; it awaited only the welcoming call, the contact of another soul.... pasinkov was an idealist, one of the last idealists whom it has been my lot to come across. idealists, as we all know, are all but extinct in these days; there are none of them, at any rate, among the young people of to day. so much the worse for the young people of to-day! about three years i spent with pasinkov, 'soul in soul,' as the saying is. i was the confidant of his first love. with what grateful sympathy and intentness i listened to his avowal! the object of his passion was a niece of winterkeller's, a fair-haired, pretty little german, with a chubby, almost childish little face, and confidingly soft blue eyes. she was very kind and sentimental: she loved mattison, uhland, and schiller, and repeated their verses very sweetly in her timid, musical voice. pasinkov's love was of the most platonic. he only saw his beloved on sundays, when she used to come and play at forfeits with the winterkeller children, and he had very little conversation with her. but once, when she said to him, 'mein lieber, lieber herr jacob!' he did not sleep all night from excess of bliss. it never even struck him at the time that she called all his schoolfellows 'mein lieber.' i remember, too, his grief and dejection when the news suddenly reached us that fräulein frederike--that was her name--was going to be married to herr kniftus, the owner of a prosperous butcher's shop, a very handsome man, and well educated too; and that she was marrying him, not simply in submission to parental authority, but positively from love. it was a bitter blow for pasinkov, and his sufferings were particularly severe on the day of the young people's first visit. the former fräulein, now frau, frederike presented him, once more addressing him as 'lieber herr jacob,' to her husband, who was all splendour from top to toe; his eyes, his black hair brushed up into a tuft, his forehead and his teeth, and his coat buttons, and the chain on his waistcoat, everything, down to the boots on his rather large, turned-out feet, shone brilliantly. pasinkov pressed herr kniftus's hand, and wished him (and the wish was sincere, that i am certain) complete and enduring happiness. this took place in my presence. i remember with what admiration and sympathy i gazed at yakov. i thought him a hero!.... and afterwards, what mournful conversations passed between us. 'seek consolation in art,' i said to him. 'yes,' he answered me; 'and in poetry.' 'and in friendship,' i added. 'and in friendship,' he repeated. oh, happy days!... it was a grief to me to part from pasinkov. just before i left school, he had, after prolonged efforts and difficulties, after a correspondence often amusing, succeeded in obtaining his certificates of birth and baptism and his passport, and had entered the university. he still went on living at winterkeller's expense; but instead of home-made jackets and breeches, he was provided now with ordinary attire, in return for lessons on various subjects, which he gave the younger pupils. pasinkov was unchanged in his behaviour to me up to the end of my time at the school, though the difference in our ages began to be more noticeable, and i, i remember, grew jealous of some of his new student friends. his influence on me was most beneficial. it was a pity it did not last longer. to give a single instance: as a child i was in the habit of telling lies.... in yakov's presence i could not bring my tongue to utter an untruth. what i particularly loved was walking alone with him, or pacing by his side up and down the room, listening while he, not looking at me, read poetry in his soft, intense voice. it positively seemed to me that we were slowly, gradually, getting away from the earth, and soaring away to some radiant, glorious land of mystery.... i remember one night. we were sitting together under the same lilac-bush; we were fond of that spot. all our companions were asleep; but we had softly got up, dressed, fumbling in the dark, and stealthily stepped out 'to dream.' it was fairly warm out of doors, but a fresh breeze blew now and then and made us huddle closer together. we talked, we talked a lot, and with much warmth--so much so, that we positively interrupted each other, though we did not argue. in the sky gleamed stars innumerable. yakov raised his eyes, and pressing my hand he softly cried out: 'above our heads the sky with the eternal stars.... above the stars their maker....' a thrill of awe ran through me; i felt cold all over, and sank on his shoulder.... my heart was full.... where are those raptures? alas! where youth is. in petersburg i met yakov again eight years after. i had only just been appointed to a position in the service, and some one had got him a little post in some department. our meeting was most joyful. i shall never forget the moment when, sitting alone one day at home, i suddenly heard his voice in the passage.... how i started; with what throbbing at the heart i leaped up and flung myself on his neck, without giving him time to take off his fur overcoat and unfasten his scarf! how greedily i gazed at him through bright, involuntary tears of tenderness! he had grown a little older during those seven years; lines, delicate as if they had been traced by a needle, furrowed his brow here and there, his cheeks were a little more hollow, and his hair was thinner; but he had hardly more beard, and his smile was just the same as ever; and his laugh, a soft, inward, as it were breathless laugh, was the same too.... mercy on us! what didn't we talk about that day! ... the favourite poems we read to one another! i began begging him to move and come and live with me, but he would not consent. he promised, however, to come every day to see me, and he kept his word. in soul, too, pasinkov was unchanged. he showed himself just the same idealist as i had always known him. however rudely life's chill, the bitter chill of experience, had closed in about him, the tender flower that had bloomed so early in my friend's heart had kept all its pure beauty untouched. there was no trace of sadness even, no trace even of melancholy in him; he was quiet, as he had always been, but everlastingly glad at heart. in petersburg he lived as in a wilderness, not thinking of the future, and knowing scarcely any one. i took him to the zlotnitskys'. he used to go and see them rather often. not being self-conscious, he was not shy, but in their house, as everywhere, he said very little; they liked him, however. even the tedious old man, tatiana vassilievna's husband, was friendly to him, and both the silent girls were soon quite at home with him. sometimes he would arrive, bringing with him in the back pocket of his coat some book that had just come out, and for a long time would not make up his mind to read, but would keep stretching his neck out on one side, like a bird, looking about him as though inquiring, 'could he?' at last he would establish himself in a corner (he always liked sitting in corners), would pull out a book and set to reading, at first in a whisper, then louder and louder, occasionally interrupting himself with brief criticisms or exclamations. i noticed that varvara was readier to sit by him and listen than her sister, though she certainly did not understand much; literature was not in her line. she would sit opposite pasinkov, her chin in her hands, staring at him--not into his eyes, but into his whole face--and would not utter a syllable, but only heave a noisy, sudden sigh. sometimes in the evenings we used to play forfeits, especially on sundays and holidays. we were joined on these occasions by two plump, short young ladies, sisters, and distant relations of the zlotnitskys, terribly given to giggling, and a few lads from the military school, very good-natured, quiet fellows. pasinkov always used to sit beside tatiana vassilievna, and with her, judge what was to be done to the one who had to pay a forfeit. sophia did not like the kisses and such demonstrations, with which forfeits are often paid, while varvara used to be cross if she had to look for anything or guess something. the young ladies giggled incessantly--laughter seemed to bubble up by some magic in them,--i sometimes felt positively irritated as i looked at them, but pasinkov only smiled and shook his head. old zlotnitsky took no part in our games, and even looked at us rather disapprovingly from the door of his study. only once, utterly unexpectedly, he came in to us, and proposed that whoever had next to pay a forfeit should waltz with him; we, of course, agreed. it happened to be tatiana vassilievna who had to pay the forfeit. she crimsoned all over, and was confused and abashed like a girl of fifteen; but her husband at once told sophia to go to the piano, while he went up to his wife, and waltzed two rounds with her of the old-fashioned _trois temps_ waltz. i remember how his bilious, gloomy face, with its never-smiling eyes, kept appearing and disappearing as he slowly turned round, his stern expression never relaxing. he waltzed with a long step and a hop, while his wife pattered rapidly with her feet, and huddled up with her face close to his chest, as though she were in terror. he led her to her place, bowed to her, went back to his room and shut the door. sophia was just getting up, but varvara asked her to go on, went up to pasinkov, and holding out her hand, with an awkward smile, said, 'will you like a turn?' pasinkov was surprised, but he jumped up--he was always distinguished by the most delicate courtesy--and took varvara by the waist, but he slipped down at the first step, and leaving hold of his partner at once, rolled right under the pedestal on which the parrot's cage was standing.... the cage fell, the parrot was frightened and shrieked, 'present arms!' every one laughed.... zlotnitsky appeared at his study door, looked grimly at us, and slammed the door to. from that time forth, one had only to allude to this incident before varvara, and she would go off into peals of laughter at once, and look at pasinkov, as though anything cleverer than his behaviour on that occasion it was impossible to conceive. pasinkov was very fond of music. he used often to beg sophia to play him something, and to sit on one side listening, and now and then humming in a thin voice the most pathetic passages. he was particularly fond of schubert's constellation. he used to declare that when he heard the air played he could always fancy that with the sounds long rays of azure light came pouring down from on high, straight upon him. to this day, whenever i look upon a cloudless sky at night, with the softly quivering stars, i always recall schubert's melody and pasinkov.... an excursion into the country comes back to my mind. we set out, a whole party of us, in two hired four-wheel carriages, to pargolovo. i remember we took the carriages from the vladimirsky; they were very old, and painted blue, with round springs, and a wide box-seat, and bundles of hay inside; the brown, broken-winded horses that drew us along at a slow trot were each lame in a different leg. we strolled a long while about the pinewoods round pargolovo, drank milk out of earthenware pitchers, and ate wild strawberries and sugar. the weather was exquisite. varvara did not care for long walks: she used soon to get tired; but this time she did not lag behind us. she took off her hat, her hair came down, her heavy features lighted up, and her cheeks were flushed. meeting two peasant girls in the wood, she sat down suddenly on the ground, called them to her, did not patronise them, but made them sit down beside her. sophia looked at them from some distance with a cold smile, and did not go up to them. she was walking with asanov. zlotnitsky observed that varvara was a regular hen for sitting. varvara got up and walked away. in the course of the walk she several times went up to pasinkov, and said to him, 'yakov ivanitch, i want to tell you something,' but what she wanted to tell him--remained unknown. but it's high time for me to get back to my story. * * * * * i was glad to see pasinkov; but when i recalled what i had done the day before, i felt unutterably ashamed, and i hurriedly turned away to the wall again. after a brief pause, yakov asked me if i were unwell. 'i'm quite well,' i answered through my teeth; 'only my head aches.' yakov made no reply, and took up a book. more than an hour passed by; i was just coming to the point of confessing everything to yakov ... suddenly there was a ring at the outer bell of my flat. the door on to the stairs was opened.... i listened.... asanov was asking my servant if i were at home. pasinkov got up; he did not care for asanov, and telling me in a whisper that he would go and lie down on my bed, he went into my bedroom. a minute later asanov entered. from the very sight of his flushed face, from his brief, cool bow, i guessed that he had not come to me without some set purpose in his mind. 'what is going to happen?' i wondered. 'sir,' he began, quickly seating himself in an armchair, 'i have come to you for you to settle a matter of doubt for me.' 'and that is?' 'that is: i wish to know whether you are an honest man.' i flew into a rage. 'what's the meaning of that?' i demanded. 'i'll tell you what's the meaning of it,' he retorted, underlining as it were each word. 'yesterday i showed you a pocket-book containing letters from a certain person to me.... to-day you repeated to that person, with reproach--with reproach, observe--some expressions from those letters, without having the slightest right to do so. i should like to know what explanation you can give of this?' 'and i should like to know what right you have to cross-examine me,' i answered, trembling with fury and inward shame. 'you chose to boast of your uncle, of your correspondence; i'd nothing to do with it. you've got all your letters all right, haven't you?' 'the letters are all right; but i was yesterday in a condition in which you could easily----' 'in short, sir,' i began, speaking intentionally as loud as i could, 'i beg you to leave me alone, do you hear? i don't want to know anything about it, and i'm not going to give you any explanation. you can go to that person for explanations!' i felt that my head was beginning to go round. asanov turned upon me a look to which he obviously tried to impart an air of scornful penetration, pulled his moustaches, and got up slowly. 'i know now what to think,' he observed; 'your face is the best evidence against you. but i must tell you that that's not the way honourable people behave.... to read a letter on the sly, and then to go and worry an honourable girl....' 'will you go to the devil!' i shouted, stamping, 'and send me a second; i don't mean to talk to you.' 'kindly refrain from telling me what to do,' asanov retorted frigidly; 'but i certainly will send a second to you.' he went away. i fell on the sofa and hid my face in my hands. some one touched me on the shoulder; i moved my hands--before me was standing pasinkov. 'what's this? is it true?' ... he asked me. 'you read another man's letter?' i had not the strength to answer, but i nodded in assent. pasinkov went to the window, and standing with his back to me, said slowly: 'you read a letter from a girl to asanov. who was the girl?' 'sophia zlotnitsky,' i answered, as a prisoner on his trial answers the judge. for a long while pasinkov did not utter a word. 'nothing but passion could to some extent excuse you,' he began at last. 'are you in love then with the younger zlotnitsky?' 'yes.' pasinkov was silent again for a little. 'i thought so. and you went to her to-day and began reproaching her?...' 'yes, yes, yes!...' i articulated desperately. 'now you can despise me....' pasinkov walked a couple of times up and down the room. 'and she loves him?' he queried. 'she loves him....' pasinkov looked down, and gazed a long while at the floor without moving. 'well, it must be set right,' he began, raising his head,' things can't be left like this.' and he took up his hat. 'where are you going?' 'to asanov.' i jumped up from the sofa. 'but i won't let you. good heavens! how can you! what will he think?' pasinkov looked at me. 'why, do you think it better to keep this folly up, to bring ruin on yourself, and disgrace on the girl?' 'but what are you going to say to asanov?' 'i'll try and explain things to him, i'll tell him you beg his forgiveness ...' 'but i don't want to apologise to him!' 'you don't? why, aren't you in fault?' i looked at pasinkov; the calm and severe, though mournful, expression of his face impressed me; it was new to me. i made no reply, and sat down on the sofa. pasinkov went out. in what agonies of suspense i waited for his return! with what cruel slowness the time lingered by! at last he came back--late. 'well?' i queried in a timid voice. 'thank goodness!' he answered; 'it's all settled.' 'you have been at asanov's?' 'yes.' 'well, and he?--made a great to-do, i suppose?' i articulated with an effort. 'no, i can't say that. i expected more ... he ... he's not such a vulgar fellow as i thought.' 'well, and have you seen any one else besides?' i asked, after a brief pause. 'i've been at the zlotnitskys'.' 'ah!...' (my heart began to throb. i did not dare look pasinkov in the face.) 'well, and she?' 'sophia nikolaevna is a reasonable, kind-hearted girl.... yes, she is a kind-hearted girl. she felt awkward at first, but she was soon at ease. but our whole conversation only lasted five minutes.' 'and you ... told her everything ... about me ... everything?' 'i told her what was necessary.' 'i shall never be able to go and see them again now!' i pronounced dejectedly.... 'why? no, you can go occasionally. on the contrary, you are absolutely bound to go and see them, so that nothing should be thought....' 'ah, yakov, you will despise me now!' i cried, hardly keeping back my tears. 'me! despise you? ...' (his affectionate eyes glowed with love.) 'despise you ... silly fellow! don't i see how hard it's been for you, how you're suffering?' he held out his hand to me; i fell on his neck and broke into sobs. after a few days, during which i noticed that pasinkov was in very low spirits, i made up my mind at last to go to the zlotnitskys'. what i felt, as i stepped into their drawing-room, it would be difficult to convey in words; i remember that i could hardly distinguish the persons in the room, and my voice failed me. sophia was no less ill at ease; she obviously forced herself to address me, but her eyes avoided mine as mine did hers, and every movement she made, her whole being, expressed constraint, mingled ... why conceal the truth? with secret aversion. i tried, as far as possible, to spare her and myself from such painful sensations. this meeting was happily our last--before her marriage. a sudden change in my fortunes carried me off to the other end of russia, and i bade a long farewell to petersburg, to the zlotnitsky family, and, what was most grievous of all for me, to dear yakov pasinkov. ii seven years had passed by. i don't think it necessary to relate all that happened to me during that period. i moved restlessly about over russia, and made my way into the remotest wilds, and thank god i did! the wilds are not so much to be dreaded as some people suppose, and in the most hidden places, under the fallen twigs and rotting leaves in the very heart of the forest, spring up flowers of sweet fragrance. one day in spring, as i was passing on some official duties through a small town in one of the outlying provinces of eastern russia, through the dim little window of my coach i saw standing before a shop in the square a man whose face struck me as exceedingly familiar. i looked attentively at the man, and to my great delight recognised him as elisei, pasinkov's servant. i at once told the driver to stop, jumped out of the coach, and went up to elisei. 'hullo, friend!' i began, with difficulty concealing my excitement; 'are you here with your master?' 'yes, i'm with my master,' he responded slowly, and then suddenly cried out: 'why, sir, is it you? i didn't know you.' 'are you here with yakov ivanitch?' 'yes, sir, with him, to be sure ... whom else would i be with?' 'take me to him quickly.' 'to be sure! to be sure! this way, please, this way ... we're stopping here at the tavern.' elisei led me across the square, incessantly repeating--'well, now, won't yakov ivanitch be pleased!' this man, of kalmuck extraction, and hideous, even savage appearance, but the kindest-hearted creature and by no means a fool, was passionately devoted to pasinkov, and had been his servant for ten years. 'is yakov ivanitch quite well?' i asked him. elisei turned his dusky, yellow little face to me. 'ah, sir, he's in a poor way ... in a poor way, sir! you won't know his honour.... he's not long for this world, i'm afraid. that's how it is we've stopped here, or we had been going on to odessa for his health.' 'where do you come from?' 'from siberia, sir.' 'from siberia?' 'yes, sir. yakov ivanitch was sent to a post out there. it was there his honour got his wound.' 'do you mean to say he went into the military service?' 'oh no, sir. he served in the civil service.' 'what a strange thing!' i thought. meanwhile we had reached the tavern, and elisei ran on in front to announce me. during the first years of our separation, pasinkov and i had written to each other pretty often, but his last letter had reached me four years before, and since then i had heard nothing of him. 'please come up, sir!' elisei shouted to me from the staircase; 'yakov ivanitch is very anxious to see you.' i ran hurriedly up the tottering stairs, went into a dark little room--and my heart sank.... on a narrow bed, under a fur cloak, pale as a corpse, lay pasinkov, and he was stretching out to me a bare, wasted hand. i rushed up to him and embraced him passionately. 'yasha!' i cried at last; 'what's wrong with you?' 'nothing,' he answered in a faint voice; 'i'm a bit feeble. what chance brought you here?' i sat down on a chair beside pasinkov's bed, and, never letting his hands out of my hands, i began gazing into his face. i recognised the features i loved; the expression of the eyes and the smile were unchanged; but what a wreck illness had made of him! he noticed the impression he was making on me. 'it's three days since i shaved,' he observed; 'and, to be sure, i've not been combed and brushed, but except for that ... i'm not so bad.' 'tell me, please, yasha,' i began; 'what's this elisei's been telling me ... you were wounded?' 'ah! yes, it's quite a history,' he replied. 'i'll tell you it later. yes, i was wounded, and only fancy what by?--an arrow.' 'an arrow?' 'yes, an arrow; only not a mythological one, not cupid's arrow, but a real arrow of very flexible wood, with a sharply-pointed tip at one end.... a very unpleasant sensation is produced by such an arrow, especially when it sticks in one's lungs.' 'but however did it come about? upon my word!...' 'i'll tell you how it happened. you know there always was a great deal of the absurd in my life. do you remember my comical correspondence about getting my passport? well, i was wounded in an absurd fashion too. and if you come to think of it, what self-respecting person in our enlightened century would permit himself to be wounded by an arrow? and not accidentally--observe--not at sports of any sort, but in a battle.' 'but you still don't tell me ...' 'all right, wait a minute,' he interrupted. 'you know that soon after you left petersburg i was transferred to novgorod. i was a good time at novgorod, and i must own i was bored there, though even there i came across one creature....' (he sighed.) ... 'but no matter about that now; two years ago i got a capital little berth, some way off, it's true, in the irkutsk province, but what of that! it seems as though my father and i were destined from birth to visit siberia. a splendid country, siberia! rich, fertile--every one will tell you the same. i liked it very much there. the natives were put under my rule; they're a harmless lot of people; but as my ill-luck would have it, they took it into their heads, a dozen of them, not more, to smuggle in contraband goods. i was sent to arrest them. arrest them i did, but one of them, crazy he must have been, thought fit to defend himself, and treated me to the arrow.... i almost died of it; however, i got all right again. now, here i am going to get completely cured.... the government--god give them all good health!--have provided the cash.' pasinkov let his head fall back on the pillow, exhausted, and ceased speaking. a faint flush suffused his cheeks. he closed his eyes. 'he can't talk much,' elisei, who had not left the room, murmured in an undertone. a silence followed; nothing was heard but the sick man's painful breathing. 'but here,' he went on, opening his eyes, 'i've been stopping a fortnight in this little town.... i caught cold, i suppose. the district doctor here is attending me--you'll see him; he seems to know his business. i'm awfully glad it happened so, though, or how should we have met?' (and he took my hand. his hand, which had just before been cold as ice, was now burning hot.) 'tell me something about yourself,' he began again, throwing the cloak back off his chest. 'you and i haven't seen each other since god knows when.' i hastened to carry out his wish, so as not to let him talk, and started giving an account of myself. he listened to me at first with great attention, then asked for drink, and then began closing his eyes again and turning his head restlessly on the pillow. i advised him to have a little nap, adding that i should not go on further till he was well again, and that i should establish myself in a room beside him. 'it's very nasty here ...' pasinkov was beginning, but i stopped his mouth, and went softly out. elisei followed me. 'what is it, elisei? why, he's dying, isn't he?' i questioned the faithful servant. elisei simply made a gesture with his hand, and turned away. having dismissed my driver, and rapidly moved my things into the next room, i went to see whether pasinkov was asleep. at the door i ran up against a tall man, very fat and heavily built. his face, pock-marked and puffy, expressed laziness--and nothing else; his tiny little eyes seemed, as it were, glued up, and his lips looked polished, as though he were just awake. 'allow me to ask,' i questioned him, 'are you not the doctor?' the fat man looked at me, seeming with an effort to lift his overhanging forehead with his eyebrows. 'yes, sir,' he responded at last. 'do me the favour, mr. doctor, won't you, please, to come this way into my room? yakov ivanitch, is, i believe, now asleep. i am a friend of his and should like to have a little talk with you about his illness, which makes me very uneasy.' 'very good,' answered the doctor, with an expression which seemed to try and say, 'why talk so much? i'd have come anyway,' and he followed me. 'tell me, please,' i began, as soon as he had dropped into a chair, 'is my friend's condition serious? what do you think?' 'yes,' answered the fat man, tranquilly. 'and... is it very serious?' 'yes, it's serious.' 'so that he may...even die?' 'he may.' i confess i looked almost with hatred at the fat man. 'good heavens!' i began; 'we must take some steps, call a consultation, or something. you know we can't... mercy on us!' 'a consultation?--quite possible; why not? it's possible. call in ivan efremitch....' the doctor spoke with difficulty, and sighed continually. his stomach heaved perceptibly when he spoke, as it were emphasising each word. 'who is ivan efremitch?' 'the parish doctor.' 'shouldn't we send to the chief town of the province? what do you think? there are sure to be good doctors there.' 'well! you might.' 'and who is considered the best doctor there?' 'the best? there was a doctor kolrabus there ... only i fancy he's been transferred somewhere else. though i must own there's no need really to send.' 'why so?' 'even the best doctor will be of no use to your friend.' 'why, is he so bad?' 'yes, he's run down.' 'in what way precisely is he ill?' 'he received a wound.... the lungs were affected in consequence ... and then he's taken cold too, and fever was set up ... and so on. and there's no reserve force; a man can't get on, you know yourself, with no reserve force.' we were both silent for a while. 'how about trying homoeopathy?...' said the fat man, with a sidelong glance at me. 'homoeopathy? why, you're an allopath, aren't you?' 'what of that? do you think i don't understand homoeopathy? i understand it as well as the other! why, the chemist here among us treats people homeopathically, and he has no learned degree whatever.' 'oh,' i thought, 'it's a bad look-out!...' 'no, doctor,' i observed, 'you had better treat him according to your usual method.' 'as you please.' the fat man got up and heaved a sigh. 'you are going to him? 'i asked. 'yes, i must have a look at him.' and he went out. i did not follow him; to see him at the bedside of my poor, sick friend was more than i could stand. i called my man and gave him orders to drive at once to the chief town of the province, to inquire there for the best doctor, and to bring him without fail. there was a slight noise in the passage. i opened the door quickly. the doctor was already coming out of pasinkov's room. 'well?' i questioned him in a whisper. 'it's all right. i have prescribed a mixture.' 'i have decided, doctor, to send to the chief town. i have no doubt of your skill, but as you're aware, two heads are better than one.' 'well, that's very praiseworthy!' responded the fat man, and he began to descend the staircase. he was obviously tired of me. i went in to pasinkov. 'have you seen the local aesculapius?' he asked. 'yes,' i answered. 'what i like about him,' remarked pasinkov, 'is his astounding composure. a doctor ought to be phlegmatic, oughtn't he? it's so encouraging for the patient.' i did not, of course, try to controvert this. towards the evening, pasinkov, contrary to my expectations, seemed better. he asked elisei to set the samovar, announced that he was going to regale me with tea, and drink a small cup himself, and he was noticeably more cheerful. i tried, though, not to let him talk, and seeing that he would not be quiet, i asked him if he would like me to read him something. 'just as at winterkeller's--do you remember?' he answered. 'if you will, i shall be delighted. what shall we read? look, there are my books in the window.'... i went to the window and took up the first book that my hand chanced upon.... 'what is it?' he asked. 'lermontov.' 'ah, lermontov! excellent! pushkin is greater, no doubt.... do you remember: "once more the storm-clouds gather close above me in the perfect calm" ... or, "for the last time thy image sweet in thought i dare caress." ah! marvellous! marvellous! but lermontov's fine too. well, i'll tell you what, dear boy: you take the book, open it by chance, and read what you find!' i opened the book, and was disconcerted; i had chanced upon 'the last will.' i tried to turn over the page, but pasinkov noticed my action and said hurriedly: 'no, no, no, read what turned up.' there was no getting out of it; i read 'the last will.' [footnote: the last will alone with thee, brother, i would wish to be; on earth, so they tell me, i have not long to stay, soon you will go home: see that ... but nay! for my fate to speak the truth, no one is very greatly troubled. but if any one asks ... well, whoever may ask, tell them that through the breast i was shot by a bullet; that i died honourably for the tsar, that our doctors are not much good, and that to my native land i send a humble greeting. my father and mother, hardly will you find living.... i'll own i should be sorry that they should grieve for me.] 'splendid thing!' said pasinkov, directly i had finished the last verse. 'splendid thing! but, it's queer,' he added, after a brief pause, 'it's queer you should have chanced just on that.... queer.' i began to read another poem, but pasinkov was not listening to me; he looked away, and twice he repeated again: 'queer!' i let the book drop on my knees. '"there is a girl, their neighbour,"' he whispered, and turning to me he asked--'i say, do you remember sophia zlotnitsky?' i turned red. 'i should think i did!' 'she was married, i suppose?...' 'to asanov, long, long ago. i wrote to you about it.' * * * * * but if either of them is living, say i am lazy about writing, that our regiment has been sent forward, and that they must not expect me home. there is a girl, their neighbour.... as you remember, it's long since we parted.... she will not ask for me.... all the same, you tell her all the truth, don't spare her empty heart-- let her weep a little.... it will not hurt her much! 'to be sure, to be sure, so you did. did her father forgive her in the end?' 'he forgave her; but he would not receive asanov.' 'obstinate old fellow! well, and are they supposed to be happy?' 'i don't know, really... i fancy they 're happy. they live in the country, in ---- province. i've never seen them, though i have been through their parts.' 'and have they any children?' 'i think so.... by the way, pasinkov?...' i began questioningly. he glanced at me. 'confess--do you remember, you were unwilling to answer my question at the time--did you tell her i cared for her?' 'i told her everything, the whole truth.... i always told her the truth. to be hypocritical with her would have been a sin!' pasinkov was silent for a while. 'come, tell me,' he began again: 'did you soon get over caring for her, or not?' 'not very soon, but i got over it. what's the good of sighing in vain?' pasinkov turned over, facing me. 'well, i, brother,' he began--and his lips were quivering--'am no match for you there; i've not got over caring for her to this day.' 'what!' i cried in indescribable amazement; 'did you love her?' 'i loved her,' said pasinkov slowly, and he put both hands behind his head. 'how i loved her, god only knows. i've never spoken of it to any one, to any one in the world, and i never meant to ... but there! "on earth, so they tell me, i have not long to stay." ... what does it matter?' pasinkov's unexpected avowal so utterly astonished me that i could positively say nothing. i could only wonder, 'is it possible? how was it i never suspected it?' 'yes,' he went on, as though speaking to himself, 'i loved her. i never ceased to love her even when i knew her heart was asanov's. but how bitter it was for me to know that! if she had loved you, i should at least have rejoiced for you; but asanov.... how did he make her care for him? it was just his luck! and change her feelings, cease to care, she could not! a true heart does not change....' i recalled asanov's visit after the fatal dinner, pasinkov's intervention, and i could not help flinging up my hands in astonishment. 'you learnt it all from me, poor fellow!' i cried; 'and you undertook to go and see her then!' 'yes,' pasinkov began again; 'that explanation with her ... i shall never forget it.' it was then i found out, then i realised the meaning of the word i had chosen for myself long before: resignation. but still she has remained my constant dream, my ideal.... and he's to be pitied who lives without an ideal!' i looked at pasinkov; his eyes, fastened, as it were, on the distance, shone with feverish brilliance. 'i loved her,' he went on, 'i loved her, her, calm, true, unapproachable, incorruptible; when she went away, i was almost mad with grief.... since then i have never cared for any one.'... and suddenly turning, he pressed his face into the pillow, and began quietly weeping. i jumped up, bent over him, and began trying to comfort him.... 'it's no matter,' he said, raising his head and shaking back his hair; 'it's nothing; i felt a little bitter, a little sorry ... for myself, that is.... but it's all no matter. it's all the fault of those verses. read me something else, more cheerful.' i took up lermontov and began hurriedly turning over the pages; but, as fate would have it, i kept coming across poems likely to agitate pasinkov again. at last i read him 'the gifts of terek.' 'jingling rhetoric!' said my poor friend, with the tone of a preceptor; 'but there are fine passages. since i saw you, brother, i've tried my hand at poetry, and began one poem--"the cup of life"--but it didn't come off! it's for us, brother, to appreciate, not to create.... but i'm rather tired; i'll sleep a little--what do you say? what a splendid thing sleep is, come to think of it! all our life's a dream, and the best thing in it is dreaming too.' 'and poetry?' i queried. 'poetry's a dream too, but a dream of paradise.' pasinkov closed his eyes. i stood for a little while at his bedside. i did not think he would get to sleep quickly, but soon his breathing became more even and prolonged. i went away on tiptoe, turned into my own room, and lay down on the sofa. for a long while i mused on what pasinkov had told me, recalled many things, wondered; at last i too fell asleep.... some one touched me; i started up; before me stood elisei. 'come in to my master,' he said. i got up at once. 'what's the matter with him?' 'he's delirious.' 'delirious? and hasn't it ever been so before with him?' 'yes, he was delirious last night, too; only to-day it is something terrible.' i went to pasinkov's room. he was not lying down, but sitting up in bed, his whole body bent forward. he was slowly gesticulating with his hands, smiling and talking, talking all the time in a weak, hollow voice, like the whispering of rushes. his eyes were wandering. the gloomy light of a night light, set on the floor, and shaded off by a book, lay, an unmoving patch on the ceiling; pasinkov's face seemed paler than ever in the half darkness. i went up to him, called him by his name--he did not answer. i began listening to his whispering: he was talking of siberia, of its forests. from time to time there was sense in his ravings. 'what trees!' he whispered; 'right up to the sky. what frost on them! silver ... snowdrifts.... and here are little tracks ... that's a hare's leaping, that's a white weasel... no, it's my father running with my papers. here he is!... here he is! must go; the moon is shining. must go, look for my papers.... ah! a flower, a crimson flower--there's sophia.... oh, the bells are ringing, the frost is crackling.... ah, no; it's the stupid bullfinches hopping in the bushes, whistling.... see, the redthroats! cold.... ah! here's asanov.... oh yes, of course, he's a cannon, a copper cannon, and his gun-carriage is green. that's how it is he's liked. is it a star has fallen? no, it's an arrow flying.... ah, how quickly, and straight into my heart!... who shot it? you, sonitchka?' he bent his head and began muttering disconnected words. i glanced at elisei; he was standing, his hands clasped behind his back, gazing ruefully at his master. 'ah, brother, so you've become a practical person, eh?' he asked suddenly, turning upon me such a clear, such a fully conscious glance, that i could not help starting and was about to reply, but he went on at once: 'but i, brother, have not become a practical person, i haven't, and that's all about it! a dreamer i was born, a dreamer! dreaming, dreaming.... what is dreaming? sobakevitch's peasant--that's dreaming. ugh!...' almost till morning pasinkov wandered in delirium; at last he gradually grew quieter, sank back on the pillow, and dozed off. i went back into my room. worn out by the cruel night, i slept soundly. elisei again waked me. 'ah, sir!' he said in a shaking voice, 'i do believe yakov ivanitch is dying....' i ran in to pasinkov. he was lying motionless. in the light of the coming day he looked already a corpse. he recognised me. 'good-bye,' he whispered; 'greet her for me, i'm dying....' 'yasha!' i cried; 'nonsense! you are going to live....' 'no, no! i am dying.... here, take this as a keepsake.' ... (he pointed to his breast.) ... 'what's this?' he began suddenly; 'look: the sea ... all golden, and blue isles upon it, marble temples, palm-trees, incense....' he ceased speaking ... stretched.... within half an hour he was no more. elisei flung himself weeping at his feet. i closed his eyes. on his neck there was a little silken amulet on a black cord. i took it. three days afterwards he was buried.... one of the noblest hearts was hidden for ever in the grave. i myself threw the first handful of earth upon him. iii another year and a half passed by. business obliged me to visit moscow. i took up my quarters in one of the good hotels there. one day, as i was passing along the corridor, i glanced at the black-board with the list of visitors staying in the hotel, and almost cried out aloud with astonishment. opposite the number stood, distinctly written in chalk, the name, sophia nikolaevna asanova. of late i had chanced to hear a good deal that was bad about her husband. i had learned that he was addicted to drink and to gambling, had ruined himself, and was generally misconducting himself. his wife was spoken of with respect.... in some excitement i went back to my room. the passion, that had long long ago grown cold, began as it were to stir within my heart, and it throbbed. i resolved to go and see sophia nikolaevna. 'such a long time has passed since the day we parted,' i thought, 'she has, most likely, forgotten everything there was between us in those days.' i sent elisei, whom i had taken into my service after the death of pasinkov, with my visiting-card to her door, and told him to inquire whether she was at home, and whether i might see her. elisei quickly came back and announced that sophia nikolaevna was at home and would see me. i went at once to sophia nikolaevna. when i went in, she was standing in the middle of the room, taking leave of a tall stout gentleman. 'as you like,' he was saying in a rich, mellow voice; 'he is not a harmless person, he's a useless person; and every useless person in a well-ordered society is harmful, harmful, harmful!' with those words the tall gentleman went out. sophia nikolaevna turned to me. 'how long it is since we met!' she said. 'sit down, please....' we sat down. i looked at her.... to see again after long absence the features of a face once dear, perhaps beloved, to recognise them, and not recognise them, as though across the old, unforgotten countenance a new one, like, but strange, were looking out at one; instantaneously, almost unconsciously, to note the traces time has laid upon it;--all this is rather melancholy. 'i too must have changed in the same way,' each is inwardly thinking.... sophia nikolaevna did not, however, look much older; though, when i had seen her last, she was sixteen, and that was nine years ago. her features had become still more correct and severe; as of old, they expressed sincerity of feeling and firmness; but in place of her former serenity, a sort of secret ache and anxiety could be discerned in them. her eyes had grown deeper and darker. she had begun to show a likeness to her mother.... sophia nikolaevna was the first to begin the conversation. 'we are both changed,' she began. 'where have you been all this time?' 'i've been a rolling stone,' i answered. 'and have you been living in the country all the while?' 'for the most part i've been in the country. i'm only here now for a little time.' 'how are your parents?' 'my mother is dead, but my father is still in petersburg; my brother's in the service; varia lives with him.' 'and your husband?' 'my husband,' she said in a rather hurried voice--'he's just now in south russia for the horse fairs. he was always very fond of horses, you know, and he has started stud stables ... and so, on that account ... he's buying horses now.' at that instant there walked into the room a little girl of eight years old, with her hair in a pigtail, with a very keen and lively little face, and large dark grey eyes. on seeing me, she at once drew back her little foot, dropped a hasty curtsey, and went up to sophia nikolaevna. 'this is my little daughter; let me introduce her to you,' said sophia nikolaevna, putting one finger under the little girl's round chin; 'she would not stop at home--she persuaded me to bring her with me.' the little girl scanned me with her rapid glance and faintly dropped her eyelids. 'she is a capital little person,' sophia nikolaevna went on: 'there's nothing she's afraid of. and she's good at her lessons; i must say that for her.' 'comment se nomme monsieur?' the little girl asked in an undertone, bending over to her mother. sophia nikolaevna mentioned my name. the little girl glanced at me again. 'what is your name?' i asked her. 'my name is lidia,' answered the little girl, looking me boldly in the face. 'i expect they spoil you,' i observed. 'who spoil me?' 'who? everyone, i expect; your parents to begin with.' (the little girl looked, without a word, at her mother.) 'i can fancy konstantin alexandritch,' i was going on ... 'yes, yes,' sophia nikolaevna interposed, while her little daughter kept her attentive eyes fastened upon her; 'my husband, of course--he is very fond of children....' a strange expression flitted across lidia's clever little face. there was a slight pout about her lips; she hung her head. 'tell me,' sophia nikolaevna added hurriedly; 'you are here on business, i expect?' 'yes, i am here on business.... and are you too?' 'yes.... in my husband's absence, you understand, i'm obliged to look after business matters.' 'maman!' lidia was beginning. 'quoi, mon enfant?' 'non--rien.... je te dirai après.' sophia nikolaevna smiled and shrugged her shoulders. 'tell me, please,' sophia nikolaevna began again; 'do you remember, you had a friend ... what was his name? he had such a good-natured face ... he was always reading poetry; such an enthusiastic--' 'not pasinkov?' 'yes, yes, pasinkov ... where is he now?' 'he is dead.' 'dead?' repeated sophia nikolaevna; 'what a pity!...' 'have i seen him?' the little girl asked in a hurried whisper. 'no, lidia, you've never seen him.--what a pity!' repeated sophia nikolaevna. 'you regret him ...' i began; 'what if you had known him, as i knew him?... but, why did you speak of him, may i ask?' 'oh, i don't know....' (sophia nikolaevna dropped her eyes.) 'lidia,' she added; 'run away to your nurse.' 'you'll call me when i may come back?' asked the little girl. 'yes.' the little girl went away. sophia nikolaevna turned to me. 'tell me, please, all you know about pasinkov.' i began telling her his story. i sketched in brief words the whole life of my friend; tried, as far as i was able, to give an idea of his soul; described his last meeting with me and his end. 'and a man like that,' i cried, as i finished my story--'has left us, unnoticed, almost unappreciated! but that's no great loss. what is the use of man's appreciation? what pains me, what wounds me, is that such a man, with such a loving and devoted heart, is dead without having once known the bliss of love returned, without having awakened interest in one woman's heart worthy of him!... such as i may well know nothing of such happiness; we don't deserve it; but pasinkov!... and yet haven't i met thousands of men in my life, who could not compare with him in any respect, who were loved? must one believe that some faults in a man--conceit, for instance, or frivolity--are essential to gain a woman's devotion? or does love fear perfection, the perfection possible on earth, as something strange and terrible?' sophia nikolaevna heard me to the end, without taking her stern, searching eyes off me, without moving her lips; only her eyebrows contracted from time to time. 'what makes you suppose,' she observed after a brief silence, 'that no woman ever loved your friend?' 'because i know it, know it for a fact.' sophia nikolaevna seemed about to say something, but she stopped. she seemed to be struggling with herself. 'you are mistaken,' she began at last; 'i know a woman who loved your dead friend passionately; she loves him and remembers him to this day ... and the news of his death will be a fearful blow for her.' 'who is this woman? may i know?' 'my sister, varia.' 'varvara nikolaevna!' i cried in amazement. 'yes.' 'what? varvara nikolaevna?' i repeated, 'that...' 'i will finish your sentence,' sophia nikolaevna took me up; 'that girl you thought so cold, so listless and indifferent, loved your friend; that is why she has never married and never will marry. till this day no one has known of this but me; varia would die before she would betray her secret. in our family we know how to suffer in silence.' i looked long and intently at sophia nikolaevna, involuntarily pondering on the bitter significance of her last words. 'you have surprised me,' i observed at last. 'but do you know, sophia nikolaevna, if i were not afraid of recalling disagreeable memories, i might surprise you too....' 'i don't understand you,' she rejoined slowly, and with some embarrassment. 'you certainly don't understand me,' i said, hastily getting up; 'and so allow me, instead of verbal explanation, to send you something ...' 'but what is it?' she inquired. 'don't be alarmed, sophia nikolaevna, it's nothing to do with me.' i bowed, and went back to my room, took out the little silken bag i had taken off pasinkov, and sent it to sophia nikolaevna with the following note-- 'this my friend wore always on his breast and died with it on him. in it is the only note you ever wrote him, quite insignificant in its contents; you can read it. he wore it because he loved you passionately; he confessed it to me only the day before his death. now, when he is dead, why should you not know that his heart too was yours?' elisei returned quickly and brought me back the relic. 'well?' i queried; 'didn't she send any message?' 'no.' i was silent for a little. 'did she read my note?' 'no doubt she did; the maid took it to her.' 'unapproachable,' i thought, remembering pasinkov's last words. 'all right, you can go,' i said aloud. elisei smiled somewhat queerly and did not go. 'there's a girl ...' he began, 'here to see you.' 'what girl?' elisei hesitated. 'didn't my master say anything to you?' 'no.... what is it?' 'when my master was in novgorod,' he went on, fingering the door-post, 'he made acquaintance, so to say, with a girl. so here is this girl, wants to see you. i met her the other day in the street. i said to her, "come along; if the master allows it, i'll let you see him." 'ask her in, ask her in, of course. but ... what is she like?' 'an ordinary girl... working class... russian.' 'did yakov ivanitch care for her?' 'well, yes ... he was fond of her. and she...when she heard my master was dead, she was terribly upset. she's a good sort of girl.' 'ask her in, ask her in.' elisei went out and at once came back. he was followed by a girl in a striped cotton gown, with a dark kerchief on her head, that half hid her face. on seeing me, she was much taken aback and turned away. 'what's the matter?' elisei said to her; 'go on, don't be afraid.' i went up to her and took her by the hand. 'what is your name?' i asked her. 'masha,' she replied in a soft voice, stealing a glance at me. she looked about two- or three-and-twenty; she had a round, rather simple-looking, but pleasant face, soft cheeks, mild blue eyes, and very pretty and clean little hands. she was tidily dressed. 'you knew yakov ivanitch?' i pursued. 'i used to know him,' she said, tugging at the ends of her kerchief, and the tears stood in her eyes. i asked her to sit down. she sat down at once on the edge of a chair, without any affectation of ceremony. elisei went out. 'you became acquainted with him in novgorod?' 'yes, in novgorod,' she answered, clasping her hands under her kerchief. 'i only heard the day before yesterday, from elisei timofeitch, of his death. yakov ivanitch, when he went away to siberia, promised to write to me, and twice he did write, and then he wrote no more. i would have followed him out to siberia, but he didn't wish it.' 'have you relations in novgorod?' 'yes.' 'did you live with them?' 'i used to live with mother and my married sister; but afterwards mother was cross with me, and my sister was crowded up, too; she has a lot of children: and so i moved. i always rested my hopes on yakov ivanitch, and longed for nothing but to see him, and he was always good to me--you can ask elisei timofeitch.' masha paused. 'i have his letters,' she went on. 'here, look.' she took several letters out of her pocket, and handed them to me. 'read them,' she added. i opened one letter and recognised pasinkov's hand. 'dear masha!' (he wrote in large, distinct letters) 'you leaned your little head against my head yesterday, and when i asked why you do so, you told me--"i want to hear what you are thinking." i'll tell you what i was thinking; i was thinking how nice it would be for masha to learn to read and write! she could make out this letter ...' masha glanced at the letter. 'that he wrote me in novgorod,' she observed, 'when he was just going to teach me to read. look at the others. there's one from siberia. here, read this.' i read the letters. they were very affectionate, even tender. in one of them, the first one from siberia, pasinkov called masha his best friend, promised to send her the money for the journey to siberia, and ended with the following words--'i kiss your pretty little hands; the girls here have not hands like yours; and their heads are no match for yours, nor their hearts either.... read the books i gave you, and think of me, and i'll not forget you. you are the only, only girl that ever cared for me; and so i want to belong only to you....' 'i see he was very much attached to you,' i said, giving the letters back to her. 'he was very fond of me,' replied masha, putting the letters carefully into her pocket, and the tears flowed slowly down her cheeks. 'i always trusted in him; if the lord had vouchsafed him long life, he would not have abandoned me. god grant him his heavenly peace!'... she wiped her eyes with a corner of her kerchief. 'where are you living now?' i inquired. 'i'm here now, in moscow; i came here with my mistress, but now i'm out of a place. i did go to yakov ivanitch's aunt, but she is very poor herself. yakov ivanitch used often to talk of you,' she added, getting up and bowing; 'he always loved you and thought of you. i met elisei timofeitch the day before yesterday, and wondered whether you wouldn't be willing to assist me, as i'm out of a place just now....' 'with the greatest pleasure, maria ... let me ask, what's your name from your father?' 'petrovna,' answered masha, and she cast down her eyes. 'i will do anything for you i can, maria petrovna,' i continued; 'i am only sorry that i am a visitor here, and know few good families.' masha sighed. 'if i could get a situation of some sort ... i can't cut out, but i can sew, so i'm always doing sewing ... and i can look after children too.' 'give her money,' i thought; 'but how's one to do it?' 'listen, maria petrovna,' i began, not without faltering; 'you must, please, excuse me, but you know from pasinkov's own words what a friend of his i was ... won't you allow me to offer you--for the immediate present--a small sum?' ... masha glanced at me. 'what?' she asked. 'aren't you in want of money?' i said. masha flushed all over and hung her head. 'what do i want with money?' she murmured; 'better get me a situation.' 'i will try to get you a situation, but i can't answer for it for certain; but you ought not to make any scruple, really ... i'm not like a stranger to you, you know.... accept this from me, in memory of our friend....' i turned away, hurriedly pulled a few notes out of my pocket-book, and handed them to her. masha was standing motionless, her head still more downcast. 'take it,' i persisted. she slowly raised her eyes to me, looked me in the face mournfully, slowly drew her pale hand from under her kerchief and held it out to me. i laid the notes in her cold fingers. without a word, she hid the hand again under her kerchief, and dropped her eyes. 'in future, maria petrovna,' i resumed, 'if you should be in want of anything, please apply directly to me. i will give you my address.' 'i humbly thank you,' she said, and after a short pause she added: 'he did not speak to you of me?' 'i only met him the day before his death, maria petrovna. but i'm not sure ... i believe he did say something.' masha passed her hand over her hair, pressed her cheek lightly, thought a moment, and saying 'good-bye,' walked out of the room. i sat at the table and fell into bitter musings. this masha, her relations with pasinkov, his letters, the hidden love of sophia nikolaevna's sister for him.... 'poor fellow! poor fellow!' i whispered, with a catching in my breath. i thought of all pasinkov's life, his childhood, his youth, fräulein frederike.... 'well,' i thought, 'much fate gave to thee! much cause for joy!' next day i went again to see sophia nikolaevna. i was kept waiting in the ante-room, and when i entered, lidia was already seated by her mother. i understood that sophia nikolaevna did not wish to renew the conversation of the previous day. we began to talk--i really don't remember what about--about the news of the town, public affairs.... lidia often put in her little word, and looked slily at me. an amusing air of importance had suddenly become apparent on her mobile little visage.... the clever little girl must have guessed that her mother had intentionally stationed her at her side. i got up and began taking leave. sophia nikolaevna conducted me to the door. 'i made you no answer yesterday,' she said, standing still in the doorway; 'and, indeed, what answer was there to make? our life is not in our own hands; but we all have one anchor, from which one can never, without one's own will, be torn--a sense of duty.' without a word i bowed my head in sign of assent, and parted from the youthful puritan. all that evening i stayed at home, but i did not think of her; i kept thinking and thinking of my dear, never-to-be-forgotten pasinkov--the last of the idealists; and emotions, mournful and tender, pierced with sweet anguish into my soul, rousing echoes on the strings of a heart not yet quite grown old.... peace to your ashes, unpractical man, simple-hearted idealist! and god grant to all practical men--to whom you were always incomprehensible, and who, perhaps, will laugh even now over you in the grave--god grant to them to experience even a hundredth part of those pure delights in which, in spite of fate and men, your poor and unambitious life was so rich! andrei kolosov in a small, decently furnished room several young men were sitting before the fire. the winter evening was only just beginning; the samovar was boiling on the table, the conversation had hardly taken a definite turn, but passed lightly from one subject to another. they began discussing exceptional people, and in what way they differed from ordinary people. every one expounded his views to the best of his abilities; they raised their voices and began to be noisy. a small, pale man, after listening long to the disquisitions of his companions, sipping tea and smoking a cigar the while, suddenly got up and addressed us all (i was one of the disputants) in the following words:-- 'gentlemen! all your profound remarks are excellent in their own way, but unprofitable. every one, as usual, hears his opponent's views, and every one retains his own convictions. but it's not the first time we have met, nor the first time we have argued, and so we have probably by now had ample opportunity for expressing our own views and learning those of others. why, then, do you take so much trouble?' uttering these words, the small man carelessly flicked the ash off his cigar into the fireplace, dropped his eyelids, and smiled serenely. we all ceased speaking. 'well, what are we to do then, according to you?' said one of us; 'play cards, or what? go to sleep? break up and go home?' 'playing cards is agreeable, and sleep's always salutary,' retorted the small man; 'but it's early yet to break up and go home. you didn't understand me, though. listen: i propose, if it comes to that, that each of you should describe some exceptional personality, tell us of any meeting you may have had with any remarkable man. i can assure you even the feeblest description has far more sense in it than the finest argument.' we pondered. 'it's a strange thing,' observed one of us, an inveterate jester; 'except myself i don't know a single exceptional person, and with my life you are all, i fancy, familiar already. however, if you insist--' 'no!' cried another, 'we don't! but, i tell you what,' he added, addressing the small man, 'you begin. you have put a stopper on all of us, you're the person to fill the gap. only mind, if we don't care for your story, we shall hiss you.' 'if you like,' answered the small man. he stood close to the fire; we sat round him and kept quiet. the small man looked at all of us, glanced at the ceiling, and began as follows:-- 'ten years ago, my dear friends, i was a student at moscow. my father, a virtuous landowner of the steppes, had handed me over to a retired german professor, who, for a hundred roubles a month, undertook to lodge and board me, and to watch over my morals. this german was the fortunate possessor of an exceedingly solemn and decorous manner; at first i went in considerable awe of him. but on returning home one evening, i saw, with indescribable emotion, my preceptor sitting with three or four companions at a round table, on which there stood a fair-sized collection of empty bottles and half-full glasses. on seeing me, my revered preceptor got up, and, waving his arms and stammering, presented me to the honourable company, who all promptly offered me a glass of punch. this agreeable spectacle had a most illuminating effect on my intelligence; my future rose before me in the most seductive images. and, as a fact, from that memorable day i enjoyed unbounded freedom, and all but worried my preceptor to death. he had a wife who always smelt of smoke and pickled cucumbers; she was still youngish, but had not a single front tooth in her head. all german women, as we know, very quickly lose those indispensable ornaments of the human frame. i mention her, solely because she fell passionately in love with me and fed me almost into my grave.' 'to the point, to the point,' we shouted. 'surely it's not your own adventures you're going to tell us?' 'no, gentlemen!' the small man replied composedly. 'i am an ordinary mortal. and so i lived at my german's, as the saying is, in clover. i did not attend lectures with too much assiduity, while at home i did positively nothing. in a very short time, i had got to know all my comrades and was on intimate terms with all of them. among my new friends was one rather decent and good-natured fellow, the son of a town provost on the retired list. his name was bobov. this bobov got in the habit of coming to see me, and seemed to like me. i, too ... do you know, i didn't like him, nor dislike him; i was more or less indifferent.... i must tell i hadn't in all moscow a single relation, except an old uncle, who used sometimes to ask me for money. i never went anywhere, and was particularly afraid of women; i also avoided all acquaintance with the parents of my college friends, ever after one such parent (in my presence) pulled his son's hair--because a button was off his uniform, while at the very time i hadn't more than six buttons on my whole coat. in comparison with many of my comrades, i passed for being a person of wealth; my father used to send me every now and then small packets of faded blue notes, and consequently i not only enjoyed a position of independence, but i was continually surrounded by toadies and flatterers.... what am i saying?--why, for that matter, so was my bobtail dog armishka, who, in spite of his setter pedigree, was so frightened of a shot, that the very sight of a gun reduced him to indescribable misery. like every young man, however, i was not without that vague inward fermentation which usually, after bringing forth a dozen more or less shapeless poems, passes off in a peaceful and propitious manner. i wanted something, strove towards something, and dreamed of something; i'll own i didn't know precisely what it was i dreamed of. now i understand what was lacking:--i felt my loneliness, thirsted for the society of so-called live people; the word life waked echoes in my heart, and with a vague ache i listened to the sound of it.... valerian nikitich, pass me a cigarette.' lighting the cigarette, the small man continued: 'one fine morning bobov came running to me, out of breath: "do you know, old man, the great news? kolosov has arrived." "kolosov? and who on earth is mr. kolosov?" '"you don't know him? andriusha kolosov! come, old boy, let's go to him directly. he came back last night from a holiday engagement." "but what sort of fellow is he?" "an exceptional man, my boy, let me assure you!" "an exceptional man," i answered; "then you go alone. i'll stop at home. i know your exceptional men! a half-tipsy rhymester with an everlastingly ecstatic smile!" ... "oh no! kolosov's not like that." i was on the point of observing that it was for mr. kolosov to call on me; but, i don't know why, i obeyed bobov and went. bobov conducted me to one of the very dirtiest, crookedest, and narrowest streets in moscow.... the house in which kolosov lodged was built in the old-fashioned style, rambling and uncomfortable. we went into the courtyard; a fat peasant woman was hanging out clothes on a line stretched from the house to the fence.... children were squalling on the wooden staircase...' 'get on! get on!' we objected plaintively. 'i see, gentlemen, you don't care for the agreeable, and cling solely to the profitable. as you please! we groped our way through a dark and narrow passage to kolosov's room; we went in. you have most likely an approximate idea of what a poor student's room is like. directly facing the door kolosov was sitting on a chest of drawers, smoking a pipe. he gave his hand to bobov in a friendly way, and greeted me affably. i looked at kolosov and at once felt irresistibly drawn to him. gentlemen! bobov was right: kolosov really was a remarkable person. let me describe a little more in detail.... he was rather tall, slender, graceful, and exceedingly good-looking. his face... i find it very difficult to describe his face. it is easy to describe all the features one by one; but how is one to convey to any one else what constitutes the distinguishing characteristic, the essence of just _that_ face?' 'what byron calls "the music of the face,"' observed a tightly buttoned-up, pallid gentleman. 'quite so.... and therefore i will confine myself to a single remark: the especial "something" to which i have just referred consisted in kolosov's case in a carelessly gay and fearless expression of face, and also in an exceedingly captivating smile. he did not remember his parents, and had had a wretched bringing-up in the house of a distant relative, who had been degraded from the service for taking bribes. up to the age of fifteen, he had lived in the country; then he found his way into moscow, and after two years spent in the care of an old deaf priest's wife, he entered the university and began to get his living by lessons. he gave instruction in history, geography, and russian grammar, though he had only a dim notion of these branches of science; but in the first place, there is an abundance of 'textbooks' among us in russia, of the greatest usefulness to teachers; and secondly, the requirements of the respectable merchants, who confided their children's education to kolosov, were exceedingly limited. kolosov was neither a wit nor a humorist; but you cannot imagine how readily we all fell under that fellow's sway. we felt a sort of instinctive admiration of him; his words, his looks, his gestures were all so full of the charm of youth that all his comrades were head over ears in love with him. the professors considered him as a fairly intelligent lad, but 'of no marked abilities,' and lazy. kolosov's presence gave a special harmony to our evening reunions. before him, our liveliness never passed into vulgar riotousness; if we were all melancholy--this half childlike melancholy, in his presence, led on to quiet, sometimes fairly sensible, conversation, and never ended in dejected boredom. you are smiling, gentlemen--i understand your smile; no doubt, many of us since then have turned out pretty cads! but youth ... youth....' 'oh, talk not to me of a name great in story! the days of our youth are the days of our glory....' commented the same pallid gentleman. 'by jove, what a memory he's got! and all from byron!' observed the storyteller. 'in one word, kolosov was the soul of our set. i was attached to him by a feeling stronger than any i have ever felt for any woman. and yet, i don't feel ashamed even now to remember that strange love--yes, love it was, for i recollect i went through at that time all the tortures of that passion, jealousy, for instance. kolosov liked us all equally, but was particularly friendly with a silent, flaxen-haired, and unobtrusive youth, called gavrilov. from gavrilov he was almost inseparable; he would often speak to him in a whisper, and used to disappear with him out of moscow, no one knew where, for two or three days at a time.... kolosov did not care to be questioned, and i was lost in surmises. it was not simple curiosity that disturbed me. i longed to become the friend, the attendant squire of kolosov; i was jealous of gavrilov; i envied him; i could never find an explanation to satisfy me of kolosov's strange absences. meanwhile he had none of that air of mysteriousness about him, which is the proud possession of youths endowed with vanity, pallor, black hair, and 'expressive' eyes, nor had he anything of that studied carelessness under which we are given to understand that vast forces are slumbering; no, he was quite open and free; but when he was possessed by passion, an intense, impulsive energy was apparent in everything about him; only he did not waste his energies in vain, and never under any circumstances became high-flown or affected. by the way ... tell me the truth, hasn't it happened to you to sit smoking a pipe with an air of as weary solemnity as if you had just resolved on a grand achievement, while you were simply pondering on what colour to choose for your next pair of trousers?... but the point is, that i was the first to observe in kolosov, always cheerful and friendly as he was, these instinctive, passionate impulses.... they may well say that love is penetrating. i made up my mind at all hazards to get into his confidence. it was no use for me to lay myself out to please kolosov; i had such a childlike adoration for him that he could have no doubt of my devotion ... but to my indescribable vexation, i had, at last, to yield to the conviction that kolosov avoided closer intimacy with me, that he was as it were oppressed by my uninvited attachment. once, when with obvious displeasure he asked me to lend him money--the very next day he returned me the loan with ironical gratitude. during the whole winter my relations with kolosov were utterly unchanged; i often compared myself with gavrilov, and could not make out in what respect he was better than i.... but suddenly everything was changed. in the middle of april, gavrilov fell ill, and died in the arms of kolosov, who never left his room for an instant, and went nowhere for a whole week afterwards. we were all grieved for poor gavrilov; the pale, silent lad seemed to have had a foreboding of his end. i too grieved sincerely for him, but my heart ached with expectation of something.... one ever memorable evening ... i was alone, lying on the sofa, gazing idly at the ceiling ... some one rapidly opened the door of my room and stood still in the doorway; i raised my head; before me stood kolosov. he slowly came in and sat down beside me. 'i have come to you,' he began in a rather thick voice, 'because you care more for me than any of the others do.... i have lost my best friend'--his voice shook a little--'and i feel lonely.... none of you knew gavrilov ... none of you knew....' he got up, paced up and down the room, came rapidly towards me again.... 'will you take his place?' he said, and gave me his hand. i leaped up and flung myself on his breast. my genuine delight touched him.... i did not know what to say, i was choking.... kolosov looked at me and softly laughed. we had tea. at tea he talked of gavrilov; i heard that that timid, gentle boy had saved kolosov's life, and i could not but own to myself that in gavrilov's place i couldn't have resisted chattering about it--boasting of my luck. it struck eight. kolosov got up, went to the window, drummed on the panes, turned swiftly round to me, tried to say something ... and sat down on a chair without a word. i took his hand. 'kolosov, truly, truly i deserve your confidence!' he looked straight into my eyes. 'well, if so,' he brought out at last, 'take your cap and come along.' 'where to?' 'gavrilov did not ask me.' i was silent at once. 'can you play at cards?' 'yes.' we went out, took a cab to one of the gates of the town. at the gate we got out. kolosov went on in front very quickly; i followed him. we walked along the highroad. after we had gone three-quarters of a mile, kolosov turned off. meanwhile night had come on. on the right in the fog were the twinkling lights, the innumerable church-spires of the immense city; on the left, two white horses were grazing in a meadow skirting the forest: before us stretched fields covered with greyish mists. i followed kolosov in silence. he stopped all at once, stretched his hand out in front of him, and said: 'here, this is where we are going.' i saw a small dark house; two little windows showed a dim light in the fog. 'in this house,' kolosov went on, 'lives a man called sidorenko, a retired lieutenant, with his sister, an old maid, and his daughter. i shall pass you off as a relation of mine--you must sit down and play at cards with him.' i nodded without a word. i wanted to show kolosov that i could be as silent as gavrilov.... but i will own i was suffering agonies of curiosity. as we went up to the steps of the house, i caught sight, at a lighted window, of the slender figure of a girl.... she seemed waiting for us and vanished at once. we went into a dark and narrow passage. a crooked, hunchback old woman came to meet us, and looked at me with astonishment. 'is ivan semyonitch at home?' inquired kolosov. 'he is at home.'... 'he is at home!' called a deep masculine voice from within. we went into the dining-room, if dining-room one can call the long, rather dirty room; a small old piano huddled unassumingly in a corner beside the stove; a few chairs stood out along the walls which had once been yellow. in the middle of the room stood a tall, stooping man of fifty, in a greasy dressing-gown. i looked at him more attentively: a morose looking countenance, hair standing up like a brush, a low forehead, grey eyes, immense whiskers, thick lips.... 'a nice customer!' i thought. 'it's a longish time since we've seen you, andrei nikolaevitch,' he observed, holding out his hideous red hand, 'a longish time it is! and where's sevastian sevastianovitch?' 'gavrilov is dead,' answered kolosov mournfully. 'dead! you don't say so! and who's this?' 'my relation--i have the honour to present to you nikolai alexei....' 'all right, all right,' ivan semyonitch cut him short, 'delighted, delighted. and does he play cards?' 'play, of course he does!' 'ah, then, that's capital; we'll sit down directly. hey! matrona semyonovna--where are you? the card-table--quick!... and tea!' with these words mr. sidorenko walked into the next room. kolosov looked at me. 'listen,' he said, 'you can't think how ashamed i am!'... i shut him up. 'come, you there, what's your name, this way,' called ivan semyonitch. i went into the drawing-room. the drawing-room was even smaller than the dining-room. on the walls hung some monstrosities of portraits; in front of the sofa, of which the stuffing protruded in several places, stood a green table; on the sofa sat ivan semyonitch, already shuffling the cards. near him on the extreme edge of a low chair sat a spare woman in a white cap and a black gown, yellow and wrinkled, with short-sighted eyes and thin cat-like lips. 'here,' said ivan semyonitch, 'let me introduce him; the first man's dead; andrei nikolaevitch has brought us another; let's see how he plays!' the old lady bowed awkwardly and cleared her throat. i looked round; kolosov was no longer in the room. 'stop that coughing, matrona semyonovna; sheep cough,' grumbled sidorenko. i sat down; the game began. mr. sidorenko got fearfully hot and furious at my slightest mistake; he pelted his sister with abusive epithets, but she had apparently had time to get used to her brother's amenities, and only blinked in response. but when he announced to matrona semyonovna that she was 'antichrist,' the poor old woman fired up. 'ivan semyonitch,' she protested with heat, 'you were the death of your wife, anfisa karpovna, but you shan't worry me into my grave!' 'indeed?' 'no! you shan't.' 'indeed?' 'no! you shan't.' they kept it up in this fashion for some time. my position was, as you perceive, not merely an unenviable one: it was positively idiotic. i couldn't conceive what had induced kolosov to bring me.... i have never been a good card-player; but on that occasion i was aware myself that i was playing excruciatingly badly. 'no!' the retired lieutenant repeated continually,' you can't hold a candle to sevastianovitch! no! you play carelessly!' i, you may be sure, was inwardly wishing him at the devil. this torture continued for two hours; they beat me hollow. before the end of the last rubber, i heard a slight sound behind my chair--i looked round and saw kolosov; beside him stood a girl of seventeen, who was watching me with a scarcely perceptible smile. 'fill me my pipe, varia,' muttered ivan semyonitch. the girl promptly flew off into the other room. she was not very pretty, rather pale, rather thin; but never before or since have i seen such hair, such eyes. we finished the rubber somehow; i paid up, sidorenko lighted his pipe and grumbled: 'well, now it's time for supper!' kolosov presented me to varia, that is, to varvara ivanovna, the daughter of ivan semyonitch. varia was embarrassed; i too was embarrassed. but in a few minutes kolosov, as usual, had got everything and everyone into full swing; he sat varia down to the piano, begged her to play a dance tune, and proceeded to dance a cossack dance in competition with ivan semyonitch. the lieutenant uttered little shrieks, stamped and cut such incredible capers that even matrona semyonovna burst out laughing and retreated to her own room upstairs. the hunchback old woman laid the table; we sat down to supper. at supper kolosov told all sorts of nonsensical stories; the lieutenant's guffaws were deafening; i peeped from under my eyelids at varia. she never took her eyes off kolosov ... and from the expression of her face alone, i could divine that she both loved him and was loved by him. her lips were slightly parted, her head bent a little forward, a faint colour kept flitting across her whole face; from time to time she sighed deeply, suddenly dropped her eyes, and softly laughed to herself.... i rejoiced for kolosov.... but at the same time, deuce take it, i was envious.... after supper, kolosov and i promptly took up our caps, which did not, however, prevent the lieutenant from saying, with a yawn: 'you've paid us a long visit, gentlemen; it's time to say good-bye.' varia accompanied kolosov into the passage: 'when are you coming, andrei nikolaevitch?' she whispered to him. 'in a few days, for certain.' 'bring him too,' she added, with a very sly smile. 'of course, of course.' ... 'your humble servant!' thought i.... on the way home, i heard the following story. six months before, kolosov had become acquainted with mr. sidorenko in a rather queer way. one rainy evening, kolosov was returning home from shooting, and had reached the gate of the city, when suddenly, at no great distance from the highroad, he heard groans, interspersed with curses. he had a gun; without thinking long, he made straight for the sound, and found a man lying on the ground with a dislocated ankle. this man was mr. sidorenko. with great difficulty he got him home, handed him over to the care of his frightened sister and his daughter, and ran for the doctor.... meantime it was nearly morning; kolosov was almost dropping with fatigue. with the permission of matrona semyonovna, he lay down on the sofa in the parlour, and slept till eight o'clock. on waking up he would at once have gone home; but they kept him and gave him some tea. in the night he had twice succeeded in catching a glimpse of the pale face of varvara ivanovna; he had not particularly noticed her, but in the morning she made a decidedly agreeable impression on him. matrona semyonovna garrulously praised and thanked kolosov; varvara sat silent, pouring out the tea, glanced at him now and then, and with timid shame-faced attentiveness handed him first a cup of tea, then the cream, then the sugar-basin. meanwhile the lieutenant waked up, loudly called for his pipe, and after a short pause bawled: 'sister! hi, sister!' matrona semyonovna went to his bedroom. 'what about that...what the devil's his name? is he gone?' 'no, i'm still here,' answered kolosov, going up to the door; 'are you better now?' 'yes,' answered the lieutenant; 'come in here, my good sir.' kolosov went in. sidorenko looked at him, and reluctantly observed: 'well, thanks; come sometimes and see me--what's your name? who the devil's to know?' 'kolosov,' answered andrei. 'well, well, come and see us; but it's no use your sticking on here now, i daresay they're expecting you at home.' kolosov retreated, said good-bye to matrona semyonovna, bowed to varvara ivanovna, and returned home. from that day he began to visit ivan semyonitch, at first at long intervals, then more and more frequently. the summer came on; he would sometimes take his gun, put on his knapsack, and set off as if he were going shooting. he would go to the retired lieutenant's, and stay on there till evening. varvara ivanovna's father had served twenty-five years in the army, had saved a small sum of money, and bought himself a few acres of land a mile and a half from moscow. he could scarcely read and write; but in spite of his external clumsiness and coarseness, he was shrewd and cunning, and even, on occasion, capable of sharp practice, like many little russians. he was a fearful egoist, obstinate as an ox, and in general exceedingly impolite, especially with strangers; i even detected in him something like a contempt for the whole human race. he indulged himself in every caprice, like a spoilt child; would know no one, and lived for his own pleasure. we were once somehow or other talking about marriages with him; 'marriage ... marriage,' said he; 'whom the devil would i let my daughter marry? eh? what should i do it for? for her husband to knock her about as i used to my wife? besides, whom should i be left with?' such was the retired lieutenant, ivan semyonitch. kolosov used to go and see him, not on his account, of course, but for the sake of his daughter. one fine evening, andrei was sitting in the garden with her, chatting about something; ivan semyonitch went up to him, looked sullenly at varia, and called andrei away. 'listen, my dear fellow,' he said to him; 'you find it good fun, i see, gossiping with my only child, but i'm dull in my old age; bring some one with you, or i've nobody to deal a card to; d'ye hear? i shan't give admittance to you by yourself.' the next day kolosov turned up with gavrilov, and poor sevastian sevastianovitch had for a whole autumn and winter been playing cards in the evenings with the retired lieutenant; that worthy treated him without ceremony, as it is called--in other words, fearfully rudely. you now probably realise why it was that, after gavrilov's death, kolosov took me with him to ivan semyonitch's. as he communicated all these details, kolosov added, 'i love varia, she is the dearest girl; she liked you.' i have forgotten, i fancy, to make known to you that up to that time i had been afraid of women and avoided them, though i would sometimes, in solitude, spend whole hours in dreaming of tender interviews, of love, of mutual love, and so on. varvara ivanovna was the first girl with whom i was forced to talk, by necessity--by necessity it really was. varia was an ordinary girl, and yet there are very few such girls in holy russia. you will ask me--why so? because i never noticed in her anything strained, unnatural, affected; because she was a simple, candid, rather melancholy creature, because one could never call her 'a young lady.' i liked her soft smile; i liked her simple-hearted, ringing little voice, her light and mirthful laugh, her attentive though by no means 'profound' glances. the child promised nothing; but you could not help admiring her, as you admire the sudden, soft cry of the oriole at evening, in the lofty, dark birch-wood. i must confess that at the present time i should pass by such a creature with some indifference; i've no taste now for solitary evening strolls, and orioles; but in those days ... i've no doubt, gentlemen, that, like all well-educated persons, you have been in love at least once in the course of your life, and have learnt from your own experience how love springs up and develops in the human heart, and therefore i'm not going to enlarge too much on what took place with me at that time. kolosov and i used to go pretty often to ivan semyonitch's; and though those damned cards often drove me to utter despair, still, in the mere proximity of the woman one loves (i had fallen in love with varia) there is a sort of strange, sweet, tormenting joy. i made no effort to suppress this growing feeling; besides, by the time i had at last brought myself to call the emotion by its true name, it was already too strong.... i cherished my love in silence, and jealously and shyly concealed it. i myself enjoyed this agonising ferment of silent passion. my sufferings did not rob me of my sleep, nor of my appetite; but for whole days together i was conscious of that peculiar physical sensation in my breast which is a symptom of the presence of love. i am incapable of depicting the conflict of various sensations which took place within me when, for example, kolosov came in from the garden with varia, and her whole face was aglow with ecstatic devotion, exhaustion from excess of bliss.... she so completely lived in his life, was so completely taken up with him, that unconsciously she adopted his ways, looked as he looked, laughed as he laughed.... i can imagine the moments she passed with andrei, the raptures she owed to him.... while he ... kolosov did not lose his freedom; in her absence he did not, i suppose, even think of her; he was still the same unconcerned, gay, and happy fellow we had always known him. and, as i have already told you, we used, kolosov and i, to go pretty often to ivan semyonitch's. sometimes, when he was out of humour, the retired lieutenant did not make me sit down to cards; on such occasions, he would shrink into a corner in silence, scowling and looking crossly at every one. the first time i was delighted at his letting me off so easily; but afterwards i would sometimes begin myself begging him to sit down to whist, the part of third person was so insupportable! i was so unpleasantly in kolosov's and varia's way, though they did assure each other that there was no need to mind me!... meanwhile time went on.... they were happy.... i have no great fondness for describing other people's happiness. but then i began to notice that varia's childish ecstasy had gradually given way to a more womanly, more restless feeling. i began to surmise that the new song was being sung to the old tune--that is, that kolosov was...little by little...cooling. this discovery, i must own, delighted me; i did not feel, i must confess, the slightest indignation against andrei. the intervals between our visits became longer and longer.... varia began to meet us with tear-stained eyes. reproaches were heard ... sometimes i asked kolosov with affected indifference, 'well, shall we go to ivan semyonitch's to-day?' ... he looked coldly at me, and answered quietly, 'no, we're not going.' i sometimes fancied that he smiled slily when he spoke to me of varia.... i failed generally to fill gavrilov's place with him.... gavrilov was a thousand times more good-natured and foolish than i. now allow me a slight digression.... when i spoke of my university comrades, i did not mention a certain mr. shtchitov. he was five-and-thirty; he had been a student for ten years already. i can see even now his rather long pale face, his little brown eyes, his long hawk nose crooked at the end, his thin sarcastic lips, his solemn upstanding shock of hair, and his chin that lost itself complacently in the wide striped cravat of the colour of a raven's wing, the shirt front with bronze buttons, the open blue frock-coat and striped waistcoat.... i can hear his unpleasantly jarring laugh.... he went everywhere, was conspicuous at all possible kinds of 'dancing classes.' ... i remember i could not listen to his cynical stories without a peculiar shudder.... kolosov once compared him to an unswept russian refreshment bar ... a horrible comparison! and with all that, there was a lot of intelligence, common sense, observation, and wit in the man.... he sometimes impressed us by some saying so apt, so true and cutting, that we were all involuntarily reduced to silence and looked at him with amazement. but, to be sure, it is just the same to a russian whether he has uttered an absurdity or a clever thing. shtchitov was especially dreaded by those self-conscious, dreamy, and not particularly gifted youths who spend whole days in painfully hatching a dozen trashy lines of verse and reading them in sing-song to their 'friends,' and who despise every sort of positive science. one such he simply drove out of moscow, by continually repeating to him two of his own lines. yet all the while shtchitov himself did nothing and learnt nothing.... but that's all in the natural order of things. well, shtchitov, god only knows why, began jeering at my romantic attachment to kolosov. the first time, with noble indignation, i told him to go to the devil; the second time, with chilly contempt, i informed him that he was not capable of judging of our friendship--but i did not send him away; and when, on taking leave of me, he observed that without kolosov's permission i didn't even dare to praise him, i felt annoyed; shtchitov's last words sank into my heart.--for more than a fortnight i had not seen varia.... pride, love, a vague anticipation, a number of different feelings were astir within me ... with a wave of the hand and a fearful sinking at my heart, i set off alone to ivan semyonitch's. i don't know how i made my way to the familiar little house; i remember i sat down several times by the road to rest, not from fatigue, but from emotion. i went into the passage, and had not yet had time to utter a single word when the door of the drawing-room flew open and varia ran to meet me. 'at last,' she said, in a quavering voice; 'where's andrei nikolaevitch?' 'kolosov has not come,' i muttered with an effort. 'not come!' she repeated. 'yes ... he told me to tell you that ... he was detained....' i positively did not know what i was saying, and i did not dare to raise my eyes. varia stood silent and motionless before me. i glanced at her: she turned away her head; two big tears rolled slowly down her cheeks. in the expression of her face there was such sudden, bitter suffering; the conflict between bashfulness, sorrow, and confidence in me was so simply, so touchingly apparent in the unconscious movement of her poor little head that it sent a pang to my heart. i bent a little forward ... she gave a hurried start and ran away. in the parlour i was met by ivan semyonitch. 'how's this, my good sir, are you alone?' he asked me, with a queer twitch of his left eyelid. 'yes, i've come alone,' i stammered. sidorenko went off into a sudden guffaw and departed into the next room. i had never been in such a foolish position; it was too devilishly disgusting! but there was nothing to be done. i began walking up and down the room. 'what was the fat pig laughing at?' i wondered. matrona semyonovna came into the room with a stocking in her hands and sat down in the window. i began talking to her. meanwhile tea was brought in. varia came downstairs, pale and sorrowful. the retired lieutenant made jokes about kolosov. 'i know,' said he, 'what sort of customer he is; you couldn't tempt him here with lollipops now, i expect!' varia hurriedly got up and went away. ivan semyonitch looked after her and gave a sly whistle. i glanced at him in perplexity. 'can it be,' i wondered, 'that he knows all about it?' and the lieutenant, as though divining my thoughts, nodded his head affirmatively. directly after tea i got up and took leave. 'you, my good sir, we shall see again,' observed the lieutenant. i did not say a word in reply.... i began to feel simply frightened of the man. on the steps a cold and trembling hand clutched at mine; i looked round: varia. 'i must speak to you,' she whispered. 'come to-morrow rather earlier, straight into the garden. after dinner papa is asleep; no one will interfere with us.' i pressed her hand without a word, and we parted. next day, at three o'clock in the afternoon, i was in ivan semyonitch's garden. in the morning i had not seen kolosov, though he had come to see me. it was a grey autumn day, but soft and warm. delicate yellow blades of grass nodded over the blanching turf; the nimble tomtits were hopping about the bare dark-brown twigs; some belated larks were hurriedly running about the paths; a hare was creeping cautiously about among the greens; a herd of cattle wandered lazily over the stubble. i found varia in the garden under the apple-tree on the little garden-seat; she was wearing a dark dress, rather creased; her weary eyes, the dejected droop of her hair, seemed to express genuine suffering. i sat down beside her. we were both silent. for a long while she kept twisting a twig in her hand; she bent her head, and uttered: 'andrei nikolaevitch....' i noticed at once, by the twitching of her lips, that she was getting ready to cry, and began consoling her, assuring her hotly of andrei's devotion.... she heard me, nodded her head mournfully, articulated some indistinct words, and then was silent but did not cry. the first moments i had dreaded most of all had gone off fairly well. she began little by little to talk about andrei. 'i know that he does not love me now,' she repeated: 'god be with him! i can't imagine how i am to live without him.... i don't sleep at nights, i keep weeping.... what am i to do! what am i to do! ...' her eyes filled with tears. 'i thought him so kind ... and here ...' varia wiped her eyes, cleared her throat, and sat up. 'it seems such a little while ago,' she went on: 'he was reading to me out of pushkin, sitting with me on this bench....' varia's naïve communicativeness touched me. i listened in silence to her confessions; my soul was slowly filled with a bitter, torturing bliss; i could not take my eyes off that pale face, those long, wet eyelashes, and half-parted, rather parched lips.... and meanwhile i felt ... would you care to hear a slight psychological analysis of my emotions at that moment? in the first place i was tortured by the thought that it was not i that was loved, not i that as making varia suffer: secondly, i was delighted at her confidence; i knew she would be grateful to me for giving her an opportunity of expressing her sorrow: thirdly, i was inwardly vowing to myself to bring kolosov and varia together again, and was deriving consolation from the consciousness of my magnanimity ... in the fourth place, i hoped, by my self-sacrifice, to touch varia's heart; and then ... you see i do not spare myself; no, thank god! it's high time! but from the bell-tower of the monastery near it struck five o'clock; the evening was coming on rapidly. varia got up hastily, thrust a little note into my hand, and went off towards the house. i overtook her, promised to bring andrei to her, and stealthily, like a happy lover, crept out by the little gate into the field. on the note was written in an unsteady hand the words: to andrei nikolaevitch. next day i set off early in the morning to kolosov's. i'm bound to confess that, although i assured myself that my intentions were not only honourable, but positively brimful of great-hearted self-sacrifice, i was yet conscious of a certain awkwardness, even timidity. i arrived at kolosov's. there was with him a fellow called puzyritsin, a former student who had never taken his degree, one of those authors of sensational novels of the so-called 'moscow' or 'grey' school. puzyritsin was a very good-natured and shy person, and was always preparing to be an hussar, in spite of his thirty-three years. he belonged to that class of people who feel it absolutely necessary, once in the twenty-four hours, to utter a phrase after the pattern of, 'the beautiful always falls into decay in the flower of its splendour; such is the fate of the beautiful in the world,' in order to smoke his pipe with redoubled zest all the rest of the day in a circle of 'good comrades.' on this account he was called an idealist. well, so puzyritsin was sitting with kolosov reading him some 'fragment.' i began to listen; it was all about a youth, who loves a maiden, kills her, and so on. at last puzyritsin finished and retreated. his absurd production, solemnly bawling voice, his presence altogether, had put kolosov into a mood of sarcastic irritability. i felt that i had come at an unlucky moment, but there was nothing to be done for it; without any kind of preface, i handed andrei varia's note. kolosov looked at me in perplexity, tore open the note, ran his eyes over it, said nothing, but smiled composedly. 'oh, ho!' he said at last; 'so you've been at ivan semyonitch's?' 'yes, i was there yesterday, alone,' i answered abruptly and resolutely. 'ah!...' observed kolosov ironically, and he lighted his pipe. 'andrei,' i said to him, 'aren't you sorry for her?... if you had seen her tears...' and i launched into an eloquent description of my visit of the previous day. i was genuinely moved. kolosov did not speak, and smoked his pipe. 'you sat with her under the apple-tree in the garden,' he said at last. 'i remember in may i, too, used to sit with her on that seat.... the apple-tree was in blossom, the fresh white flowers fell upon us sometimes; i held both varia's hands... we were happy then.... now the apple-blossom is over, and the apples on the tree are sour.' i flew into a passion of noble indignation, began reproaching andrei for coldness, for cruelty, argued with him that he had no right to abandon a girl so suddenly, after awakening in her a multitude of new emotions; i begged him at least to go and say good-bye to varia. kolosov heard me to the end. 'admitting,' he said to me, when, agitated and exhausted, i flung myself into an armchair, 'that you, as my friend, may be allowed to criticise me. but hear my defence, at least, though...' here he paused for a little while and smiled curiously. 'varia's an excellent girl,' he went on, 'and has done me no wrong whatever.... on the contrary, i am greatly, very greatly indebted to her. i have left off going to see her for a very simple reason--i have left off caring for her....' 'but why? why?' i interrupted him. 'goodness knows why. while i loved her, i was entirely hers; i never thought of the future, and everything, my whole life, i shared with her ... now this passion has died out in me.... well, you would tell me to be a humbug, to play at being in love, wouldn't you? but what for? from pity for her? if she's a decent girl, she won't care for such charity herself, but if she is glad to be consoled by my ... my sympathy, well, she's not good for much!' kolosov's carelessly offhand expressions offended me, perhaps, the more because they were applied to the woman with whom i was secretly in love.... i fired up. 'stop,' i said to him; 'stop! i know why you have given up going to see varia.' 'why?' 'taniusha has forbidden you to.' in uttering these words, i fancied i was dealing a most cutting blow at andrei. taniusha was a very 'easy-going' young lady, black-haired, dark, five-and-twenty, free in her manners, and devilishly clever, a shtchitov in petticoats. kolosov quarrelled with her and made it up again half a dozen times in a month. she was passionately fond of him, though sometimes, during their misunderstandings, she would vow and declare that she thirsted for his blood.... and andrei, too, could not get on without her. kolosov looked at me, and responded serenely, 'perhaps so.' 'not perhaps so,' i shouted, 'but certainly!' kolosov at last got sick of my reproaches.... he got up and put on his cap. 'where are you going?' 'for a walk; you and puzyritsin have given me a headache between you.' 'you are angry with me?' 'no,' he answered, smiling his sweet smile, and holding out his hand to me. 'well, anyway, what do you wish me to tell varia?' 'eh?' ... he thought a little. 'she told you,' he said, 'that we had read pushkin together.... remind her of one line of pushkin's.' 'what line? what line?' i asked impatiently. 'this one: "what has been will not be again."' with those words he went out of the room. i followed him; on the stairs he stopped. 'and is she very much upset?' he asked me, pulling his cap over his eyes. 'very, very much!...' 'poor thing! console her, nikolai; you love her, you know.' 'yes, i have grown fond of her, certainly....' 'you love her,' repeated kolosov, and he looked me straight in the face. i turned away without a word, and we separated. on reaching home, i was in a perfect fever. 'i have done my duty,' i thought; 'i have overcome my own egoism; i have urged andrei to go back to varia!... now i am in the right; he that will not when he may...!' at the same time andrei's indifference wounded me. he had not been jealous of me, he told me to console her.... but is varia such an ordinary girl, is she not even worthy of sympathy?... there are people who know how to appreciate what you despise, andrei nikolaitch!... but what's the good? she does not love me.... no, she does not love me now, while she has not quite lost hope of kolosov's return.... but afterwards...who knows, my devotion will touch her. i will make no claims.... i will give myself up to her wholly, irrevocably.... varia! is it possible you will not love me?...never!...never!... such were the speeches your humble servant was rehearsing in the city of moscow, in the year , in the house of his revered preceptor. i wept... i felt faint... the weather was horrible...a fine rain trickled down the window panes with a persistent, thin, little patter; damp, dark-grey storm-clouds hung stationary over the town. i dined hurriedly, made no response to the anxious inquiries of the kind german woman, who whimpered a little herself at the sight of my red, swollen eyes (germans--as is well known--are always glad to weep). i behaved very ungraciously to my preceptor...and at once after dinner set off to ivan semyonitch... bent double in a jolting droshky, i kept asking myself whether i should tell varia all as it was, or go on deceiving her, and little by little turn her heart from andrei... i reached ivan semyonitch's without knowing what to decide upon... i found all the family in the parlour. on seeing me, varia turned fearfully white, but did not move from her place; sidorenko began talking to me in a peculiarly jeering way. i responded as best i could, looking from time to time at varia, and almost unconsciously giving a dejected and pensive expression to my features. the lieutenant started whist again. varia sat near the window and did not stir. 'you're dull now, i suppose?' ivan semyonitch asked her twenty times over. at last i succeeded in seizing a favourable opportunity. 'you are alone again,' varia whispered to me. 'yes,' i answered gloomily; 'and probably for long.' she swiftly drew in her head. 'did you give him my letter?' she asked in a voice hardly audible. 'yes.' 'well?'... she gasped for breath. i glanced at her.... there was a sudden flash of spiteful pleasure within me. 'he told me to tell you,' i pronounced deliberately, 'that "what has been will not be again...."' varia pressed her left hand to her heart, stretched her right hand out in front, staggered, and went quickly out of the room. i tried to overtake her.... ivan semyonitch stopped me. i stayed another two hours with him, but varia did not appear. on the way back i felt ashamed ... ashamed before varia, before andrei, before myself; though they say it is better to cut off an injured limb at once than to keep the patient in prolonged suffering; but who gave me a right to deal such a merciless blow at the heart of a poor girl?... for a long while i could not sleep ... but i fell asleep at last. in general i must repeat that 'love' never once deprived me of sleep. i began to go pretty often to ivan semyonitch's. i used to see kolosov as before, but neither he nor i ever referred to varia. my relations with her were of a rather curious kind. she became attached to me with that sort of attachment which excludes every possibility of love. she could not help noticing my warm sympathy, and talked eagerly with me ... of what, do you suppose?... of kolosov, nothing but kolosov! the man had taken such possession of her that she did not, as it were, belong to herself. i tried in vain to arouse her pride ... she was either silent or, if she talked--chattered on about kolosov. i did not even suspect in those days that sorrow of that kind--talkative sorrow--is in reality far more genuine than any silent suffering. i must own i passed many bitter moments at that time. i was conscious that i was not capable of filling kolosov's place; i was conscious that varia's past was so full, so rich ... and her present so poor.... i got to the point of an involuntary shudder at the words 'do you remember' ... with which almost every sentence of hers began. she grew a little thinner during the first days of our acquaintance ... but afterwards got better again, and even grew cheerful; she might have been compared then with a wounded bird, not yet quite recovered. meanwhile my position had become insupportable; the lowest passions gradually gained possession of my soul; it happened to me to slander kolosov in varia's presence. i resolved to cut short such unnatural relations. but how? part from varia--i could not.... declare my love to her--i did not dare; i felt that i could not, as yet, hope for a return. marry her.... this idea alarmed me; i was only eighteen; i felt a dread of putting all my future into bondage so early; i thought of my father, i could hear the jeering comments of kolosov's comrades.... but they say every thought is like dough; you have only to knead it well--you can make anything you like of it. i began, for whole days together, to dream of marriage.... i imagined what gratitude would fill varia's heart when i, the friend and confidant of kolosov, should offer her my hand, knowing her to be hopelessly in love with another. persons of experience, i remembered, had told me that marriage for love is a complete absurdity; i began to indulge my fancy; i pictured to myself our peaceful life together in some snug corner of south russia; an mentally i traced the gradual transition in varia's heart from gratitude to affection, from affection to love.... i vowed to myself at once to leave moscow, the university, to forget everything and every one. i began to avoid meeting kolosov. at last, one bright winter day (varia had been somehow peculiarly enchanting the previous evening), i dressed myself in my best, slowly and solemnly sallied out from my room, took a first-rate sledge, and drove down to ivan semyonitch's. varia was sitting alone in the drawing-room reading karamzin. on seeing me she softly laid the book down on her knees, and with agitated curiosity looked into my face; i had never been to see them in the morning before.... i sat down beside her; my heart beat painfully. 'what are you reading?' i asked her at last. 'karamzin.' 'what, are you taking up russian literature?...' she suddenly cut me short. 'tell me, haven't you come from andrei?' that name, that trembling, questioning voice, the half-joyful, half-timid expression of her face, all these unmistakable signs of persistent love, pierced to my heart like arrows. i resolved either to part from varia, or to receive from her herself the right to chase the hated name of andrei from her lips for ever. i do not remember what i said to her; at first i must have expressed myself in rather confused fashion, as for a long while she did not understand me; at last i could stand it no longer, and almost shouted, 'i love you, i want to marry you.' 'you love me?' said varia in bewilderment. i fancied she meant to get up, to go away, to refuse me. 'for god's sake,' i whispered breathlessly, 'don't answer me, don't say yes or no; think it over; to-morrow i will come again for a final answer.... i have long loved you. i don't ask of you love, i want to be your champion, your friend; don't answer me now, don't answer.... till to-morrow.' with these words i rushed out of the room. in the passage ivan semyonitch met me, and not only showed no surprise at my visit, but positively, with an agreeable smile, offered me an apple. such unexpected amiability so struck me that i was simply dumb with amazement. 'take the apple, it's a nice apple, really!' persisted ivan semyonitch. mechanically i took the apple at last, and drove all the way home with it in my hand. you may easily imagine how i passed all that day and the following morning. that night i slept rather badly. 'my god! my god!' i kept thinking; 'if she refuses me! ... i shall die.... i shall die....' i repeated wearily. 'yes, she will certainly refuse me.... and why was i in such a hurry!'... wishing to turn my thoughts, i began to write a letter to my father--a desperate, resolute letter. speaking of myself, i used the expression 'your son.' bobov came in to see me. i began weeping on his shoulder, which must have surprised poor bobov not a little.... i afterwards learned that he had come to me to borrow money (his landlord had threatened to turn him out of the house); he had no choice but to hook it, as the students say.... at last the great moment arrived. on going out of my room, i stood still in the doorway. 'with what feelings,' thought i, 'shall i cross this threshold again to-day?' ... my emotion at the sight of ivan semyonitch's little house was so great that i got down, picked up a handful of snow and pressed it to my face. 'oh, heavens!' i thought, 'if i find varia alone--i am lost!' my legs were giving way under me; i could hardly get to the steps. things were as i had hoped. i found varia in the parlour with matrona semyonovna. i made my bows awkwardly, and sat down by the old lady. varia's face was rather paler than usual.... i fancied that she tried to avoid my eyes.... but what were my feelings when matrona semyonovna suddenly got up and went into the next room!... i began looking out of the window--i was trembling inwardly like an autumn leaf. varia did not speak.... at last i mastered my timidity, went up to her, bent my head.... 'what are you going to say to me?' i articulated in a breaking voice. varia turned away--the tears were glistening on her eyelashes. 'i see,' i went on, 'it's useless for me to hope.'... varia looked shyly round and gave me her hand without a word. 'varia!' i cried involuntarily...and stopped, as though frightened at my own hopes. 'speak to papa,' she articulated at last. 'you permit me to speak to ivan semyonitch?' ... 'yes.'... i covered her hands with kisses. 'don't, don't,' whispered varia, and suddenly burst into tears. i sat down beside her, talked soothingly to her, wiped away her tears.... luckily, ivan semyonitch was not at home, and matrona semyonovna had gone up to her own little room. i made vows of love, of constancy to varia. ...'yes,' she said, suppressing her sobs and continually wiping her eyes; 'i know you are a good man, an honest man; you are not like kolosov.'... 'that name again!' thought i. but with what delight i kissed those warm, damp little hands! with what subdued rapture i gazed into that sweet face!... i talked to her of the future, walked about the room, sat down on the floor at her feet, hid my eyes in my hands, and shuddered with happiness.... ivan semyonitch's heavy footsteps cut short our conversation. varia hurriedly got up and went off to her own room--without, however, pressing my hand or glancing at me. mr. sidorenko was even more amiable than on the previous day: he laughed, rubbed his stomach, made jokes about matrona semyonovna, and so on. i was on the point of asking for his blessing there and then, but i thought better of it and deferred doing so till the next day. his ponderous jokes jarred upon me; besides i was exhausted.... i said good-bye to him and went away. i am one of those persons who love brooding over their own sensations, though i cannot endure such persons myself. and so, after the first transport of heartfelt joy, i promptly began to give myself up to all sorts of reflections. when i had got half a mile from the house of the retired lieutenant, i flung my hat up in the air, in excessive delight, and shouted 'hurrah!' but while i was being jolted through the long, crooked streets of moscow, my thoughts gradually took another turn. all sorts of rather sordid doubts began to crowd upon my mind. i recalled my conversation with ivan semyonitch about marriage in general ... and unconsciously i murmured to myself, 'so he was putting it on, the old humbug!' it is true that i continually repeated, 'but then varia is mine! mine!' ... yet that 'but'--alas, that _but_!--and then, too, the words, 'varia is mine!' aroused in me not a deep, overwhelming rapture, but a sort of paltry, egoistic triumph.... if varia had refused me point-blank, i should have been burning with furious passion; but having received her consent, i was like a man who has just said to a guest, 'make yourself at home,' and sees the guest actually beginning to settle into his room, as if he were at home. 'if she had loved kolosov,' i thought, 'how was it she consented so soon? it's clear she's glad to marry any one.... well, what of it? all the better for me.'... it was with such vague and curious feelings that i crossed the threshold of my room. possibly, gentlemen, my story does not strike you as sounding true. i don't know whether it sounds true or not, but i know that all i have told is the absolute and literal truth. however, i gave myself up all that day to a feverish gaiety, assured myself that i simply did not deserve such happiness; but next morning.... a wonderful thing is sleep! it not only renews one's body: in a way it renews one's soul, restoring it to primaeval simplicity and naturalness. in the course of the day you succeed in _tuning_ yourself, in soaking yourself in falsity, in false ideas ... sleep with its cool wave washes away all such pitiful trashiness; and on waking up, at least for the first few instants, you are capable of understanding and loving truth. i waked up, and, reflecting on the previous day, i felt a certain discomfort.... i was, as it were, ashamed of all my own actions. with instinctive uneasiness i thought of the visit to be made that day, of my interview with ivan semyonitch.... this uneasiness was acute and distressing; it was like the uneasiness of the hare who hears the barking of the dogs and is bound at last to run out of his native forest into the open country...and there the sharp teeth of the harriers are awaiting him.... 'why was i in such a hurry?' i repeated, just as i had the day before, but in quite a different sense. i remember the fearful difference between yesterday and to-day struck myself; for the first time it occurred to me that in human life there lie hid secrets--strange secrets.... with childish perplexity i gazed into this new, not fantastic, real world. by the word 'real' many people understand 'trivial.' perhaps it sometimes is so; but i must own that the first appearance of _reality_ before me shook me profoundly, scared me, impressed me.... what fine-sounding phrases all about love that didn't come off, to use gogol's expression! ... i come back to my story. in the course of that day i assured myself again that i was the most blissful of mortals. i drove out of the town to ivan semyonitch's. he received me very gleefully; he had been meaning to go and see a neighbour, but i myself stopped him. i was afraid to be left alone with varia. the evening was cheerful, but not reassuring. varia was neither one thing nor the other, neither cordial nor melancholy ... neither pretty nor plain. i looked at her, as the philosophers say, objectively--that is to say, as the man who has dined looks at the dishes. i thought her hands were rather red. sometimes, however, my heart warmed, and watching her i gave way to other dreams and reveries. i had only just made her an offer, as it is called, and here i was already feeling as though we were living as husband and wife ... as though our souls already made up one lovely whole, belonged to one another, and consequently were trying each to seek out a separate path for itself.... 'well, have you spoken to papa?' varia said to me, as soon as we were left alone. this inquiry impressed me most disagreeably.... i thought to myself, 'you're pleased to be in a desperate hurry, varvara ivanovna.' 'not yet,' i answered, rather shortly, 'but i will speak to him.' altogether i behaved rather casually with her. in spite of my promise, i said nothing definite to ivan semyonitch. as i was leaving, i pressed his hand significantly, and informed him that i wanted to have a little talk with him ... that was all.... 'good-bye!' i said to varia. 'till we meet!' said she. i will not keep you long in suspense, gentlemen; i am afraid of exhausting your patience.... we never met again. i never went back to ivan semyonitch's. the first days, it is true, of my voluntary separation from varia did not pass without tears, self-reproach, and emotion; i was frightened myself at the rapid drooping of my love; twenty times over i was on the point of starting off to see her. vividly i pictured to myself her amazement, her grief, her wounded feelings; but--i never went to ivan semyonitch's again. in her absence i begged her forgiveness, fell on my knees before her, assured her of my profound repentance--and once, when i met a girl in the street slightly resembling her, i took to my heels without looking back, and only breathed freely in a cook-shop after the fifth jam-puff. the word 'to-morrow' was invented for irresolute people, and for children; like a baby, i lulled myself with that magic word. 'to-morrow i will go to her, whatever happens,' i said to myself, and ate and slept well to-day. i began to think a great deal more about kolosov than about varia ... everywhere, continually, i saw his open, bold, careless face. i began going to see him as before. he gave me the same welcome as ever. but how deeply i felt his superiority to me! how ridiculous i thought all my fancies, my pensive melancholy, during the period of kolosov's connection with varia, my magnanimous resolution to bring them together again, my anticipations, my raptures, my remorse!... i had played a wretched, drawn-out part of screaming farce, but he had passed so simply, so well, through it all.... you will say, 'what is there wonderful in that? your kolosov fell in love with a girl, then fell out of love again, and threw her over.... why, that happens with everybody....' agreed; but which of us knows just when to break with our past? which of us, tell me, is not afraid of the reproaches--i don't mean of the woman--the reproaches of every chance fool? which of us is proof against the temptation of making a display of magnanimity, or of playing egoistically with another devoted heart? which of us, in fact, has the force of character to be superior to petty vanity, to _petty fine feelings_, sympathy and self-reproach?... oh, gentlemen, the man who leaves a woman at that great and bitter moment when he is forced to recognise that his heart is not altogether, not fully, hers, that man, believe me, has a truer and deeper comprehension of the sacredness of love than the faint-hearted creatures who, from dulness or weakness, go on playing on the half-cracked strings of their flabby and sentimental hearts! at the beginning of my story i told you that we all considered andrei kolosov an extraordinary man. and if a clear, simple outlook upon life, if the absence of every kind of cant in a young man, can be called an extraordinary thing, kolosov deserved the name. at a certain age, to be natural is to be extraordinary.... it is time to finish, though. i thank you for your attention.... oh, i forgot to tell you that three months after my last visit i met the old humbug ivan semyonitch. i tried, of course, to glide hurriedly and unnoticed by him, but yet i could not help overhearing the words, 'feather-headed scoundrels!' uttered angrily. 'and what became of varia?' asked some one. 'i don't know,' answered the story-teller. we all got up and separated. . a correspondence a few years ago i was in dresden. i was staying at an hotel. from early morning till late evening i strolled about the town, and did not think it necessary to make acquaintance with my neighbours; at last it reached my ears in some chance way that there was a russian in the hotel--lying ill. i went to see him, and found a man in galloping consumption. i had begun to be tired of dresden; i stayed with my new acquaintance. it's dull work sitting with a sick man, but even dulness is sometimes agreeable; moreover, my patient was not low-spirited and was very ready to talk. we tried to kill time in all sorts of ways; we played 'fools,' the two of us together, and made fun of the doctor. my compatriot used to tell this very bald-headed german all sorts of fictions about himself, which the doctor had always 'long ago anticipated.' he used to mimic his astonishment at any new, exceptional symptom, to throw his medicines out of window, and so on. i observed more than once, however, to my friend that it would be as well to send for a good doctor before it was too late, that his complaint was not to be trifled with, and so on. but alexey (my new friend's name was alexey petrovitch s----) always turned off my advice with jests at the expense of doctors in general, and his own in particular; and at last one rainy autumn evening he answered my urgent entreaties with such a mournful look, he shook his head so sorrowfully and smiled so strangely, that i felt somewhat disconcerted. the same night alexey was worse, and the next day he died. just before his death his usual cheerfulness deserted him; he tossed about uneasily in his bed, sighed, looked round him in anguish ... clutched at my hand, and whispered with an effort, 'but it's hard to die, you know ... dropped his head on the pillow, and shed tears. i did not know what to say to him, and sat in silence by his bed. but alexey soon got the better of these last, late regrets.... 'i say,' he said to me, 'our doctor'll come to-day and find me dead.... i can fancy his face.'... and the dying man tried to mimic him. he asked me to send all his things to russia to his relations, with the exception of a small packet which he gave me as a souvenir. this packet contained letters--a girl's letters to alexey, and copies of his letters to her. there were fifteen of them. alexey petrovitch s---- had known marya alexandrovna b---- long before, in their childhood, i fancy. alexey petrovitch had a cousin, marya alexandrovna had a sister. in former years they had all lived together; then they had been separated, and had not seen each other for a long while. later on, they had chanced one summer to be all together again in the country, and they had fallen in love--alexey's cousin with marya alexandrovna, and alexey with her sister. the summer had passed by, the autumn came; they parted. alexey, like a sensible person, soon came to the conclusion that he was not in love at all, and had effected a very satisfactory parting from his charmer. his cousin had continued writing to marya alexandrovna for nearly two years longer ... but he too perceived at last that he was deceiving her and himself in an unconscionable way, and he too dropped the correspondence. i could tell you something about marya alexandrovna, gentle reader, but you will find out what she was from her letters. alexey wrote his first letter to her soon after she had finally broken with his cousin. he was at that time in petersburg; he went suddenly abroad, fell ill, and died at dresden. i resolved to print his correspondence with marya alexandrovna, and trust the reader will look at it with indulgence, as these letters are not love-letters--heaven forbid! love-letters are as a rule only read by two persons (they read them over a thousand times to make up), and to a third person they are unendurable, if not ridiculous. i from alexey petrovitch to marya alexandrovna st. petersburg, _march_ , . dear marya alexandrovna,-- i fancy i have never written to you before, and here i am writing to you now.... i have chosen a curious time to begin, haven't i? i'll tell you what gave me the impulse. mon cousin théodore was with me to-day, and...how shall i put it?...and he confided to me as the greatest secret (he never tells one anything except as a great secret), that he was in love with the daughter of a gentleman here, and that this time he is firmly resolved to be married, and that he has already taken the first step--he has declared himself! i made haste, of course, to congratulate him on an event so agreeable for him; he has been longing to declare himself for a great while...but inwardly, i must own, i was rather astonished. although i knew that everything was over between you, still i had fancied.... in short, i was surprised. i had made arrangements to go out to see friends to-day, but i have stopped at home and mean to have a little gossip with you. if you do not care to listen to me, fling this letter forthwith into the fire. i warn you i mean to be frank, though i feel you are fully justified in taking me for a rather impertinent person. observe, however, that i would not have taken up my pen if i had not known your sister was not with you; she is staying, so théodore told me, the whole summer with your aunt, madame b---. god give her every blessing! and so, this is how it has all worked out.... but i am not going to offer you my friendship and all that; i am shy as a rule of high-sounding speeches and 'heartfelt' effusions. in beginning to write this letter, i simply obeyed a momentary impulse. if there is another feeling latent within me, let it remain hidden under a bushel for the time. i'm not going to offer you sympathy either. in sympathising with others, people for the most part want to get rid, as quick as they can, of an unpleasant feeling of involuntary, egoistic regret.... i understand genuine, warm sympathy ... but such sympathy you would not accept from just any one.... do, please, get angry with me.... if you're angry, you'll be sure to read my missive to the end. but what right have i to write to you, to talk of my friendship, of my feelings, of consolation? none, absolutely none; that i am bound to admit, and i can only throw myself on your kindness. do you know what the preface of my letter's like? i'll tell you: some mr. n. or m. walking into the drawing-room of a lady who doesn't in the least expect him, and who does, perhaps, expect some one else.... he realises that he has come at an unlucky moment, but there's no help for it.... he sits down, begins talking...goodness knows what about: poetry, the beauties of nature, the advantages of a good education...talks the most awful rot, in fact. but, meanwhile, the first five minutes have gone by, he has settled himself comfortably; the lady has resigned herself to the inevitable, and so mr. n. or m. regains his self-possession, takes breath, and begins a real conversation--to the best of his ability. in spite, though, of all this rigmarole, i don't still feel quite comfortable. i seem to see your bewildered--even rather wrathful--face; i feel that it will be almost impossible you should not ascribe to me some hidden motives, and so, like a roman who has committed some folly, i wrap myself majestically in my toga, and await in silence your final sentence.... the question is: will you allow me to go on writing to you?--i remain sincerely and warmly devoted to you, alexey s. ii from marya alexandrovna to alexey petrovitch village of x----, _march_ , . dear sir, alexey petrovitch, i have received your letter, and i really don't know what to say to you. i should not even have answered you at all, if it had not been that i fancied that under your jesting remarks there really lies hid a feeling of some friendliness. your letter made an unpleasant impression on me. in answer to your rigmarole, as you call it, let me too put to you one question: _what for?_ what have i to do with you, or you with me? i do not ascribe to you any bad motives ... on the contrary, i'm grateful for your sympathy ... but we are strangers to each other, and i, just now at least, feel not the slightest inclination for greater intimacy with any one whatever.--with sincere esteem, i remain, etc., marya b. iii from alexey petrovitch to marya alexandrovna st. petersburg, _march_ . thank you, marya alexandrovna, thank you for your note, brief as it was. all this time i have been in great suspense; twenty times a day i have thought of you and my letter. you can't imagine how bitterly i laughed at myself; but now i am in an excellent frame of mind, and very much pleased with myself. marya alexandrovna, i am going to begin a correspondence with you! confess, this was not at all what you expected after your answer; i'm surprised myself at my boldness.... well, i don't care, here goes! but don't be uneasy; i want to talk to you, not of you, but of myself. it's like this, do you see: it's absolutely needful for me, in the old-fashioned phraseology, to open my heart to some one. i have not the slightest right to select you for my confidant--agreed. but listen: i won't demand of you an answer to my letters; i don't even want to know whether you read my 'rigmarole'; but, in the name of all that's holy, don't send my letters back to me! let me tell you, i am utterly alone on earth. in my youth i led a solitary life, though i never, i remember, posed as a byronic hero; but first, circumstances, and secondly, a faculty of imaginative dreaming and a love for dreaming, rather cool blood, pride, indolence--a number of different causes, in fact, cut me off from the society of men. the transition from dream-life to real life took place in me late...perhaps too late, perhaps it has not fully taken place up to now. so long as i found entertainment in my own thoughts and feelings, so long as i was capable of abandoning myself to causeless and unuttered transports and so on, i did not complain of my solitude. i had no associates; i had what are called friends. sometimes i needed their presence, as an electrical machine needs a discharger--and that was all. love... of that subject we will not speak for the present. but now, i will own, now solitude weighs heavy on me; and at the same time, i see no escape from my position. i do not blame fate; i alone am to blame and am deservedly punished. in my youth i was absorbed by one thing--my precious self; i took my simple-hearted self-love for modesty; i avoided society--and here i am now, a fearful bore to myself. what am i to do with myself? there is no one i love; all my relations with other people are somehow strained and false. and i've no memories either, for in all my past life i can find nothing but my own personality. save me. to you i have made no passionate protestations of love. you i have never smothered in a flood of aimless babble. i passed by you rather coldly, and it is just for that reason i make up my mind to have recourse to you now. (i have had thoughts of doing so before this, but at that time you were not free....) among all my self-created sensations, pleasures and sufferings, the one genuine feeling was the not great, but instinctive attraction to you, which withered up at the time, like a single ear of wheat in the midst of worthless weeds.... let me just for once look into another face, into another soul--my own face has grown hateful to me. i am like a man who should have been condemned to live all his life in a room with walls of looking-glass.... i do not ask of you any sort of confessions--oh mercy, no! bestow on me a sister's unspoken sympathy, or at least the simple curiosity of a reader. i will entertain you, i will really. meanwhile i have the honour to be your sincere friend, a. s. iv from alexey petrovitch to marya alexandrovna st. petersburg, _april_ . i am writing to you again, though i foresee that without your approval i shall soon cease writing. i must own that you cannot but feel some distrust of me. well, perhaps you are right too. in old days i should have triumphantly announced to you (and very likely i should have quite believed my own words myself) that i had 'developed,' made progress, since the time when we parted. with condescending, almost affectionate, contempt i should have referred to my past, and with touching self-conceit have initiated you into the secrets of my real, present life ... but, now, i assure you, marya alexandrovna, i'm positively ashamed and sick to remember the capers and antics cut at times by my paltry egoism. don't be afraid: i am not going to force upon you any great truths, any profound views. i have none of them--of those truths and views. i have become a simple good fellow--really. i am bored, marya alexandrovna, i'm simply bored past all enduring. that is why i am writing to you.... i really believe we may come to be friends.... but i'm positively incapable of talking to you, till you hold out a hand to me, till i get a note from you with the one word 'yes.' marya alexandrovna, are you willing to listen to me? that's the question.--yours devotedly, a. s. v from marya alexandrovna to alexey petrovitch village of x----, _april_ . what a strange person you are! very well, then.--yes! marya b. vi from alexey petrovitch to marya alexandrovna st. petersburg, _may_ , . hurrah! thanks, marya alexandrovna, thanks! you are a very kind and indulgent creature. i will begin according to my promise to talk about myself, and i shall talk with a relish approaching to appetite.... that's just it. of anything in the world one may speak with fire, with enthusiasm, with ecstasy, but with appetite one talks only of oneself. let me tell you, during the last few days a very strange experience has befallen me. i have for the first time taken an all-round view of my past. you understand me. every one of us often recalls what is over--with regret, or vexation, or simply from nothing to do. but to bend a cold, clear gaze over all one's past life--as a traveller turns and looks from a high mountain on the plain he has passed through--is only possible at a certain age ... and a secret chill clutches at a man's heart when it happens to him for the first time. mine, anyway, felt a sick pang. while we are young, _such_ an all-round view is impossible. but my youth is over, and, like one who has climbed on to a mountain, everything lies clear before me. yes, my youth is gone, gone never to return!... here it lies before me, as it were in the palm of my hand. a sorry spectacle! i will confess to you, marya alexandrovna, i am very sorry for myself. my god! my god! can it be that i have myself so utterly ruined my life, so mercilessly embroiled and tortured myself!... now i have come to my senses, but it's too late. has it ever happened to you to save a fly from a spider? has it? you remember, you put it in the sun; its wings and legs were stuck together, glued.... how awkwardly it moved, how clumsily it attempted to get clear!... after prolonged efforts, it somehow gets better, crawls, tries to open its wings ... but there is no more frolicking for it, no more light-hearted buzzing in the sunshine, as before, when it was flying through the open window into the cool room and out again, freely winging its way into the hot air.... the fly, at least, fell through none of its own doing into the dreadful web ... but i! i have been my own spider! and, at the same time, i cannot greatly blame myself. who, indeed, tell me, pray, is ever to blame for anything--alone? or, to put it better, we are all to blame, and yet we can't be blamed. circumstances determine us; they shove us into one road or another, and then they punish us for it. every man has his destiny.... wait a bit, wait a bit! a cleverly worked-out but true comparison has just come into my head. as the clouds are first condensed from the vapours of earth, rise from out of her bosom, then separate, move away from her, and at last bring her prosperity or ruin: so, about every one of us, and out of ourselves, is fashioned--how is one to express it?--is fashioned a sort of element, which has afterwards a destructive or saving influence on us. this element i call destiny.... in other words, and speaking simply, every one makes his own destiny and destiny makes every one.... every one makes his destiny--yes!... but people like us make it too much--that's what's wrong with us! consciousness is awakened too early in us; too early we begin to keep watch on ourselves.... we russians have set ourselves no other task in life but the cultivation of our own personality, and when we're children hardly grown-up we set to work to cultivate it, this luckless personality! receiving no definite guidance from without, with no real respect for anything, no strong belief in anything, we are free to make what we choose of ourselves ... one can't expect every one to understand on the spot the uselessness of intellect 'seething in vain activity' ... and so we get again one monster the more in the world, one more of those worthless creatures in whom habits of self-consciousness distort the very striving for truth, and a ludicrous simplicity exists side by side with a pitiful duplicity ... one of those beings of impotent, restless thought who all their lives know neither the satisfaction of natural activity, nor genuine suffering, nor the genuine thrill of conviction.... mixing up together in ourselves the defects of all ages, we rob each defect of its good redeeming side ... we are as silly as children, but we are not sincere as they are; we are cold as old people, but we have none of the good sense of old age.... to make up, we are psychologists. oh yes, we are great psychologists! but our psychology is akin to pathology; our psychology is that subtle study of the laws of morbid condition and morbid development, with which healthy people have nothing to do.... and, what is the chief point, we are not young, even in our youth we are not young! and at the same time--why libel ourselves? were we never young, did we never know the play, the fire, the thrill of life's forces? we too have been in arcady, we too have strayed about her bright meadows!... have you chanced, strolling about a copse, to come across those dark grasshoppers which, jumping up from under your very feet, suddenly with a whirring sound expand bright red wings, fly a few yards, and then drop again into the grass? so our dark youth at times spread its particoloured wings for a few moments and for no long flight.... do you remember our silent evening walks, the four of us together, beside your garden fence, after some long, warm, spirited conversation? do you remember those blissful moments? nature, benign and stately, took us to her bosom. we plunged, swooning, into a flood of bliss. all around, the sunset with a sudden and soft flush, the glowing sky, the earth bathed in light, everything on all sides seemed full of the fresh and fiery breath of youth, the joyous triumph of some deathless happiness. the sunset flamed; and, like it, our rapturous hearts burned with soft and passionate fire, and the tiny leaves of the young trees quivered faintly and expectantly over our heads, as though in response to the inward tremor of vague feelings and anticipations in us. do you remember the purity, the goodness and trustfulness of ideas, the softening of noble hopes, the silence of full hearts? were we not really then worth something better than what life has brought us to? why was it ordained for us only at rare moments to see the longed-for shore, and never to stand firmly on it, never to touch it: 'never to weep with joy, like the first jew upon the border of the promised land'! these two lines of fet's remind me of others, also his.... do you remember once, as we stood in the highroad, we saw in the distance a cloud of pink dust, blown up by the light breeze against the setting sun? 'in an eddying cloud,' you began, and we were all still at once to listen: 'in an eddying cloud dust rises in the distance ... rider or man on foot is seen not in the dust. i see some one trotting on a gallant steed ... friend of mine, friend far away, think! oh, think of me!' you ceased ... we all felt a shudder pass over us, as though the breath of love had flitted over our hearts, and each of us--i am sure of it--felt irresistibly drawn into the distance, the unknown distance, where the phantom of bliss rises and lures through the mist. and all the while, observe the strangeness; why, one wonders, should we have a yearning for the far away? were we not in love with each other? was not happiness 'so close, so possible'? as i asked you just now: why was it we did not touch the longed-for shore? because falsehood walked hand in hand with us; because it poisoned our best feelings; because everything in us was artificial and strained; because we did not love each other at all, but were only trying to love, fancying we loved.... but enough, enough! why inflame one's wounds? besides, it is all over and done with. what was good in our past moved me, and on that good i will take leave of you for a while. it's time to make an end of this long letter. i am going out for a breath here of the may air, in which spring is breaking through the dry fastness of winter with a sort of damp, keen warmth. farewell.--yours, a. s. vii from marya alexandrovna to alexey petrovitch village of x----,_may_ . i have received your letter, alexey petrovitch, and do you know what feeling t aroused in me?--indignation ... yes, indignation ... and i will explain to you at once why it aroused just that feeling in me. it's only a pity i'm not a great hand with my pen; i rarely write, and am not good at expressing my thoughts precisely and in few words. but you will, i hope, come to my aid. you must try, on your side, to understand me, if only to find out why i am indignant with you. tell me--you have brains--have you ever asked yourself what sort of creature a russian woman is? what is her destiny? her position in the world--in short, what is her life? i don't know if you have had time to put this question to yourself; i can't picture to myself how you would answer it.... i should, perhaps, in conversation be capable of giving you my ideas on the subject, but on paper i am scarcely equal to it. no matter, though. this is the point: you will certainly agree with me that we women, those of us at least who are not satisfied with the common interests of domestic life, receive our final education, in any case, from you men: you have a great and powerful influence on us. now, consider what you do to us. i am talking about young girls, especially those who, like me, live in the wilds, and there are very many such in russia. besides, i don't know anything of others and cannot judge of them. picture to yourself such a girl. her education, suppose, is finished; she begins to live, to enjoy herself. but enjoyment alone is not much to her. she demands much from life, she reads, and dreams ... of love. always nothing but love! you will say.... suppose so; but that word means a great deal to her. i repeat that i am not speaking of a girl to whom thinking is tiresome and boring.... she looks round her, is waiting for the time when he will come for whom her soul yearns.... at last he makes his appearance--she is captivated; she is wax in his hands. all--happiness and love and thought--all have come with a rush together with him; all her tremors are soothed, all her doubts solved by him. truth itself seems speaking by his lips. she venerates him, is over-awed at her own happiness, learns, loves. great is his power over her at that time!... if he were a hero, he would fire her, would teach her to sacrifice herself, and all sacrifices would be easy to her! but there are no heroes in our times.... anyway, he directs her as he pleases. she devotes herself to whatever interests him, every word of his sinks into her soul. she has not yet learned how worthless and empty and false a word may be, how little it costs him who utters it, and how little it deserves belief! after these first moments of bliss and hope there usually comes--through circumstances--(circumstances are always to blame)--there comes a parting. they say there have been instances of two kindred souls, on getting to know one another, becoming at once inseparably united; i have heard it said, too, that things did not always go smoothly with them in consequence ... but of what i have not seen myself i will not speak,--and that the pettiest calculation, the most pitiful prudence, can exist in a youthful heart, side by side with the most passionate enthusiasm--of that i have to my sorrow had practical experience. and so, the parting comes.... happy the girl who realises at once that it is the end of everything, who does not beguile herself with expectations! but you, valorous, just men, for the most part, have not the pluck, nor even the desire, to tell us the truth.... it is less disturbing for you to deceive us.... however, i am ready to believe that you deceive yourselves together with us.... parting! to bear separation is both hard and easy. if only there be perfect, untouched faith in him whom one loves, the soul can master the anguish of parting.... i will say more. it is only then, when she is left alone, that she finds out the sweetness of solitude--not fruitless, but filled with memories and ideas. it is only then that she finds out herself, comes to her true self, grows strong.... in the letters of her friend far away she finds a support for herself; in her own, she, very likely for the first time, finds full self-expression.... but as two people who start from a stream's source, along opposite banks, at first can touch hands, then only communicate by voice, and finally lose sight of each other altogether; so two natures grow apart at last by separation. well, what then? you will say; it's clear they were not destined to be together.... but herein the difference between a man and a woman comes out. for a man it means nothing to begin a new life, to shake off all his past; a woman cannot do this. no, she cannot fling off her past, she cannot break away from her roots--no, a thousand times no! and now begins a pitiful and ludicrous spectacle.... gradually losing hope and faith in herself--and how bitter that is you cannot even imagine!--she pines and wears herself out alone, obstinately clinging to her memories and turning away from everything that the life around offers her.... but he? look for him! where is he? and is it worth his while to stand still? when has he time to look round? why, it's all a thing of the past for him. or else this is what happens: it happens that he feels a sudden inclination to meet the former object of his feelings, that he even makes an excursion with that aim.... but, mercy on us! the pitiful conceit that leads him into doing that! in his gracious sympathy, in his would-be friendly advice, in his indulgent explanation of the past, such consciousness of his superiority is manifest! it is so agreeable and cheering for him to let himself feel every instant--what a clever person he is, and how kind! and how little he understands what he has done! how clever he is at not even guessing what is passing in a woman's heart, and how offensive is his compassion if he does guess it!... tell me, please, where is she to get strength to bear all this? recollect this, too: for the most part, a girl in whose brain--to her misfortune--thought has begun to stir, such a girl, when she begins to love, and falls under a man's influence, inevitably grows apart from her family, her circle of friends. she was not, even before then, satisfied with their life, though she moved in step with them, while she treasured all her secret dreams in her soul.... but the discrepancy soon becomes apparent.... they cease to comprehend her, and are ready to look askance at everything she does.... at first this is nothing to her, but afterwards, afterwards ... when she is left alone, when what she was striving towards, for which she had sacrificed everything--when heaven is not gained while everything near, everything possible, is lost--what is there to support her? jeers, sly hints, the vulgar triumph of coarse commonsense, she could still endure somehow ... but what is she to do, what is to be her refuge, when an inner voice begins to whisper to her that all of them are right and she was wrong, that life, whatever it may be, is better than dreams, as health is better than sickness ... when her favourite pursuits, her favourite books, grow hateful to her, books out of which there is no reading happiness--what, tell me, is to be her support? must she not inevitably succumb in such a struggle? how is she to live and to go on living in such a desert? to know oneself beaten and to hold out one's hand, like a beggar, to persons quite indifferent, for them to bestow the sympathy which the proud heart had once fancied it could well dispense with--all that would be nothing! but to feel yourself ludicrous at the very instant when you are shedding bitter, bitter tears ... o god, spare such suffering!... my hands are trembling, and i am quite in a fever.... my face burns. it is time to stop.... i'll send off this letter quickly, before i'm ashamed of its feebleness. but for god's sake, in your answer not a word--do you hear?--not a word of sympathy, or i'll never write to you again. understand me: i should not like you to take this letter as the outpouring of a misunderstood soul, complaining.... ah! i don't care!--good-bye. m. viii from alexey petrovitch to marya alexandrovna st. petersburg, _may_ , . marya alexandrovna, you are a splendid person ... you ... your letter revealed the truth to me at last! my god! what suffering! a man is constantly thinking that now at last he has reached simplicity, that he's no longer showing off, humbugging, lying ... but when you come to look at him more attentively, he's become almost worse than before. and this, too, one must remark: the man himself, alone that is, never attains this self-recognition, try as he will; his eyes cannot see his own defects, just as the compositor's wearied eyes cannot see the slips he makes; another fresh eye is needed for that. my thanks to you, marya alexandrovna.... you see, i speak to you of myself; of you i dare not speak.... ah, how absurd my last letter seems to me now, so flowery and sentimental! i beg you earnestly, go on with your confession. i fancy you, too, will be the better for it, and it will do me great good. it's a true saying: 'a woman's wit's better than many a reason,' and a woman's heart's far and away--by god, yes! if women knew how much better, nobler, and wiser they are than men--yes, wiser--they would grow conceited and be spoiled. but happily they don't know it; they don't know it because their intelligence isn't in the habit of turning incessantly upon themselves, as with us. they think very little about themselves--that's their weakness and their strength; that's the whole secret--i won't say of our superiority, but of our power. they lavish their soul, as a prodigal heir does his father's gold, while we exact a percentage on every worthless morsel.... how are they to hold their own with us?... all this is not compliments, but the simple truth, proved by experience. once more, i beseech you, marya alexandrovna, go on writing to me.... if you knew all that is coming into my brain! ... but i have no wish now to speak, i want to listen to you. my turn will come later. write, write.--your devoted, a. s. ix from marya alexandrovna to alexey petrovitch village of x----, _june_ , . i had hardly sent off my last letter to you, alexey petrovitch, when i regretted it; but there was no help for it then. one thing reassures me somewhat: i am sure you realised that it was under the influence of feelings long ago suppressed that it was written, and you excused me. i did not even read through, at the time, what i had written to you; i remember my heart beat so violently that the pen shook in my fingers. however, though i should probably have expressed myself differently if i had allowed myself time to reflect, i don't mean, all the same, to disavow my own words, or the feelings which i described to you as best i could. to-day i am much cooler and far more self-possessed. i remember at the end of my letter i spoke of the painful position of a girl who is conscious of being solitary, even among her own people.... i won't expatiate further upon them, but will rather tell you a few instances; i think i shall bore you less in that way. in the first place, then, let me tell you that all over the country-side i am never called anything but the female philosopher. the ladies especially honour me with that name. some assert that i sleep with a latin book in my hand, and in spectacles; others declare that i know how to extract cube roots, whatever they may be. not a single one of them doubts that i wear manly apparel on the sly, and instead of 'good-morning', address people spasmodically with 'georges sand!'--and indignation grows apace against the female philosopher. we have a neighbour, a man of five-and-forty, a great wit ... at least, he is reputed a great wit ... for him my poor personality is an inexhaustible subject of jokes. he used to tell of me that directly the moon rose i could not take my eyes off it, and he will mimic the way in which i gaze at it; and declares that i positively take my coffee with moonshine instead of with milk--that's to say, i put my cup in the moonlight. he swears that i use phrases of this kind--'it is easy because it is difficult, though on the other hand it is difficult because it is easy'.... he asserts that i am always looking for a word, always striving 'thither,' and with comic rage inquires: 'whither-thither? whither?' he has also circulated a story about me that i ride at night up and down by the river, singing schubert's serenade, or simply moaning, 'beethoven, beethoven!' she is, he will say, such an impassioned old person, and so on, and so on. of course, all this comes straight to me. this surprises you, perhaps. but do not forget that four years have passed since your stay in these parts. you remember how every one frowned upon us in those days. their turn has come now. and all that, too, is no consequence. i have to hear many things that wound my heart more than that. i won't say anything about my poor, good mother's never having been able to forgive me for your cousin's indifference to me. but my whole life is burning away like a house on fire, as my nurse expresses it. 'of course,' i am constantly hearing, 'we can't keep pace with you! we are plain people, we are guided by nothing but common-sense. though, when you come to think of it, what have all these metaphysics, and books, and intimacies with learned folks brought you to?' you perhaps remember my sister--not the one to whom you were once not indifferent--but the other elder one, who is married. her husband, if you recollect, is a simple and rather comic person; you often used to make fun of him in those days. but she's happy, after all; she's the mother of a family, she's fond of her husband, her husband adores her.... 'i am like every one else,' she says to me sometimes, 'but you!' and she's right; i envy her.... and yet, i feel i should not care to change with her, all the same. let them call me a female philosopher, a queer fish, or what they choose--i will remain true to the end ... to what? to an ideal, or what? yes, to my ideal. yes, i will be faithful to the end to what first set my heart throbbing--to what i have recognised, and recognise still, as truth, and good.... if only my strength does not fail me, if only my divinity does not turn out to be a dumb and soulless idol!... if you really feel any friendship for me, if you have really not forgotten me, you ought to aid me, you ought to solve my doubts, and strengthen my convictions.... though after all, what help can you give me? 'all that's rubbish, fiddle-faddle,' was said to me yesterday by my uncle--i think you don't know him--a retired naval officer, a very sensible man; 'husband, children, a pot of soup; to look after the husband and children and keep an eye on the pot--that's what a woman wants.'... tell me, is he right? if he really is right, i can still make up for the past, i can still get into the common groove. why should i wait any longer? what have i to hope for? in one of your letters you spoke of the wings of youth. how often--how long they are tied! and later on comes the time when they fall off, and there is no rising above earth, no flying to heaven any more. write to me.--yours, m. x from alexey petrovitch to marya alexandrovna st. petersburg, _june_ , . i hasten to answer your letter, dear marya alexandrovna. i will confess to you that if it were not ... i can't say for business, for i have none ... if it were not that i am stupidly accustomed to this place, i should have gone off to see you again, and should have talked to my heart's content, but on paper it all comes out cold and dead.... marya alexandrovna, i tell you again, women are better than men, and you ought to prove this in practice. let such as us fling away our convictions, like cast-off clothes, or abandon them for a crust of bread, or lull them into an untroubled sleep, and put over them--as over the dead, once dear to us--a gravestone, at which to come at rare intervals to pray--let us do all this; but you women must not be false to yourselves, you must not be false to your ideal.... that word has become ridiculous.... to fear being ridiculous--is not to love truth. it happens, indeed, that the senseless laughter of the fool drives even good men into giving up a great deal ... as, for instance, the defence of an absent friend.... i have been guilty of that myself. but, i repeat, you women are better than we.... in trifling matters you give in sooner than we; but you know how to face fearful odds better than we. i don't want to give you either advice or help--how should i? besides, you have no need of it. but i hold out my hand to you; i say to you, have patience, struggle on to the end; and let me tell you, that, as a sentiment, the consciousness of an honestly sustained struggle is almost higher than the triumph of victory.... victory does not depend on ourselves. of course your uncle is right from a certain point of view; family life is everything for a woman; for her there is no other life. but what does that prove? none but jesuits will maintain that any means are good if only they attain the end. it's false! it's false! feet sullied with the mud of the road are unworthy to go into a holy temple. at the end of your letter is a phrase i do not like; you want to get into the common groove; take care, don't make a false step! besides--do not forget,--there is no erasing the past; and however much you try, whatever pressure you put on yourself, you will not turn into your sister. you have reached a higher level than she; but your soul has been scorched in the fire, hers is untouched. descend to her level, stoop to her, you can; but nature will not give up her rights, and the burnt place will not grow again.... you are afraid--let us speak plainly--you are afraid of being left an old maid. you are, i know, already twenty-six. certainly the position of old maids is an unenviable one; every one is so ready to laugh at them, every one comments with such ungenerous amusement on their peculiarities and weaknesses. but if you scrutinise with a little attention any old bachelor, one may just as well point the finger of scorn at him; one will find plenty in him, too, to laugh at. there's no help for it. there is no getting happiness by struggling for it. but we must not forget that it's not happiness, but human dignity, that's the chief aim in life. you describe your position with great humour. i well understand all the bitterness of it; your position one may really call tragic. but let me tell you you are not alone in it; there is scarcely any quite modern person who isn't placed in it. you will say that that makes it no better for you; but i am of opinion that suffering in company with thousands is quite a different matter from suffering alone. it is not a matter of egoism, but a sense of a general inevitability which comes in. all this is very fine, granted, you will say ... but not practicable in reality. why not practicable? i have hitherto imagined, and i hope i shall never cease to imagine, that in god's world everything honest, good, and true is practicable, and will sooner or later come to pass, and not only will be realised, but is already being realised. let each man only hold firm in his place, not lose patience, nor desire the impossible, but do all in his power. but i fancy i have gone off too much into abstractions. i will defer the continuation of my reflections till the next letter; but i cannot lay down my pen without warmly, most warmly, pressing your hand, and wishing you from my soul all that is good on earth. yours, a. s. _p.s._--by the way, you say it's useless for you to wait, that you have nothing to hope for; how do you know that, let me ask? xi from marya alexandrovna to alexey petrovitch village of x----, _june_ , . how grateful i am to you for your letter, alexey petrovitch! how much good it did me! i see you really are a good and trustworthy man, and so i shall not be reserved with you. i trust you. i know you would make no unkind use of my openness, and will give me friendly counsel. here is the question. you noticed at the end of my letter a phrase which you did not quite like. i will tell what it had reference to. there is one of the neighbours here ... he was not here when you were, and you have not seen him. he ... i could marry him if i liked; he is still young, well-educated, and has property. there are no difficulties on the part of my parents; on the contrary, they--i know for a fact--desire this marriage. he is a good man, and i think he loves me ... but he is so spiritless and narrow, his aspirations are so limited, that i cannot but be conscious of my superiority to him. he is aware of this, and as it were rejoices in it, and that is just what sets me against him. i cannot respect him, though he has an excellent heart. what am i to do? tell me! think for me and write me your opinion sincerely. but how grateful i am to you for your letter!... do you know, i have been haunted at times by such bitter thoughts.... do you know, i had come to the point of being almost ashamed of every feeling--not of enthusiasm only, but even of faith; i used to shut a book with vexation whenever there was anything about hope or happiness in it, and turned away from a cloudless sky, from the fresh green of the trees, from everything that was smiling and joyful. what a painful condition it was! i say, _was_ ... as though it were over! i don't know whether it is over; i know that if it does not return i am indebted to you for it. do you see, alexey petrovitch, how much good you have done, perhaps, without suspecting it yourself! by the way, do you know i feel very sorry for you? we are now in the full blaze of summer, the days are exquisite, the sky blue and brilliant.... it couldn't be lovelier in italy even, and you are staying in the stifling, baking town, and walking on the burning pavement. what induces you to do so? you might at least move into some summer villa out of town. they say there are bright spots at peterhof, on the sea-coast. i should like to write more to you, but it's impossible. such a sweet fragrance comes in from the garden that i can't stay indoors. i am going to put on my hat and go for a walk. ... good-bye till another time, good alexey petrovitch. yours devotedly, m. b. _p.s._--i forgot to tell you ... only fancy, that witty gentleman, about whom i wrote to you the other day, has made me a declaration of love, and in the most ardent terms. i thought at first he was laughing at me; but he finished up with a formal proposal--what do you think of him, after all his libels! but he is positively too old. yesterday evening, to tease him, i sat down to the piano before the open window, in the moonlight, and played beethoven. it was so nice to feel its cold light on my face, so delicious to fill the fragrant night air with the sublime music, through which one could hear at times the singing of a nightingale. it is long since i have been so happy. but write to me about what i asked you at the beginning of my letter; it is very important. xii from alexey petrovitch to marya alexandrovna st. petersburg, _july_ , . dear marya alexandrovna,--here is my opinion in a couple of words: both the old bachelor and the young suitor--overboard with them both! there is no need even to consider it. neither of them is worthy of you--that's as clear as that twice two makes four. the young neighbour is very likely a good-natured person, but that's enough about him! i am convinced that there is nothing in common between him and you, and you can fancy how amusing it would be for you to live together! besides, why be in a hurry? is it a possible thing that a woman like you--i don't want to pay compliments, and that's why i don't expatiate further--that such a woman should meet no one who would be capable of appreciating her? no, marya alexandrovna, listen to me, if you really believe that i am your friend, and that my advice is of use. but confess, it was agreeable to see the old scoffer at your feet.... if i had been in your place, i'd have kept him singing beethoven's adelaïda and gazing at the moon the whole night long. enough of them, though,--your adorers! it's not of them i want to talk to you to-day. i am in a strange, half-irritated, half-emotional state of mind to-day, in consequence of a letter i got yesterday. i am enclosing a copy of it to you. this letter was written by one of my friends of long ago, a colleague in the service, a good-natured but rather limited person. he went abroad two years ago, and till now has not written to me once. here is his letter.--_n.b._ he is very good-looking. 'cher alexis,--i am in naples, sitting at the window in my room, in chiaja. the weather is superb. i have been staring a long while at the sea, then i was seized with impatience, and suddenly the brilliant idea entered my head of writing a letter to you. i always felt drawn to you, my dear boy--on my honour i did. and so now i feel an inclination to pour out my soul into your bosom ... that's how one expresses it, i believe, in your exalted language. and why i've been overcome with impatience is this. i'm expecting a friend--a woman; we're going together to baiae to eat oysters and oranges, and see the tanned shepherds in red caps dance the tarantella, to bask in the sun, like lizards--in short, to enjoy life to the utmost. my dear boy, i am more happy than i can possibly tell you. if only i had your style--oh! what a picture i would draw for you! but unfortunately, as you are aware, i'm an illiterate person. the woman i am expecting, and who has kept me now more than a hour continually starting and looking at the door, loves me--but how i love her i fancy even your fluent pen could not describe. 'i must tell you that it is three months since i got to know her, and from the very first day of our acquaintance my love mounts continually _crescendo_, like a chromatic scale, higher and higher, and at the present moment i am simply in the seventh heaven. i jest, but in reality my devotion to this woman is something extraordinary, supernatural. fancy, i scarcely talk to her, i can do nothing but stare at her, and laugh like a fool. i sit at her feet, i feel that i'm awfully silly and happy, simply inexcusably happy. it sometimes happens that she lays her hand on my head.... well, i tell you, simply ... but there, you can't understand it; you 're a philosopher and always were a philosopher. her name is nina, ninetta, as you like; she's the daughter of a rich merchant here. fine as any of your raphaels; fiery as gunpowder, gay, so clever that it's amazing how she can care for a fool like me; she sings like a bird, and her eyes ... 'please excuse this unintentional break.... i fancied the door creaked.... no, she's not coming yet, the heartless wretch! you will ask me how all this is going to end, and what i intend to do with myself, and whether i shall stay here long? i know nothing about it, my boy, and i don't want to. what will be, will be.... why, if one were to be for ever stopping and considering ... 'she! ... she's running up the staircase, singing.... she is here. well, my boy, good-bye.... i've no time for you now, i'm so sorry. she has bespattered the whole letter; she slapped a wet nosegay down on the paper. for the first moment, she thought i was writing to a woman; when she knew that it was to a friend, she told me to send her greetings, and ask you if you have any flowers, and whether they are sweet? well, good-bye. ... if you could hear her laughing. silver can't ring like it; and the good-nature in every note of it--you want to kiss her little feet for it. we are going, going. don't mind the untidy smudges, and envy yours, m.' the letter was in fact bespattered all over, and smelt of orange-blossom ... two white petals had stuck to the paper. this letter has agitated me.... i remember my stay in naples.... the weather was magnificent then too--may was just beginning; i had just reached twenty-two; but i knew no ninetta. i sauntered about alone, consumed with a thirst for bliss, at once torturing and sweet, so sweet that it was, as it were, like bliss itself. ... ah, what is it to be young! ... i remember i went out once for a row in the bay. there were two of us; the boatman and i ... what did you imagine? what a night it was, and what a sky, what stars, how they quivered and broke on the waves! with what delicate flame the water flashed and glimmered under the oars, what delicious fragrance filled the whole sea--cannot describe this, 'eloquent' though my style may be. in the harbour was a french ship of the line. it was all red with lights; long streaks of red, the reflection of the lighted windows, stretched over the dark sea. the captain of the ship was giving a ball. the gay music floated across to me in snatches at long intervals. i recall in particular the trill of a little flute in the midst of the deep blare of the trumpets; it seemed to flit, like a butterfly, about my boat. i bade the man row to the ship; twice he took me round it. ... i caught glimpses at the windows of women's figures, borne gaily round in the whirl-wind of the waltz.... i told the boatman to row away, far away, straight into the darkness.... i remember a long while the music persistently pursued me.... at last the sounds died away. i stood up in the boat, and in the dumb agony of desire stretched out my arms to the sea.... oh! how my heart ached at that moment! how bitter was my loneliness to me! with what rapture would i have abandoned myself utterly then, utterly ... utterly, if there had been any one to abandon myself to! with what a bitter emotion in my soul i flung myself down in the bottom of the boat and, like repetilov, asked to be taken anywhere, anywhere away! but my friend here has experienced nothing like that. and why should he? he has managed things far more wisely than i. he is living ... while i ... he may well call me a philosopher.... strange! they call you a philosopher too.... what has brought this calamity on both of us? i am not living.... but who is to blame for that? why am i staying on here, in petersburg? what am i doing here? why am i wearing away day after day? why don't i go into the country? what is amiss with our steppes? has not one free breathing space in them? is one cramped in them? a strange craze to pursue dreams, when happiness is perhaps within reach! resolved! i am going, going to-morrow, if i can. i am going home--that is, to you,--it's just the same; we're only twenty versts from one another. why, after all, grow stale here! and how was it this idea did not strike me sooner? dear marya alexadrovna, we shall soon see each other. it's extraordinary, though, that this idea never entered my head before! i ought to have gone long, long ago. good-bye till we meet, marya alexandrovna. _july_ . i purposely gave myself twenty-four hours for reflection, and am now absolutely convinced that i have no reason to stay here. the dust in the streets is so penetrating that my eyes are bad. to-day i am beginning to pack, the day after to-morrow i shall most likely start, and within ten days i shall have the pleasure of seeing you. i trust you will welcome me as in old days. by the way, your sister is still staying at your aunt's, isn't she? marya alexandrovna, let me press your hand warmly, and say from my heart, good-bye till we meet. i had been getting ready to go away, but that letter has hastened my project. supposing the letter proves nothing, supposing even ninetta would not please any one else, me for instance, still i am going; that's decided now. till we meet, yours, a. s. xiii from marya alexandrovna to alexey petrovitch village of x-----,_july_ , . you are coming here, alexey petrovitch, you will soon be with us, eh? i will not conceal from you that this news both rejoices and disturbs me.... how shall we meet? will the spiritual tie persist which, as it seems to me, has sprung up between us? will it not be broken by our meeting? i don't know; i feel somehow afraid. i will not answer your last letter, though i could say much; i am putting it all off till our meeting. my mother is very much pleased at your coming.... she knew i was corresponding with you. the weather is delicious; we will go a great many walks, and i will show you some new places i have discovered.... i especially like one long, narrow valley; it lies between hillsides covered with forest.... it seems to be hiding in their windings. a little brook courses through it, scarcely seeming to move through the thick grass and flowers.... you shall see. come: perhaps you will not be bored. m.b. _p.s._--i think you will not see my sister; she is still staying at my aunt's. i fancy (but this is between ourselves) she is going to marry a very agreeable young man--an officer. why did you send me that letter from naples? life here cannot help seeming dingy and poor in contrast with that luxuriance and splendour. but mademoiselle ninetta is wrong; flowers grow and smell sweet--with us too. xiv from marya alexandrovna to alexey petrovitch village of x----, _january_ . i have written to you several times, alexey petrovitch ... you have not answered. are you living? or perhaps you are tired of our correspondence; perhaps you have found yourself some diversion more agreeable than what can be afforded for you by the letters of a provincial young lady. you remembered me, it is easy to see, simply from want of anything better to do. if that's so, i wish you all happiness. if you do not even now answer me, i will not trouble you further. it only remains for me to regret my indiscretion in having allowed myself to be agitated for nothing, in having held out a hand to a friend, and having come for one minute out of my lonely corner. i must remain in it for ever, must lock myself up--that is my apportioned lot, the lot of all old maids. i ought to accustom myself to this idea. it's useless to come out into the light of day, needless to wish for fresh air, when the lungs cannot bear it. by the way, we are now hemmed in all round by deadly drifts of snow. for the future i will be wiser.... people don't die of dreariness; but of misery, perhaps, one might perish. if i am wrong, prove it to me. but i fancy i am not wrong. in any case, good-bye. i wish you all happiness. m. b. xv from alexey petrovitch to marya alexandrovna dresden, _september_ . i am writing to you, my dear marya alexandrovna, and i am writing only because i do not want to die without saying good-bye to you, without recalling myself to your memory. i am given up by the doctors ... and i feel myself that my life is ebbing away. on my table stands a rose: before it withers, i shall be no more. this comparison is not, however, altogether an apt one. a rose is far more interesting than i. i am, as you see, abroad. it is now six months since i have been in dresden. i received your last letters--i am ashamed to confess--more than a year ago. i lost some of them and never answered them.... i will tell you directly why. but it seems you were always dear to me; to no one but you have i any wish to say good-bye, and perhaps i have no one else to take leave of. soon after my last letter to you (i was on the very point of going down to your neighbourhood, and had made various plans in advance) an incident occurred which had, one may truly say, a great influence on my fate, so great an influence that here i am dying, thanks to that incident. i went to the theatre to see a ballet. i never cared for ballets; and for every sort of actress, singer, and dancer i had always had a secret feeling of repulsion.... but it is clear there's no changing one's fate, and no one knows himself, and one cannot foresee the future. in reality, in life it's only the unexpected that happens, and we do nothing in a whole lifetime but accommodate ourselves to facts.... but i seem to be rambling off into philosophising again. an old habit! in brief, i fell in love with a dancing-girl. this was the more curious as one could not even call her a beauty. it is true she had marvellous hair of ashen gold colour, and great clear eyes, with a dreamy, and at the same time daring, look in them.... could i fail to know the expression of those eyes? for a whole year i was pining and swooning in the light--of them! she was splendidly well-made, and when she danced her national dance the audience would stamp and shout with delight.... but, i fancy, no one but i fell in love with her,--at least, no one was in love with her as i was. from the very minute when i saw her for the first time (would you believe it, i have only to close my eyes, and at once the theatre is before me, the almost empty stage, representing the heart of a forest, and she running in from the wing on the right, with a wreath of vine on her head and a tiger-skin over her shoulders)--from that fatal moment i have belonged to her utterly, just as a dog belongs to its master; and if, now that i am dying, i do not belong to her, it is only because she has cast me off. to tell the truth, she never troubled herself particularly about me. she scarcely noticed me, though she was very good-natured in making use of my money. i was for her, as she expressed it in her broken french, 'oun rousso, boun enfant,' and nothing more. but i ... i could not live where she was not living; i tore myself away once for all from everything dear to me, from my country even, and followed that woman. you will suppose, perhaps, that she had brains. not in the least! one had only to glance at her low brow, one needed only one glimpse of her lazy, careless smile, to feel certain at once of the scantiness of her intellectual endowments. and i never imagined her to be an exceptional woman. in fact, i never for one instant deceived myself about her. but that was of no avail to me. whatever i thought of her in her absence, in her presence i felt nothing but slavish adoration.... in german fairy-tales, the knights often fall under such an enchantment. i could not take my eyes off her features, i could never tire of listening to her talk, of admiring all her gestures; i positively drew my breath as she breathed. however, she was good-natured, unconstrained--too unconstrained indeed,--did not give herself airs, as actresses generally do. there was a lot of life in her--that is, a lot of blood, that splendid southern blood, into which the sun of those parts must have infused some of its beams. she slept nine hours out of the twenty-four, enjoyed her dinner, never read a single line of print, except, perhaps, the newspaper articles in which she was mentioned; and almost the only tender feeling in her life was her devotion to il signore carlino, a greedy little italian, who waited on her in the capacity of secretary, and whom, later on, she married. and such a woman i could fall in love with--i, a man, versed in all sorts of intellectual subtleties, and no longer young! ... who could have anticipated it? i, at least, never anticipated it. i never anticipated the part i was to play. i never anticipated that i should come to hanging about rehearsals, waiting, bored and frozen, behind the scenes, breathing in the smut and grime of the theatre, making friends with all sorts of utterly unpresentable persons.... making friends, did i say?-- cringing slavishly upon them. i never anticipated that i should carry a ballet-dancer's shawl; buy her her new gloves, clean her old ones with bread-crumbs (i did even that, alas!), carry home her bouquets, hang about the offices of journalists and editors, waste my substance, give serenades, catch colds, wear myself out.... i never expected in a little german town to receive the jeering nickname 'der kunst-barbar.'... and all this for nothing, in the fullest sense of the word, for nothing. that's just it. ... do you remember how we used, in talk and by letter, to reason together about love and indulge in all sort of subtleties? but in actual life it turns out that real love is a feeling utterly unlike what we pictured to ourselves. love, indeed, is not a feeling at all, it's a malady, a certain condition of soul and body. it does not develop gradually. one cannot doubt about it, one cannot outwit it, though it does not always come in the same way. usually it takes possession of a person without question, suddenly, against his will--for all the world like cholera or fever.... it clutches him, poor dear, as the hawk pounces on the chicken, and bears him off at its will, however he struggles or resists.... in love, there's no equality, none of the so-called free union of souls, and such idealisms, concocted at their leisure by german professors.... no, in love, one person is slave, and the other master; and well may the poets talk of the fetters put on by love. yes, love is a fetter, and the heaviest to bear. at least i have come to this conviction, and have come to it by the path of experience; i have bought this conviction at the cost of my life, since i am dying in my slavery. what a life mine has been, if you think of it! in my first youth nothing would satisfy me but to take heaven by storm for myself.... then i fell to dreaming of the good of all humanity, of the good of my country. then that passed too. i was thinking of nothing but making a home, family life for myself ... and so tripped over an ant-heap--and plop, down into the grave.... ah, we're great hands, we russians, at making such a finish! but it's time to turn away from all that, it's long been time! may this burden be loosened from off my soul together with life! i want, for the last time, if only for an instant, to enjoy the sweet and gentle feeling which is shed like a soft light within me, directly i think of you. your image is now doubly precious to me.... with it, rises up before me the image of my country, and i send to it and to you a farewell greeting. live, live long and happily, and remember one thing: whether you remain in the wilds of the steppes--where you have sometimes been so sorrowful, but where i should so like to spend my last days--or whether you enter upon a different career, remember life deceives all but him who does not reflect upon her, and, demanding nothing of her, accepts serenely her few gifts and serenely makes the most of them. go forward while you can. but if your strength fails you, sit by the wayside and watch those that pass by without anger or envy. they, too, have not far to go. in old days, i did not tell you this, but death will teach any one. though who says what is life, what is truth? do you remember who it was made no reply to that question? ... farewell, marya alexandrovna, farewell for the last time, and do not remember evil against poor alexey. people of the whirlpool from the experience book of a commuter's wife by mabel osgood wright contents chapter i on the advantage of twins chapter ii miss lavinia's letters to barbara chapter iii martin cortright's letters chapter iv when barbara goes to town chapter v february violets chapter vi enter a man chapter vii sylvia latham chapter viii the sweating of the corn chapter ix a wayside comedy chapter x the whirl begins chapter xi rearranged families chapter xii his mother chapter xiii gossip and the bug hunters chapter xiv the oasis i on the advantage of twins _february _. candlemas and mild, gray weather. if the woodchuck stirs up his banked life-fire and ventures forth, he will not see his shadow, and must straightway arrange with winter for a rebate in our favour. to-day, however, it seems like the very dawn of winter, and as if the cloud brooms were abroad gathering snow from remote and chilly corners of the sky. six years ago i began the planting of my garden, and at the same time my girlish habit of journal keeping veered into the making of a "garden boke," to be a reversible signal, crying danger in face of forgotten mistakes, then turning to give back glints of summer sunshine when read in the attic of winter days and blue mondays. now once again i am in the attic, writing. not in a garden diary, but in my "social experience boke" this time, for it is "human warious," and its first volume, already filled out, is lying in the old desk. martin cortright said, one stormy day last autumn when he was sitting in the corner i have loaned him of my precious attic retreat, that, owing to the incursion of the bluff colony of new yorkers, which we had been discussing, i should call this second volume "people of the whirlpool," because--ah, but i must wait and hunt among my papers for his very words as i wrote them down. my desk needs cleaning out and rearranging, for the dust flies up as i rummage among the papers and letters that are a blending of past, present, and future. all my pet pens are rusty, and must be replaced from the box of stubs, for a stub pen assists one to straightforward, truthful expression, while a fine point suggests evasion, polite equivocation, or thin ideas. even lavinia dorman's letters, whose cream-white envelopes, with a curlicue monogram on the flap, quite cover the litter below, have been, if possible, more satisfactory since she has adopted a fountain stub that evan gave her at christmas. there are many other things in the desk now beside the hickory-nut beads and old papers. little whiffs of subtle fragrance call me backward through time faster than thought, and make me pinch myself to be sure that i am awake, like the little old woman with the cutabout petticoats, who was sure that if she was herself, her little dog would know her,--but then he _didn't!_ i am awake and surely myself, yet my old dog is not near to recognize me. this ring of rough, reddish hair, tied with a cigar ribbon and lying atop the beads, was bluff's best tail curl. dear, happy, brave-hearted bluff with the human eyes; after an honourable life of fifteen years he stole off to the happy hunting grounds of perpetual open season, quail and rabbit, two years ago at beginning of winter, as quietly as he used to slip out the back door and away to the fields on the first fall morning that brings the hunting fever. for a long while not only i, but neither father nor evan could speak of him, it hurt so. yet by a blessed dispensation a good dog lives on in his race, and may be renewed (i prefer that word to _replaced_) after a season, in a way in which our best human friends may not be, so that we do not lack dogs. lark is senior now, and timothy saunders's sheep dog, the orphan, is also a veteran; the foxhounds are in their prime, while martha corkle, as we shall always call her, is raising a promising pair of collie pups. beside the curl, and covering mother's diaries, lies a square white volume, the first part of my "experience boke" before mentioned, and upon it two queer fat little pairs of bronze kid shoes, buttonless and much worn on the toes, telling a tale of feet that dragged and ankles that wobbled through inexperience in walking. ah yes! i'm quite awake and the same barbara, though looking over a wider and eye-opening horizon, having had three rows of candles, ten in a row, around my last birthday cake and one extra in the middle, which extravagance has constrained the family to use lopsided, tearful, pink candles ever since. and the two pairs of feet that first touched good earth so hesitatingly with those crumpled shoes are now standing firmly in wool-lined rubber boots topped by brown corduroy trousers, upon the winter slat walk that leads to the tool house, while their owners, touched by the swish of the whirlpool that has recently drawn this peaceful town into its eddies, are busy trying to turn their patrol wagon, that for a year has led a most conservative existence as a hay wain and a stage-coach dragged by a curiously assorted team of dogs and goat, into the semblance of some weird sort of autocart, by the aid of bits of old garden hose, cast-away bicycle gearing, a watering-pot, and an oil lantern. i have wondered for a week past what yeast was working in their brains. of course, the seven-year-old vanderveer boy on the bluffs had an electric runabout for a christmas gift, also a man to run it! corney delaney, as evan named the majestic gray goat--of firm disposition blended with a keen sense of humour--that father gave the boys last spring and who has been their best beloved ever since, has for many days been left in duress with the calves in the stack-yard, where the all-day diet of cornstalks is fatally bulging his once straight-fronted figure. in fact, it is the doings of these two pairs of precious feet, with the bodies, heads, and arms that belong to them, that have caused the dust to gather in my desk, and the "garden boke," though not the garden, which is more of a joy than ever, to be suspended and take a different form. flesh-and-blood books that write themselves are so compelling and absorbing that one often wonders at the existence of any other kind, and, feeling this strongly, yet i turn to paper pages as silent confidants. why? heredity and its understudy, habit, the two _h_'s that control both the making of solitary tartlets as well as family pies. so the last entry in the "garden boke" was made a week before the day recorded in the white book with the cherubs' heads painted on it that underlies the shoes. it seems both strange and significant to me now that this book chanced to be given me by lavinia dorman, mother's school friend and bridesmaid, a spinster of fifty-five, and was really the beginning of the transfer of her friendship to me, the only woman friendship that i have ever had, and its quality has that fragrant pungence that comes from sweet herbs, that of all garden odours are the most lasting. i suppose that it is one of the strongest human habits to write down the very things that one is least likely to forget, and _vice-versa;_ for certainly i shall never forget the date and double record on that first fair page beneath the illuminated word _born_,--yet i often steal up here to peep at it,--and live the intervening five years backward for pure joy. january , -, richard russell------ and john evan------. every time i read the names anew i wonder what i should have done if there had been a single name upon the page. i must then have chosen between naming him for father _or_ evan--an impossibility; for even if the names had been combined, whose should i have put first? no, the twins are in every way an advantage. to evan, in providing him at once with a commuted family sufficient for his means; to father, among other reasons, by giving him the pleasure of saying, to friends who felt it necessary to visit him in the privacy of his study and be apologetically sympathetic, "i have observed that the first editions of very important books are frequently in two volumes," sending them away wondering what he really meant; to me by saving the rack of argument, the form of evil i most detest, and to their own chubby selves no less, in that neither one has been handicapped for a single day by the disadvantage of being an only child! it doubtless seems very odd for me to feel this last to be a disadvantage, being myself an only child, and always a happy one, sharing with mother all the space in father's big heart. but this is because god has been very good to me, leaving me safe in the shelter of the home nest. suppose it had been otherwise and i had been forced to face the world, how it would have hurt, for individual love is cruelly precious sometimes, and an "onliest" cannot in the very nature of things be as unselfish and adaptable as one of many. i was selfish even when the twins came. i was so glad that they were men-children. i could not bear to think of other woman hands ministering to father and evan, and i rejoiced in the promise of two more champions. i often wonder how mother felt when i was born and what she thought. was she glad or disappointed? i wish that she had left written words to guide me, if ever so few,--they would mean so much now; and let me know if in her day social things surprised and troubled her as for the first time they now stir me, and therefore belong to all awakening motherhood. her diaries were a blending of simple household happenings and garden lore, nothing more; for when i was five years old and her son came, he stayed but a few short hours and then stole her away with him. i wonder if my boys, when they are grown and begin to realize woman, will care to look into this book of mine, and read in and between the lines of its jumble of scraps and letters what their mother thought of them, and how things appeared to her in the days of their babyhood. perhaps; who knows? at present, being but five years old, they are centred in whatever thing the particular day brings forth, and but that they are leashed fast by an almost prenatal and unconscious affection, they are as unlike in disposition, temperament, and colouring as they are alike in feature. richard is dark, like father and me, very quiet, except in the matter of affection, in which he is clingingly demonstrative, slow to receive impressions, but withal tenacious. he clearly inherits father's medical instinct of preserving life, and the very thought of suffering on the part of man or beast arouses him to action. when he was only a little over three years old, i found him carefully mending some windfall robins' eggs, cracked by their tumble, with bits of rubber sticking-plaster, then putting them hopefully back into the nest, with an admonition to the anxious parents to "sit very still and don't stwatch." while last summer he unfortunately saw a chicken decapitated over at the farm barn, and, in martha corkle's language, "the way he wound a bit o' paper round its poor neck to stop its bleedin' went straight to my stummick, so it did, mrs. evan;" for be it said here that martha has fulfilled my wildest expectations, and whereas, as queen of the kitchen, she was a trifle unexpected and uncomfortable, as mrs. timothy saunders, now comfortably settled in the new cottage above the stable at the north corner of the hayland, she is a veritable guardian angel, ready to swoop down with strong wings at a moment's notice, in sickness or health, day or night, and seize the nursery helm. it is owing to her that i have never been obliged to have a nursemaid under my feet or tagging after the boys, to the ruin of their independence. for the first few years effie, whose fiery locks have not yet found their affinity, helped me, but now merely sees to buttons, strings, and darns. i found out long ago that those who get the best return from their flower gardens were those who kept no gardeners, and it is the same way with the child garden; those who are too overbusy, irresponsible, ignorant, or rich to do without the orthodox nurse, never can know precisely what they lose. to watch a baby untrammelled with clothes, dimple, glow, and expand in its bath, is in an intense personal degree like watching, early of a june morning, the first opening bud of a rose that you have coaxed and raised from a mere cutting. you hoped and believed that it would be fair and beautiful, but ah, what a glorious surprise it is! and so it is at the other end of day, when sleep comes over the garden and all the flowers that have been basking in sun vigour relax and their colours are subdued, blended by the brush of darkness, and the night wind steals new perfumes from them, and wings of all but a few night birds have ceased to cleave the air. as you walk among the flowers and touch them, or throw back the casement and look out, you read new meanings everywhere. in the white cribs in the alcove the same change comes, bright eyes, hair, cheeks, and lips lie blended in the shadow, the only sound is the even breath of night, and when you press your lips behind the ear where a curl curves and neck and garments meet, there comes a little fragrance born of sweet flesh and new flannel, and the only motion is that of the half-open hand that seems to recognize and closes about your fingers as a vine to its trellis, or as a sleeping bird clings to its perch. a gardener or a nurse is equally a door between one and these silent pleasures, for who would not steal up now and then from a troubled dream to satisfy with sight and touch that the babes are really there and all is well? * * * * * richard has a clinging way even in sleep, and his speech, though very direct for his age, is soft and cooing; he says "mother" in a lingering tone that might belong to a girl, and there are what are called feminine traits in him. ian (to save confusion, we called him from the first by the pretty scotch equivalent of evan's first name) is of a wholly masculine mould, and like his father in light hair, gray eyes, and determination. his very speech is quick and staccato, his tendency is to overcome, to fight rather than assuage, though he is the champion of everything he loves. from the time he could form distinct sounds he has called me barbara, and no amount of reasoning will make him do otherwise, while the imitation of his father's pronunciation of the word goes to my heart. recently, now that he is fully able to comprehend, evan took him quietly on his knee and told him that he must say "mother" and that he was not respectful to me. he thought a few minutes, as if reasoning with himself, and then the big gray eyes filled with tears, a very rare occurrence, as he seemed to feel that he could not yield, and he said, trying very hard to steady his voice, "favver, i truly can't, i _think it _muvver_ inside, but you and i, we must _say it_ barbara," and i confess that my heart leaped with joy, and i begged evan to let the matter end here. to be called, if it so may be, by one name from the beginning to the end of life by the only true lovers that can never be rivals, is bliss enough for any woman. equally resolved, but in a thing of minor importance, is ian about his headgear. as a baby of three, when he first tasted the liberty of going out of garden bounds daily into the daisy field beyond the wild walk, while richard clung to his protecting baby sunbonnet, ian spurned head covering of any kind, and blinked away at the sun through his tangled curls whenever he had the chance, in primitive directness until his cheeks glowed like burnished copper; and his present compromise is a little cap worn visor backward. when the twins were very young, people were most funny in the way in which they seemed to think it necessary to feel carefully about to make sure whether condolence or congratulations were in order. the severely protestant was greatly agitated, as, being himself the possessor of an overflowing quiverful, his position was difficult. after making sure which was the right side of the fence, and placing himself on it, he tugged painfully at his starved red beard, and made an elaborate address ending in a parallel,--the idea of the complete bible being in two volumes, the old and new testament, each being so necessary to the other, and so inseparable, that they were only comparable to twins! father and evan were present at the time,--i dared not look at either,--and as soon as we were again alone, the room shook with laughter, until martha corkle, who was then in temporary residence, popped in to be sure that i was not being unduly agitated. "the old and new testament, i wonder which is which?" gasped father, going upstairs to look at the uninteresting if promising woolly bundles by light of this startling suggestion. now, however, the joke has developed a serious side, as their two characters, though in no wise precocious, have become distinctive. ian represents the old, primitive and direct, the "sword of the lord and gideon" type, while richard is the new, the reconciler and peacemaker. * * * * * the various congratulations that the twins were boys, from my standpoint i took as a matter of course, even though i had always heard that boys gave the most worry and girls were referred to among our friends and neighbours as the greatest comforts in a home unless they did something decidedly unusual, fitting into nooks, and often taking up and bearing burdens the brothers left behind. but when many people who had either daughters or nieces of their own, and might be said to be in that mystic ring called "society," congratulated me pointedly about the boys, i began to ponder about the matter mother-wise. then, three years ago the new york colony seized upon the broad acres along the bluffs, and dotted two miles with the elaborate stone and brick houses they call cottages; not for permanent summer homes (the very rich, the spenders, have no homes), but merely hotels in series. these, for the spring and fall between seasons and week-end parties and golfing, men and girls gay in red and green coats, replaced the wild flowers in the shorn outlying fields. i watched these girls, and, beginning to understand, wondered if i had grown old before my time, or if i were too young to comprehend their point of view, for, to their strange enlightenment i was practically as yet unborn. lavinia dorman says caustically that i really belong with her in the middle of the last century, and she, born to what father says was really the best society and privilege of new york life, like his college chum martin cortright, is now swept quite aside by the swirl. "yes, dear child," she insists (how different this use of the word sounds from when the lady of the bluffs uses the universal "my dear" impartially to mistress and maid, shopgirl and guest), "you not only belong to the last century, but as far back in it as myself, and i am fifty-five, full measure. "the new idea among the richer and consequently more privileged classes is, that girls are to be fitted not only to go out into the world and shine in different ways unknown to their grandmothers, but to be superior to home, which of necessity unfits them for a return trip if the excursion is unsuccessful. "what with high ideas, high rents, and higher education, the home myth is speedily following santa claus out of female education, and, argue as one may, new york is the social pace-maker 'east of the rockies,' as the free delivery furniture companies advertise. i congratulate you anew that the twins are boys!" i laughed to myself over miss lavinia's letter; she is always so deliciously in earnest and so perturbed over any change in the social ways of her dearly beloved new york, that i'm wondering how she finds it, on her return after two years or more abroad (she was becoming agitated before she left), and whether she will ask me down for another of those quaint little visits, where she so faithfully tours me through the shops and a few select teas, when, to wind it up, evan buys opera box seats so that she may have the satisfaction of having her hair dressed, wearing her point lace bertha and aigret, and showing us who is who, and the remainder who are not. for she is well born, intricately related to the original weavers of the social cobweb, and knows every one by name and sight; but has found lately, i judge, that this knowledge unbacked by money is no longer a social power that carries beyond mixed tea and charity entertainments. never mind, lavinia dorman is a dear! ah, if she would only come out here, and return my many little visits by a long stay, and act as a key to the riddle the whirlpool people are to me. but of course she will not; for she frankly detests the country,--that is, except newport and staten island,--is wedded even in summer to her trim back-yard that looks like a picture in a seed catalogue, and, like a faithful spouse, declines to leave it or josephus for more than a few days. josephus is a large, sleek, black cat, a fence-top sphinx, who sits all day in summer wearing a silver collar, watching the sparrows and the neighbourhood's wash with impartial interest, while at night he goes on excursions of his own to a stable down a crooked street in "greenwich village," where they still keep pigeons. some day he won't come back! yet martin cortright, the bookworm, was a pavement worshipper too, and he came last fall for over a sunday to wake father up; for i believe men sometimes need the society of others of their own age and past, as much as children need childlife, and martin stayed a month, and is promising to return next spring. i wonder if the sylvia latham who has been travelling with miss lavinia is any kin of the lathams who are building the great colonial home above the jenks-smiths. i have never seen any of the family except mrs. latham, a tall, colourless blonde, who reminds one of a handsome unlit lamp. she seems to be superintending the work by coming up now and then, and i met her at the butcher's where she was buying sweetbreads--"a trifle for luncheon." accusation no. , against the whirlpoolers: since their advent sweetbreads have risen from two pairs for a quarter, and "thank you kindly for taking them off our hands," to fifty cents to a dollar a "set." we no longer care for sweetbreads! * * * * * i was therefore amused, but no longer surprised, at the exaggerated way in which the childless lady of the bluffs,--her step-daughter having ten years back made a foolish foreign marriage,--gave me her views upon the drawbacks of the daughters of her world, when she made me, on her return from a european trip, a visit upon the twins' first birthday,--bearing, with her usually reckless generosity, a pair of costly gold apostle spoons, as she said, "to cut their teeth on." i admired, but frugally popped them into the applewood treasure chests that father has had made for the boys from the "mother tree," that was finally laid low by a tornado the winter of their birth and is now succeeded by a younger one of richard's choice. "my dear woman," she gasped, turning my face toward the light and dropping into a chair at the same time, "how well you look; not a bit upset by the double dose and sitting up nights and all that. but then, maybe, they sleep and you haven't; for it's always the unexpected and unusual that happens in your case, as this proves. but then, they are boys, and that's everything nowadays, the way society's going, especially to people like you, whose husband's trade, though pretty, is too open and above-board to be a well-paying one, and yet you're thoroughbreds underneath." (poor vulgar soul, she didn't in the least realize how i might take her stricture any more than she saw my desire to laugh.) "of course here and there a girl in society does turn out well and rides an elephant or a coronet,--of course i mean wears a coronet,--though ten to one it jams the hairpins into her head, but mostly daughters are regular hornets,--that is, if you're ambitious and mean to keep in society. of course you're not in it, and, being comfortably poor, so to speak, might be content to see your girls marry their best chance, even if it wasn't worth much a year, and settle down to babies and minding their own business; but then they mightn't agree to that, and where would you and evan be? "this nice old house and garden of yours wouldn't hold 'em after they got through with dolls, and some girls don't even have any doll-days now. it would be town and travel and change, and you haven't got the price of that between you all, and to keep this going, too. you'd have to go to n'york, for a couple of months at least, to a hotel, and what would that evan of yours do trailing round to dances? for you're not built for it, though i did once think you'd be a go in society with that innocent-wise way, and your nose in the air, when you don't like people, would pass for family pride. i'd wager soon, in a few years, he'd stop picking boutonnières in the garden every morning and sailing down to that : train as cool as if he owned time, if those boys were girls! though if jenks-smith gets the bluff colony he's planned under way next spring, there'll soon be some riding and golfing men hereabouts that'll shake things up a bit,--bridge whist, poker, and perhaps red and black to help out in the between-seasons." (i little thought then what this colony and shaking would come to mean.) "money or not, it's hard lines with daughters now--work and poor pay for the mothers mostly. you know that mrs. townley that used to visit me? he was a banker and very rich; died four years ago, and left his wife with one son, who lived west, and five daughters, four that travelled in pairs and an odd one,--all well fixed and living in a big house in one of those swell streets, east of the park, where never less than ten in help are kept. well, if you'll believe it, she's living alone with a pet dog and a companion, except in summer, when the chicago son and his wife and babies make her a good visit down at north east, the only home comfort she has. "all the girls married to foreigners? not a blessed one. two were bookish and called literary, but not enough to break out into anything; they didn't agree with society (had impossible foreheads that ran nearly back to their necks, and thin hair); they went to college just to get the name of it and to kill time, but when they got through they didn't rub along well at home; called taking an interest in the house beneath them and the pair that liked society frivolous; so they took a flat (i mean apartment--a flat is when it's less than a hundred a month and only has one bathroom), and set up for bachelor girls. the younger pair did society for a while, and poor mrs. townley chaperoned round after them, as befitted her duty and position, and had gorgeous worth gowns, all lace and jets, that i do believe shortened her breath, until one night in a slippery music-room she walked up the back of a polar bear rug, fell off his head, and had an awful coast on the floor, that racked her knee so that she could stay at home without causing remark, which she cheerfully did. the two youngest girls were pretty, but they were snobs, and carried their money on their sleeves in such plain sight that they were too suspicious, and seemed to expect every man that said 'good evening' was waiting to grab it. so they weren't popular, and started off for europe to study art and music. of course when they came back they had a lot of lingo about the art atmosphere and all that; home was a misfit and impossible, so they went to live in a swell studio with two maids and a jap butler in costume, and do really give bang-up musicals, with paid talent of course. i went to one. "that left georgie, the odd one, who was the eldest, with poor mrs. townley. by this time the old lady was kind of broken-spirited, and worried a good deal as to why all her girls left her,--'she'd always tried to do her duty,'--and all that. this discouraged georgie; she got blue and nervous, had indigestion, and, mistaking it for religion, vamoosed into a high-church retreat. and i call it mighty hard lines for the old lady." i thought "too much money," but i didn't say it, for this brutally direct but well-meaning woman could not imagine such a thing, and she continued: "yet mrs. townley had a soft snap compared to some, for she was in the right set at the start, with both feet well up on the ladder, and didn't have to climb; but heaven help those with daughters who have thin purses and have to stretch a long neck and keep it stiff, so, in a crowd at least, nobody'll notice their feet are dangling and haven't any hold. "ah, but this isn't the worst yet; that's the clever 'new daughter' kind that sticks by her ma, who was herself once a particular housekeeper, and takes charge of her long before there's any need; regulates her clothes and her food and her callers, drags her around europe to rheumatism doctors, and pushes her into mud baths; jerks her south in winter and north in summer, for her 'health and amusement,' so she needn't grow narrow, when all the poor soul needs and asks is to be let stay in her nice old-fashioned country house, and have the village children in to make flannel petticoats; entertain the bishop when he comes to confirm, with a clerical dinner the same as she used to; spoil a lot of grandchildren, of which there aren't any; and once in a while to be allowed to go into the pantry between meals, when the butler isn't looking, and eat something out of the refrigerator with her fingers to make sure she's got them! "no, my dear, rather than that, i choose the lap dog and poor relation, who is generally too dejected to object to anything. besides, lap dogs are much better now than in the days when the choice lay only between sore-eyed white poodles and pugs. boston bulls are such darlings that for companions they beat half the people one knows!" i am doubly glad that the twins are boys! well, so be it, for women do often frighten me and i misunderstand them, but men are so easy to comprehend and love. while now, when richard and ian puzzle me, all i need to do is to point to father and evan, and say, "look! ask them, for they can tell you all you need to know!" * * * * * almost sunset, the boys climbing up stairs, and effie bringing a letter? yes, and from lavinia dorman, pages and pages--the dear soul! i must wait for a light. what is this?--she wishes to see me--will make me a long visit--in may--if i like--has no longer the conscience to ask me to leave the twins to come to her--boys of their age need so much care--then something about josephus! yes, sylvia latham is the daughter of the new house on the bluffs, etc. you blessed twins! here is another advantage i owe to you--at last a promised visit from lavinia dorman! ah, as i push my book into the desk the reason for its title turns up before me, worded in martin cortright's precise language:-- "everything, my dear barbara, has a precedent in history or the basis of it. it is well known that the indian tribes have taken their distinctive names chiefly from geographical features, and these often in turn control the pace of the people. the name for the island since called new amsterdam and york was mon-ah-tan-uk, a phrase descriptive of the rushing waters of hell gate that separated them from their long island neighbours, the inhabitants themselves being called by these neighbours mon-ah-tans, _anglice_ manhattans, literally, _people of the whirlpool_, a title which, even though the termagant humour of the waters be abated, it beseems me as aptly fits them at this day." ii miss lavinia's letters to barbara new york, "greenwich village," january , --. "so you are glad that i have returned? i wish that i could say so also, in your hearty tone of conviction. every day of the two years that i have been scattering myself about europe i have wished myself at home in the house where i was born, and have wandered through the rooms in my dreams; yet now that i am here, i find that i was mixing the past impossibly with the present, in a way common to those over fifty. yes, you see i no longer pretend, wear unsuitable headgear, and blink obliviously at my age as i did in those trying later forties. i not only face it squarely, but exaggerate it, for it is so much more comfortable to have people say 'fifty-five! is it possible?' "by the way, do you know that you and i share a distinction in common? we are both living in the houses where we were born, for the reason that we wish to and not because we cannot help ourselves. since i have been away it appears that every one i know, of my own age, has made a change of some sort, and joined the two streams that are flowing steadily upward, east and west of the park; while the people who were neither my financial nor social equals thirty years ago are dividing the year into quarters, with a house for each. a few months in town, a few of hotel life for 'rest' in the south, then a 'between-season' residence near by, seaside next, mountains in early autumn, and the 'between-season' again before the winter cruise through the whirlpool. "i like that name that your martin cortright gives to new york. before i went abroad i should have resented it bitterly, but the two months since my return have convinced me of its truth, which i have fought against for many years; for even the most staid of us who, either of choice or necessity, give the social vortex a wide berth, cannot escape from the unrest of it, or sight of the wreckage it from time to time gives forth. it is strange that i have not met this cortright, or never even knew that he shared your father's admiration of your mother, though owing to our school tie we were like sisters. yet it was like her to regret and hold sacred any pain she might have caused, no matter how unwillingly. did his elder sister marry _a_ schuyler, though not one of _the_ well-known branch, and did he as a boy live in one of those houses on the west side of lafayette place that were later turned into an hotel? "the worst of it all appears to me to be that the increase of wealth in the upper class is exterminating the home idea, to which i cling, single woman as i am; and consequently the middle classes, as blind copyists, also are tending to throw it over. "the rich, having no particular reason for remaining in any particular place until they become attached to it, live in half a dozen houses, which seems to have a deteriorating effect upon their domesticity; just as the sultan, with fifty wives that may be dropped or replaced according to will, cannot prize them as does the husband of only one. "your letters are so full of questions and wonderments about ways in your mother's day, that they set me rambling in the backwoods of the sixties, when women were sending their lovers to the civil war, and then bravely sitting down and rolling their own hearts up with the bandages with which they busied their fingers. i suppose you are wondering if i lost a lover in those days, or why i have not married, as i am in no wise opposed to the institution, but consider it quite necessary to happiness. the truth is, i never saw but two men whose tastes so harmonized with mine that i considered them possible as companions, and when i first met them neither was eligible, one being my own father and the other yours! i shall have to list your queries, to be answered deliberately, write my letters in sections, day by day, and send them off packet-wise, like the correspondence of the time of two-shilling post and hand messengers. to begin with, i will pick out the three easiest:-- " . what is it in particular that has so upset me on my home-coming? " . do i think that i could break through my habits sufficiently to make you a real country visit this spring or early summer, before the mosquitoes come? (confessing with your altogether out-of-date frankness that there are mosquitoes, a word usually dropped from the vocabulary of commuters and their wives, even though they live in staten island or new jersey.) " . is the sylvia latham, to whom i have been a friendly chaperon during my recent travels, related to the lathams who are building the finest house on the bluffs? you have never seen the head of the house, but his initials are s.j.; he is said to be a power in wall street, and the family consists of a son and daughter, neither of whom has yet appeared, although the house is quite ready for occupancy. "(my german teacher has arrived.)" * * * * * "january d. " . why am i upset? for several reasons, some of which have been clouding the horizon for many years, others crashing up like a thunder-storm. "i have for a long time past noticed a certain apathy in the social atmosphere of the little circle that formed my world. i gave up any pretensions to general new york society after my father's death, which came at a time when the social centre was splitting into several cliques; distances increased, new year's calling ceased, going to the country for even midwinter holidays came in vogue, and cosmopolitanism finally overcame the neighbourhood community interest of my girlhood. people stopped making evening calls uninvited; you no longer knew who lived in the street or even next house, save by accident; the cosey row of private dwellings opposite turned to lodging houses and sometimes worse; friends who had not seen me for a few months seemed surprised to find me living in the same place. when i began to go about again, one day cordelia martin (she was a bleecker--your father will remember her) met me in the street and asked me to come in the next evening informally to dinner and meet her sister, an army officer's wife, who would be there _en route_ from one post to another, and have an old-time game of whist. "i went, glad to see old friends, and anticipating a pleasant evening. i wore a new soft black satin gown slightly v in front, some of my best lace, and my pearl ornaments; i even wondered if the latter were in good taste at a family dinner. you know i never dwell much upon attire, but it is sometimes necessary when it is in a way epoch making. "a butler had supplanted cordelia's usual cordial waitress; he presented a tray for the card that i had not brought and said 'second story front.' this seemed strange to me, as cordelia herself had always come to the stairway to greet me when the door opened. "the 'second story front' had been done over into a picturesque but useless boudoir, a wood floor polished like glass was dotted by white fur islands; the rich velvet carpets, put down a few years before, had in fact disappeared from the entire house. a maid, anything but cordial, removed my wrap, looking me and it over very deliberately as she did so. i wondered if by mistake i had been bidden to a grand function--no, there were no visible signs of other guests. "not a word was spoken, so i made my way down to where the library living-room had been, not a little curious to see what would come next. thick portières covered the doorway, and by them stood the butler, who asked my name. really, for a moment i could not remember it, i was so startled at this sudden ceremony in the house of a friend, of such long standing that i had jumped rope on the sidewalk with her, making occasional trips arm-in-arm around the corner to taffy john's little shop for molasses peppermints and 'blubber rubbers.' "my hesitation seemed to add to the distrust that my appearance had in some way created. the butler also swept me from head to foot with his critical stare, and at the same moment i became internally aware that i had forgotten to remove my arctic over-boots. never mind, my gown was long, i would curl up my toes, but return to the dressing-room in full sight of that man, i whose forbears had outbowled peter stuyvesant, and, i fear, outdrunk him--never! then the portières flew apart, and facing a glare of bilious-hued electric light, i heard the shouted announcement of 'miss doormat' as i stumbled over a tiger rug into the room. i believe the fellow did it on purpose. however, it was very funny, and my rubber-soled arctics probably prevented my either coasting straight across into the open fireplace, or having a nasty fall, while the laugh that the announcement created on the part of my host, archie martin, saved me from an awkward moment, for from a sort of gilt throne-like arrangement at one side of the hearth, arrayed in brocaded satin gowns cut very low and very long, heads crimped to a crisp, and fastened to meagre shoulders by jewelled collars, the whole topped by a group of three 'prince of wales' feathers, cordelia and her sister came forward two steps to greet me. "of course, i thought to myself, they are going to a ball later on. i naturally made no comment, and we went in to dinner. the dining room was very cold, as extensions usually are, and the ladies presently had white fur capes brought to cover their exposure, while i, sitting in the draught from the butler's pantry, was grateful for my arctics. the meal was more pretentious than edible,--a strange commentary upon many delightful little four or at most five course affairs i had eaten in the same room. i soon found that there was no ball in prospect, also that cordelia and her sister seemed ill at ease, while archie had a look of suppressed mischief on his face, which in spite of warning signals broke forth as soon as, the coffee being served, the butler left. "one great comfort about men is that they do not take easily to being unnatural. archie and i, having been brought up like brother and sister from the time we went to a little mixed school over in old clinton hall, were always on cordial terms. "'well, lavvy,' he began, 'i see you're surprised at the change of base here, and _i'm_ going to let you in on the ground floor, if cordelia won't. you see, janet (she's not in town to-night, by the way) is coming out next month, and we are getting in training for what her mother thinks is her duty toward her, or else what they both think is their duty to society, or something else equally uncomfortable.' "'archie!' remonstrated cordelia, but he good-naturedly ignored her and continued: 'now i want janet to have a jolly winter and marry a good fellow when the time comes, but as we've got the nicest sort of friends, educated and all that, who have travelled along with us, as you have, from the beginning, why should we change our habits and feathers and try to fly for a different roost?' "'archibald,' said cordelia, in such a tone that she was not to be gainsaid, 'lavinia, as a woman of the world, will understand what you refuse to: that it is very important that our daughter should have the surroundings that are now customary to the social set with whom she has been educated, and into which, if she is to be happy, she must marry. if she is to meet the right people, she must be rightly presented. all her set wear low gowns at dinner, whether guests are present or not, just as much as men wear their evening dress at night and their business suits in the morning. that we have kept up our old-fogy habits so long has nothing to do with the present question.' "'except that i have to strain my purse to bring up everything else to suit the clothes, as naturally gaslight, a leg of mutton, and two vegetables do not make a good foreground to bare shoulders and a white vest! and i'd rather fund the cash as a nest-egg for jenny.' "'archie, you are too absurd!' snapped cordelia, yet more than half inclined to laugh; for she used to be the jolliest woman in the world before the spray of the whirlpool got into her eyes. "'as to meeting suitable people to marry, and all that rubbish,' pursued archie, relentlessly, 'i was considered fairly eligible in my time, and did you meet me at any of the dances you went to, or at the assemblies at fourteenth street delmonico's that were the swell thing in those days? no; i pulled you out of an old broadway stage that had lost a wheel and keeled over into a pile of snow opposite father's office, when you were practically standing on your head. you didn't fuss, and i got to know you better in five minutes than any one could in five years of this rotten fuss and feathers.' "'that was purely accidental, and i wish you wouldn't mention it so often,' said cordelia, flushing; and so the conversation, at first playful, gradually working toward a painful dispute, went on, until my faithful lucy came to escort me home, without our having our game of whist, that excuse for intelligent and silent companionship." * * * * * "january th. "i dwelt on that little dinner episode, my dear barbara, because in it you will find an answer to several questions i read between your lines. since my return i find that practically all my old friends have flown to what archie martin called 'a different roost,' or else failing, or having no desire so to do, have left the city altogether, leaving me very lonely. not only those with daughters to bring out, but many of my spinster contemporaries are listed with the buds at balls and dinner dances, and their gowns and jewels described. ah, what a fatal memory for ages one has in regard to schoolmates! josephine ponsonby was but one class behind us, and she is dancing away yet. "the middle-aged french women who now, as always, hold their own in public life have better tact, and make the cultivation of some intellectual quality or political scheme at least the excuse for holding their salons, and not the mere excuse of rivalry in money spending. "i find the very vocabulary altered--for _rest_ read _change_, for _sleep_ read _stimulation_, etc, _ad infin_. "born a clergyman's daughter of the old regime, i was always obliged to be more conservative than was really natural to my temperament; even so, i find myself at middle life with comfortable means (owing to that bit of rock and mud of grandma's on the old bloomingdale road that father persistently kept through thick and thin), either obliged to compromise myself, alter my dress and habits, go to luncheons where the prelude is a cocktail, and the after entertainment to play cards for money, contract bronchitis by buzzing at afternoon teas, make a vocation of charity, or--stay by myself,--these being the only forms of amusement left open, and none offering the intimate form of social intercourse i need. "i did mission schools and parish visiting pretty thoroughly and conscientiously during forty years of my life,--on my return an ecclesiastical, also, as well as a social shock awaited me. st. jacob's has been made a free church, and my special department has been given in charge of two newly adopted deaconesses, 'both for the betterment of parish work and reaching of the poor.' so be it, but heaven help those who are neither rich nor poor enough to be of consequence and yet are spiritually hungry. "the church system is necessarily reduced to mathematics. the rector has office hours, so have the curates, and they will 'cheerfully come in response to any call.' it was pleasant to have one's pastor drop in now and then in a sympathetic sort of way, pleasant to have a chance to ask his advice without formally sending for him as if you wished to be prayed over! but everything has grown so big and mechanical that there is not time. the clergy in many high places are emancipating themselves from the bible and preaching politics, history, fiction, local sensation, and what not, or lauding in print the moral qualities of a drama in which the friendship between mary magdalene and judas iscariot is dwelt on and the latter adjudged a patriot. i don't like it, and i don't like hurrying to church that i may secure my seat in the corner of our once family pew, where as a child i loved to think that the light that shone across my face from a particular star in one of the stained-glass windows was a special message to me. it all hurts, and i do not deny that i am bitter. those in charge of gathering in new souls should take heed how they ignore or trample on the old crop! "so i attend to my household duties, marketing, take my exercise, and keep up my french and german; but when evening comes, no one rings the bell except some intoxicated person looking for one of the lodging houses opposite, and the silence is positively asphyxiating--if they would only play an accordion in the kitchen i should be grateful. i'm really thinking of offering the maids a piano and refreshments if they will give an 'at home' once a week, as the only men in the neighbourhood seem to be the butchers and grocery clerks and the police. there is an inordinate banging going on in the rear of the house, and i must break off to see what it _is_." * * * * * "january th. "my dear child:-- "your second question, regarding visiting you the coming season, was answering itself the other day when i was writing. life here, except in winter, is becoming impossible to me. i have lost not only josephus, but my back yard! the stable where they keep the pigeons has changed hands. yes, you were right,--he did haunt the place, the postman says; and i suppose they did not understand that he was merely playful, and not hungry, or who he was, else maybe he was too careless about sitting on the side fence by the street. i _could_ replace josephus, but not the yard,--there are no more back yards to be had; their decadence is complete. i've closed my eyes for years to the ash heap my neighbour on the right kept in hers; also to the cast-off teeth that came over from the 'painless' dentist's on the left. "when the great tenement flat ran up on the north, where i could, not so long ago, see the masts of the shipping in the hudson, i sighed, and prayed that the tins and bottles that i gathered up each morning might not single me out when i was tying up my vines in the moonlight of early summer nights. "josephus resented these missiles, however, and his foolish habit of sitting on the low side fence under the ailantus tree then began. next, i was obliged to give up growing roses, because, as you know, they are fresh-air lovers; and so much air and light was cut off by the high building that they yielded only leaves and worms. still i struggled, and adapted myself to new conditions, and grew more of the stronger summer bedding plants. "five days ago i heard a banging and pounding. only that morning lucy had been told that the low, rambling carpenter's shop, that occupied a double lot along the 'street to the southwest, had been sold, and we anxiously waited developments. we were spared long suspense; for, on hearing the noise, and going to the little tea-room extension where i keep my winter plants, i saw a horde of men rapidly demolishing the shop, under directions of a superintendent, who was absolutely sitting on top of my honeysuckle trellis. after swallowing six times,--a trick father once taught me to cure explosive speech,--i went down and asked him if he could tell me to what use the lot was to be put. he replied: 'my job is only to clean it up; but the plans call for a twelve-story structure,--warehouse, i guess. but you needn't fret; it's to be fireproof.' "'fireproof! what do i care?' i cried, gazing around my poor garden--or rather i must have fairly snorted, for he looked down quickly and took in the situation at a glance, gave a whistle and added: 'i see, you'll be planted in; but, marm, that's what's got to happen in a pushing city--it don't stop even for graveyards, but just plants 'em in.' "my afternoon sun gone. not for one minute in the day will its light rest on my garden, and _finis_ is already written on it, and i see it an arid mud bank. i wonder if you can realize, you open-air barbara, with your garden and fields and all space around you, how a city-bred woman, to whom crowds are more vital than nature, still loves her back yard. i had a cockney nature calendar planted in mine, that began with a bunch of snowdrops, ran through hot poppy days, and ended in a glow of chrysanthemums, but all the while i worked among these i felt the breath of civilization about me and the solid pavement under my feet. "i believe that every woman primarily has concealed in the three rounded corners of her heart, waiting development, love of home, love of children, and love of nature, and my nature love has yet only developed to the size of a back yard. "yes, i will come to visit you at oaklands gladly, though it's a poor compliment under the circumstances. the mother of twins should be gone _to_; but tremble! you may never get rid of me, for i may supplant martha corkle, the miraculous, in spoiling the boys." * * * * * "february st. "one more question to answer and this budget of letters will go to the post with at least four stamps on it, for since you have yoked me to a stub pen and begged me not to criss-cross the sheets, my bills for stamps and stationery have increased. "sylvia latham _is_ the daughter of your bluff people. her father's name is sylvester johns latham, and he is a wall street broker and promoter, with a deal of money, and ability for pulling the wires, but not much liked socially, i should judge,--that is, outside of a certain commercial group. "mrs. latham was, at the time of her marriage, a pretty southern girl, vivian carhart, with only a face for a fortune. in a way she is a beautiful woman now, has quite a social following, a gift for entertaining, and, i judge, unbounded vanity and ambition. "quite recently some apparently valueless western land, belonging to her people, has developed fabulous ore, and they say that she is now more opulent than her husband. "they were pewholders at st. jacob's for many years, until three seasons ago, when they moved from a side street near washington square to 'millionaire row,' on the east side of the park. there are two children, sylvia, the younger, and a son, carhart, a fine-looking blond fellow when i knew him, but who got into some bad scrape the year after he left college,--a gambling debt, i think, that his father repudiated, and sent him to try ranch life in the west. there was a good deal of talk at the time, and it was said that the boy fell into bad company at his mother's own card table, and that it has caused a chilliness between mr. and mrs. latham. "however it may be, sylvia, who is an unspoiled girl of the frank and intellectual type, tall, and radiant with warm-hearted health, was kept much away at boarding-school for three years, and then went to college for a special two years' course in literature. she had barely returned home when her mother, hearing that i was going abroad, asked me to take sylvia with me, as she was deficient in languages, which would be a drawback to her social career. "it seemed a trifle strange to me, as she was then nineteen, an age when most girls of her class are brought out, and had been away for practically five years. but i took her gladly, and she has been a most lovable companion and friend. she called me aunt, to overcome the formal miss, and i wish she were my daughter. i'm only wondering if her high, unworldly standpoint, absorbed from wise teachers, and the halo that she has constructed from imagination and desire about her parents during the years of her separation from them, will not embarrass them a little, now that she is at home for good. "by the way, we met in england last spring a young sub-professor, horace bradford, a most unusual young man for nowadays, but of old new england stock. he was one of sylvia's literature instructors at rockcliffe college, and he joined our party during the month we spent in the shakespeare country. it was his first trip, and, i take it, earned by great self-sacrifice; and his scholarly yet boyish enthusiasm added hugely to our enjoyment. "he spoke constantly of his mother. do you know her? she lives on the old place, which was a farm of the better class, i take it, his father having been the local judge, tax collector, and general consulting factotum of his county. it is at pine ridge centre, which, if i remember rightly, is not far from your town. i should like you to know him. "i have only seen sylvia twice since our return, but she lunches with me to-morrow. you and she should be fast friends, for she is of your ilk; and if this happens, i shall not regret the advent of the whirlpool colony in your beloved oaklands as much as i do now. "i am really beginning to look forward to my country visit, and am glad to see that some 'advance season' tops are spinning on the pavement in front of the house, and a game of marbles is in progress in my front yard itself, safe from the annoying skirts of passers-by. for you should know, dear madam pan, that marbles and tops are the city's first spring sign. "by the way, i am sure that horace bradford and sylvia are keeping up a literary correspondence. they are perfectly suited to each other for any and every grade of friendship, yet from her family standpoint no one could be more unwelcome. he has no social backing; his mother is a religious little country woman, who doubtless says 'riz' and 'reckon,' and he only has what he can earn by mental effort. but this is neither here nor there, and i'm sure you and i will have an interesting summer croon in spite of your qualms and resentment of the moneyed invasion.--not another word, lucy is waiting to take this to the post-box. "yours faithfully, "lavinia dorman. "p. s.--josephus has just come back! lean, and singed by hot ashes, i judge. i dread the shock to him when he knows about the yard!" iii martin cortright's letters to barbara and doctor richard russell "december , --. "my dear barbara:-- "you have often asked me to write you something of myself, my youth, but where shall i begin? "i sometimes think that i must have been born facing backward, and a fatality has kept me walking in that direction ever since, so wide a space there seems to be to-day between myself and those whose age shows them to be my contemporaries. "my father, being a man of solid position both in commerce and society, and having a far greater admiration for men of art and letters than would have been tolerated by his wholly commercial knickerbocker forbears, i, his youngest child and only son, grew up to man's estate among the set of contemporaries that formed his world, men of literary and social parts, whose like i may safely say, for none will contradict, are unknown to the rising generation of new yorkers; for not only have types changed, but also the circumstances and appreciations under which the development of those types was possible. "in my nineteenth year events occurred that altered the entire course of my life, for not only did the almost fatal accident and illness that laid me low bar my study of a profession, but it rendered me at the same time, though i did not then realize it, that most unfortunate of beings, the semi-dependent son of parents whose overzeal to preserve a boy's life that is precious, causes them to deprive him of the untrammelled manhood that alone makes the life worth living. "i always had a bent for research, a passion for following the history of my country and city to its fountain heads. i devoured old books, journals, and the precious documents to which my father had ready access, that passed from the attic treasure chests of the old houses in decline to the keeping of the historical society. as a lad i besought every gray head at my father's table to tell me a story, so what more natural, under the circumstances, than that my father should make me free of his library, and say: 'i do not expect or desire you to earn your living; i can provide for you. here are companions, follow your inclinations, live your own life, and do not be troubled by outside affairs.' at first i was too broken in health and disappointed in ambition to rebel, then inertia became a habit. "as my health unexpectedly improved and energy moved me to reassert myself and step out, a soft hand was laid on mine--the hand of my mother, invalided at my birth, retired at forty from a world where she had shone by force of beauty and wit--and a gentle voice would say: 'stay with me, my son, my baby. oh, bear with me a little longer. if you only knew the comfort it is to feel that you are in the house, to hear your voice. you will pen a history some day that will bring you fame, and you will read it to me here--we two, all alone in my chamber, before the world hears it.' so i stayed on. how mother love often blinds the eyes to its own selfishness. "that fatal twentieth year, the time of my overthrow, brought me one good gift, your father's friendship. it was a strange chance, that meeting, and it was my love of hearing of past events and the questions concerning them that brought it about. has your father ever told you of it? "likely not, for his life work has been the good physician's, to bring forth and keep alive, and mine the antiquarian's, dreaming and groping among ruins for doubtful treasure of fallen walls. "my mother came of english, not knickerbocker stock like my father, though both belong distinctly to new york; and female education being in a somewhat chaotic state between the old regime and new, her parents, desirous of having her receive the genteel polish of courtly manners, music, and dancing, sent her, when about fifteen, to mrs. rowson's school, then located at hollis street, boston. the fame of this school had travelled far and wide, for not only had the preceptress in her youth, as susanna haswell, been governess to the children of the beautiful georgiana, duchess of devonshire, one of the most accomplished women of her day, and profited by her fine taste, but her own high morals and literary gifts made her tutorship a much sought privilege. "while there my mother met the little new england girl who was long afterward to become your grandmother. she had also come to study music, for which she had a talent. my mother related to me, when i was a little lad and used to burrow in her carved oak treasure chest and beg for stories of the articles it contained, many fascinating tales of those two school years, a pretty colour coming to her cheeks as she told of the dances learned together, pas-de-deux and minuet, from old 'doctor' shaffer, who was at the time second violin of the boston theatre, as well as authority in the correct methods of bowing and courtesying for gentlewomen. your grandmother married first, and the letter telling of it was stored away with others in the oak chest. "some months before the steamboat accident that shattered my nerves, and preceded the long illness, i was browsing at a bookstall, on my way up from college homeward, when i came across a copy of charlotte temple--one of the dozen later editions--printed in new york by one r. hobbs, in , its distinguishing interest lying in a frontispiece depicting charlotte's flight from portsmouth. "the story had long been a familiar one, and i, in common with others of many times my age and judgment, had lingered before the slab that bears her name in the graveyard of old trinity, and sometimes laid a flower on it for sympathy's sake, as i have done many times since. "on my return home i showed the little book to my mother, and as she held it in her hinds and read a word here and there, she too began to journey backward to her school days, and asked my father to bring out her treasure chest, and from it she took her school relics,--a tattered ribbon watch-guard fastened by a flat gold buckle that mrs. rowson had given her as a reward for good conduct, and a package of letters. she spent an hour reading these, and old ties strengthened as she read. i can see her now as she sat bolstered by pillows in her reclining chair, a writing tray upon her knees, penning a long letter. "a few months afterward, as i lay in my bed too weak even to stir, your father stood there, looking across the footboard at me,--the answer to that letter. your father, tall and strong of body and brain, a harvard graduate drawn to new york to study medicine at the college of physicians and surgeons. his eyes of strengthening manly pity looked into mine and drew me slowly back to life with them. "his long absence as surgeon in the civil war, the settling down as a country doctor, and even loving the same woman, has not separated us. never more than a few months passed but our thoughts met on paper, or our hands clasped. his solicitude in a large measure restored my health, so that at sixty-three, physically, i can hold my own with any man of my age, and to-day i walk my ten miles with less ado than many younger men. because of my intense dislike of the modern means of street transportation, i have kept on walking ever since the time that your father and i footed it from washington park to van cortlandt manor, through the muskrat marshes whereon the park plaza now stands, up through the wilds of the future central park, mcgowan's pass, and northwestward across the harlem to our destination. he will recollect. we were two days picking our way in going and two days on the return, for we scorned the 'bus route, and that was only in the later fifties. never mind, if we ever do get back to small clothes and silk stockings, martin cortright can show a rounded calf, if he has been esteemed little more than a crawling bookworm these many years. "methinks i hear you yawn and crumple these sheets together in your hand, saying: 'what ails the man--is he grown doity? i thought he was contented, even if sluggishly serene.' "and so he was, as one grown used to numbness, until last summer one mistress barbara visited the man-snail in his shell and exorcised him to come forth for an outing, to feed among fresh green leaves and breathe the perfume of flowers and young lives. when lo and behold, on the snail's return, the shell had grown too small! "faithfully, "m. c." * * * * * (to r. r.) "december , --. "so social change has also cast its shadow across even your country pathway, dear hippocrates? i wish it had spared you, but i feared as much when i heard that your peaceful town had been invaded by an advance guard of those same people of the whirlpool who keep the social life of their own city in a ferment. "you ask what is the matter, what the cause of the increasing restlessness that appears on every side, driving the conservative thinking class of moderate means to seek home shelter beyond city limits, and drawing the rest into a swirl that, sooner or later, either casts them forth as wrecks or sucks them wholly down. "the question is difficult of answer, but there are two things that are potent causes of the third. money too quickly earned, or rather won, causes an unwise expansion, and a fictitious prosperity that has degraded the life standard. except in exclusively academic circles, the man is gauged by his power of financial purchase and control, and the dollar is his hall mark. he is forced to buy, not win, his way. of course, if pedigree and private character correspond in quantity, so much the better, but their importance is strictly held in abeyance. "even in the legendary classic shades of learning, the cold pressure of the golden thumb crowds down and chills penniless brains. all students do not have equal _chance_ and equal _rights_. how can they, when the exclusiveness of many fraternities is not by intellectual gauge or the capability for comradeship, but the power to pay high dues and spend lavishly. of later years, in several conspicuous cases, even the choice of college officials of high control has been guided rather by their capacity as financiers than for ripened and inspiring scholarship. "then, too, the rack of constant change is detrimental to the finer grade of civic sentiment. it would seem that the island's significant indian name was wrought into its physical construction like the curse that kept the jew of fable a wanderer. periodically the city is rent and upheaved in unison with the surrounding changes of tide. here one does not need to live out his threescore years and ten to see the city of his youth slip away from him. even his alma mater packs her trunks and moves about too rapidly to foster the undying loyal home spirit among her sons--my college has lived in three houses since my freshman year. how i envy the sons of harvard, yale, and all the rest who can go back, and, feeling at least a scrap of the old campus turf beneath their feet, close their eyes and be young again for one brief minute. is not this the reason why so many of columbia's sons, in spite of the magnificent opportunities she offers, send _their_ sons elsewhere, because they realize the value of associations they have missed, and recognize the whirlpool's changefulness? "what would be the feelings of an oxford man, on returning from his life struggle in india or australia, to visit his old haunts, if he found, as a sign of vaunted progress, the bodleian library turned into an apartment house! "the primal difference between civilized men and the nameless savage is love of home, and the powerful races are those in whom this instinct is the strongest. such fealty is _not_ born in the shifting almost tent-dwellers of manhattan. "it was in the late seventies, the winter before his passing, that one mild night i walked home from a meeting of the goethe club in company with the poet bryant. he and my father had been stanch comrades, and many a time had i studied his homeric head silhouetted by firelight on our library wall. as we crossed the park front going from fifth avenue east to west, he paused, and leaning on his cane gazed skyward, where the outlines of some buildings, in process of construction on fifty-ninth street, and then considered high, stood out against the sky. "'poor new york,' he said, half to himself, half to me, 'created and yet cramped by force of her watery boundaries, where shall her sons and daughters find safe dwelling-places? they have covered the ground with their habitations, and even now they are climbing into the sky.' and he went on leaving his question unanswered. * * * * * "a caller interrupted me yesterday, a most persistent fellow and a dangerous one to the purse of the tyro collector of americana, though not to me. he was a man of some pretence to classic education, and superficially versed in lore of title, date, and _editio princeps_. he had half a dozen prints of rarity and value had they not been forgeries, and a book ... that i had long sought after in its original form, but the only copy i had seen for many years when put up at auction lacked the title page and fully half a dozen leaves, besides having some other defects. would you believe it, dick, this copy was that from the auction, its defects repaired, its missing leaves replaced by careful forgery, and what is more, i know the vender was aware of the deceit. but he will sell it to some young moneyed sprig who will not know. "i was angry, dick, very angry, and yet all this is a trivial part of what we have a long time been discussing. the sudden glint of wealth in certain quarters has changed the aspect of even book collecting, that once most individual of occupations, and syndicated it. "once a book collection was the natural accumulation, more or less perfect according to purse and opportunity, of one following a certain line of thought, and bore the stamp of individuality; but as these bibliophiles of the old regime pass away, the ranks are recruited by men to whom money is of no account, whose competition forces irrational prices and creates false values. methinks i see the finish of the small collectors like ourselves. meanwhile, just so much intellectual pleasure is wrested from the modern scholar of small means who dares not make beginning. i do not like it, dick, indeed i do not. "but we were discussing domesticity, i think, when this wretch rang the bell. the restlessness i speak of as born of undisciplined bigness, of moneyed magnitude, is visible everywhere, and more so in the hours of relaxation than those of business. "we have acquired the knowledge of many arts in these late years, and we needed it; but we have lost one that is irreparable--sociality. there is no longer time to know oneself, how then shall we know our neighbours? "the verb _to entertain_ has largely driven the verb _to enjoy_ from the social page. it is not too extreme, i think, to say the home and playhouse have changed places. many conservative people that i know turn to the theatre as the only safe means of relaxation and enjoyment within their reach, the stress and penalty of criticism in entertaining modern company being unbearable to them. "to the bachelor who, like myself, has a modest hearthstone, yet no hand but his own to stir the fire, the dinner tables of his married friends and his clubs have been supposed to replace, in a measure at least, the need of family ties. once they did this as far as such things may, but the easy sociality of the family board has almost ceased, and the average club has so expanded that it savours more of hotel freedom than home cosiness. "i am not a misanthrope or a woman hater, as you know, yet from what i gather i fear that, in the upper middle class at least, it is the women who are responsible for this increased formality that most men naturally would avoid. led by personal ambition, or that of young daughters, they seek to maintain a standard just enough beyond their easy grasp to feel ill at ease, if not humiliated, to be caught off guard. i remember once when i was a mere boy hearing my father say in a sorrowing tone to my eldest sister, who was giving fugitive reasons for not being able to array herself quickly for some festivity for which the invitation had been delayed, yet to which she longed to go: 'wherever woman enters socially, then complications begin that are wholly of her own making. i warrant before eve had finished her fig-leaf petticoat she was bothering adam to know if he thought there could be another woman anywhere who had a garment of rarer leaves than her own.' "the clubs do somewhat better, being under male management, but those among them that ranked as so conservative that membership was the hall mark of intellectual acquirements and stamped a man as either author, artist, or amateur of letters and the fine arts, have had their doors pushed open by many of those who wish to wear in public the name of being without good right, and so the little groups of kindred spirits have broken away, the authors in one direction, the followers of the drama to habitations of their own, artists who are too independent to be overborne by money in another, and thus the splitting spirit increases until it vanishes in a maze of cliques and coteries. the names may stand on the lists, the faces are absent, and one must wander through half a dozen clubs to really meet the aggregation of thinkers and workers of the grade who gathered in the snug corners of the century's old club house in east fifteenth street when we were young fellows, and my father secured us cards for an occasional monthly meeting as the greatest favour he could do us. "come down if you can, take a holiday, or rather night, and go with me to the january meeting, and we will also stroll among some of our old haunts. you may perhaps realize, what i cannot altogether explain, the reason why i feel almost a stranger though at home." * * * * * (to dr. r. r.) "january , --. "could not get away, you conscientious old medicus, because of the strange accidents and holiday doings of the whirlpool colony at the bluffs! "well, well! i read your last with infinite amusement. you are in a fair way to have enlightenment borne in upon you without leaving your surgery, or at least travelling farther than your substantial gig will take you. "meanwhile i have had what should be a crushing blow to my vanity, and in analyzing it i've made an important discovery. one night last week i was sitting quietly in the card room at the dibdin club, awaiting my whist mates (for here at least one may be reasonably sure of finding a group with bibliographic interests in common, and the pleasures of a non-commercial game of cards), when i heard a voice, one of a group outside, belonging to a wholesome, smooth-faced young fellow, with good tastes and instincts, say:-- "'i don't know what happened to the old boy when he took that unheard-of vacation of his last fall, or where he went, but one thing's very sure, since his return cortright's grown _pudgy_ and he's waked bang up. wonder if he's finished that colonial history, that's to be his monument, he's been working on all his life, or if he's fallen in love?' "'if he'd fall in love, he might stand more chance of finishing his history,' replied a graybeard friend in deep didactic tones; 'he has material in plenty, but no vital stimulus for focussing his work.' "i gave an unpremeditated laugh that dwindled to a chuckle, as if it were produced by a choking process. two heads appeared a second at the doorway of the room they had thought empty, and then vanished! "when i came home i sat a long while before my den fireplace thinking. they were right in two things, though not in the falling in love--that was done thirty-five years ago once and for all. i wondered if i had grown _pudgy_, dreadful word; _stout_ carries a certain dignity, but pudgy suggests bunchy, wabbling flesh. i've noticed my gloves go on lingeringly, clinging at the joints, but i read that to mean rheumatism! "that night i stood before the mirror and studied my face as i unbuttoned my vest and loosened my shirt band at the neck. suddenly i experienced great relief. for several months past i have felt a strange asphyxiation and a vertigo sensation when wearing formal clothes of any kind, enjoying complete comfort only in the loose neckcloth and wrapper of my private hours. i had thought of asking medical advice, but having acquired a distrust of general physic in my youth, and hoping you might come down, i put it off. "unfasten your own top button, and now prepare to laugh--martin cortright is not threatened with apoplexy or heart failure, he's grown _pudgy_, and his clothes are all too small! yet but for that boy's good-tempered ridicule he might not have discovered it. "think of it, richard! i, whom my mother considered interesting and of somewhat distinguished mien, owing to my pallor and slim stature! a pudgy worm belongs to chestnuts, not to books. a pudgy antiquarian is a thing unheard of since monastic days, when annal making was not deemed out of place if mingled with the rotund jollity of a friar tuck. you must bear half the blame, for it must be the butter habit that your martha corkle's fresh churned pats inoculated me with, for i always detested the stuff before. "graybeard's stricture, however, struck a deeper chord--'he has material in plenty for his book, but no vital stimulus.' this, too, is deeply true, and i have felt it vaguely so for some time, but no more realized it than i did my pudginess. "no matter how much material one collects, if the vitalizing spirit is not there, no matter how realistically the stage may be set if the actors are mere dummies. the only use of the past is to illuminate and sustain the present. "your own home life and work, the honest questions of little richard and ian waken me from a long sleep, i believe, and set me thinking. what is a man remembered by the longest? brain work, memorial building, or heart touching? do you recollect once meeting old moore--clement clark moore--at my father's? he was a profound scholar in greek and hebrew lexicology, and gave what was once his country house and garden in old chelsea village to the theological seminary of his professorship. how many people remember this, or his scholarship? but before that old rooftree was laid low, he wrote beneath it, quite offhand, a little poem, 'the night before christmas,' that blends with childhood's dreams anew each christmas eve--a few short verses holding more vitality than all his learning. "if my book ever takes body, my friend, it will be under your roof, where you and yours can vitalize it. this is no fishing for invitations--we know each other too frankly well for that. what i wish to do is to come into your neighbourhood next springtime, without encroaching on your hospitality, and work some hours every day in the library, or that corner of her charmed attic that barbara has shared with me. it is bewitching. upon my word, i do not wonder that she sees the world rose-colour as she looks upon it from that window. i, too, had long reveries there, in which experience and tradition mixed themselves so cleverly that for the time i could not tell whether it was my father or myself who had sometimes proudly escorted the lovely carroll sisters upon their afternoon promenade down broadway, from prince street to the bowling green, each leading her pet greyhound by a ribbon leash, or which of us it was that, in seeking to recapture an escaping hound, was upset by it in the mud, to the audible delight of some rivals in a 'bus and his own discomfiture, being rendered thereby unseemly for the beauty's further company." * * * * * "january , --. "thank you, dear richard, for your brotherly letter. i make no protestations, for i know your invitation would not be given if you felt my presence would in any way be a drawback or impose care on any member of your household, and the four little hearts that barbara drew, with her own, evan's, and the boys' initials in them, are seals upon the invitation. "do not deplore, however, the lack of nearness of my haunts in astor and lenox libraries. times are changed, and the new order condemns me to sit here if i read, there if i take out pencil and pad to copy--the red tape distracts me. the old historical society alone remains in comfortable confusion, and that is soon to move upward half a day's walk. "but, as it chances, you have collected many of the volumes that are necessary to me, and i will use them freely, for some day, friend of mine, my books will be joined to yours, and also feel the touch of little richard's and ian's fingers, and of their sons, also, i hope. "i declare, i'm growing childishly expectant and impatient for spring, like barbara with her packages of flower seeds. "you ask if i ever remember meeting one lavinia dorman. i think i used to see her with a bevy of girls from miss black's school, who used sometimes to attend lectures at the historical society rooms, and had an unlimited appetite for the chocolate and sandwiches that were served below in the 'tombs' afterward, which appetite i may have helped to appease, for you know father was always a sort of mine host at those functions. "the girls must have all been eight or ten years my junior, and you know how a fellow of twenty-three or four regards giggling schoolgirls--they seem quite like kittens to him. "stop, was she one of the older girls, the special friend of--barbara's mother? if so, i remember her face, though she did not walk in the school procession with the other 'convicts,' as the boys called them; but i was never presented. "i'm sending a small birthday token to the boys--a little printing-press. richard showed no small skill in setting the letters of my rubber stamp. it is some days late, but that will separate it from the glut of the christmas market. ask evan to notify me if he and barbara go to town. "gratefully, "m. c." iv when barbara goes to town _march_ . i like to go to a plain people's play, where the spectators groan and hiss the villain. it is a wholesome sort of clearing house where one may be freed from pent-up emotion under cover of other people's tears and smiles; the smiles triumphing at the end, which always winds up with a sudden recoil, leaving the nerves in a healthy thrill. i believe that i can only comprehend the primal emotions and what is called in intellectual jargon mental dissipation, and the problem play, in its many phases, appeals to me even less than crude physical dissipation. we have seen a drama of the people played quite recently, having been to new york to spend part of a "midwinter" week's vacation, which father insisted that evan should take between two rather complex and eye-straining pieces of work. speaking by the almanac, it wasn't midwinter at all, but pre-spring, which, in spite of lengthening _days_, is the only uncompromisingly disagreeable season in the country--the time when measles usually invades the village school, the dogs come slinking in guiltily to the fire, pasted with frozen mud, the boys have snuffle colds, in spite of father's precautions, and i grow desperate and flout the jonquils in my window garden, it seems so very long since summer, and longer yet to real budding spring. we arrived at home last night in the wildest snowstorm of the season, and this morning evan, having smoothed out his mental wrinkles by means of our mild city diversions, is now filling his lungs and straightening his shoulders by building a wonderful snow fort for the boys. presently i shall go down to help them bombard him in it, and try to persuade them that it will last longer if they do not squeeze the snowballs too hard, for evan has prohibited "baking" altogether. the "baking" of snowballs consists of making up quite a batch at once, then dipping them in water and leaving them out until they are hard as rocks, and really wicked missiles. the process, unknown in polite circles here, though practised by the factory town "muskrats," was taught my babies by the vanderveer boy during the christmas holidays, which, being snowy and bright, drew the colony to the bluffs for coasting, skating, etc., giving father such a river of senseless accidents to wade through that he threatens to absent himself and take refuge with martin cortright in his irving place den for holiday week next year. father has ridden many a night when the roads would not admit of wheeling, without thought of complaint, to the charcoal camp to tend a new mother, a baby, or a woodchopper suddenly stricken with pneumonia, that is so common a disease among men living as these do on poor food, in tiny close cabins, and continually getting checks of perspiration in the variable climate. during the holidays he was called to the bluffs in the middle of two consecutive nights, first to the vanderveers, and requested to "drug" the second assistant butler, who was wildly drunk, and being a recent acquisition had been brought to officiate at the house party without due trial, "so that he wouldn't be used up the next day," and then to the ponsonby's, where the family had evidently not yet gone to bed. here he found that the patient, a visiting school friend of one of the daughters, from up the state, and evidently not used to the whirl of the pool, had skated all day, and, kept going by unaccustomed stimulants, taken half from ignorance, half from bravado, had danced the evening through at the club house, and then collapsed. her hostess, careless through familiarity with it, had given her a dose of one of the chloral mixtures "to let her have a good night's sleep"; but instead it had sent her into hysterics, and she was calling wildly for her mother to come and take her home. father returned from both visits fairly white with rage. not at the unfortunates themselves, be it said, but at the cool nonchalance of those who summoned him. the butler's was a common enough case. that of the young girl moved him to pity, and then indignation, as he sifted, out the cause of the attack, in order to treat her intelligently. this questioning mrs. ponsonby resented most emphatically, telling him "to attend to his business and not treat ladies as if they were criminals." this to a man of father's professional ability, and one of over sixty years of age in the bargain. "madam," said he, "you _are_ a criminal; for to my thinking all preventable illness, such as this, is a crime. leave the room, and when i have soothed this poor child i will go home; and remember, do not send for me again; it will be useless." never a word did he say of the matter at home, though i read part in his face; but the ponsonby's housekeeper, a countrywoman of martha corkle's, took the news to her, adding "and the missus stepped lively too, she did; only, law's sakes, by next mornin' she'd forgot all about it, and, we being short-handed, wanted me to go down with james and get the doctor up to spray her throat for a hoarseness, and i remindin' her what he'd said, she laughed and answered, 'he had a bear's manners,' but to go tell him she'd pay him city prices, and she bet that would mend him and them!" i took good care not to repeat this to father, for he would be wounded. he is beginning to see that they use him as a sort of ambulance surgeon, but he does not yet understand the absolute money insolence of these people to those not of their "set," whom they consider socially or financially beneath them, and i hope he never may. he is so full of good will to all men, so pitiful toward weakness and sin, and has kept his faith in human nature through thirty-five years' practice in a factory town, hospital wards, charcoal camp, and among the odd characters of the scattering hillsides, that it would be an undying shame to have it shattered by the very people that the others regard with hopeless envy. shame on you, barbara, but you are growing bitter. yes, i know you do not yourself mind left-handed snubs and remarks about your being "comfortably poor," but you won't have that splendid old father of yours put upon and sneezed at, with cigarette sneezes, too. you should realize that they don't know any better, also that presently they may become dreadfully bored after the manner of degenerates and move away from the bluffs, and then companionable, commuting, or summer resident people will have a chance to buy their houses. shrewd martha corkle foresaw the probable outcome the day that the foundation-stone for the first cottage was laid, even before our prettiest flower-hedged lane was shorn and torn up to make it into a macadam road, in order to shorten the time, for motor vehicles, between the bluffs and the station by possibly three minutes. not that the people were obliged to be on time for early trains, for they are mostly the reapers of other people's sowing; but to men of a certain calibre, born for activity, the feeling that, simply for the pleasure of it, they can wait until the very latest moment and still get there, is an amusement savouring of both chance and power. "yes, mrs. evan," said martha, with as much of a sniff as she felt compatible with her dignity, "i knows colernies of folks not born to or loving the soil, but just trying to get something temporary out o' it in the way o' pleasure, as rabbits, or mayhap bad smelling water for the rheumatics. (it was the waters lunnon swells came for down on the old estate.) to my thinkin' these pleasure colernies is bad things; they settles as senseless as a swarm of bees, just because their leader's lit there first; and when they've buzzed themselves out and moved on, like as not some sillies as has come gapin' too close is bit fatal or poisoned for life." well-a-day! evan says that i take things to heart that belong to the head alone, while father says that, to his mind, feeling is much more of a need to-day than logic; so what can i do but still stumble along according to feeling. a shout from beneath the window, then a soft snowball on it, the signal that the fort is finished,--yes, and the old christmas tree stuck up top as a standard. richard has built a queer-looking snow man with red knobs all over his chest and stomach, while ian has achieved several most curious looking things with carrot horns,--whatever are they? father has just driven in, and is laughing heartily, and evan is waving to me. * * * * * calm reigns again. the fort has surrendered, the final charge having been led by corney delaney. we've had hot milk all around, father has retired to the study to decipher a complicated letter from aunt lot, evan has taken the boys into the den for a drawing lesson, and the mystery of the snow man is solved. we do not intend to have the boys learn any regular lessons before another fall, but for the last two years i have managed that they should sit still and be occupied with something every morning, so that they may learn how to keep quiet without its being a strain,--shelling peas, cutting papers for jelly pots, stringing popcorn for the hospital christmas tree, seeding raisins with a dozen for pay at the end--this latter is an heroic feat when it is accomplished without drawing the pay on the instalment plan--and many other little tasks, varied according to season. ian has a quick eye and comprehension, and he is extremely colour sensitive, but healthily ignorant of book learning, while richard, how we do not know, has learned to read in a fashion of his own, not seeming yet to separate letters or words, but "swallowing the sense in lumps," as martha puts it. yesterday, before our return, the weather being threatening, and the boys, keyed for mischief, clamouring and uneasy, very much as birds and animals are before a storm, father invited them to spend the afternoon with him in the study, and martha corkle, who mounts guard during my brief holidays, saw that their paws were scrubbed, and then relaxed her vigilance, joining evan in the sewing room. after many three-cornered discussions as to what liberty was to be allowed the boys in study and den, we decided that when they learned to respect books in the handling they should be free to browse as they pleased; the curiosities, rarities, and special professional literature, being behind glass doors, could easily be protected by lock and key. father's theory is that if you want children to love books, no barriers must be interposed from the beginning, and that being so much with us the boys will only understand what is suited to their age, and therefore the harmful will pass them by. i was never shut from the library shelves, or mysteries made about the plain-spoken literature of other days, in spite of aunt lot's fuming. i did not understand it, so it did not tempt, and as i look back, i realize that the book of life was spread before me wisely and gradually, father turning page after page, then passing the task to evan, so that i never had a shock or disillusionment. i wonder if mother had lived if i should think differently, and be more apprehensive about the boys, womanwise? i think not; for i am a sun-loving pagan all through, really born far back in an overlooked corner of eden, and i prefer the forceful father influence that teaches one _to overcome_ rather than the mother cult which is _to bear_, for so much is cumbrously borne in self-glorified martyrdom by women of their own volition. i know that i am very primitive in my instincts and emotions; so are the boys, and that keeps us close, or so close, together. of course illustrated books are now the chief attraction to them in the library, and yesterday, when father went there with the boys, he supplied ian, as usual, with "the uncivilized races of man," which always opens of itself at the mumbo jumbo picture, and as a great treat for richard, took down the three quarto volumes of audubon's "quadrupeds," and ranged them on a low stand with a stool in front of it. then, being tired after a hard morning's work, he drew his big leather chair near the, fire, put on an extra log, and proceeded to--meditate. you will doubtless notice that when father or husband close their eyes, sitting in comfortable chairs by the fire, they are always meditating, and never sleeping, little nosey protestations to the contrary. father's meditations must have been long and deep, for when he was startled from them by the breaking in two of the hickory log, a gory spectacle met his eyes. richard was sitting on the hearth rug, which he had carefully covered with newspapers; these, as well as his hands and face, were stained a deep crimson, while with a stout silver fruit-knife he was hacking pieces from a great pulpy red mass before him. checking an exclamation of horror father started forward, to meet richard's cheerful, frank gaze and the request, as he dug away persistently, to "please wait one minute more, dranpa. i've got the heart all done, that big floppy piece is lungs, an' i've most made the liver. not the good kind that goes wif curly bacon, but a nasty one like what we wear inside." then spying a medical chart with coloured pictures that was propped up against the wood box, father found the clew, and comprehended that richard was giving himself a practical lesson in anatomy by trying to carve these organs from a huge mangel wurzel beet that he had rolled in from the root cellar. did father scold him for mess-making, or laugh at his attempt that had little shape except in his own baby brain? no, neither; he carefully closed the door against martha's possible entrance, seriously and respectfully put the precious objects on a plate, to which he gave a place of honour on the mantel shelf, and after removing as far as possible all traces of beet from face and hands in his sacred office lavatory, he took richard with him into the depths of the great chair and told the happy child his favourite rigmarole, all about the "three gentlemen of high degree," who do our housework for us. how the lungs, who are siamese twins, called to the heart to pump them up some blood to air, because they were almost out of work, and how the big lazy liver lay on one side and groaned because he had drunk too much coffee for breakfast, and had a headache,--until richard really felt that he had achieved something. so the first thing this morning he set about making a snow man, that he might put the beet vitals in their proper places, nearly convulsing father by their location. though, as he told me, they were accurate, compared to the ideas of many trained nurses with whom he had come in contact. but where was ian during the beet carving? father quite forgot him until, richard falling asleep in his arms, he arose to tuck him up on the sofa. a sound of the slow turning of large pages guided him to the corner by the bay window where some bookcases, standing back to back, made a sort of alcove. there was ian, flat upon his stomach, while before him the "wandering jew" legend, with the doré pictures, lay open at the final scene--the last judgment--where the jew, his journey over, looks up at the angels coming to greet him, while little devils pull vainly at his tattered boots. it was not the jew or the angels, however, that held ian's attention, and whose outlines he was tracing with his forefinger, but the devils, one big fellow with cows' horns and wings drooping like those of a moulting crow, and a bevy of imps with young horns and curly tails who were pulling a half-buried body toward the fiery pit by its hair. father explained the pictures in brief, and closed the book as quickly as possible, thinking the boy might be frightened in his dreams by the demons. but no, ian was fascinated, not frightened. he would have liked the pygmies to come and play with him, and he turned to father with a sigh, saying, "they're bully pullers, dranpop. i guess if they and me pulled against corney delaney we could get him over the line all right," one of the boys' favourite pastimes being to play tug-of-war with the goat, the rope being fastened to its horns, but corney was always conqueror. neither did ian forget the imps quickly, as some children do their impressions, but strove to model them this morning, making round snow bodies, carrot horns, corncob legs, and funny celery tails; the result being positively startling and "overmuch like witch brats," as effie declared, with bulging eyes. they unfortunately did not perish with the fort, for richard doesn't like them; but are now huddled in a group under the old christmas tree, where lark is barking at them. * * * * * i started to record our visit to lavinia dorman, but my "human documents," printed on vellum, came between, and i would not miss a word they have to say for the "mechlinia albertus magnus," which father says is the rarest book in the world, though evan disputes his preference, and martin cortright would doubtless prefer the first edition of denton's "new york." in past times, when we have visited miss lavinia, we have been fairly meek and decorous guests, following the programme that she planned with such infinite attention to detail that free will was impossible, and we often felt like paper dolls. we had read her lament on the death of sociability and back yards with many a smile, and a sigh also, for to one born in the pool, every ripple that stirs it must be of importance, and it is impossible for outsiders to urge her to step out of the eddies altogether and begin anew, for new yorkitis seems to be not only a rarely curable disease to those who have it, but an hereditary one as well. as usual, evan came to the rescue, as we sat in the den the night before our departure. "let us turn tables on miss lavinia this time and take her to see our new york," he said, "since we are all quite tired of hers. do you remember the time when we went to town to buy the trappings for the boys' first tree and were detained until christmas morning by the delay of a cable i had to wait for? after dinner christmas eve we coaxed miss lavinia out with us and bought half a bushel of jolly little toys from street fakirs to take home, and then boarded an elevated train and rode about the city until after midnight, in and out the downtown streets and along the outskirts, to see all the poor people's christmas trees in the second stories of tenements, cheap flats, and over little shops. how she enjoyed it, and said that she never dreamed that tenement people could be so happy; and she finally waxed so enthusiastic that she gave a silver half dollar each to four little newsboys crouching over the steam on a grating in twenty-third street, and when they cheered her and a policeman came along, we told the dear old soul that he evidently thought her a suspicious character, a counterfeiter at the very least. and she always spoke afterward with bated breath on the dangers of the streets late at night, and her narrow escape from arrest. we came to new york unsated and without responsibilities to push us, and looked from the outside in. "no, barbara, you did better than you knew that day six years ago, when we sat in the somerset garden, and you persuaded me to become a commuter and let you plant a garden, promising never to talk about servants, and you've kept your word. i was dubious then, but now--if you only knew the tragedies i've seen among men of my means and aims these last few years, the struggle to be in the swim, or rather the backwater of it. the disappointment, the debt and despair, the pink teas and blue dinners given in cramped flats, the good fellows afraid to say no to wives whose hearts are set on being thought 'in it,' and the wives, haggard and hollow-eyed because the husbands wish to keep the pace by joining clubs that are supposedly the hall-marks of the millionnaire. new york is the best place for doing everything in but three--to be born in, to live in, and to die in." "so you wish us to play bachelor girl and man for a few days, and herd miss lavinia about, which i suppose is the pith of these heroics of yours," i said, rather astonished, for evan seldom preaches. "i never knew that you were such an anti-whirlpooler before, and i've at times felt selfish about keeping you at the old home, though not since the boys came, it's so healthy for them, bless them. now i feel quite relieved," and i arranged a little crisp curl that will break loose in spite of persistent wetting, for men always seem to discourage curly hair, father keeping his shorn like a prize-fighter. this curl softens the rigour of evan's horseshoe scowl, and when i fix it gives him a chance to put his arm around my waist, which is the only satisfactory way of discussing plans for a pleasure trip. we arrived in town duly a little before dinner time. it is one of evan's comfortable travelling habits, this always arriving at a new place at the end of day, so as to get the bearings and be adjusted when we awake next morning. to arrive in the morning, when paying a visit especially, is reversing the natural order of things; you are absent-minded until lunch, sleepy all the afternoon, dyspeptic at dinner, when, like as not, some one you have wholly forgotten or hoped to is asked to meet you. if the theatre follows, you recuperate, but if it is cards (of which i must have a prenatal hatred, it is so intense) with the apology, "i thought you might be tired and prefer a cosey game of whist to going out," you trump your partner's tricks, lead the short suits and mix clubs and spades with equal oblivion, and, finally, going to bed, leave a bad impression behind that causes your hostess to say, strictly to herself, if she is charitable, "how barbara has deteriorated; she used to be a good talker, but then, poor dear, living in the country is _so_ narrowing." of course if you merely go away to spend the day it is different; you generally keep on the move and go home to recover from it. and how men usually hate staying in other people's houses, no matter how wide they keep their doors open or how hospitably inclined they may be themselves. they seem to be self-conscious, and are constrained to alter their ordinary habits, which makes them miserable and feel as if they had given up their free will and identity. there are only two places that i ever dream of taking evan, and lavinia dorman's is one of them. when we had made ourselves smart for dinner and joined miss lavinia by the fire in her tiny library, we read by her hair that she was evidently intending to stay at home that evening, for her head has its nodes like the moon. she has naturally pretty, soft wavy hair, with now and then a silver streak running through it. i have often seen lucy when she brushes it out at night. but because there is a dash of white in the front as if a powder puff had rested there a moment by accident, it is screwed into a little knob and covered with skilfully made yet perfectly apparent frontlets to represent the different styles of hair-dressing affected by women of abundant locks. no. , worn at breakfast, is the most reasonable. it is quite plain, slightly waved, and has a few stray hairs carelessly curved where it joins the forehead. no. is for rainy weather; the curls are fuzzy and evidently baked in; it requires a durable veil to keep it in countenance. evan calls it the "rasher of bacon front." no. is for calling and all entertainments where the bonnet stays on; it has a baby bang edge a trifle curled and a substantial cushion atop to hold the hat pins; while no. , the one she wore on our arrival, is an elaborate evening toupie with a pompadour rolling over on itself and drooping slightly over one eye while it melts into a butterfly bow and handful of puffs on the crown that in turn end in a single curl behind. we had a dainty little dinner, grape fruit, clear soup, smelts, wild duck, salad, fruit, and coffee, and it was daintily served, for miss lavinia always keeps a good cook and remembers our dislike of the various forms of hash known as entrées. the coffee was placed on a low mahogany stand by the library fire, and miss lavinia herself handed evan a quaint little silver lamp by which to light his cigar, for she has all the cosmopolitan instincts of a woman who not only knows the world but had heard her father discuss tobacco, and really enjoyed the soothing fragrance of a good cigar. as soon as we were settled and poor singed josephus had tiptoed in by the fire, evidently trying to make up for his shabby coat by the profundity of his purr, evan set forth his scheme to our hostess. we were to lodge and breakfast with her, but after that she was to play our way, and be at our disposal morning, afternoon, and evening, at luncheon, dinner, and supper, and the game was to be the old-fashioned one of "follow the leader!" at first miss lavinia hesitated regretfully, it seemed so inhospitable,--she had thought to take us to several parlour concerts. mrs. vanderdonk, she that was a de leyster, was going to throw open her picture gallery for charity, which would give us an opportunity to see her new house. in fact the undertow of the whirlpool was still pulling at her ankles, even though she had freed her head, and it seemed impossible to her that there could be any new york other than the one she knew. finally her almost girlish vitality asserted itself, and bargaining that we should allow her one evening to have sylvia latham to dinner, she surrendered. "then we will begin at once by going to the theatre," said evan, jumping up and looking at the clock, which pointed at a few minutes of eight. "have you tickets? isn't this a little sudden?" asked miss lavinia with a little gasp, evidently remembering that her hair was arranged for the house only. "no, i have no tickets, but barbara and i always go in this way, and if we cannot get in at one place we try another, for usually some good seats are returned from the outside ticket offices a few minutes before the play begins. the downtown theatres open the earliest, so we can start near by and work our way upward, if necessary." to my surprise in five minutes miss lavinia was ready, and we sallied forth, evan sandwiched between us. as the old dorman house is in the northeastern corner of what was far away greenwich village,--at the time-the bouerie was a blooming orchard, and is meshed in by a curious jumble of thoroughfares, that must have originally either followed the tracks of wandering cattle or worthy citizens who had lost their bearings, for waverley place comes to an untimely end in west eleventh street, and fourth street collides with horatio and is headed off by thirteenth street before it has a chance even to catch a glimpse of the river,--a few steps brought us into fourteenth street, where naming gas-jets announced that the play of "jim bludso" might be seen. "dear me!" ejaculated miss lavinia, "do people still go to this theatre? the last time i came here it was in the seventies to see mrs. rousby as rosalind." when we took our seats the play, founded, as the bill informed us, upon one of the pike county ballads, had begun, and miss lavinia soon became absorbed. it is a great deal to be surrounded by an audience all thoroughly in the mood to be swayed by the emotion of the piece, plain people, perhaps, but solidly honest. directly in front sat a young couple; the girl, in a fresh white silk waist, wore so fat and new a wedding ring upon her ungloved hand, which the man held in a tight grip, that i surmised that this trip into stageland was perhaps their humble wedding journey, from which they would return to "rooms" made ready by jubilant relatives, eat a wonderful supper, and begin life. the next couple were not so entirely _en rapport_. the girl, who wore a gorgeous garnet engagement ring, also very new, merely rested her hand on her lover's coat sleeve where she could see the light play upon the stones. when, after the first act, in answer to hearty rounds of applause, varied with whistles and shouts from the gallery, the characters stepped forward, not in the unnatural string usual in more genteel play-houses, where victor and vanquished join hands and bow, but one by one, each being greeted by cheers, hisses, or groans, according to the part, and when the villain appeared i found myself groaning with the rest, and though evan laughed, i know he understood. after it was over, as we went out into the night, evan headed toward sixth avenue instead of homeward. "may i ask where we are going now?" said miss lavinia, meekly. she had really enjoyed the play, and i know i heard her sniff once or twice at the proper time, though of course i pretended not to. "going?" echoed evan. "only around the corner to get three fries in a box, with the usual pickle and cracker trimmings, there being no restaurant close by that you would care for; then we will carry them home and have a little supper in the pantry, if your lucy has not locked up the forks and taken the key to bed. if she has, we can use wooden toothpicks." at first miss lavinia seemed to feel guilty at the idea of disturbing lucy's immaculate pantry at such an hour; but liberty is highly infectious. she had spent the evening out without previous intent; the next step was to feel that her soul was her own on her return. she unlocked the forks, evan unpacked the upstairs ice-chest for the dog's head bass that wise women always have when they expect visiting englishmen, even though they are transplanted and acclimated ones, and she ate the oysters, still steaming from their original package, with great satisfaction. after we had finished miss lavinia bravely declared her independence of lucy. the happy don't-care feeling produced by broiled oysters and bass on a cold night is a perfect revelation to people used to after-theatre suppers composed of complications, sticky sweets, and champagne. when we had finished i thought for a moment that she showed a desire to conceal the invasion by washing the dishes, but she put it aside, and we all went upstairs together. a little shopping being in order, evan took himself off in the morning, leaving miss lavinia and me to prowl, after we had promised to meet him at a downtown restaurant at one. little boys are delightful things to shop for,--there is no matching this and that, no getting a yard too much or too little, everything is substantial and straight away, and all you have to do when the bundles are sent home by express is to strengthen the sewing on of buttons and reinforce the seats and knees of everyday pantikins from the inside. we strolled about slowly, and at half past one were quite ready to sit still and not only eat our lunch but watch business mankind eat his. if any one wishes to feel the clutch and motive power of the whirlpool let him go to the mazarin any time between twelve-thirty and two o'clock. the streets themselves are surging with men, all hurrying first in one direction, then another, until it seems as if there either must be a fire somewhere, or else a riot afoot. the doors of the restaurant open and shut incessantly, corks pop, knives and forks rattle, everything is being served from a sandwich and a glass of beer to an elaborate repast with a wine to every course, while through and above it all the stress of business is felt. of course the great financiers usually have luncheon served in their offices, to save them from the crowd; besides, it might give common humanity a chance to scrutinize their countenances, and perchance read what they thought upon some question of moment, for it sometimes seems as if the eye of the new york journalist has x-ray power. on the other hand, the humbler grade, with less of either time or money to spare, go to the "quick lunch" counters and "dime-in-the-slot" sandwich concerns; yet evan says that the gathering at the mazarin is fairly representative. miss lavinia was bewildered. her downtown visits to her broker's office were always made in a cab, with lucy to stay in it as a preventative of the driver's taking a sly glass or a thief snatching her lap-robe--she never uses public carriage rugs. she clung to the obsolete idea that wall street was no place for women, and saw, as in a dream, the daintily dressed stenographers, bookkeepers, and confidential clerks mingling with the trousered ranks in the street, not to mention the damsels in tidy shirtwaists, with carefully undulated hair and pointed, polished finger nails, who were lunching at near-by tables, sometimes seemingly with their employers as well as with other male or female friends. "i wonder how much of all this is bad for uptown home life?" miss lavinia queried, gazing around the room; but as she did not address either of us in particular, we did not answer, as we did not know,--who does? a spare half-hour before closing time we gave to the stock exchange, and it was quite enough, for some one was short on something, and pandemonium reigned. as we stood on the corner of rector street and broadway, hesitating whether to take surface or elevated cars, faint strains of organ music from trinity attracted us. "service or choir practice; let us go in a few moments," said evan, to whom the organ is a voice that never fails to draw. we took seats far back, and lost ourselves among the shadows. a special service was in progress, the music half gregorian, and the congregation was too scattered to mar the feeling that we had slipped suddenly out of the material world. the shadows of the sparrows outside flitted upward on the stained glass windows, until it seemed as if the great chords had broken free and taking form were trying to escape. now and then the door would open softly and unaccustomed figures slip in and linger in the open space behind the pews. aliens, newly landed and wandering about in the vicinity of their water-front lodging-houses, music and a church appealed to their loneliness. some stood, heads bowed, and some knelt in prayer and crossed themselves on leaving; one woman, lugging a great bundle tied in a blue cloth, a baby on her arm and another clinging to her skirts, put down her load, bedded the baby upon it, and began to tell her beads. the service ended, and the people scattered, but the organist played on, and the boy choir regathered, but less formally. "what is it?" we asked of the verger, who was preparing to close the doors. "there will be a funeral of one of the oldest members of the congregation to-morrow, and they are about to go through the music of the office." suddenly a rich bass voice, strong in conviction, trumpeted forth--"i am the resurrection and the life!" and only a stone's throw away jingled the money market of the western world. the temple and the table of the money changers keep step as of old. ah, wonderful new york! * * * * * the afternoon was clear staccato and mild withal, and the sun, almost at setting, lingered above orange and dim cloud banks at the end of the vista broadway made. "are you tired? can you walk half a dozen blocks?" asked evan of miss lavinia, as we came out. "no, quite the reverse; i think that i am electrified," she replied briskly. "then we will go to battery park," he said, turning south. "battery park, where all the immigrants and roughs congregate! what an idea! we shall catch smallpox or have our pockets picked!" "have you ever _been_ there?" persisted evan. "yes, once, i think, when steamship passengers lathed at the barge office, and of course i've seen it often in going to staten island to visit cousin lucretia." evan's only reply was to keep on walking. we did not cross the "bowling green," but swung to the right toward pier i, and took the path between old castle garden and the sea wall at the point where one of the fire patrol boats was resting, steam up and hose nozzles pointed, lance couchant wise. ah, what a picture! no wonder miss lavinia adjusted her glasses quickly (she is blindly nearsighted), caught her breath, and clung to evan's arm as the fresh sea breeze coming up from the narrows wheeled her about. before us staten island divided the water left and right, while between it and the long island shore, just leaving quarantine and dwarfing the smaller craft, an ocean liner, glistening with ice, was coming on in majestic haste. all about little tugs puffed and snorted, and freighters passed crosswise, parting the floating ice and churning it with their paddles, scarcely disturbing the gulls, that flew so close above the water that their wings touched, or floated at leisure. the sun that had been gilding everything from masthead to floating spar gathered in its forces, and for one moment seemed to rest upon liberty's torch, throwing the statue into clear relief, and then dropped rapidly behind the river's night-cloud bank, and presently lights began to glimmer far and near, the night breath rose from the water, and the wave-cradled gulls slept. "do you like our new york?" asked evan, turning to go. "don't speak," whispered miss lavinia, hanging back. but we were no sooner on the elevated train than she found use for her tongue, for whose feet should i stumble over on entering, quite big feet too, or rather shoes, for the size of the man, but martin cortright's, and of course he was duly presented to miss lavinia. v february violets that night miss lavinia was forced to ask "for time for 'forty winks'" before she could even think of dinner, and evan and i sat them out in the deep, hospitable chairs by the library fire. we were not tired, simply held in check; country vitality shut off from certain ways for six months is not quickly exhausted, but, on the other hand, when it is spent, it takes several months to recuperate. the first night that i leave home for these little excursions i have a sense of virtue and simmering self-congratulation. i feel that i am doing a sensible thing in making a break from what the theorists call "the narrowing evenness of domestic existence." of course it is a good thing for me to leave father and the boys, and see and hear something new to take back report of to them; it is better for them to be taught appreciation of me by absence; change is beneficial to every one, etc., etc., and all that jargon. the second night i am still true to the theory, but am convinced that to the highly imaginative, a city day and its doings may appear like the biblical idea of eternity--reversed--"a thousand years." the third night i am painfully sure of this, and if i remain away over a fourth, which is very rare, i cast the whole theory out to the winds of scepticism, and am so restless and disagreeable that evan usually suggests that i take a morning train home and do not wait for him, which is exactly the responsibility that i wish him to assume, thus saving me from absolute surrender. we always have a good time on our outings, and yet after each the pleasure of return grows keener, so that occasionally evan remonstrates and says: "sometimes i cannot understand your attitude; you appear to enjoy every moment keenly, and yet when you go home you act as if you had mercifully escaped from a prison that necessitated going through a sort of thanksgiving ceremony. it seems very irrational." but when i ask him if it would be more rational to be sorry to come home, he does not answer,--at least not in words. "where do we dine to-night?" i asked evan, as he was giving unmistakable signs of "meditation," and i heard by the footsteps overhead that miss lavinia was stirring. "at the art and nature club. you can dress as much or as little as you please, and we can get a table in a cosey corner, and afterward sit about upstairs for an hour, for there will be music to-night. i have asked martin cortright to join us. it has its interesting side, this--a transplanted englishman married to a country girl introducing old bred-in-the-bone new yorkers to new manhattan." when i go to town my costuming consists merely in change of waists, as street and public conveyances alike are a perpetual menace to one's best petticoats, so in a few moments we were on our way uptown. we did not tell miss lavinia where we were going until we were almost there, and she was quite upset, as dining at the two or three hotels and other places affected by the whirlpoolers implies a careful and special toilet to run the gantlet of society reporters, for every one is somebody in one sense, though in another "nobody is really any one." she was reassured, however, the moment that she drew her high-backed oak chair up to the table that evan had reserved in a little alcove near the fireplace. before the oysters arrived, and martin cortright appeared to fill the fourth seat, she had completely relaxed, and was beaming at the brass jugs and pottery beakers ranged along a shelf above the dark wainscot, and at the general company, while the warmth from the fire logs gave her really a very pretty colour, and she began to question martin as to who all these people, indicating the rapidly filling-up tables, were. but martin gazed serenely about and confessed he did not know. the people came singly, or in twos and threes, men and women together or alone, a fact at which miss lavinia greatly marvelled. greetings were exchanged, and there was much visiting from table to table, as if the footing was that of a private house. "nice-looking people," said miss lavinia, meditatively scrutinizing the room through her lorgnette without a trace of snobbery in her voice or attitude, yet i was aware that she was mentally drawing herself apart. "some of them quite unusual, but there is not a face here that i ever saw in society. are they members of the club? where do they come from? where do they live?" evan's lips shut together a moment before he answered, and i saw a certain steely gleam in his eye that i always regarded as a danger signal. "perhaps they might ask the same questions about you," he answered; "though they are not likely to, their world is so much broader. they are men and women chiefly having an inspiration, an art or craft, or some vital reason for living besides the mere fact that it has become a habit. they are none of them rich enough to be disagreeable or feel that they own the right to trample on their fellows. they all live either in or near new york, as best suits their means, vocations, and temperaments. men and women together, they represent, as well as a gathering can, the hopeful spirit of our new york of new manhattan that does not grovel to mere money power." miss lavinia seemed a little abashed, but martin cortright, who had been a silent observer until now, said: "it surprises me to see fraternity of this sort in the midst of so many institutions of specialized exclusiveness and the decadence of clubs, that used to be veritable brotherhoods, by unwise expansion. i like the general atmosphere, it seems cheerful and, if one may blend the terms, conservatively bohemian." "come upstairs before the music begins, so that we can get comfortably settled in the background, that i may tell you who some of these 'unknown-to-whirlpool-society' people are. you may be surprised," said evan to miss lavinia, who had by this time finished her coffee. the rooms were cheerful with artistic simplicity. the piano had been moved from the lounging room into the picture gallery opposite to where a fine stained glass window was exhibited, backed by electric lights. we stowed ourselves away in a deep seat, shaped something like an old-fashioned school form, backed and cushioned with leather, to watch the audience gather. every phase of dress was present, from the ball gown to the rainy weather skirt, and enough of each grade to keep one another in countenance. about half the men wore evening suits, but those who did not were completely at their ease. there was no regular ushering to seats, but every one was placed easily and naturally. evan, who had miss lavinia in charge, was alert, and rather, it seemed to me, on the defensive; but though martin asked questions, he was comfortably soothing, and seemed to take in much at a glance. that short man with the fine head, white hair and beard, aquiline nose, and intense eyes is not only a poet, but the first american critic of pure literature. he lives out of town, but comes to the city daily for a certain stimulus. the petite woman with the pretty colour who has crossed the room to speak to him is the best known writer of new england romance. that shy-looking fellow standing against the curtain at your right, with the brown mustache and broad forehead, is the new england sculptor whose forcible creations are known everywhere, yet he is almost shrinkingly modest, and he never, it seems, even in thought, has broken the injunction of "let another praise thee, not thine own lips." half a dozen promising painters are standing in the doorway talking to a young woman who, beginning with newspaper work, has stepped suddenly into a niche of fiction. the tall, loose-jointed man at the left of the group, the editor of a conservative monthly, has for his vis-à-vis the artist who has had so much to do with the redemption of american architecture and decoration from the mongrel period of the middle century. another night you may not see a single one of these faces, but another set, yet equally interesting. meanwhile martin cortright had discovered a man, a financier and also a book collector of prominence, who was reputed to have a complete set of some early records that he had long wished to consult; he had never found a suitable time for meeting him, as the man, owing to having been oftentime the prey of both unscrupulous dealers and parasitic friends, was esteemed difficult. infected by the freedom of his surroundings, martin plucked up courage and spoke to him, the result being an interchange of cards, book talk, and an invitation to visit the library. then the music began, and lasted not above an hour, with breathing and chatting intervals, followed by claret cup and lemonade. a pleasant evening's recreation, with no opportunity of accumulating the material for either mental or physical headache. the night air was very soft, but of that delusive quality that in february portends snow, and not the return of bluebirds, as the uninitiated might expect. miss lavinia was fascinated by the lights and motion of herald square, and at her suggestion, it being but a little past ten, we strolled homeward down broadway instead of taking a car. her delight at the crowd of promenaders, the picturesque florists' shops, and the general buzz of night life was almost pathetic. her after-dark experience having been to get to and from specified places as quickly as possible with lucy for escort, solicitous when in a street car lest they should pass their destination, and trembling even more when in a cab lest the driver should have committed the variable and expansive crime of "taking something." she bought a "ten o'clock edition" of the _telegram_, some of "match mary's" wares, that perennially middle-aged woman who haunts the theatre region, and suggested that we have ice-cream soda at a particularly glittering drug store, but this desire was switched into hot bouillon by evan, who retains the englishman's dislike of chilling his internals. new york is really a fine city by night, that is, in parts at least, and yet it is very strange how comparatively few of the rank and file of its inhabitants walk abroad to see the spectacle. by lamplight the scars and wounds of subways appear less vivid, and the perpetual skeleton of the skyscraper merges in its background. the occasional good bit of architecture steps out boldly from the surrounding shadows of daylight discouragement. city life does not seem to be such an exhausting struggle, and even the "misery wagons," as i always call ambulances to myself, look less dreary with the blinking light fore and aft, for you cannot go far in new york without feeling the pitying thrill of their gongs. after the brightness of broadway the side streets seemed cavernous. as we turned westward and crossed sixth avenue a dark figure, outlined full length against the blazing window of a corner liquor saloon, lined with mirrors, in some way fixed my attention. it was a woman's figure, slight, and a little crouching. the hat was gay and set on puffy hair, the jacket brave with lace, but the skirt was frayed where it lapped the pavement, and the boot that was pushed from beneath it, as if to steady a swaying frame, was thin and broken. i do not know why i looked back after i had passed, but as i did so, i saw the girl, for she was little more, pull a scrap of chamois from a little bag she carried and quickly rub rouge upon her hollow cheeks, using the saloon mirror for a toilet glass. but when i saw the face itself i stopped short, giving evan's arm such a tug that he also turned. the woman was jennie, the oakland baker's only daughter, who had no lack of country beaus, but was flattered by the attentions of one of the jenks-smith's butlers, whose irreproachable manners of the count-in-disguise variety made the native youths appear indeed uncouth. she grew discontented, thought it beneath her social position to help her mother in the shop, and went to town to work in a store, it was said until her wedding, which was to be that autumn. father worried over her and tried to advise, but to no purpose. this was more than two years ago. the butler left the jenks-smith's, and we heard that he was a married man, with a family who had come to look him up. jennie's mother said she had a fine place in a store, and showed us, from time to time, presents the girl had sent her, so thus to find the truth was a shock indeed. not but what all women who are grown must bear upon them the weight of the general knowledge of evil, but it is none the less awful to come face to face on a street corner with one who was the pretty village girl, whom you last saw standing behind the neat counter with a pitcher of honeysuckles at her elbow as she filled a bag with sugar cookies for your clamouring babies. * * * * * i suppose that i must have exclaimed aloud, for jennie started back and saw us, then dropped her bag and began to grope about for it as if she was in a dream. "can't we do something?" i whispered to evan, but he only gravely shook his head. "give her this for the boys' sake," i begged, fumbling in his change pocket and finding a bill there. "tell her it's home money from the doctor's daughter--and--to go home--or--buy--a--pair of shoes." at first i thought she was not going to take it; but having found her bag she straightened herself a moment, and without looking at evan gave me a glance, half defiant, half beseeching, grasped the money almost fiercely, and scuttled away in the darkness, and i found that i was crying. but evan understood,--he always does,--and i hope that if the boys read this little book fifteen or twenty years hence, that they will also. [illustration: february violets.] as we reached the door the first snowflakes fell. poor jennie! * * * * * the third day of our stay began in country quiet. in fact we did not wake up until eight; everything was snowbound, and even the occasional horse cars that pass the front of the house had ceased their primitive tinkling. the milkman did not come, neither did the long crispy french rolls, a new york breakfast institution for which the commuters confessedly have no substitute, and it was after nine before breakfast was served. evan, who had disappeared, returned at the right moment with his newspaper and two bulky tissue paper bundles all powdered with snow, one of which he gave to miss lavinia, the other to me. i knew their contents the moment i set eyes on them, and yet it was none the less a heart-warming surprise. down in a near-by market is a little florist's shop, so small that one might pass twenty times without noticing it; the man, a local authority, who has kept it for years, makes a specialty of the great long-stemmed single violets, whose fleeting fragrance no words may express. they call them californias now, but they are evidently the opulent kin of those sturdy, dark-eyed russian violets of my mother's garden, and as they mean more than any other flower to me, evan always brings them to me when i come to town. this morning he trudged out in the snow, hardly thinking this man would have any, but by mere chance the grower, suspecting snow, brought in his crop the night before, and in spite of the storm i had the first morning breath of these flowers of a day. miss lavinia sniffed and sighed, and then buried her aristocratic, but rather chilly, nose in the mass. "i feel like a young girl with her first bouquet," she said presently. "ah, how good it is to be given something with a meaning. most people think that to be able to buy what they wish, within reason, is perfect happiness, but it isn't. barbara, you and this man of yours quite unsettle me and shake my pet theories. you show sides of things in my own birthplace that i never dreamed of looking up, and you convince me, when i am on the wane, that married friendship is the only thing worth living for. it's too bad of you, but fortunately for me the notion passes off after you have gone away," and miss lavinia, after loving her violets a bit longer, put them in a chubby jug of richly chased old silver. after breakfast we tried to coax her to bundle up and come with us to washington square to see the crystal trees in all their beauty; but that was too unorthodox a feat. to plough through snow in rubber boots in the very heart of the city was entirely too radical a move. she knew people about the square, and i suppose did not wish to be seen by them, so she was obliged to content herself with sight of the snow draperies and ice jewels that decked the trees and shrubs of the doomed back yard. even though the storm called a halt in our plans for miss lavinia, evan and i had a little errand of our own, our annual pilgrimage to see the auction room where we first met that february afternoon. the room is not there now, to be sure, but we go to see it all the same, and have our little thrill and buy something near the place to take home to the boys, and we shall continue to come each year unless public improvement causes the thoroughfare itself to be hung up in the sky, which is quite possible. then evan went down town, and i returned to lunch with miss lavinia, for, if possible, we were to call on sylvia latham and ask her to dinner on the morrow, the last day of our stay. miss lavinia proposed to invite sylvia to spend the night also, that we might become acquainted upon a basis less formal than a mere dinner. shortly after three o'clock we started in a coupé with two stout horses driven by a man above suspicion of having "taken anything," at least at the start. it is a curious fact that eight or ten inches of damp snow can so nearly paralyze the transportation facilities of a city like new york, but such is the case. the elevated rails become slippery, the wheels will not grip, and the entire wheel traffic of the streets betakes itself to the tracks of the surface lines, where trolley, truck, and private carriage all move along solemnly in a strange procession, like a funeral i once saw outside of paris, where the hearse was followed by two finely draped carriages, then by the business wagon of the deceased, filled with employees, the draperies on this arranged so as not to disturb the sign,--he kept a pâtisserie,--while a donkey cart, belonging to the market garden that supplied the deceased with vegetables, brought up the rear. in the middle and lower parts of new york the streets and their life dominate the houses; on the east side of the park the houses dominate the streets, and the flunkies, whose duty it is either to let you in or preferably to keep you out of these houses, control the entire situation. i may in the course of time come to respect or even like some of these mariners of the whirlpool, but as a class their servants are wholly and unendurably objectionable, and the sum of all that is most aggravating. the house faced the park. a carpet was spread down the steps, but we could not conjecture if it was an ordinary custom in bad weather, or if some function was afoot. evidently the latter, as i had barely touched the bell when the door flew open. two liveried attendants were within, one turned the door knob and the other presented his tray for the cards, while in the distance a third, wearing the dress of a butler or majordomo, stood by closed portières. we had asked for mrs. and miss latham, and evidently the combination caused confusion. no. remained by the front door, no. , after a moment's hesitation, motioned us to seats near the fireplace in the great reception hall, a room by itself, wainscoted with carved oak, that also formed the banisters and the railing of a sort of balcony above, while the walls were hung with rich-hued tapestries, whose colours were revealed by quaint shield-shaped electroliers of gilded glass. man no. disappeared within the portières bearing our cards. in a moment he reappeared, drew them apart, and stood aside as his mistress swept out, the same cold blond woman i had seen in the market, but now most exquisitely clad in a pale gray gown of crêpe embroidered with silver fern fronds and held at the neck by a deep collar of splendid pearls, pearl rings alone upon her hands, in her hair a spray of silver mistletoe with pearls for berries. she made an exquisite picture as she advanced swiftly to meet us, a half smile on her lips and one pink-tipped hand extended. i love to look at beautiful women, yet the sight of her gave me a sort of undine shiver. "dear miss dorman, so glad to see you, and mrs. evan of oaklands also. i have seen, but never met you, i believe," she said, giving us her hand in turn. "i must ask you to the library, (perkins, miss sylvia," she said in an aside to no. , who immediately vanished upstairs,) "and then excuse myself regretfully, for this is my afternoon for 'bridge,' as monty bell and a friend or two of his are good enough to promise to come and give us hints. monty is so useful, you know, and so good-natured. i think you knew his mother, didn't you, miss lavinia? no, sylvia is not to play; she is not up enough for 'bridge.' i wish you could persuade her to take lessons and an interest in the game, for when lent begins she will be horribly bored, for there will be a game somewhere every day, and sometimes two and three, and she will be quite out of it, which is very ill-advised for a girl in her first winter, and especially when she starts as late as sylvia. i'm afraid that i shall have to take her south to wake her up, and that is not in my schedule this season, i've so much to oversee at my oaklands cottage. "it is a very cold afternoon for you to have come so far, dear miss lavinia; a cup of tea or something? no? ah, here comes sylvia, and i know you will forgive me for going," and mrs. latham glided away with a glance toward the stairs. she evidently was in a desperate hurry to return to her guests, and yet she spoke slowly, with that delightful southern deliberation that suits women with pretty mouths so well, and still as i felt her eyes upon me i knew that to move her in any way against her own will would be impossible, and that she could never love anything but herself, and never would. i did not look at miss lavinia in the brief moment before sylvia entered, for we were both too well bred to criticise a woman in her own house, even with our eyes, which had they met would have been inevitable. at first sylvia only saw miss lavinia, and gathered her into her arms spontaneously, as if she were the elder, as she was by far the bigger of the two. then seeing me, the cards not having been sent up, she hesitated a moment, colouring shyly, as a girl of sixteen might, and then straightway greeted me without embarrassment. as we laid aside our wraps and seated ourselves in a sort of cosey corner nook deep with pillows, and fur rugs nestling about the feet, i drew my first comfortable breath since entering, and as miss lavinia naturally took the lead in the conversation, giving her invitation for the next night, i had ample time to study sylvia. she was fine looking rather than handsome, a warm brunette with copper glints threading her brown hair, thick curved lashes, big brown eyes, a good straight nose, and a decidedly humorous, but not small mouth, with lips that curled back from even teeth, while her whole face was punctuated and made winningly feminine by a deep dimple in the chin and a couple of vagrant ones that played about her mouth corners when she spoke, as she always did, looking directly at one. her hands were long and well shaped, not small, but competent looking, a great contrast to her mother's, as well as to miss lavinia's, that could slip easily into a five-and-a-half glove. she wore a graceful afternoon gown of pale blue with lace butterflies on the blouse and skirt, held in at waist and neck by enamelled butterfly buckles. she moved gracefully, and had a strong individuality, a warmth of nature that contrasted keenly with the statuesque perfection of her mother, and i fell to wondering what her father was like, and if she resembled him. "not yet, not until late spring," i heard her say in answer to miss lavinia's question as to whether her father had returned from his japan tour. "he is detained by railway business in san francisco, and cannot go farther north to settle it until winter breaks. i've written him to ask leave to join him and perhaps stop awhile at los angeles and go up to see my brother on his wyoming ranch in may. i do so hope he will let me. i've tried to coax mamma to go too, she has had such a wearing life this winter in trying to make it pleasant for me and introduce me to her friends. i wish i could tell her exactly how much i should prefer to be more alone with her. i do not want her to think me ungrateful, but to go out with her to father and pay dear old carthy a visit would be simply splendid." then turning to me she said, i thought with a little quiver in her voice, "they tell me you live with your father, mrs. evan--even though you are married, and i have not seen mine for more than two years, only think of it!" whereat my heart went out to her, and i prayed mentally that her father might have a broad warm shoulder to pillow her head and a ready ear to hear her confidences, for the perfectly rounded neck and shell ear of the mother playing cards in the next room would never give harbour or heed, i knew. sylvia was as pleased as a child at the idea of coming down to spend the night, stipulating that if it was still cold she should be allowed to make taffy and put it on the shed to harden, saying, with a pout: "at school and college there was always somewhere that i could mess with sticky things and cook, but here it is impossible, though mamma says i shall have an outdoor tea-room at the oaklands all to myself, and give chafing-dish parties, for they are quite the thing. 'the thing' is my boogy man, i'm afraid. if what you wish to do, no matter how silly, agrees with it, it's all right, but if it doesn't, all the wisdom of solomon won't prevail against those two words." man no. at this juncture came in and presented a florist's box and envelope in a tray, saying, _sotto voce,_ as he did so, "shall i hopen it and arrange them, miss, or will you wear them?" for, as the result of lavish entertaining and many hothouses as well as friends, flowers showered upon the latham house at all hours, and both library and hall were almost too fragrant. sylvia glanced at the note, saying, "i will wear them," to the man, handed the card to miss lavinia, her face flushing with pleasure, while no. extracted a modest bunch of california violets from the paper, handed them to his young mistress, and retired with the box on his tray. the name on the card was horace bradford, the pencilled address university club, on the reverse were the words, "may i give myself the pleasure of calling to-morrow night? these february violets are in remembrance of a may ducking. am in town for two days only on college business." "the day that he rowed us on the avon and reached too far up the bank to pick you wild violets and the boat shot ahead and he fell into the water," laughed miss lavinia, as pleased as sylvia at the recollection. "but i am going to you to-morrow evening," said sylvia, ruefully at thought of missing a friend, but quite heart-free, as miss lavinia saw. "let me take the card, and i will ask him to dinner also," said the dear, comfortable, prim soul, who was still bubbling over with love of youth, "and barbara shall ask her adopted uncle cortright to keep the number even." time, it seems, had flown rapidly. she had barely slipped the card in her case when the door opened and no. approached solemnly and whispered, "mrs. latham requests, miss, as how you will come and pour tea, likewise bringing the ladies, if _still here_!" how those words _still here_ smote the silence. we immediately huddled on our wraps, anxious to be gone and spare sylvia possible embarrassment, in spite of her protestations. as no. led the way to the door a gentleman crossed the hall from the card-room and greeted sylvia with easy familiarity. he was about forty, a rather colourless blonde, with clean shaven face of the type so commonly seen now that it might belong equally either to footman or master. his eyes had a slantwise expression, but his dress was immaculate. strolling carelessly by the girl's side i heard him say, "i came to see if you needed coaxing; some of the ladies are green over their losses, so have a care for your eyes." then he laughed at the wide-eyed look of wonder she gave him as he begged a violet for his coat. but sylvia drew herself up, full an inch above him, and replied, decidedly, but with perfect good nature, "no, those violets are a message from shakespeare,--one does not give such away." "that is monty bell," said miss lavinia, tragically, as soon as the door closed. "is there anything the matter with him except that his colouring is like a summer squash?" i asked. "he's been divorced by his wife, and it was her mother that was my friend, not his, as mrs. latham hinted. i know the story; it makes me shiver to see him near sylvia." then miss lavinia drew into a shell, in which she remained until we reached home. meanwhile, as we drove in silence, i remembered that richard's rubber boots leaked, and i wondered if martha corkle would discover it, or if he was paddling about getting his feet wet and bringing on a sore throat. but when i got home evan said he had sent the boots to the bicycle tire mender's the morning i came away. it was the third night of my stay, and he would not have known what to make of it if i had not raised some sort of a ghost. * * * * * the sidewalks being clear, we dined at the laurent, giving miss lavinia a resurrection of french cooking, manners, women, ogling, ventilation, wine, and music. then we took her, on the way home, to see some horrible wax figures, listen to a good hungarian band, and nearly put her eyes out with a cinematograph show of the coronation and indian durbar. finishing up by brewing french chocolate in the pantry and stirring it with stick bread, and our guest, in her own house, went to bed fairly giggling in gallic gayety, declaring that she felt as if she had spent the evening on the paris boulevards, that she liked our new york, and felt ten years younger. vi enter a man if i weather my fourth day in town i am apt to grow a trifle waspish, even though i may not be goaded to the stinging point. this is especially the case if, as on this recent visit, i am obliged to do any shopping for myself. personally, i prefer the rapid transit shopping of ordering by mail, it avoids so many complications. having made up your mind what you need, or perhaps, to speak more truthfully, what you want, for one can hardly be quite content with mere necessities until one grows either so old or shapeless that everything is equally unbecoming, samples are forthcoming, from which an intelligent selection can be made without the demoralizing effect of glib salespeople upon one's judgment. i know my own shortcomings by heart, and i should never have deliberately walked into temptation yesterday morning if lavinia dorman had not said that she wished my advice. last year i went with the intention of buying substantial blue serge for an outing gown, and was led astray by some gayly flowered muslins. i have a weakness for gay colours, especially red. these when made up evan pronounced "extremely pretty--in the abstract"--which is his way of saying that a thing is either unsuitable or very unbecoming. when i went to father, hoping for consolation, he was even less charitable, remarking that he thought now long lines were more suitable and graceful for me than bunches and bowknots. true, the boys admired the most thickly flowered gown immensely for a few minutes, richard bringing me a posy to match for my hair, while ian walked about me in silence which he broke suddenly with the trenchant remark--"barbara, i think your dwess would be prettier if it was weeded some!" all of which is of course perfectly true. i have not been growing thinner all these six years, but this morning, in stooping over one of the cold frames to see how the plants within had weathered the storm, it came quite as a shock to me to feel that, like martin cortright, i am getting stout and in the way of myself when i bend, like an impediment in a door hinge. however, as miss lavinia desired guidance in buying some real country clothes, i felt it my duty to give it. she is already making elaborate preparations for her visit to me. it seems strange, that simplicity is apparently one of the most laborious things in the world to those unaccustomed to it, yet so it is. she is about to make her initial venture in shirtwaists, and she approaches them with as much caution as if she were experimenting with tights and trunks. the poor little seamstress who is officiating has, to my certain knowledge, tried one waist on five times, because, as miss lavinia does not "feel it," she thinks it cannot fit properly. never mind, she will get over all that, of course. the plan that she has formed of spending five or six months in the real country must appear somewhat in the light of a revolution to her, and the preparation of a special uniform and munitions for the campaign a necessary precaution. her present plan is to come to me for may, then, if the life suits her, she will either take a small house that one of our farmer neighbours often rents for the summer months, or else, together with her maid, lucy, board at one of the hill farms. i have told her plainly (for what is friendship worth if one may not be frank) that if after trial we agree with each other, i hope she will stay with us all the season; but as for her maid, i myself will supply her place, if need be, and effie do her mending, for i could not have lucy come. perhaps it may be very narrow and provincial, but to harbour other people's servants seems to me like inviting contagion and subjecting one's kitchen to all the evils of boarding house atmosphere. i used to think last summer, when i saw the arrival of various men and maids belonging to guests of the bluff colony, that i should feel much more at ease in the presence of royalty, and that i could probably entertain queen alexandra at dinner with less shock to her nerves and traditions than one of these ladies' maids or gentlemen's gentlemen. martha corkle expresses her opinion freely upon this subject, and i must confess to being a willing listener, for she does not gossip, she portrays, and often with a masterly touch. the woes of her countrywoman, the ponsonby's housekeeper, often stir her to the quick. the ponsonby household is perhaps one of the most "difficult" on the bluffs, because its members are of widely divergent ages. the three ponsonby girls range from six to twenty-two, with a college freshman son second from the beginning, while josephine, sister of the head of the family, though quite miss lavinia's age, is the gayest of the gay, and almost outdoes her good-naturedly giddy sister-in-law. "it's just hawful, mrs. evan," martha said one day, when, judging by the contents of the station 'bus and baggage wagon, almost the entire ponsonby house staff must have left at a swoop; "my eyes fairly bleeds for poor mrs. maggs" (the housekeeper), "that they do. 'twas bad enough in the old country, where we knew our places, even though some was ambitioned to get out of them; but here it's like blind man's buff, and enough to turn a body giddy. mrs. maggs hasn't a sittin' room of her own where she and the butler and the nurse can have their tea in peace or entertain guests, but she sets two tables in the servants' hall, and a pretty time she has of it. "the kitchen maid and the laundress's assistant wait on the first table; but one day when, the maid of one of miss ponsonby's friends comin' down over late, she was served _with_ instead o' _by_ them, she gave mrs. maggs the 'orriblest settin' down, as not knowin' her business in puttin' a lady's lady with servants' servants, the same which mrs. maggs does know perfectly (accidents bein' unpreventable), bein' child of lord peacock's steward and his head nurse, and swallowin' it all in with her mother's milk, so to speak, not borrowin' it second hand as some of the great folks on the bluffs themselves do from their servants, not feelin' sure of the kerrect thing, yet desirin' so to do. mrs. maggs, poor body, she has more mess with that servants' hall first table than with all the big dinners the master gives. "'mrs. corkle,' says she, bein' used to that name, besides corkle bein' kin to her husband, 'what i sets before my own household, as it were, they leaves or they eats, it's one to me; but company's got to be handled different, be it upstairs or down, for the name of the 'ouse, but when mr. jollie, the french valet that comes here frequent with the master's partner, wants dripped coffee and the fat scraped clean from his chop shank, else the flavour's spoiled for him, and bruce the mistress' brother's man wants boiled coffee, and thick fat left on his breakfast ham, what stands between my poor 'ead and a h'assleyum? that's what i wants to know. three cooks i've had this very season, it really bein' the duty of the first kitchen maid to cook for the servants' hall; but if a cook is suited to a kitchen maid, as is most important, she'll stand by her. no, martha corkle, wages is 'igh, no doubt,--fortunes to what they were when we were gells,--but not 'igh for the worry; and bein' in service ain't what it were.'" then i knew that martha, even as her bosom heaves over her friend's grievances, was also sighing with content at thought of timothy saunders and her own lot; and i recalled the lady of the bluffs' passing remark, and felt that i am only beginning to realize the deliciousness of "comfortable poverty." * * * * * miss lavinia and i spent some time browsing among the shops, finally bringing up at an old conservative dry goods concern in broadway, the most satisfactory place to shop in new york, because there is never a crowd, and the salesmen, many of them grown gray in the service, take an old world interest in their wares and in you. while i was trying to convince miss lavinia as to the need of the serviceable, she was equally determined to decoy me toward the frivolous; and i yielded, i may say fell, to the extent of buying a white crêpey sort of pattern gown that had an open work white lilac pattern embroidered on it. it certainly was very lovely, and it is nice to have a really good gown in reserve, even if a plainer one that will stand hugging, sticky fingers, and dogs' damp noses is more truly enjoyable. n.b.--i must get over apologizing to myself when i buy respectable clothes. it savours too much of aunt lot's old habit of saying, every time she bought a best gown, and i remonstrated with her for the colour (it was always black in those days; since she's married the reverend jabez she's taken to greens), "when i consider that a black dress would be suitable to be buried in, it seems less like a vain luxury." we were admiring the dainty muslins, but only in the "abstract," when i looked up, conscious that some one was coming directly toward us, and saw sylvia latham crossing the shop from the door, her rapid, swinging gait bringing her to us before short-sighted miss lavinia had a chance to raise her lorgnette. sylvia was genuinely glad to see us, and she expressed it both by look and speech, without the slightest symptom of gush, yet with the confiding manner of one who craves companionship. i had, in fact, noticed the same thing during our call the afternoon before. "well, and what are we buying to-day?" asked miss lavinia, clearing her voice by a little caressing sound halfway between a purr and a cluck, and patting the hand that lingered affectionately on hers. "i really--don't--know," answered sylvia, smiling at her own hesitation. "mamma says that if i do not get my clothes together before people begin to come back from the south, i shall be nowhere, so she took me with her to mme. couteaux's this morning. mamma goes there because she says it saves so much trouble. madame keeps a list of every article her customers have, and supplies everything, even down to under linen and hosiery, so she has made for mamma a plan of exactly what she would need for next season, and after having received her permission, will at once begin to carry it out. of course the clothes will be very beautiful and harmonious, and mamma has so much on her hands, now that father is away,--the new cottage at oaklands is being furnished, and me to initiate in the way i'm supposed to go,--that it certainly simplifies matters for her. "me? ah, i do not like the system at all, or madame couteaux either, and the feeling is mutual, i assure you. without waiting to be asked, even, she looked me over from head to foot and said that my lines are very bad, that i curve in and out at the wrong places, that i must begin at once by wearing higher heels to throw me forward! "at first i was indignant, and then the ludicrous climbed uppermost, and i laughed, whereat madame looked positively shocked, and even mamma seemed aghast and murmured something apologetic about my having been at boarding-school in the country, and at college, where i had ridden horseback without proper instruction, which had injured my figure. only imagine, aunt lavinia, those glorious gallops among the rockcliffe hills hurting one's body in any way! but then, i suppose body and figure are wholly different things; at any rate, madame couteaux gave a shrug, as if shedding all responsibility for my future from her fat shoulders, and so, while mamma is there, i am taking a run out in the cold world of raw material and observing for myself. "of course i shall make mistakes, but i have had everything done for me to such an extent, during the last four months, that i really must make a point of picking and choosing for once. i've had a mad desire since the last storm to stir up the pools in the gutters with my best shoes, as the happy little children do with their rubber boots. how i shall enjoy it when we go to oaklands, and there is really something to _do_ instead of merely being amused. "by the way, mrs. evan, won't you and miss lavinia join us at luncheon? we are to have it somewhere downtown, to-day,--the waldorf, i believe,--as mamma expects to spend most of the afternoon at the decorators, to see the designs for the oaklands hangings and furniture, and," glancing at the big clock, between the lifts, as miss lavinia made her last purchase, "it's high time for me to go and pick her up." having a feeling that possibly mamma might not be so cordial, in addition to being due at home for more shirtwaist fittings, miss lavinia declined, and reminding sylvia that dinner would be at the old-fashioned hour of half-past six, we drifted out the door together, sylvia going toward fifth avenue, while we turned the corner and sauntered down broadway, pausing at every attractive window. miss lavinia's short-sightedness caused her to bump into a man, who was intently gazing, from the height of six feet, at jewelled bugs, displayed in the window of a dealer in oriental wares. the man, thinking himself to blame, raised his hat in apology, glancing casually down as he did so, whereupon the hat remained off, and he and miss lavinia grasped hands with sudden enthusiasm, followed by a medley of questions and answers, so that before she remembered me, and turned to introduce the stranger, i knew that it was horace bradford himself. a strange, but positive, fact about new york is that one may at one time be in it but a few hours and run across half the people of one's acquaintance, gathered from all parts of the country, and at another, wander about for weeks without seeing a familiar face. i liked bradford from the moment i shook hands with him. there is so much in the mere touching of hands. his neither crushed as if to compel, nor flopped equivocally, but said, as it enclosed yours in its bigness, "i am here, command me." broadway, during shopping hours, is not an ideal place for the interchange of either ideas, or more, even, than the merest courtesies; but after thanking miss lavinia for the dinner invitation, to which he had just sent the answer, and inquiring for sylvia latham, as he walked beside us for a block or two, it was very evident that he had something on his mind that he wished to say, and did not know how to compass the matter. as he talked to miss lavinia in jerky monosyllables,--the only speech that the noise made possible,--i had a chance to look at him. he did not possess a single feature of classic proportions, and yet he was a handsome man, owing to the illumination of his face. brown, introspective eyes, with a merry way of shutting; heavy, dark hair and brows, and a few thoughtful lines here and there; mustache pulled down at the corners, as if by the unconscious weight of a nervously strong hand; and a firm jaw, but not squared to the point that suggests the dominance of the physical. he wore a dark gray inverness coat, evidently one of the fruits of his english tour, and a well-proportioned soft felt hat, set on firmly, the crown creased in the precise way necessary to justify the city use of the article by a man of thirty. he seemed to be in excellent, almost boyish spirits, and so natural and wholesome withal, that i am sure i should not feel at all embarrassed at finding myself alone with him on a desert island. this is one of my pet similes of approval. finally he blurted out: "miss lavinia, i do so wish your advice upon a strictly woman's matter; one, however, that is of great importance to me. i shall have to take the night express back, and this is the only time i have left. would you--could we go in somewhere, do you think, and have something while i explain?" miss lavinia looked dubious as to whether his invitation might mean drinks, man fashion, or luncheon. but as at that moment we reached the chief new york residence of well-born ice cream soda, for which i always hanker, in spite of snow and slush, much to evan's disgust, i relieved the situation by plunging in, saying that i was even more thirsty in winter than in summer. whereat miss lavinia shivered, but cheerfully resigned herself to hot chocolate. "the matter in point is," continued bradford, feeling boyishly of one of the blocks of ice that decorated the counter to find if it was real, and speaking directly to miss lavinia, "i've had a great happiness come into my life this last week; something that i did not expect to happen for years. my chief has retired, and i have been promoted. i will not take your time to go selfishly into details now. i can tell you to-night, if you care to hear. i cannot go home until the easter holidays, and so i want to send something to my mother by way of celebration. would you select it for me?" and the big fellow swept the shop with an indefinite sort of gaze, as if buying candy for the universe would but feebly express his feelings. "certainly i will," replied miss lavinia, warming at once;--"but what kind of something?" "i think,"--hesitating a trifle,--"a very good gown, and an ornament of some kind." "would she not prefer choosing the gown herself? people's tastes differ so much about clothing," ventured miss lavinia, willing, even anxious, to help the man, yet shrinking from the possibility of feminine criticism. "no, i think not; that is, it doesn't work well. beforetimes i've often written her to buy some little finery to wear for my sake, but my gift has generally been turned into flannels for poor children or to restock the chickenyard of some unfortunate neighbour whose fowls have all died of gapes. while if i send her the articles themselves, she will prize and wear them, even if the gown was a horse blanket and the ornament a plymouth rock rooster to wear on her head. you know how mothers are about buying things for themselves, don't you, mrs. evan?" he said, turning to me, that i need not consider myself excluded from the conversation. "i have no mother, but i have two little sons," i answered. "ah, then you will know as soon as they grow old enough to wish to buy things for you," and somehow the soda water flew up my nose, and i had to grope for my handkerchief. miss lavinia evidently did not like to ask mrs. bradford's age, so she evaded it by asking, "does your mother wear colours or black, mr. bradford?" "she has worn black ever since my father died; for the last ten years, in fact. i wish i could persuade her to adopt something that looks more cheerful, for she is the very essence of cheerfulness herself. do you think this would be a good time to give a sort of hint by choosing a coloured gown,--a handsome blue silk, for instance?" "i know precisely how you feel," said miss lavinia, laying her hand upon his sleeve sympathetically, "men never like mourning; but still i advise you not to try the experiment or force the change. a brocaded black silk gown, with a pretty lace fichu to soften it about the shoulders, and a simple pin to hold it together at the neck,--how would that suit you?" as she spoke she waved her dainty hands about so expressively in a way of her own that i could seem to see the folds of the material drape themselves. "that is it! you have exactly the idea that i could not formulate. how clever women are!" he exclaimed, and for a minute i really thought he was going to hug miss lavinia. "one other favour. will you buy these things for me? i always feel so out of place and cowardly in the women's shops where such things are sold. will $ be enough, think you?" he added a trifle anxiously, i thought, as he drew a small envelope from a compartment of his letter book, where it had evidently been stowed away for this special purpose. "yes, i can manage nicely with it," replied miss lavinia, cheerfully; "and now you must leave us at once, so that we can do this shopping, and not be too late for luncheon. remember, dinner to-night at : ." "one thing more," he said, as we turned to leave, "i shall not now have time to present my respects to miss latham's mother as i intended; do you think that she will hold me very rude? i remember that miss sylvia once said her mother was very particular in matters of etiquette,--about her going out unchaperoned and all that,--and should not wish her to feel slighted." miss lavinia assured him very dryly that he need not worry upon that score, that no notice would be taken of the omission. not saying, however, that in all probability he was entirely unconsidered, ranked as a tutor and little better than a governess by the elder woman, even if sylvia had spoken of him as her instructor. so, after holding open the heavy doors for us, he strode off down town, the bright smile still lingering about his eyes, while we retraced our steps to the shop we had visited early that morning, and then down again to a jeweller's. the result was a dress pattern of soft black silk, brocaded with a small leafy design, a graceful lace-edged, muslin fichu, and an onyx bar pin upon which three butterflies were outlined by tiny pearls. "isn't he a dear fellow?" asked miss lavinia, apparently of a big gray truck horse that blocked the way as we waited at the last crossing before reaching home. and i replied, "he certainly is," with rash but unshakable feminine conviction. vii sylvia latham sylvia came that afternoon well before dark, a trim footman following from the brougham with her suitcase and an enormous box of forced early spring flowers, hyacinths, narcissi, tulips, english primroses, lilies-of-the-valley, white lilacs, and some yellow wands of forsythia, "with mrs. latham's compliments to miss dorman." "what luxury!" exclaimed miss lavinia, turning out the flowers upon the table in the tea room where she kept her window garden, "and how pale and spindling my poor posies look in comparison. are these from the bluffs?" "oh no, from newport," replied sylvia. "there is to be no glass at the bluffs, only an outdoor garden, mamma says, that will not be too much trouble to keep up. mrs. jenks-smith was dining at the house last night, and told me what a lovely garden you have, mrs. evan, and i thought perhaps, if we do not go to california to meet father, but go to oaklands early in april, you might be good enough to come up and talk my garden over with me. the landscape architect has, i believe, made a plan for the beds and walks about the house, but i am to have an acre or two of ground on the opposite side of the highway quite to myself. "oh, please don't squeeze those tulips into the tight high vases, aunt lavinia," she said, going behind that lady and giving her a hug with one arm, while she rescued the tulips with the other hand; for miss lavinia, feeling hurried and embarrassed by the quantity of flowers, was jumbling them at random into very unsuitable receptacles. "may i arrange the dinner table," sylvia begged, "like a dutch garden, with a path all around, beds in the corners, and those dear little silver jugs and the candlesticks for a bower in the middle? "a month ago," she continued, as she surveyed the table at a glance and began to work with charming enthusiasm, "mamma was giving a very particular dinner. she had told the gardener to send on all the flowers that could possibly be cut, so that there were four great hampers full; but owing to some mistake darley, the florist, who always comes to decorate the rooms, did not appear. we telephoned, and the men flew about, but he could not be found, and mamma was fairly pale with anxiety, as mrs. center, who gives the swell dinner dances, was to dine with her for the first time, and it was important to make an impression, so that _i_ might be invited to one or possibly more of these affairs, and so receive a sort of social hall mark, without which, it seems, no young new york woman is complete. i didn't know the whole of the reason then, to be sure, or very possibly i should not have worked so hard. still, poor mamma is so in earnest about all these little intricacies, and thinks them so important to my happiness and fate, or something else she has in view, that i am trying not to undeceive her until the winter is over." sylvia spoke with careless gayety, which was to my mind somehow belied by the expression of her eyes. "i asked perkins to get out the dutch silver, toys and all, that mamma has been collecting ever since i can remember, and bring down a long narrow mirror in a plain silver frame that backs my mantel shelf. then i begged mother to go for her beauty sleep and let me wrestle with the flowers, also to be sure to wear her new van dyck gown to dinner. "this was not according to her plan, but she went perforce. i knew that she felt extremely dubious, and, trembling at my rashness, i set at work to make a dutch flower garden, with the mirror for a canal down the centre. perkins and his understudies, potts and parker, stood watching me with grim faces, exchanging glances that seemed to question my sanity when i told parker to go out to the corner where i had seen workmen that afternoon dump a load of little white pebbles, such as are used in repairing the paving, and bring me in a large basketful. but when the garden was finished, with the addition of the little delft windmills i brought home, and the family of dutch peasant dolls that we bought at the antwerp fair, perkins was absolutely moved to express his approval." "what effect did the garden have upon the dance invitations?" asked miss lavinia, highly amused, and also more eager to hear of the doings of society than she would care to confess. "excellent! mrs. center asked mother who her decorator was, and said she should certainly employ him; which, it seems, was a compliment so rare that it was equivalent to the falling of the whole social sky at my feet, mr. bell said, who let the secret out. i was invited to the last two of the series,--for they come to a conspicuous stop and turn into theatre parties when lent begins,--and i really enjoyed myself, the only drawback being that so few of the really tall and steady men care for dancing. most of my partners were very short, and loitered so, that i felt top-heavy, and it reminded me of play-days, when i used to practise waltzing with the library fire tongs. i dislike long elaborate dinners, though mamma delights in them, and says one may observe so much that is useful, but i do like to dance with a partner who moves, and not simply progresses in languid ripples, for dancing is one of the few indoor things that one is allowed to do for oneself. "now, aunt lavinia, you see the garden is all growing and blowing, and there are only enough tulips left for the rookwood jars in the library," sylvia said, stepping back to look at the table, "and a few for us to wear. lilies-of-the-valley for you, pink tulips for you, mrs. evan,--they will soon close, and look like pointed rosebuds,--yellow daffies to match my gown, and you must choose for the two men i do not know. i'll take a tuft of these primroses for mr. bradford, and play they grew wild. we always joked him about these flowers at college until 'the primrose' came to be his nickname among ourselves. why? "one day when he was lecturing to us on wordsworth, and reading examples of different styles and metres, he finished a rather sentimental phrase with "'a primrose by a river's brim a yellow primrose was to him and it was nothing more.' "suddenly, the disparity between the bigness of the reader and the slimness of the verse overcame me, and catching his eye, i laughed aloud. of course, the entire class followed in a chorus, which he, catching the point, joined heartily. it sounds silly now, but it seemed very funny at the time; and it is such little points that make events at school, and even at college." "mr. bradford told me some news this morning," said miss lavinia, walking admiringly about the table as she spoke. "he is professor bradford, of the university, not merely the women's college now, or rather will be at the beginning of the next term." "that is pleasant news. i wonder how old professor jameson happened to step out, and why none of the rockcliffe girls have written me about it." "he did not tell me any details; said that they would keep until to-night. we met him in the street this morning, immediately after we left you," and miss lavinia gave a brief account of our shopping. "that sounds quite like him. all his air castles seemed to be built about his mother and the old farm at pine ridge. he has often told me how easy it would be to get back the house to the colonial style, with wide fireplaces, that it was originally, and he always had longings to be in a position to coax his mother to come to northbridge for the winter, and keep a little apartment for him. perhaps he will be able to do both now." sylvia spoke with keen but quite impersonal interest, and looking at her i began to wonder if here might not, after all, be the comrade type of woman in whose existence i never before believed,--feminine, sympathetic, buoyant, yet capable of absolutely rational and unemotional friendship with a man within ten years of her own age. but after all it is common enough to find the first half of such a friendship, it is the unit that is difficult; and i had then had no opportunity of seeing the two together. we went upstairs together, and lingered by the fire in miss lavinia's sitting room before going to make ready for dinner. the thaw of the morning was again locked by ice, and it was quite a nippy night for the season. i, revelled mentally in the fact that my dinner waist was crimson in colour, and abbreviated only in the way of elbow sleeves, and the pretty low corn-coloured crêpe bodice that i saw lucy unpacking from sylvia's suit case quite made me shiver. the only light in miss lavinia's den, other than the fire, was a low lamp, with a soft-hued amber shade, so that the room seemed to draw close about one like protecting arms, country fashion, instead of seeking to turn one out, which is the feeling that so many of the stately apartments in the great city houses give me. when i am indoors i want space to move and breathe in, of course, but i like to feel intrenched; and only when i open the door and step outside, do i wish to give myself up to space, for nature is the only one who really knows how to handle vastness without overdoing it. as we sat there in silence i watched the play of firelight on sylvia's face, and the same thought seemed to cross it as she closed her eyes and nestled back in miss lavinia's funny little fat sewing chair, that was like a squab done in upholstery. then, as the clock struck six, she started, rubbed her eyes, and crossed the hall to her room half in a dream. "she is as like her grandmother latham when i first saw her, as a girl of twenty-one can be like a woman of fifty," said miss lavinia, from the lounge close at my elbow. "not in colouring or feature, but in poise and gesture. the lathams were of massachusetts stock, and have, i imagine, a good deal of the plymouth rock mixture in their back-bones. her father has the reputation, in fact, of being all rock, if not quite of the plymouth variety. well, i think she will need it, poor child; that is, if any of the rumours that are beginning to float in the air settle to the ground." "meaning what?" i asked, half unconsciously, and paying little heed, for i then realized that the daily letter from father had not arrived; and lucy at that moment came in, lit the lamps, and began to rattle the hair-brushes in miss lavinia's bedroom, which i took as a signal for me to leave. the door-bell rang. it was evan; but before i met him halfway on the stairs, he called up: "i telephoned home an hour ago, and they are all well. the storm held over last night there. father says it was the most showy snow they have had for years, and he was delayed in getting his letter to the post." "is that all?" i asked, as i got down far enough to rest my hands on his shoulders. "yes; the wires buzzed badly and did not encourage gossip. ah!" (this with an effort to appear as if it was an afterthought), "i told him i thought that you would not wait for me tomorrow, but probably go home on the : . not that i really committed you to it if you have other plans!" * * * * * martin cortright appeared some five minutes before horace bradford. as it chanced, when the latter came in the door sylvia was on the stairs, so that her greeting and hearty handshake were given looking down at him, and she waited in the hall, in a perfectly unembarrassed way, as a matter of course, while he freed himself from his heavy coat. his glance at the tall girl, who came down from the darkness above, in her shimmering gown, with golden daffies in her hair and on her breast, like a beam of wholesome sunshine, was full of honest, personal admiration. if it had been otherwise i should have been disappointed in the man's completeness. then, looking at them from out of the library shadows, i wondered what he would have thought if his entry had been at the latham home instead of at miss lavinia's, how he would have passed the ordeal of perkins, potts, and parker, and if his spontaneity would have been marred by the formality. perhaps he would have been oblivious. some men have the happy gift of not being annoyed by things that are thorns in the flesh to otherwise quite independent women. father, however, is always amused by flunkies, and treats them as an expected part of the show; even as the jovial autocrat did when, at a grand london house, "it took full six men in red satin knee-breeches" to admit him and his companion. bradford did not wear an evening suit; neither did he deem apology necessary. if he thought of the matter at all, which i doubt, he evidently considered that he was among friends, who would make whatever excuses were necessary from the circumstances of his hurried trip. then we went in to the dining-room, miss lavinia leading with martin cortright, as the most recent acquaintance, and therefore formal guest, the rest of us following in a group. miss lavinia, of course, took the head of the table, evan opposite, and the two men, cortright on her right and bradford on her left, making sylvia and me vis-à-vis. the men appropriated their buttonhole flowers naturally. martin smiled at my choice for him, which was a small, but chubby, red and yellow, uncompromising dutch tulip, far too stout to be able to follow its family habit of night closing, except to contract itself slightly. evan caressed his lilies-of-the-valley lightly with his finger-tips as he fastened them in place, but bradford broke into a boyish laugh, and then blushed to the eyes, when he saw the tiny bunch of primroses, saying: "you have a long memory, miss sylvia, yet mine is longer. may i have a sprig of that, too?" and he reached over a big-boned hand to where the greenhouse-bred wands of yellow forsythia were laid in a formal pattern bordering the paths. "that is the first flower that i remember. a great bush of it used to grow in a protected spot almost against the kitchen window at home; and when i see a bit of it in a strange place, for a minute i collapse into the little chap in outrageous gathered trousers, who used to reach out the window for the top twigs, that blossomed earliest, so as to be the first to carry 'yellow bells' to school for a teacher that i used to think was venus and minerva rolled in one. i saw her in boston the other day, and the venus hallucination is shattered, but the yellow bells look just the same, proving--" "that every prospect pleases and man (or woman) alone is vile," interpolated evan. grape fruit, with a dash of sherry, or the more wholesome sloe-gin, is miss lavinia's compromise with the before-dinner cocktail of society, that is really very awakening to both brain and digestion; and before the quaint silver soup tureen had disappeared, even martin cortright had not only come wholly out of his shell, but might have been said to have fairly perched on top of it, before starting on a reminiscent career with his hostess, beginning at one of the monthly meetings of the historical society; for though martin's past belonged more to the "second avenue" faction of the old east side, and miss lavinia to the west, among the environs of what had once been greenwich and chelsea villages, they had trodden the same paths, though not at the same time. while sylvia and the "professor," as she at once began to call him, picked up the web of the college loom that takes in threads of silk, wool, and cotton, and mixing or separating them at random, turns out garments of complete fashion and pattern, or misfits full of false starts or dropped stitches that not only hamper the wearers, but sometimes their families, for life. all that evan and i had to do was to maintain a sympathetic silence, kept by occasional ejaculations and murmurs from growing so profound as to cause a draught at our corner of the table. "yes, we used to go there regularly," i heard miss lavinia say; "when we were girls eleanor (barbara's mother) and i attended the same school--miss black's,--eleanor being a boarding and i a day pupil and a clergyman's daughter also, which, in those days, was considered a sort of patent of respectability. miss black used to allow her to spend the shorter holidays with me and go to those historical lectures as a matter of course. we never publicly mentioned the fact that eleanor also liked to come to my house to get thoroughly warmed and take a bath, as one of miss black's principles of education was that feminine propriety and cold rooms were synonymous, and the long room with a glass roof, sacred to bathing, was known as the 'refrigerator'; but those atrocities that were committed in the name of education have fortunately been stopped by education itself. i don't think that either of us paid much attention to the lectures; the main thing was to get out and go somewhere; yet i don't think any other later good times were as breathlessly fascinating. "mother seldom went, the hermetically sealed, air-proof architecture of the place not agreeing with her; so father, eleanor, and i used to walk over, crossing the head of washington square, until, as we passed st. mark's church and reached the steps of the building, we often headed a procession as sedate and serious as if going to sunday meeting, for there were fewer places to go in those days. once within, we usually crept well up front, for my father was one of the executive committee who sat in the row of chairs immediately facing the platform, and to be near him added several inches to my stature and importance, at least in my own estimation. then, too, there was always the awesome and fascinating possibility that one of these honourable personages might fall audibly asleep, or slip from his chair in a moment of relaxation. such events had been known to occur. in fact, my father's habit of settling down until his neck rested upon the low chair back, made the slipping accident a perpetual possibility in his case. "then, when the meeting was called to order, and the minutes read with many h-hems and clearings of the throat, and the various motions put to vote with the mumbled 'all-in-favour-of-the-motion-will-please-signify- by-saying-ay! contrary-minded-no-the-motion-is-accepted!' that some one would only say 'no' was our perpetual wish, and we even once meditated doing it ourselves, but could not decide which should take the risk. "another one of our amusements was to give odd names to the dignitaries who presided. one with lurching gait, erectile whiskers, and blinking eyes we called 'the owl'; while another, a handsome old man of the 'signer' type, pink-cheeked, deep eyed, with a fine aquiline nose, we named 'the eagle.'" "oh, i know whom you mean, exactly!" cried martin, throwing back his head and laughing as heartily as bradford might; "and 'the owl' was supposed to have intentions of perpetuating his name by leaving the society money enough for a new building, but he didn't. but then, he doubtless inherited his thrift from the worthy ancestors of the ilk of those men who utilized trousers for a land measure. do you also remember the discussions that followed the reading of paper or lecture? sometimes quite heated ones too, if the remarks had ventured to even graze the historical bunions that afflicted the feet of many old families." "no, i think we were too anxious to have the meeting declared adjourned to heed such things. how we stretched ourselves; the physical oppression that had been settling for an hour or two lifting suddenly as we got on our feet and felt that we might speak in our natural voices. "then father would say, 'you may go upstairs and examine the curiosities before joining us in the basement,' and we would go up timidly and inspect the egyptian mummy. i wonder how he felt last year when there was a reception in the hall and a band broke the long stillness with 'the gay tomtit.' was ever such chocolate or such sandwiches served in equally sepulchral surroundings as in the long room below stairs. i remember wondering if the early christians ever lunched in the catacombs, and how they felt; and i should not have been surprised if lazarus himself had appeared in one of the archways trailing his graveclothes after him, so strong was the spell of the mummy upon us. "it seems really very odd that you were one of those polite young men who used sometimes to pass the plates of sandwiches to us where we stayed hidden in a corner so that the parental eye need not see how many we consumed." thus did martin cortright and miss lavinia meet on common ground and drift into easy friendship which it would have taken years of conventional intercourse to accomplish, while opposite, the talk between sylvia and bradford dwelt upon the new professorship and sylvia's roommate of two years, who, instead of being able to remain and finish the course which was to fit her for gaining nominal independence through teaching, had been obliged to go home and take charge, owing to her mother's illness. "yes, professor jameson's decision to give all his time to outside literary work was very sudden," i heard bradford say. "i thought that it might happen two or three years hence; but to find myself now not only in possession of a salary of four thousand dollars a year (hardly a fortune in new york, i suppose), but also freed this season from being tied at northbridge to teach in the summer school, and able to be at home in peace and quiet and get together my little book of the 'country of the english poets,' seems to me almost unbelievable." "i have been wondering how the book was coming on, for you never wrote of it," answered sylvia. "i have been trying all winter, without success, to arrange my photographs in scrap-books with merely names and dates. but though, as i look back over the four months, everything has been done for me, even to the buttoning of my gloves, while i've seemingly done nothing for any one, i've barely had a moment that i could call my own." "i do not think that it is strange, after having been away practically for six years, that family life and your friends should absorb you. doubtless you will have time now that lent has come," said bradford, smiling. "of course we country congregationalists do not treat the season as you anglican catholics do, and i've often thought it rather a pity. it must be good to have a stated time and season for stopping and sitting down to look at oneself. i picked up one of your new york church papers in the library the other day, and was fairly surprised at the number of services and the scope of the movement and the work of the church in general." sylvia looked at him for a moment with an odd expression in her eyes, as if questioning the sincerity of his remarks, and then answered, i thought a little sadly: "i'm afraid it is very much like other things we read of in the papers, half truth, half fiction; the churches and the services are there, and the good earnest people, too--but as for our stopping! ah, mr. bradford, i can hardly expect to make you understand how it is, for i cannot myself. it was all so different before i went to boarding school, and we lived down in the house in waverley place where i was born. the people of mamma's world do not stop; we simply whirl to a slightly different tune. it's like waltzing one way around a ballroom until you are quite dizzy, and then reversing,--there is no sitting down to rest, that is, unless it is to play cards." "yet whist is a restful game in itself," said bradford, cheerfully; "an evening of whist, with even fairly intelligent partners, i've always found a great smoother-out of nerves and wrinkles." "they do not play it that way here," answered sylvia, laughing, in spite of herself, at his quiet assumption. "it's 'bridge' for money or expensive prizes; and compared to the excitement it causes, the tarantella is a sitting-down dance. i'm too stupid with cards to take the risk of playing; even mamma does not advise it yet, though she wishes to have me coached. so i shall have some time to myself after all, for my defect puts me out of three lenten card clubs to which mamma belongs, two of which meet at our house. that leaves only two sewing classes, three lenten theatre clubs (one for lunch and matinée and two for dinner and the evening), and mr. bell's cake-walk club, that practises with a teacher at our house on monday evenings. the club is to have a semi-public performance at the waldorf for charity, in easter week, and as the tickets are to be ten dollars each, they expect to make a great deal of money. so you see there is very little time allowed us to sit down and look at ourselves." "i cannot excuse cake-walking off the stage, among civilized people," interpolated miss lavinia, catching the word but not the connection, and realizing that, as hostess, she had inconsiderately lost the thread of the conversation. "it appeals to me as the expression of physical exuberance of a lower race, and for people of our grade of intelligence to imitate it is certainly lowering! the more successfully it is carried out the worse it is!" miss lavinia spoke so fiercely that everybody laughed but sylvia, who coloured painfully, and horace bradford deftly changed the subject in the lull that followed. * * * * * the men did not care to be left alone with their cigars and coffee, so we lingered in the dining-room. suddenly a shrieking whistle sounded in the street, and the rapid clatter of hoofs made us listen, while evan rushed to the door, seizing his hat on the way. "only the fire engines," said miss lavinia; "you would soon be used to them if you lived here; the engine house is almost around the corner." "don't you ever go after them?" i asked, without thinking, because to evan and me going to fires is one of the standard attractions of our new york. "barbara, child, don't be absurd. what should i do traipsing after an engine?" "yet a good fire is a very exciting spectacle. i once had the habit of going," said martin cortright, emerging from a cloud of cigar smoke. "i remember when barnum's museum was burned my father and i ran to the fire together and stayed out, practically, all night." more whistling and a fresh galloping of hoofs indicated that there was a second call, and the engines from up town were answering. i began to tap my feet restlessly, and miss lavinia noticed it. "don't hesitate to go if you wish to," she said. at the same moment evan dashed back, calling: "it's a fire on the river front, a lumber yard; plenty of work ahead, with little danger and a wonderful spectacle. why can we not all go to see it, for it's only half a dozen blocks away? bundle up, though, it's bitterly cold." horace bradford sprang to his feet and sylvia was halfway upstairs and fairly out of her evening gown when miss lavinia made up her mind to go also, evan's words having the infection of a stampede. "don't forget the apples," i called to evan as i followed my hostess. "the shops and stands are closed, i'm afraid," he called back from the stoop where he was waiting; "perhaps miss lavinia has some in the house." "apples, yes, plenty; but for mercy's sake what for? you surely aren't thinking of pelting the fire out with them!" she gasped, hurrying downstairs and struggling to disentangle her eyeglasses from her bonnet strings; a complication that was always happening at crucial moments, such as picking out change in an elevated railway station, and thereby blocking the crowd. "no, apples to feed the fire horses; barbara always does," evan answered, dashing down the basement stairs to the kitchen, and returning quickly with a medley of apples and soup vegetables in a dish-towel bundle, leaving the solemn cook speechlessly astonished. then we started off, evan leading the way, and the procession straggling after in indian file; for the back streets were not well shovelled, and to go two abreast meant that one foot of each was on a side hill. evan fairly dragged me along. sylvia and bradford, being fleet of foot, had no difficulty in following, but martin and miss lavinia had rather a bumpy time of it. still, as pretty much all the uncrippled inhabitants of the district were going the same way, our flight was not conspicuous. it was, as evan had promised, a glorious fire! long before we reached the hudson the sky rayed and flamed with all the smokeless change of the northern lights. once there, evan piloted us through the densely packed crowd to the side string-piece of a pier, miss lavinia giving little shrieks the while, and begging not to be pushed into the water. from this point the great stacks of lumber that made the giant bonfire could be seen at the two points, from land and water side, where the fire-boats were shooting streams from their well-aimed nozzles. as usual, after running the steam-pumping engines as close as desirable to the flames, the horses were detached, blanketed, and tied up safe from harm, and we found a group of three great intelligent iron-gray beauties close behind us, who accepted the contents of the dish-towel with almost human appreciation, while a queer, wise, brown dog, an engine mascot, who was perched on the back of the middle horse, shared the petting with a politely matter-of-fact air. "it is wonderful! i only wish i could see a little better," murmured miss lavinia, who was short, and buried in the crowd. "why not stand on this barrel?" suggested bradford, holding out his hand. "it's full of garbage and ashes," she objected. "never mind that, they are frozen hard," replied bradford, poking the mass practically. three pairs of hands tugged and boosted, and lo! miss lavinia was safely perched; and as there were more barrels sylvia and i quickly followed suit, and we soon all became spellbound at the dramatic contrasts, for every now and again a fresh pile of georgia pine would be devoured by the flames, the sudden flare coming like a noiseless explosion, making the air fragrantly resinous, while at the same time the outer boundaries of the doomed lumber yard were being draped with a fantastic ice fabric from the water that froze as it fell. as to the firemen! don't talk to me of the bygone bravery of the crusaders and the lords of feudal times, who spent their lives in the sport of encamping outside of fortresses, at whose walls they occasionally butted with rams, lances, and strong language, leaving their wives and children in badly drained and draughty castles. if any one wishes to see brave men and true, simply come to a fire with evan and me in our new york. we might have stood there on our garbage pedestals half the night if horace bradford had not remembered that he must catch the midnight express, glanced at his watch, found that it was already nearly half-past ten, and realized that he had left his grip at miss lavinia's. consequently we dismounted and pushed our way home. as we were half groping our way up ill-lighted west tenth street martin cortright paused suddenly and, after looking about, remarked: "this is certainly a most interesting locality. that building opposite, which has long been a brewery, was once, in part at least, the first city or state's prison. how often criminals must have traversed this very route we are following, on their way to washington square to be hanged. for you know that place, of later years esteemed so select, was once not only the site of potter's field, but of the city gallows as well!" no one, however, joined more heartily than he in the merriment that his inapropos reminiscence caused, and we reached home in a good humour that effectually kept off the cold. "did you succeed in buying the gown?" horace bradford asked miss lavinia, as he stood in the hall making his farewells. "oh, yes, i had almost forgotten. here is the package only waiting for your approval to be tied," and she led the way to the library. bradford touched the articles with his big fingers, as lovingly as if he were smoothing his mother's hair, or her hand. "they are exactly right," he said heartily, turning and grasping miss lavinia's hand, as he looked straight into her eyes with an expression of mingled gratitude and satisfaction. "she will thank you herself, when we all meet next summer," and with a happy look at sylvia, who had come to the library to see the gifts, and was leaning on the table, he grasped bag and parcel, shook hands all round, and hurried away. "what do you think?" i asked evan, as we closed our bedroom door. "of what?" he answered, with the occasional obtuseness that will overtake the best of men. "of sylvia and bradford, of course. are they in love, do you think?" "i rather think that _he_ is," evan answered, slowly, as if bringing his mind from afar, "but that he doesn't know it, and i hope he may stay in ignorance, for it will do him no good, for i am sure that she is not, at least with bradford. she is drifting about in the whirlpool now. she has not 'found herself' in any way, as yet. she seems a charming girl, but i warn you, barbara, don't think you scent romance, and try to put a finger in this pie! your knowledge of complex human nature isn't nearly as big as your heart, and the latham set are wholly beyond your ken and comprehension." then evan, declining to argue the matter, went promptly to sleep. not so sylvia. when miss lavinia went to her room to see if the girl was comfortable and have a little go-to-bed chat by the fire, she found her stretched upon the bed; her head hidden between the pillows, in a vain effort to stifle her passionate sobbing. "what is it, my child?" she asked, truly distressed. "are you tired, or have you taken cold, or what?" "no, nothing like that," she whispered, keeping her face hidden and jerking out disjointed sentences, "but i can't do anything for anybody. no one really depends on me for anything. helen baker must leave college, because they need her _at home_,--just think, _need her_! isn't that happiness? and mr. bradford is so joyful over his new salary, thinks it is a fortune, and with being able to buy those things for his mother,--father has sent me more money during the four months i've been back, so i may feel independent, he says, than the professor will earn in a year. independent? deserted is a better word! i hardly know my own parents, i find, and they expect nothing from me, even my companionship. "before i went away to school, if mamma was ill, i used to carry up her breakfast, and brush her hair; now she treats me almost like a stranger,--dislikes my going to her room at odd times. i hardly ever see her, she is always so busy, and if i beg to be with her, as i did once, she says i do not understand her duty to society. "people should not have children and then send them away to school until they feel like strangers, and their homes drift so far away that they do not know them when they come back,--and there's poor carthy out west all alone, after the plans we made to be together. it is all so different from what i expected. why does not father come home, or mother seem to mind that he stays away? what is the matter, aunt lavinia? is mamma hiding something, or is the fault all mine?" miss lavinia closed the door, and soothed the excited girl, talking to her for an hour, and in fact slept on the lounge, and did not return to her own room until morning. she was surprised at the storm in a clear sky, but not at the cause. miss lavinia was keenly observant, and from two years' daily intercourse, she knew sylvia's nature thoroughly. for some reasons, she wished with all her heart that sylvia was in love with horace bradford, and at the same time feared for it; but before the poor girl fell asleep, she was convinced that such was not the case, and that the trouble that was already rising well up from her horizon was something far more complicated. viii the sweating of the corn _april_ . every one who has led, even in a partial degree, the life outdoors, must recognize his kinship with the soil. it was the first recorded fact of race history embodied in the old testament allegory of the creation, and it would seem from the beginning that nations have been strong or weak, as they acknowledged or sought to suppress it. i read a deeper meaning in my garden book as the boys' human calendar runs parallel with it, and i can see month by month and day by day that it is truly the touch of nature that makes kindred of us all--the throb of the human heart and not the touch of learning or the arts. everything grows restless as spring comes on--animate, and what is called inanimate, nature. march is the trying month of indecision, the tug-of-war between winter and spring, pulling us first one way and then the other, the victory often being, until the final moment, on the side of winter. then comes a languid period of inaction, and a swift recovery. when the world finally throws off frost bondage, sun and the earth call, while humanity, indoors and out, in city tenement as well as in farmhouse, hears the voice, even though its words are meaningless, and grows restless. lavinia dorman writes that she is feeling tired and low-spirited, the doctor has advised a tonic, and she misses the change of planting her back-yard garden. down in the streets the tenement children are swarming in the sunny spots, and dancing to the hand-organs. i saw them early last week when i was in town for a few hours. in one of the downtown parks the youngsters were fairly rolling in the dirt, and rubbing their cheeks on the scanty grass as they furtively scooped up handfuls of cement-like soil to make mud pies, in spite of the big policeman, who, i like to think, was sympathetically blind. the same impulse stirs my boys, even though they have all outdoors around them. they have suddenly left their house toys and outdoor games alike to fairly burrow in the soil. the heap of beach sand and pebbles that was carted from the shore and left under an old shed for their amusement, has lost its charm. they go across the road and claw the fresh earth from an exposed bank, using fingers instead of their little rakes and spades, and decorate the moist brown "pies" they make with dandelion ornaments. a few days ago the vanderveer boy came down to play with them, accompanied by an english head nurse of tyrannical mien, and an assortment of coats and wraps. the poor little chap had been ailing half the winter, it seems, with indigestion and various aches, until the doctor told his mother that she must take him to the country and try a change, as he feared the trouble was chronic appendicitis; so the entire establishment has arrived to stay until the newport season, and the boy's every movement is watched, weighed, and discussed. the nurse, having tucked him up in a big chair in the sun on the porch, with the boys for company, and in charge of father, who was looking at him with a pitying and critical medical eye, said she would leave him for half an hour while she went up the lane to see martha corkle. a few moments after, as i glanced across the road, i saw my boys burrowing away at their dirt bank, and their guest with them. i flew downstairs to call him in, fearing for the consequences, but father, who was watching the proceedings from the porch, laid a detaining hand upon me, saying: "his mother has consulted me about the child, and really sent him down here that i may look him over, and i am doing it, in my own fashion. i've no idea the trouble is appendicitis, though it might be driven that way. i read it as a plain case of suppressed boyhood. "he doesn't know how to play, or run naturally without falling; he's afraid to sit down in the dirt--no wonder with those starched linen clothes; and he keeps looking about for the nurse, first over one shoulder and then over the other, like a hunted thing. evidently they have weighed his food, measured his exercise, and bought his amusements; his only free will and vent is to get in a temper. they give him no chance to sweat off his irritation, only to fume; while that shaking, snorting teakettle of an automobile they bowl him about in, puts the final touch to his nervousness." then i sat down by father and watched the three boys together, while richard was preventing his guest from pounding a toad with a stone because it preferred to hop away instead of being made into a dirt pie, and i saw the truth of what he said. the seven-year-old child who went to riding school, dancing school, and a military drill, did not know how to express his emotions in play, and frozen snowballs and other cruelty was his distorted idea of amusement. poor rich boy, sad little only son, he was not allowed the freedom to respond to the voice of nature even as the tenement children that dance in the streets to the hand-organs or stir the mud in the gutter with their bare toes. it is not the tenement children of new york who are to be pitied; it is those that are being fitted to keep the places, in the unstable and frail crafts of the whirlpool, that their parents are either striving to seize or struggling to reserve for them. at the end of half an hour the boys came back to the porch, all three delightfully and completely dirty, and clamouring that they were hungry. the english tyrant not appearing, i took them into the house and, after a washing of hands and faces, gave the boys the usual eleven o'clock lunch of milk and simple cookies to take out in the sun to eat. as they were thus engaged the tyrant appeared on the horizon, horror written in every feature, and a volley of correction evidently taking shape on her lips, while an ugly look of cowed defiance spread itself over the child's face as he caught sight of her. there was no scene, however. father said in the most offhand way, as if being obeyed was a matter of course, "go back and tell your mistress that i am carrying out her request, and that after luncheon i will send the boy safely home, with a written message." "but his medicines, his hour's rest alone in the dark, his special food,--the medical man in new york said--" protested the woman, completely taken aback. "you heard my message?" said father, cheerfully, and that was all. "what are you going to advise?" i asked, as in the middle of the afternoon father came from his office, where he had given the lad a thorough inspection. "simply to turn him loose in light woollen clothes, give him companions of his age, and let him alone." "can't you word it differently?" i asked. "why, is not that fairly direct?" he replied, looking surprised; "and surely the direct method is almost always the best." "i think this is the one case where it is not, dear old daddy. in fact, if you are destined, as i see that you are, to pick up and tie the threads of ravelled health in the bluff colony, you will have to become more complicated, at least in speech, accustomed as they are to a series of specialists, and having importance attached to the very key in which a sneeze is pitched. "those few words would savour to the whirlpoolers of lack of proper respect and consideration. you must give a name to both ailment and cure if you expect to be obeyed. call the case a 'serious one of physical suppression,' and the remedy the 'fresh earth cure,' to be taken only in light woollen clothes, tell them to report progress to you every other day, and you gain the boy his liberty." father laughed heartily, and his nose twitched in a curious way it has when he is secretly amused and convinced against his will; but i think he took my advice, at least in part, for the next morning papa vanderveer drove down in the brake, announcing in a shout that "de peyster slept all night without waking up and crying, for the first time in months," adding, "and, dr. russell, if you've got anything further in this liberty line to suggest, even to getting rid of the duchess, now's your time. 'the duchess?' ah, she is that confounded head nurse woman that maria will keep so that things may be done properly, until the poor kid's nearly been done for, i say. the ponsonbys are crazy to get the woman to break in their youngest girl and keep her down and from growing up until they marry the others off; so maria could part with her in the light of a favour to them, don't you see, without spilling blood. peysey'll have to have some sort of a chaser, though, or maria'll not hear of it." mr. vanderveer glowed all over with delight when father condemned the automobile as a nerve racker, and suggested that a young man of the companionable tutor order, who could either play games, fish, and drive with the boy and his chums, or at times leave him wholly alone, according to need, would be a good substitute for a woman who viewed life as a school of don'ts, and had either wholly outlived her youth, or else had most unpleasant recollections of it. "i've got my innings at last," he said. "you're the first doctor i've had who hasn't sided with maria and shut me out until pay day." "i wonder why spring is such a restless season," i said half to myself and half to father, as i sat on the porch half an hour later, trying to focus my mind on writing to lavinia dorman, while father, lounging on the steps opposite, was busy reading his mail. "one would think we might be content merely to throw off winter and look and enjoy, but no, every one is restless,--birds, fourfoots, and humans. lavinia dorman writes that sylvia latham has just started for california to see her brother, and she expects to bring her father back with her. the boys disappeared mysteriously in the direction of martha corkle's immediately after breakfast, evan went reluctantly to the train, declaring that it seemed impossible to sit still long enough to reach the city, you are twisting about and shuffling your feet, looking far oftener at the river woods than at your letters, and as for myself, it seems as if i must go over yonder and seize bertel's spade and show him how to dig those seed beds more rapidly, so that i can begin to plant and kneel down and get close to the ground. yesterday when the boys came in with very earthy faces, and i questioned them, i found that they had stuck their precious noses in their mud pies, essaying to play mole and burrow literally." "it is the same mystery as the sweating of the corn," replied father, gathering his letters in a heap and tossing them into a chair with a gesture of impatience; "none of us may escape, even though we do not understand it. "it was years ago that i first heard the legend from an old farmer of the corn belt, who, longing for a sight of salt water, had drifted eastward into one of the little hill farms beyond the charcoal camp. he had been bedridden nearly all winter, but uncomplainingly, his wife and daughter-in-law caring for him, and it was not until the early part of may, when all the world was growing green, that he began to mend and at the same time groan at his confinement. "i tried to cheer him up, telling him that the worst was over, and that he soon would be about again, and he replied: ''tain't me that's doin' of it, doctor, hit's the sweatin' of the corn. you know everywhere in may folks be plantin' corn, the time bein' the sign that frost is over and done with.' i nodded assent, and he continued: 'now naterally there's lots of corn in ear and shelled and ground to meal that isn't planted, and along as when the kernels in the ground begins to swell and sprout, this other corn knows it and begins to heave and sweat, and if it isn't handled careful-like, and taken in the air and cooled, it'll take on all sorts of moulds and musts, and like as not turn useless. i holds it's just the same with folks,--when springtime comes they fetch up restless and need the air and turning out to sweeten in the sun until they settle down again, else their naturs turn sour, pisen'us, and unwholesome, breedin' worms like sweated corn!' "since then i've heard it here and there in other words, but always the same motive, the old miller holding it all fact and no legend at all, saying that if he can keep his surplus corn from sweating and well aired through may and june, he never fears for it in the damper, more potent august heat. one thing is certain, that in my practice in countryside, village, and town, if strange doings break out and restless discontentment arises, it is never in winter, when i should expect partial torpidity to breed unrest, but in the pushing season of renewal, and, as the old man terms it, 'corn sweating.'" * * * * * a little later i was going toward the garden when father called after me to say that he was soon starting for a long trip, quite up to pine ridge, and that if i cared to go, taking a lunch for both, it might give me a chance to "turn and sweeten" in the sun and cure my restlessness with natural motion. go? of course my heart leaped at the very thought, because, in spite of the boys, those long drives with father have grown more precious as they grow more rare. but where were the twins? they had disappeared under my very eyes; of a surety they must be at martha's, but my conscience smote me when, on glancing at the clock, i saw that it was two hours since they left the breakfast table in their brand-new sailor suits, with the intention of showing them to her. no, they were not at martha's, and she came hurrying back with me, a very clucking hen of alarm. timothy saunders, who had by that time brought round the horses in the stanhope, ventured the opinion that they might be below, paddling in the duck pond, as all the village children gathered there at the first warm weather, "jest fer all the world like gnats the sun's drawd oot." they were not there! father had disappeared to make some preparations for the drive, and so i asked timothy to drive with me along the highway toward the village. i did not feel exactly worried, but then one never knows. we had gone half a mile perhaps, vainly questioning every one, when i spied two small figures coming across a field from the east, where the ground fell lower and lower for a mile or so until it reached salt water. "there be the lads!" shouted timothy saunders, as if i had been a hundred yards away, and deaf at that; but the noise meant joy, so it was welcome. "my, but they're fagged and tattered well to boot!" and so they were; but they struggled along, hand in hand, waving cheerfully when they caught sight of me, and finally crept through the pasture bars by which i was waiting, and enveloped me with faint, weary hugs. then i noticed that they wore no hats, their fresh suits were grimy with a gray dust like cement, the knees of their stockings and underwear were worn completely through to red, scratched skin, and the tips entirely scraped from their shoes. i gathered them into the gig, and sought the explanation as we drove homeward, timothy hurried by the vision of tearful martha, whom he had seen with the tail of his eye dodge into the kitchen, her apron over her head, as he turned out the gate. "we've been playing we was moles," said ian, in answer to the first question as to where they had been. "yesterday we tried to do it wif our own noses, but we couldn't, 'cause it hurt, and we wanted to go ever so far." "so we went down to where those big round stone pipes are in the long hole," said richard, picking up the story as ian paused. (workmen had been laying large cement sewer pipes from the foot of the bluffs, a third of a mile toward the marshes, but were not working that day, owing to lack of material.) "they made nice mole holes, so i crawled right in, and for a little it was bully fun." "oh richard, richard, what made you?" i cried, holding him so tight that he squirmed away. "suppose the other end had been closed, and you had smothered in there, and mother had never found you?" for the ghastly possibility made my knees quake. "oh no, mother," he pleaded, taking my face between his grimy hands and looking straight in my eyes, "it wasn't a dark hole. i could see it light out 'way at the other end, and it didn't look so vely far as it was to crawl it. and after a little i'd have liked to back out, only--only, well, you see, i couldn't." "why not?" i asked, and, as he did not answer, i again saw a vision of two little forms wedged in the pipes. "that _why_ was 'cause _i_ was in behind, and i _wouldn't_ back, and so dick couldn't," said ian. "you see, barbara, i really, truly had to be a mole and get very far away, not to stay, only just for fun, you know," he added, as he saw signs of tears in his brother's eyes, and began to feel the smarting in his own bruised knees. one blessed thing about ian, even though he is sometimes passionate and stubborn, and will probably have lots of trouble with himself by and by, there isn't a drop of sneaky cur blood in him, which is the only trait that need make a mother tremble. what should i do, punish, or act as i longed to, coddle the boys and comfort the poor knees? true, i had not forbidden them to crawl through the sewer pipes, because the idea of their doing it had never occurred to me, so they could not be said to have exactly disobeyed; but, on the other hand, there was an unwritten law that they must not go off the place without my permission, and the torn stockings furnished a hint. "mother is going away for all day with grandfather," i said slowly, as i examined their knees. "even though i never told you not to do it, if you had stopped to think, you would have known it was wrong to crawl through the pipes." "but, barbara," argued ian, as we reached the porch, "it wasn't us that crawled, it was moles, and they just digs right ahead and turns up the ground and flowers and everything, and never thinks things, do they, grandpop?" "martha will take you in," i said, steadying my voice with difficulty, "and bathe your knees and let you rest a while before she dresses you again. martha, please put away those stockings for me to mend when i return; i cannot ask effie to darn such holes for two little moles; she is only engaged to sew for boys." "but, mother, you don't like to sew stockings; it makes you tight in your chest. i heard you tell father so," objected richard, while ian's face quivered and reddened, and he pounded his fists together, saying to himself, "barbara shall _not_ sit in the house and mend moles' stockings. i won't let her," showing that they were both touched in a tender spot. father only laughed when they went in, and said: "i'm glad you didn't do anything more than that to the little chaps, daughter; it's only a bit of boy life and impulse working in them, after all; their natural way of cooling the 'sweating of the corn.'" then we drove away through the lanes draped with birch tassels and willow wands, while bloodroot and marshmarigold kept pace in the runnels, and i heard the twitter of the first barn-swallow of the year. as we drove along we talked or were silent without apology and according to mood; and as father outlined his route to me, i resolved that i would call upon horace bradford's mother, for our way lay in that direction. many things filled father's mind aside from the beauty of the perfect april day, that held even the proper suggestion of hidden showers behind the curtain of hazy sunshine. the sweating of the human corn that came under father's eye was not always to be cured by air and sun, or rather, those who turned uneasily would not accept the cure. the germ of unrest is busy in the village this spring. not that it is wholly new, for unrest is wherever people congregate. but this year the key is altered somewhat. the sight of careless ease, life without labour, and a constant change of pleasures, that obtain in the bluff colony, is working harm. true, the people can always read of this life in book and paper, but to come in direct contact is another thing. father said the other day that he wished that conservative country places that had lived respected and respectable lives for years could have the power to socially quarantine all newcomers before they were allowed to purchase land and set a pace that lured the young cityward at any cost. i, too, realize that the striving in certain quarters is no longer for home and love and happy times, but for something new, even if it is merely for the sake of change, and that this infection of social unrest is quickly spreading downward from the bluffs, touching the surface of our little community, if not yet troubling its depths. the leading merchant's daughter, cora blackburn, fresh from a college course that was a strain upon the family means, finds that she has built a wall four years wide between herself and her family; henceforth life here is a vacuum,--she is misunderstood, and is advertising for an opportunity to go to new york and the independence of a dreary back third or fourth story hall bedroom. but, as she said the other day, putting on what evan calls her "capability-for-better-things" air, "one's scope is so limited here, and one never can tell whom one may meet in new york," which is, of course, perfectly true. it was only last night that father returned from the hospital, distressed and perplexed, and called me into the office. a young woman of twenty-two, that i know very well, of a plain middle-class family over in town, had, it seems, sent her name for admission to the training-school for nurses. father, in his friendly way, stopped at the house on his way home to talk with her about the matter, and found from a little sister, who was washing dishes, that the mother of the family was ill and being cared for by a neighbour. presently, down tripped the candidate for nursing, well dressed, well shod, and with pink, polished finger nails. father, wondering why she did not care for her mother, asked his usual questions: "what leads you to wish to take up nursing? are you interested in medicine, and fond of caring for the sick? for you should be, to enter such an exacting life." she seemed to misunderstand him altogether and take his inquiry for prying. she coloured, bit her lip, then lost her head and blurted out: "interested in the sick! of course not. who could be, for they are always so aggravating. i don't mean to stay so very long at it, but it's a good chance to go into some swell family, and maybe marry and get into society." [illustration: his mother] poor father was fairly in a rage at the girl's idea of what he deems a sacred calling, and it was not until richard had kissed him from the end of his nose up over his short thick gray hair, and down again to the tickle place in his neck, that he calmed down. unless my instinct fails me, he will have his social experience considerably widened during the coming season, even if his trustful nature is not strengthened. father had made three calls, and we had eaten our luncheon by the wayside, unhooking the horses, and baiting them by a low bridge rail that sloped into the bushes, where they could eat and drink at leisure, before we reached pine ridge. once there, he dropped me at the bradford farm, while he drove westward, along the ridge, to a consultation with the local doctor over a complicated broken leg that would not knit. as i closed the neat white picket gate behind me, and walked slowly toward the porch, a blaze of yellow on the south side of the red brick house drew my attention. it was the forsythia, the great bush of "yellow bells," of which horace bradford had spoken as blooming in advance of any in the neighbourhood, and for a moment i felt as if i were walking into the pages of a story-book. i wielded the heavy brass knocker on the half-door, with diamond-paned glass top, and paused to look off to where the flower and fruit garden sloped south and west. presently, as no one answered the knock, i peered through the glass, into an open square, that was evidently both hall and sitting room. in one corner was a chimney place, in which a log burned lazily, opposite a broad, low window, its shelves filled with flower pots, near which, in a harp-backed chair, an old lady sat sewing. she wore a simple black gown, with a small shawl thrown across her shoulders, and her hair, clear steel colour and white, was held in a loose knot by an old-fashioned shell comb. in spite of the droop and lines of age (for horace bradford's mother must have been quite seventy), the nose had a fine, strong roman curve, and the brow a thoughtful width. what was she thinking of as she sat there alone, this bright april afternoon, shaping a garment, with a smile hovering about her lips? her son's promotion and bright prospects, perhaps. i looked across at the old mahogany chest of drawers behind her, to see if i could recognize any of the framed photographs that stood there. one, evidently copied from a daguerrotype, was of a curly-haired girl, about fourteen, probably the daughter who died years ago, and another, close at her elbow, was of a lanky boy of eight or ten, wearing a broad straw hat, and grasping a fishing pole, probably horace, as a child, but there was nowhere to be seen the photograph of him in cap, gown, and hood that stood on miss lavinia's chimney shelf. then as mrs. bradford folded her hands over her work, and gazed through the plants and window, at some far-away thought, i felt like a detective, spying upon her, and hastily knocked again. this time she heard at once, and coming quickly to the door, admitted me, with a cordial smile and a hearty grasp of the hand that reminded me of her son, and was totally unlike the clammy and noncommittal touch of so many of the country folk, bred evidently of their general habit of caution. "you are mrs. evan, the doctor's daughter. i know your father well, though i have never met you face to face since you were a little girl." then the conversation drifted easily along to miss lavinia, and my meeting with horace, his professorship, the prospect of his being at home all summer, and to the different changes in the community, especially that wrought by the colony at the bluffs, which were really the halfway mark between oaklands and pine ridge. mrs. bradford saw the purely commercial and cheerful side of the matter; as yet, few of the new places were well equipped with gardens,--it had opened a good market for the farmers on the ridge, and they were no longer obliged to take their eggs, fruit, poultry, and butter into town. in spite of a certain reticence, she was eager to know the names of all the newcomers; but when i mentioned mrs. latham, saying that she was the mother of sylvia, one of her son's pupils, and described the beauty of their place, i thought that she gave a little start, and that i heard her speak the initials s. l. under her breath; but when i looked up, i could detect nothing but a slight quiver of the eyelids. then we went out into the garden, arm in arm, for mrs. bradford's footing seemed insecure upon the cobbled walk, and she turned to me at once as naturally as if i were a neighbour's daughter. together we grew enthusiastic over the tufts of white violets, early hyacinths, and narcissi, or equally so over the mere buds of things. for it is the rotary promise that is the inspiration of a garden; it is this that lures us on from year to year, and softens the sharp punctuation of birthdays. was there anything in her garden that i had not? she would be so pleased to exchange plants with me, and had i any of the new cactus dahlias, and so on, until we reached the walk's end, and turned about under a veteran cherry tree that showered us with its almond-scented petals. then mrs. bradford relaxed completely, and pulling down a branch, buried her face in the blossoms, drawing long breaths. "i've kept away from the garden all day," she said, "because i had some sewing to finish, so those unfortunate hornblower children might begin the spring term at school to-morrow; and when i once smell the cherry flowers, my very bones ache to be out doors, and i'm not good for a thing but to potter about the garden from now on, until the strawberries show red, and everything settles down for summer. it's always been the same, since i was a little girl, and used to watch the cherry blooms up through the top sash of the schoolhouse windows, when they had screened the lower part to keep us from idling, and it's lasted all through my married life. the squire and i always went on a may picnic by ourselves, until the year he died, though the neighbours all reckoned us feeble-minded." the "sweating of the corn," i almost said aloud. "i've reasoned with myself every spring all through the between years, until now i've made up my mind it's something that's meant to be, and i'm going to give in to it. sit down here under the trees, my dear, and esther nichols will bring us some tea and fresh cider cake. yes, i see that you look surprised to have afternoon tea offered on pine ridge, but i got the habit from the english grandmother that reared me, and i've always counted it a better hospitality than the customary home-made cordials and syrups that, between ourselves, make one stomach-sick. yes, there comes esther now; she always knows my wants. she and her husband are distant cousins of the bradfords, and my helpers indoors and out, for i am too old to manage farm hands, especially now that they are mostly slavs, and it makes horace feel happier to have kinsfolk here than if i trusted to transient service." so we sipped the well-made breakfast tea beneath the cherry blossoms as i told her about my boys and miss lavinia's expected visit. when father called for me i left reluctantly, feeling as if nobody need be without a family, when one becomes necessary, for in addition to an aunt in lavinia dorman i had found a sort of spirit grandmother there in the remote and peaceful highlands,--a woman at once simple and restful, yet withal having no narrowness or crudity to cramp or jar. it was nearly five o'clock when we turned into the highway west of the bluffs. we had gone but a few rods when a great clanking of chains and jar of wheels sounded behind. as i stretched out to see what was coming, a horn sounded merrily. "a coaching party," said father. "i will turn out of the road, for there is a treacherous pitch on the other side, and for me to let them topple into the ditch might be profitable, but hardly professional." we had barely turned into low bushes when the stage came alongside. the horses dropped back to a walk, as they passed, for it was a decided up grade for thirty yards, so that we had a good chance to view both equipage and occupants. to my surprise i saw that the coach was the jenks-smith's. i did not know they had returned from the trip abroad where they had been making their annual visit to repair the finances of their son-in-law. monty bell was driving, with mrs. jenks-smith at his side. the robust lady of the bluffs, evidently having some difficulty in keeping her balance, was clutching the side bar desperately. she was dressed in bright-figured hues from top to toe, her filmy hat had lurched over one eye, and all together she looked like a chinese lantern, or a balloon inflated for its rise but entangled in its moorings. jenks-smith sat behind, with mrs. latham and a very pretty young girl as seatmates, while behind them came a giggling bevy of young people and the grooms,--sylvia being of course absent. mrs. latham was clad in pale violet embroidered with iris in deeper tones, her wide hat was irreproachably poised, her veil draped gracefully, her white parasol, also embroidered with iris, held at as becoming an angle, and her corsage violets as fresh as if she was but starting out, while in fact the party must have driven up from new york since morning. they did not even glance at the gray horses which had been drawn aside to give them right of way, much less acknowledge the courtesy, but clanked by in a cloud of misty april dust. "what a contrast between his mother and hers," i said unconsciously, half aloud. "which? whose? i did not quite catch the connection of that remark," said father, turning toward me with his quizzical expression, for a standing joke of both father and evan was to thus trip me up when i uttered fragmentary sentences, as was frequently the case, taking it for granted, they said, that they either dreamed the connection or could read my thoughts. "i meant what a great contrast there is between mrs. bradford and mrs. latham," i explained, at once realizing that there was really no sense in the comparison outside of my own irrepressibly romantic imagination, even before father said:-- "and why, pray, should they not be different? under the circumstances it would be very strange if they were not. and where does the _his_ and _her_ come in? barbara, child, i think you are 'dreaming pussy willows,' as you used to say you did in springtime, when you were a very little girl." * * * * * the boys were having their supper in the hall when i arrived home, for, warm as the days are, it grows cool toward night until we are past middle may. the scraped knees were still knobby with bandages, but the lads were in good spirits, and seemed to have some secret with martha that involved a deal of whispering and some chuckling. after the traces of bread and butter were all wiped away, they came hobbling up (for the poor knees were sadly stiff and lame), and wedged themselves, one on each side of me, in the window seat of the den, where i was watching for the smoke of evan's train, my signal for going down the road. ah, how i always miss the sight of the curling smoke and the little confidential walk in the dark winter days! there was some mystery afoot, i could see, for martha hovered about the fireplace, asking if a few sticks wouldn't temper the night air, to which i readily assented, yet still she did not go, and the boys kept the hands close against their blouse fronts. suddenly ian threw his arms about my neck and bent my head close to his, saying, in his abrupt voice of command, "barbara must not stay indoors tomorrow and be sad and mend the moles' stockings." "yes, barbara must," i answered firmly, feeling, yet much dreading, the necessity of the coming collision. "no, she can't," said ian, trying to look stern, but breaking into little twinkling smiles at the mouth corners. "she can't, because the moles' stockings haven't any more got holes!" and he pulled something from his blouse and spread it in my lap, richard doing likewise. there were two stockings mended, fearfully and wonderfully, to be sure, and quite unwearable, but still legally mended. "i don't understand," i said, while the boys, seeing my puzzled expression, clapped their hands and hopped painfully about as well as they were able. then martha corkle emerged from the background and explained: "the boys they felt most terrible in their minds, mrs. evan, soon after you'd went (their sore knees, i think, also keepin' them in sight of their doings), and they begged me, mrs. evan, wouldn't i mend the stockings, which i would most cheerfully, only takin' the same as not to be your idea, mum. so i says, says i, somebody havin' to be punished, your ma's goin' to do it to take the punishment herself, that is, in lest you do it your own selves instead. so, says i, i'll mend one stocking of each if you do the other, mrs. evan, and no disrespect intended. "i borried effie's embroidery rings and set the two holes for them and run them in one way, leavin' them the fillin' to do, which they have, sittin' the whole afternoon at it most perseverin'." "richard did his one stitch, but i did mine four stitch; it ate up the hole quicker, and it's more different," quoth ian, waving his stocking, into the knee of which he had managed to introduce a sort of kindergarten weaving pattern. "but mine looks more like martha's, doesn't it, mother?" pleaded patient richard, who, though the threads were drawn and gathered, had kept to the regular one up and one down throughout. then the signal of the smoke arose against the opal of the twilight sky, and we went out hand in hand, all three happy, to meet our breadwinner. late that night, when all the household slept, i added a little package to my treasures in the attic desk,--two long stockings with queer darned knees,--and upon the paper band that bound them is written a date and "the sweating of the corn." ix a wayside comedy _may th_. madame etiquette has entered this peaceful village. not, however, as the court lady of the old french regime, but travelling in the wake of the whirlpoolers under dubious aliases, being sometimes called good form and at other the correct thing. at present she is having a hand-to-hand encounter with new england prejudice, a once stalwart old lady of firm will, but now considerably weakened by age and the incessant arguing of her great-grandchildren. the result of the conflict is quite uncertain, for actually even the sunday question hangs in the balance; while the spectacle is most amusing to the outsider and embarrassing to the referees. father, seeing through medical eyes, regards the matter merely in the light of a mild epidemic. evan is rather sarcastic; he much preferred garden quiet and smoking his evening pipe to the tune of soothing conversation concerning the rural days' doings, to the reflex anxiety of settling social problems. in these, lo and behold, i find myself unwillingly involved, for one new england habit has not been abandoned--that of consulting the wife of minister and doctor, even if holes are afterward picked in the result, and in this case a daughter stands in the wife's place. the beginning was two years back, when the bluff colony began to be an, object of speculation, followed in turn by censure, envy, and finally aspiration that has developed this spring into an outbreak of emulation. ever since i can remember, social life has moved along quite smoothly hereabout, the doings being regulated by the age and purses of the participants. the householders who went to the city for a few winter months were a little more precise in their entertaining than the born and bred country folk. as they commonly dined at night, they asked people to dinner rather than to supper, which is the country meal of state. but lawn parties, picnics, and clambakes at the shore were pretty much on the same scale, those who could afford it having music and employing a caterer, while those who could not made no secret of the cause, and felt neither jealous nor humiliated. a wagon load of neighbourly young people might go on a day's excursion uncriticised, without thought of dragging a mother or aunt in their wake as chaperon. in fact, though no one is more particular than father in matters of real propriety, i cannot remember being formally chaperoned in my life or of suffering a shadow of annoyance for the lack. weddings were always home affairs among the strictly country folk, by common consent and custom, no matter to what denomination the people belonged. those with contracted houses went quietly to parsonage or rectory with a few near friends; others were married at the bride's home, the ceremony followed by more or less merrymaking. a church wedding was regarded as so great a strain upon the families that the young people had no right to ask it, even if they so desired. that has passed, at least for the time being, and all eyes are fixed upon the movements of the bluff people, and many feet are stumbling along in their supposed footsteps. it would be really funny if it were not half pitiful. the dear simple folk are so terribly in earnest that they do not see that they are losing their own individuality and gaining nothing to replace it. the whirlpoolers, though only here for the between seasons, are constantly entertaining among themselves, and hardly a day passes but a coaching party drives up from town with week-end golfers for whom a dance is given, or stops _en route_ to the berkshires or some farther point. a few outsiders are sometimes asked to the more general of these festivities, friends of city friends who have places hereabout, the clergy and their wives, and, alas, the doctor's daughter; but society-colonies do not intend associating with the-natives except purely for their own convenience, and when they do, pay no heed to the code they enforce among themselves. it is not harsh judgment in me, i feel sure, when i say that evan would not be asked so often to the bluffs to dinner if he were not a well-known landscape architect whose advice has a commercial value. they always manage to obtain enough of it in the guise of after-dinner conversation and the discussion of garden plans to make him more than earn his fare. for the whirlpoolers are very thrifty, the richer the more so, especially those of dutch trading blood, and they are not above stopping father on the road, engaging in easy converse, praising the boys, and then asking his opinion about a supposititious case, rather than send for him in the regular way and pay his modest fee. in fact, mrs. ponsonby asked me to a luncheon last autumn, and it quickly transpired afterward, that she had an open trap for sale suitable for one horse; she knew that evan was looking for such a vehicle for me, and suggested that i might like this one. a bulky and curious correspondence grew up around the transaction, and the letters are now lying in my desk marked "mrs. ponsonby, and the road cart." finally i took the vehicle out on a trial trip. i noticed that it had a peculiar gait, and stopping at the blacksmith's, called him to examine the running gear. he gave one look and burst into a guffaw: "land alive, mrs. evan, that's missis ponsonby's cart, that stood so long in the city stable, with the wheels on, that they're off the circle and no good. i told her she'd have to get new ones; but her coachman allowed she'd sell it to some jay. you ain't bought it, hev yer?" good-natured mrs. jenks-smith, the pioneer of the bluffs, was the first one to throw open her grounds, when completed, for an afternoon and evening reception, with all the accompaniments of music, electric lit fountains, and unlimited refreshments. everybody went, and satisfaction reigned for the time; but when another season it was found that she had no intention of returning calls, great disappointment was felt. others in turn exhibited their grounds for the benefit of the different churches, while the ponsonbys gave a lawn party for the orphan asylum, and considering that they had done their duty, straightway forgot the village. the village did not forget; it had observed and has begun to put in practice. the first symptom was noticed by evan. last summer several family horses of respectable mien and roman noses appeared with their tails banged. not docked, mind you, but squared-off as closely as might be without resorting to cruelty; while their venerable heads, accustomed to turn freely and look their drivers in the face reproachfully if kept standing too long, were held in place by overdraw checks. at the same time the driver's seat in the buggy or runabout was raised from beneath so as to tilt the occupant forward into an almost standing posture. this worked well enough in an open wagon, but in a buggy the view was apt to be cut off by the hood, if the driving lady (it was always a woman) was tall. the second sign was when mrs. barton--a widow of some sixty odd years, with some pretensions to breeding, but who had been virtually driven from several villages where she had located since her widowhood, owing to inaccuracy of speech, beside which the words of the village liar and the emporium were quite harmless--contracted inflammatory rheumatism by chaperoning her daughters' shore party and first wetting her lower half in clamming and then the upper _via_ a thunder shower. the five "barton girls" range from twenty-five to forty, and are so mentally and physically unattractive and maladroit that it would be impossible to regard them as in any danger if they went unattended to the uttermost parts of the earth. on this particular occasion the party consisted of two dozen people, ranging from twenty to fifty, which it would seem afforded ample protection. to be chaperoned was the swell thing, however, and chaperoned the "barton girls" would be. "i cannot compete with multi-millionnaires," said mrs. barton, lowering her voice, when father, on being called in, asked if she had not been rather rash at her age to go wading in cold water for clams; "but as a woman of the world i must do all that i can to follow the customs of good society, and give my daughters protection from even a breath that might affect their reputations." the drawling tone was such a good imitation of mrs. ponsonby's that father could barely control his laughter, especially as she continued: "i also feel that i owe it to the neighbourhood to do all in my power to put a stop to buggy riding, the vulgar recreation of the unmarried. of course all cannot afford suitable traps and grooms to attend them, but good form should be maintained at all hazards, and mothers should not begrudge taking trouble." father said that the vision of shy young folks driving miserably along the country lanes on sunday afternoons in the family carryall, with mamma seated in the middle of the back seat, rose so ludicrously before him that he was obliged to beat a retreat, promising to send a special remedy for the rheumatism by timothy saunders. all winter i have noticed that great local interest has been taken in the fashion journals that treat of house decoration and etiquette, and on one occasion, when making a call at one of our most comfortable farms, i found the worthy deacon's wife poring over an ornamental volume, entitled "hints to those about to enter society." after she had welcomed me and asked me to "lay off" my things, she hesitated a moment, and then, opening the book where her fat finger was keeping the place, she laid it on my lap, saying in a whisper: "would you tell me if that is true, mrs. evan? lurella says you hobnob some with the bluff folks, and i wanted to make sure before we break it to pa." the sentence to which she pointed read, "no gentleman will ever come to the table without a collar, or be seen on porch or street in his shirt sleeves." here, indeed, was a difficulty and a difference. how should i explain? i compromised feebly and advised her not to worry the deacon about what the bluff people did or the book said, for it need not apply to the cross roads farmers. "i'm reel glad you don't hold it necessary fer pa," she said with a sigh of relief; "he'd take it so hard, eatin' gettin' him all het up anyhow. now between ourselves, mrs. evan, don't you think writ out manners is terrible confusin' and contradictin'? i wouldn't hev lurella hear me say so, she's so set on keepin' up with things, but she's over to town this afternoon. "i've been readin' for myself some, and observin' too. the bluff folks that plays grass hockey, all over what was bijah woods's farm, men and girls both, has their sleeves pushed up as if they were going at a day's wash, and their collars open and hanging to the hind button, which to my mind looks shiftlesser than doin' without. i do hear also that those same girls when they git in to dinner takes off their waists altogether and sets down to eat all stripped off to a scrap of an underbody. that's true, for pa saw it when he was takin' cream over to ponsonby's; the windows was open on the piazza, and he couldn't refrain from peekin', though i hope you'll not repeat. of course they may feel dreadful sweaty after chasin' round in the sun all day, though i wouldn't hold such sudden coolin' wholesome; but why if women so doin' should they insist on men folks wearin' collars, say i?" i told the dear soul that i had never quite been able to understand the _reason why_ of many of these things, and that my ways were also quite different from those of the bluff people; for though father and evan had been brought up to wear collars, i had never yet stripped to my underbody at dinner time. thus emboldened, she beckoned me mysteriously toward the best parlour, saying as she went, "lurella seen the picture of a turkey room in the pattern book, and as she's goin' to have a social this spring, she's fixed a corner of it into our north room." when the light was let in i beheld a "cosey corner" composed of a very hard divan covered with a broché shawl, and piled high with pillows of various hues, while a bamboo fishing-pole fastened crosswise between the top of the window frames held a sort of beaded string drapery that hung to the floor in front, and was gathered to the ceiling, in the corner, with a red rosette. on close examination i found, to my surprise, that the trailers were made of strings of "job's tears," the seed of a sort of ornamental maize, the thought of the labour that the thing had involved fairly making my eyes ache. "that is a very pretty shawl," i remarked, as no other truthful word of commendation seemed possible. "yes, it is handsome, and i miss it dreadful. you see, it belonged to pa's mother, and i calkerlated to wear it a lifetime for winter best, but the fashion papers do say shawls are out of it, and this is the only use for them, which lurella holds. i can't ever take the same comfert in a bindin' sack, noway; and pa, he's that riled about the shawl bein' used to set on, i daren't leave the door open. says the whole thing's a 'poke hole,' and the curt'in recollects him of 'strings of spinnin' caterpillars,' and 'no beau that's worth his shoes won't ever get caught in no such trap,' which is most tryin' to lurella, so i hev to act pleased, and smooth things over best i can." well-a-day, it is always easier to answer the riddles that puzzle others, rather than those that confront ourselves. fully a year ago mrs. jenks-smith gave me a well-meaning hint that it is not "good form" for me to allow father or evan to smoke while we drive or walk in public together. the very next night we three happened to be dining, why i don't know, at the most socially advanced house on the bluffs. when the moment came for the midway pause in the rotation of foods, that we might tamp down and make secure what we had already eaten by the aid of roman punch, the gentlemen very nearly discounted the effort, as far as i was concerned at least, by smoking cigarettes, leaning easily back in their chairs, and with no more than a vague "by your leave," to the ladies. what was more, there was a peculiarly sickening sweet odour to the smoke that father afterward told me was because the tobacco was tinctured with opium. yet it is "bad form" for evan and father to smoke in my society, out in the road or street under the big generous roof of the sky. dear little boys, i wonder what the custom will be when you are grown, and read your mother's social experience book? * * * * * the present crisis to be faced is in the form of a wedding,--an apple-blossom wedding, to take place in st. peter's church. i have been made a confident in the matter from the very beginning of the wayside comedy which led to it; but i wish it understood that i am not responsible for the list of invited guests, or the details of the ceremony, which have been laboriously compiled from many sources, any more than i shall be for the heartburnings that are sure to follow in its wake. * * * * * one morning early last summer fannie penney was driving home from town, with a rather lopsided load of groceries on the back of the buckboard. fanny did not enjoy these weekly trips for groceries, but she did not rebel, as her sisters did; and though she had aspirations, they had not developed as quickly in her as in the others, for she was considered already an old maid (a state that in the country, strangely enough, sets in long before it does in the city, often beginning quite at noonday) at the time the bluff colony began to attract attention. the penney family live in a plain but substantial house on the main road, a little way north of the village, where mr. penney combines farming, a blacksmith's shop, and a small line of groceries, for the benefit of his family. up to the present time this family has jogged along at a fairly comfortable pace, only one daughter, the youngest, mollie, having so far escaped from the traditional female employments of the region as to spend a season in new york, supplementing the grammar school education by a course in elocution, with delsarte accompaniments. when she returned she gave her old friends to understand that she was thoroughly misunderstood by her family; also, that she was now to be called marie and preferably miss, hinted that she was soon going on a professional tour, and condescendingly agreed to give a free recital at a sunday-school entertainment. at this she startled the community by reciting the sleep-walking scene from lady macbeth, clad in a lace-trimmed empire nightgown, red slippers with high heels, whitened face, wild hair, and, of course, the candlestick, with such terrible effect that the mothers of the infant class had difficulty in getting their progeny to stay in bed in the dark for some weeks to come. the pastor considered that, under the circumstances, she gave the words "out damned spot" undue emphasis, while the "watch-out committee" of the s. c. e. failed entirely to agree as to what gave the nightgown a decided pink tint, opinions greatly varying. some insisted that it was flesh, while the pastor's wife, knowing the flavour of persecution, firmly insisted that it was merely a pink cambric slip, as was most right and proper. but her charity was immediately discounted by mrs. barton, who said that likely it was pink lining, for marie's flesh was yellow, and not pink. however, this event was soon forgotten in the greater interest that gathered about fannie penney's return ride from town. it seems that soon after fannie left the town limits and was jogging along the turnpike, the big roan horse of all work began to stumble, then grew lame forward, and finally came to a standstill. fannie got out, examined his feet, soon found that not only had he cast a shoe, but in doing so had managed to step on a nail and drive it into his frog. with the good judgment of a farrier's daughter, she promptly unharnessed him. looking about and seeing cows grazing in a neighbouring pasture, she led him slowly to the side of the road, let down the bars and turned him loose, where he immediately showed his appreciation of the situation by lying down and nibbling at the grass within reach. so far so good, but when fannie began to consider the possibility of walking home, with the chance of being picked up on the road by some one, and getting her father to come and remove the nail, the load of groceries loomed up before her. not only did they represent considerable money value, country reckoning, and there was no house within half a mile either way, but some of the articles, such as lard, were in danger of being ruined by the hot sun; so fannie walked along the road, searching the dust for the lost shoe, seeing no way out of her dilemma unless some one should come by. she did not find the shoe, but soon a cloud of dust from the town side told of an approaching team, and she went to the shade of the only near-by tree and waited. a moment later, the team coming up proved to be a freshly painted runabout, drawn by a fine bay horse in trim harness, driven by the average stable boy; while beside him sat a smooth-faced, keen-eyed man, rather under middle age, dressed in a spotless light suit, tan shoes, lilac shirt, opalesque tie, finished above by a panama hat pinched into many dimples. he was evidently a man of quick action, for he saw the girl and horseless wagon at a glance, touched the reins, stopped the horse, and jumped out before fannie could think, taking off his hat and saying:-- "lady in distress, runaway horse, lucky not to have upset load--can i be of any use?" all in one breath. fannie had never read dickens, so that no comparison with the speech of alfred jingle arose to make her distrustful, which was unnecessary, and the bowing figure appeared to her the perfection of up-to-date manly elegance. could it--yes, it must be a guest on the way to the bluffs. she blushingly explained the complication, feeling almost ashamed to mention her fears as to the melting lard, it seemed so insignificant in such a presence; but he quickly reassured her by going to the wagon, pulling it energetically under the tree, and spreading the linen lap-robe over the goods, the effort causing streams of perspiration to alter the stately appearance of a three-inch high collar. next he sprang over the fence into the field, found that the nail was too firmly wedged to be drawn from the horse's hoof with either fingers or a wagon wrench, and returned to the road again. "now, may i ask where you live?" he said, dusting himself off with vigorous flips of a large yale blue silk handkerchief. fannie told him, and her name, also, and ventured to ask that, if he was going through oaklands, he would be good enough to tell her uncle, who kept the livery stable, to send out for her. "i guess we can better that," he said, smiling genially. "i'm going to oaklands to meet my trunk and stop over a day. i'll leave the boy here with your goods, drive you in, pick up your father, he returns with this horse, brings tools, fixes up his own, boy takes rig back to town, your father drives goods home, see?" fannie saw that the arrangements were unanswerably suitable; also, that to carry them out she must take a drive with the unknown, a drive of necessity to be sure, yet one that she could safely call romantic, especially as, when he turned to help her into the runabout, he picked up a horseshoe that lay in the bottom and gave it to her, saying, "it's yours; i found it half a mile back; i never pass a horseshoe, never can tell when it'll bring luck." before they had gone very far her dream of his being a guest on his way to the bluffs was shattered by his saying: "i've got the advantage of you--know your name, you don't know mine. that's not fair. 'aim to be fair' 's my motto, even if i don't chance to hit it," and he pulled out a bulky wallet and held it toward her with one hand, that she might help herself to one of the cards with which it was filled. her hand touched his; she blushed so that her freckles were veiled for the moment as she read, half aloud: "l. middleton--with frank brothers. dealers in first-class canned goods," the new york address being in the corner. the feeling of disappointment only lasted for a moment, for was not a travelling man, as the drummer is always called in country towns, a person of experience and knowledge of the world, as well as being not infrequently shrouded in mystery? as she pondered on the card, wondering if she dared put it in her pocket, he said in a matter-of-fact way, again extending the wallet: "don't hesitate, take the deck, may come handy, father like to keep goods in stock some time. that's my regular; carry a side line too, perfumes and an a hair restorer. got all my samples at oaklands depot. you mind stopping there on the way? want to get fresh collar." no, of course fannie would not mind; this last request fixed her companion firmly in her esteem. any other man of her acquaintance would have removed his collar and proceeded without one, never giving the matter a thought; in fact, she had been momentarily expecting that this would happen. now she would have the bliss of taking him home in all the perfection of his toilet as she first beheld him. from that moment she grew more conversational, and his utterance became less jerky, until, when they finally drove up back of the long red brick railway station at oaklands, a little before noon, she had not only given him a synopsis of local history, but was, in her excitement, vainly trying to recollect what day of the week it was, so that she might judge of the dinner probabilities at home, also if it would be safe to ask him to stay. fortunately remembering that she saw her father beheading chickens the night before, which guaranteed a substantial meal, she decided it was an absolute duty. as l. middleton emerged from the baggage room in a fresh collar, even higher than the other, he threw an ornamental bottle of violet water into fannie's lap to keep company with the horseshoe. immediately hope arose at the combination, and settled under the left folds of fannie's pink shirt waist; for middleton seems a distinguished name to one who has been called penney for twenty-eight years, and romance had never died in the heart under the pink waist for the reason that it was only at this moment being born. on arriving at home, fate continued to prove kind. mrs. penney was inspired to ask the guest to "stop to dinner," without any hints or gesticulations being necessary, which might have marred the first impression. not only did the chickens appear at the table, where no canned food was present, but there was a deep cherry pie as well, which was eaten with peculiar relish by the commercial traveller, accustomed to the awful fare of new england country hotels, where he was often obliged to use his own samples to fill gaps. he gazed about at the comfortable kitchen, and won mamma penney by praising the food and saying that he was raised on a farm. father penney took a hasty bite in the buttery, and soon disappeared to rescue his goods from the highway. he was always considered something of a drawback to the matrimonial prospects of his daughters; for, as his nose indicated, he had a firm, not to say combative, disposition, and frequently insisted upon having not only the last but the first word upon every subject, so that fannie regarded his going in the light of a special providence. after dinner the three other penney sisters all tried their best to be agreeable, marie donning a clinging blue gown and walking up and down the piazza watering plants at this unusual hour of the day for his particular benefit, a performance which caused l. middleton to ask, "say, did you ever do a vaudeville turn?" and marie, not knowing whether to take the remark as a criticism or a compliment, preferred to take the latter view and answer in languid tones,-- "no, but i have acted, and i've been seriously advised to go on the stage." in the middle of the afternoon, the load of groceries having arrived safely, fannie's "hero" took his leave, papa penney driving him to the village inn, where he was to unpack his samples. for a while l. middleton was a standard topic of conversation among the girls. they wondered for what l. stood. fannie guessed louis, marie spitefully suggested that it might be lucifer, and that was why he didn't spell it out. then as he seemed about fading from the horizon, he reappeared suddenly one crisp october morning, just starting on his eastern fall route, he said, and invited fanny to go to the county fair. again a period of silence followed. the sisters remarked that most travelling men were swindlers, etc., but fannie persistently put violet water on the handkerchief that she tucked under her pillow every night, until, as winter set in, the supply failed. then an idea came to her, she took the horseshoe from where it had been hanging over her door, covered its dinginess with two coats of gold paint, cut the legend, "sweet violets," together with the embossed flowers, from the label on the perfume bottle, and pasted them on the horseshoe, which she further ornamented with an enormous ribbon bow, and despatched it secretly to l. middleton by express a few days before christmas. at new year's a box arrived for fannie. it contained a gold pin in the shape of a horseshoe, in addition to a large, heart-shaped candy box filled with such chocolates that each was as a foretaste of celestial bliss to fannie, who now thought she might fairly assume airs of importance. half a dozen letters went rapidly back and forth, and then the proposal bounded along as unexpectedly as every other detail of the courtship. there was very little sentiment of expression about it, but he was in earnest and gave references as to his respectability, etc., much as if he were applying for a business position, and ended by asking her at which end of his route she preferred to live, new york, or portland, maine, and if in new york, would she prefer brooklyn or harlem? fannie quickly decided upon harlem, for, as marie said, "there one only need give the street name and number, while very few people yet realize that brooklyn really is in new york." this important matter settled, the penney girls arose in their might upon the wings of ambition. there should be a church wedding. now the penneys were, as all their forbears had been, congregationalists; but that church had no middle aisle, besides, as there was no giving away of the bride in the service, there was little chance for pomp and ceremony. it was discovered that the groom's parents had been episcopalians, and though he was liberal to the degree of indifference upon such matters, it was decided that to have the wedding in st. peter's would be a delicate compliment to him. all the spring the village dressmaker has been at work upon the gowns of bride and of bridesmaids, of whom there are to be six, and now the cards are out and the groom's name also, the l at the last moment having been found to stand for liberty. if they had consulted the groom, he would have decried all fuss, for fannie's chief attraction was that he thought her an unspoiled, simple-minded country girl. the hour was originally set for the morning, but as fannie saw in her fashion paper that freckled people often developed a peculiarly charming complexion when seen by lamplight, the time was changed to eight at night, in spite of the complications it caused. a week before the invitations were issued fannie came to see me and after some preamble said: "mrs. evan, i want my wedding to be good form, and i'd like to do the swell thing all through. now the _parlour journal_ says that the front pews that are divided off by a white ribbon should be for the bride's folks on one side of the aisle and the groom's on the other. mr. middleton hasn't any people near by enough to come, so i thought i'd have the bluff folks sit on that side." "the bluff people?" i queried, in amazement. "you surely aren't going to invite them? do you know any of them?" "well, not intimately, but mrs. ponsonby has been to the house for eggs, and mrs. latham's horse dropped a shoe last week and father set it, and the vanderveer boy's pony ran away into our front yard the other day, so i don't feel as if they were strangers and to be left out. oh, mrs. evan, if they'd only come and wear some of their fine clothes to light up the church, it would be in the papers, the _bee_ and the _week's news_ over town maybe, and give me such a start! for you know i'm to live in new york, and as i've never left home before, it would be so pleasant to know somebody there!" i almost made up my mind to try to put things before her in their true light, and save her from disappointment, but then i realized that i was too near her own age. ah, if lavinia dorman had only been here that day she could possibly have advised fannie without giving offence. * * * * * _may th._ the wedding is over. shall i ever forget it? the rain and cool weather of the past ten days kept back the apple blossoms, so that the supply for decorating the church was poor and the blossoms themselves only half open and water-soaked. mrs. jenks-smith, who always hears everything, knowing of the dilemma, in the goodness of her heart sent some baskets of hothouse flowers, but the girls and men who were decorating did not know how to handle them effectively, for fannie, still clinging to sentiment, had gilded nearly a barrel of old horseshoes, which were tied with white ribbon to every available place, being especially prominent on the doors of the reserved pews. late in the afternoon a fine mist set in with clouds of fog, which, if it got into the church, i knew would completely conceal the glimmer of the oil lamps. it seems that papa penney was not told until an hour before the ceremony that he was to walk up the aisle with the bride on his arm and give her away. this he flatly refused to do. he considered it enough of an affliction to have the wedding in church at all, and it was not until his wife had given her first exhibition of fainting, and fannie had cried her eyes red, that he apparently yielded. we arrived at the church at about ten minutes to eight, father and evan having been persuaded to come in recognition of good neighbourhood feeling. the back part of the church was well filled, but the space above the ribbon was painfully empty. the glimmering lamps did little more than reveal the gloom, and the horseshoes gave a strange racing-stable effect. we tried to spread ourselves out as much as possible to fill up, and presently the ponsonby girls entered with some friends, seemingly astonished at being seated within the barrier, for they had never seen their cards of invitation, and had come as a sort of lark to kill time on a wet evening. the ushers wandered dismally up and down, stretching their hands nervously as if unused to gloves. presently they fell back, and the organ, in the hands of an amateur performer and an inadequate blower, began to chirp and hoot merrily, by which we knew the bridal party was about to appear. the ushers came first, divided, and disappeared successfully in the shadows, on either side of the chancel steps. a long wait and then marie penney followed, walking alone, as maid of honour; she had insisted upon having plenty of room, as she said so few people walked well that they spoiled her gait. next came the six bridesmaids on a gallop, then papa penney and the bride. he walked along at a jog trot, and he looked furtively about as if for a loophole of escape. as for poor mrs. penney, instead of being seated in the front pew before the procession entered, she was entirely forgotten in the excitement, and stood trembling near the door, until some one drew her into a seat in neighbourly sympathy. the clergyman stood waiting, the bridesmaids grouped themselves behind papa, so that there was no retreat, but where was the groom and the best man? one, two, three minutes passed, but no sign. he had been directed to the vestry door as the bridal party drove up. could he suddenly have changed his mind, and disappeared? the silence was awful, the ponsonby girls giggled aloud, and finally got into such gales of laughter that i was ashamed. the organ had dropped into the customary groaning undertone that is meant, i suppose, to give courage to the nervous and weak-voiced during the responses. * * * * * outside the church, in the rear, two men in evening dress might have been seen blundering about in the dark, vainly trying to find an open door, for besides the door to the vestry there were three others close together, one opening into the little chantry, one the sunday-school room, and one into the cellar. they battered and pulled and beat to no purpose, until a mighty pound forced one in, and the two men found themselves flying down a flight of steps, and landing in a heap of coal. dazed, and not a little bruised, the groom struck a match, and looked about; the best man had sprained his ankle, and said so in language unbefitting the location, but liberty middleton arose superior to the coal. judging by the music that the ceremony had begun, he told his crippled friend to sit still until he came back for him, and, by lighting a series of wax matches, found his way back to the front door of the church, and strode up the aisle dishevelled, and with a smutty forehead, just as papa penney had succeeded in breaking through the bridesmaids, dragging fannie with him. a sigh of relief arose. the couple stepped forward and the ceremony began. when, however, the giving away time came, it was found that papa penney had retreated to a pew, from which he could not be dislodged. another hitch was only averted by the groom turning pleasantly toward his father-in-law, and saying, with a wave of his hand, "it's all right, don't trouble to move; you said 'i do,' i think; the parson understands." the ceremony was ended without further complication. when fannie walked out upon the arm of the self-possessed liberty, i thought that the travelling man had the makings of a hero in him after all. it afterward transpired that the hapless best man, left in the coal cellar, and not missed until the party was halfway home, had only wrenched his ankle, and made his escape to the village tavern for consolation, proving that even commercial travellers may be upset by a fashionable wedding ceremony. x the whirl begins _may _. the people of the whirlpool have come to the bluffs, and the swirl and spray has, in a measure, followed them. i had well-nigh written, "are settled at the bluffs," but the whirlpoolers are perpetual migrants, unlike the feathered birds of passage never absolutely settling anywhere even for the nesting season, sometimes even taking to the water by preference, at the time, of all others, when home is most loved and cherished by the "comfortably poor." the houses, nominally closed since the holidays, have been reopened, one by one, ever since the general return from the south in april, after which season, mrs. jenks-smith assures me, it is bad form to be seen in new york on sunday. this fiat, however, does not prevent members of almost every family from spending several days a week in the city, thus protecting themselves against the possible monotony of home living by lunching and dining, either singly or in informal groups, at the public restaurants. father has always held the theory that ladies should dress inconspicuously in the public streets and hostelries, and for a woman to do otherwise, he considered, was to prove that she had no claim upon gentility. evan used to go so far as to say that the only people who display their fine clothes in hotels are those who have no homes in which to wear them. dear, innocent provincials, the whirlpoolers have changed all that, and given the custom their hall mark that stamps it vogue. in fact, in glancing at the papers, by the light of our bluff colony, which, after all, is but a single current of the pool that whirls in the shape of the letter s, it seems to me that a new field has been opened for the society journalist--the reporting of the gowns worn at the restaurants in the "between seasons." one evening, a few weeks ago, evan and i went, by request, to one of the most celebrated of these resorts to call upon some friends of his, a bride and groom, then passing through the city. we were directed where to find them in the corridor--midway would have been a better term. we found them, and many others beside! "where do these people come from?" i whispered to evan, looking down the row of women of all ages and, if expression may indicate, all grades, who, dressed and undressed in lavish opulence, were lolling about, much as if expecting a call to go upon the stage and take part in some spectacle, but that the clothes and jewels were too magnificent to be stage properties. "brewers' wives from the west, and unknown quantities; people who come to new york to see and be seen," he answered carelessly; but almost as he spoke his words were checked by the entrance of an equally gorgeous group, composed of those who lavinia dorman had assured us were among the most conservative of our new neighbours, all talking aloud, as if to an audience, as they literally swept into the dining room, where mrs. center was already seated. to be sure, the clothes, in their cases, were worn with a difference,--the ease of habit,--but to all outward appearance the distinction began and ended there. ah me! to think of having such things cross the horizon in may, when, unless one is forced to be miserable, one must be inexpressibly happy. i have been working all the month in my garden, as of old, or trying to, at least, but upon the principle that no member of a community can either live or die wholly to, or by, himself, i here missed the untrammelled liberty of yore. not that i care if i am detected collarless, in a brown holland apron, with earthy fingers, and sometimes even a smutty nose, but the whirlpoolers, unable to regard the work as serious, do not hesitate to interrupt, if nothing more. imagine the assurance of the twenty-two-year-old ponsonby girl, who came dashing up all of a fume last saturday morning, when i was comfortably seated on the old tea tray, transplanting a flat of my best ostrich plume asters, and begging me, her mother being away, to chaperon her to a ball game, in a town not far off up the railroad, with harmless, pink-eyed teddy tice, one of her brother's college mates. it seems that if she could have driven up and taken a groom it would have been good form, but there was some complication about the horses, and to go by rail unchaperoned, even though surrounded by a earful of people, was not to be thought of. i pointed to the asters that must be set out and covered before the sun was high, but she couldn't understand, and went off in a huff. what a disagreeable word chaperon is at best, and what a thankless vocation the unlisted, active, and very irregular verb 'to chaperon' implies. i quite agree with johnson, who denounced the term as affected, for certainly its application is, though lavinia dorman says it is the natural effect of a definite cause, and that it is quite necessary from the point of view of the quarter where it most obtains. monday morning i was again interrupted in my garden operations by a whirlpooler, but the reason was quite different. the twins have gardens of their own, which are as individual and distinctive as their two selves. richard delights in straight rows, well patted down between, and treats the small seeds that he plants with a sort of paternal patience. ian disdains any seed smaller than a nasturtium or bean, whose growth is soon apparent, and has collected a motley assortment of bulbs, roots, and plants, without regard to size or season, and bordered his patch with onion sets for corney delaney's express benefit, the goat having a gallic taste for highly flavoured morsels. both boys are fairly patient with their own gardening operations, but their joy is to "help" me by handing tools, watering plants, and squirting insecticides, in my society and under my direction. of course i could do it all much quicker by myself, and it has hampered me this spring, for last season they were too irresponsible to more than play work a few minutes at a time. now i have come to the conclusion that it is their right to learn by helping me, and that it is the denial of companionship, either from selfishness or some absurd educational theory, that weakens the force of home ties later on. i have been frequently lectured by those older, but more especially "new mothers" younger than i, about staying with the boys at bedtime until they grow drowsy. "the baby is put to bed, and if he cries i pay no attention; it is only temper, not pain, for he stops the minute i speak to him," they say. i feel the blood rush to my face and the sting to my tongue always when i hear this. not pain, not temper, but the unconscious yearning for companionship, for mother-love, is oftener the motive of the pitiful cry. why should it be denied? the mother bird broods her young in the nest at twilight, and the father bird sings a lullaby to both. the kittens luxuriously sup themselves to sleep with the warm mother flesh responding to their seeking paws. in wild life i know not an animal who does not in some way soothe her young to sleep. why should the human child, the son of man, be forced to live without the dream memories that linger about happy sleeping times? what can the vaunted discipline give to replace them? it is then, as they grow, and speech forms on their lips, that little confessions come out and wrongs are naturally righted through confidence, before they can sprout and grow. i was not quite five when i last watched mother sowing her flower seeds, and yet i remember to this day the way in which she did it, and so when it came time to give my bed of summer roses its first bath of whale oil, soap, and water, and the boys gave whoops of joy when they saw bertel wheel out the tub and i appeared with the shining brass syringe, i resolved to let them have the questionable delight of administering the shower bath, even if it took all day. i have appropriated a long strip of rich, deep soil for these tender roses, quite away from the formal garden and across the path from the new strawberry bed, which by the necessity of rotation has worked its way from the vegetable garden to the open spot under the bank wall by the stable where the hotbeds congregate. this wall breaks the sweep of the wind, and so both our tender roses and strawberries are of the earliest, the fruit already being well set and large. it was the middle of the morning. the work was progressing finely, without more than the usual amount of slop and misdirected effort, when a violent tooting from the direction of the highway caused me to stop, and ian dropped the squirter that i had newly filled for his turn, upon the grass border, while he and richard scurried toward the gateway to see what was the matter, for the sound was like the screech of an automobile horn in distress. it was! a streak of dark red and a glitter of brass flashed in between the gate posts, grazing them, and barely escaping an upset, and then came plunging toward me. i screamed to the boys, who seemed to me directly in the path of the _thing_, which in another moment i recognized as an automobile of the battering-ram variety, belonging to harvey somers, gwendolen burton's fiancé, which for the past week had been the terror of father's steady old gray horses, owing to its constitutional eccentricities. mr. somers was handling it single-handed, and though he was coming at a reckless speed, i expected that he would swing back of the house and come to one of the dramatic sudden stops, on the verge of an accident, for which he is famous. so he did, but not on the driveway! the _thing_ gave a lurch and veered toward the barn, spitting like a cageful of tiger cats. somers was pushing the lever and gripping the brake with all his athletic might, but to no purpose. the children, who, wild with excitement, had by this time sought the safety of the open barn door, seemed a second time to be in the monster's path. another lurch! surely man and machine would be dashed to bits against the substantial stable wall! then the _thing_ changed its course, and showing a ray of flustered intelligence, made a mighty leap off the bank wall and landed hub deep in the soft, friable soil of the new strawberry bed, where, after one convulsive effort, some part of its anatomy blew up with the triple report of a rapid-fire gun, and after having relieved itself of a cloud of steam, it settled down peacefully, as if a strawberry bed was the place of all others it preferred for a noonday nap. harvey somers was shot with a left-handed twirl directly into one of the hotbed frames, from which the sash was pushed back, and landed in a doubled-up position, amid a tearing sound and the crash of broken glass. meanwhile, the boys, frightened at the cloud of steam, yelled "fire!" at the top of their lungs. as i flew to help him, i could for the instant think of nothing but the lizard bill's assisted progress up the chimney and into the cucumber frame, but as a rather faint voice said, "not you; kindly call the doctor," my mirth changed to alarm, which was not lessened when timothy saunders, hearing the uproar and the cry of fire, arriving too late to grasp the situation with his slow scotch brain, and seeing me leaning over the plant frame, picked up the squirt and deluged the unfortunate man with whale-oil spray! coughing and choking, mr. somers finally sat up, but did not offer to do more, wiped his eyes, and said to me in most delightful and courteous tones, "would you be so good as to allow your man to bring me either a bath robe or a mackintosh?" i was at once relieved, for i knew that the lacerations were of trousers and not flesh, and at the same time i saw that the crash of glass was caused merely by the toppling backward of the sash, also that all my young heliotrope plants that were in the frame where the chauffeur reposed were hopelessly ruined. timothy brought out evan's bath gown, and in a few moments mr. somers was himself again, and after surveying the scene of the disaster, he approached me with a charming bow, and drawing a crumpled note from his pocket said:-- "i promised bertie chatterton to give you this invitation for his studio tea to-morrow, in person, and i fear that i have rather overshot my promise. best way to get that brute up will be from the bank wall,--will damage your fruit less. i will have a derrick sent up to-morrow, or if possible this afternoon. i'm awfully sorry, mrs. evan, but i think you'll bear me witness that the accident was quite out of my control. may i beg the favour of a trap home? i'm a trifle shaken up, that's all." and as if the accident were an everyday affair, he departed without fuss and having steadied my nerves by his entire self-control. as i stood by the gateway pondering upon the matter and the easy manners of this whirlpooler, mrs. jenks-smith drove past. she had met mr. somers, and as her curiosity was piqued by his strange attire, she stopped to see if i could furnish a clew. she says, by the way, that he is not a new yorker, but from boston, and that his father is an english honourable and his mother a frenchwoman. a gang of men with a sort of wrecking machine hired from the railroad company removed the _thing_ next day, and towed it off, but of course the strawberries were half ruined; next a man from the florist's in town came with directions to repair all damage to turf and replace the smashed plants. yet that is not all--the sense of peace and protection that i had when working in my garden has had a shock. in spite of the inhospitable air it gives the place, i think we must keep the gates closed. why was jenks-smith inspired to start a land-boom here and fate allowed to make fashion smile on it, when we were so uneventfully happy, so twinfully content? * * * * * martin cortright arrived on wednesday, and is safely ensconced with martha and timothy saunders, who could give him the couple of plainly furnished rooms he desired, and breakfast at any hour. for a man of no hours (which usually means he never breakfasts before nine) to forgather cheerfully at a commuter's table at : a.m. is a trial to him, and a second breakfast is apt to cause a cloud in madam c.'s domestic horizon. therefore, father allowed martin to do as he suggested, live at the farm cottage and work here in the library or attic den, as suits his convenience. in this way he feels quite independent, has motive for exercise in walking to and fro, and as he is always welcome to dine with us, can mix his portion of solitude and society in the exact proportion of his taste, even as his well-shaped fingers carefully blend the tobacco for his outdoor pipe. dear old fellow, he seems so happy and bubbling over with good temper at having overstepped the tyranny of habit, that i shall almost expect to see his gray hairs turn brown again as the wintry pelt of the weasel does in spring. if the vanderveer boy is diagnosed as a case of "suppressed boyhood," then martin cortright's only ailment should be dubbed "suppressed youth!" he was to have come earlier in the month, but a singular circumstance prevented. the old-time gentlewoman, at whose house in irving place he has had his apartments so long that a change seemed impossible, died, and he was obliged not only to move, but put his precious belongings in storage until he can place himself suitably once more. so that his plan of coming here bridges the break, and seems quite providential. he and father walk up and down the garden together after dinner, smoking and chatting, and it does me good to see dear daddy with one of his old-time friends. i think i am only now realizing what he, with his sociable disposition, gave up in all those years before evan came, that i should not be alone, and that he might be all in all to me. it was quite cool yesterday. we had hearth fires all through the house, and martin, rearranging some reference books for his own convenience in the little room that is an annex to father's library, wore his skull cap and chinese silk dressing gown, which gave him an antique air quite at variance with his clear skin and eyes. lavinia dorman had been due all the week, but worry with the workmen who are building in the rear of her house detained her, and she telegraphed me that she would take the morning express, and asked me to meet her over in town. so i drove in myself, dropping father at the hospital on the way, but on reaching the station the train brought me no passenger. i returned home, hoping to be in time for our way train, thinking i had mistaken her message, and missed it; but the postmistress,--for every strange face is noticed in town,--told me that the lady who visited me two weeks ago walked up from the ten o'clock train; that she had a new bonnet and "moved right spry," and asked if she was a relative of mine. "an aunt, maybe, and was the pleasant new gentleman an uncle, and did he write a newspaper? she thought maybe he did because he was so particular about his mail." i said something about their being adopted relations, and hurried home. the boys were industriously digging dandelions on the side lawn. i inconsistently let the dear, cheery flowers grow and bloom their fill in the early season, when they lie close to the sward, but when they begin to stretch awkward, rubbery necks, and gape about as if to see where they might best shake out their seed puffs, they must be routed. do it as thoroughly as possible, enough always remain to repay my cruelty with a shower of golden coin the next spring. bertel spends all his spare time on the other bits of grass, but the side lawn is the boys' plunder, where, by patiently working each day at grubbing out the roots at twenty-five cents a hundred, they expect, before the dandelion season is over, to amass wealth enough to buy an alluring red goat harness trimmed with bells that is on exhibition at the harness shop in town, for corney delaney. yes, they said, aunt lavinia had just come, but she said they need not stop, for she could go in by herself. there was no one in the hall, sitting room, den, or upstairs, neither had effie seen any person enter. thinking i heard voices in the direction of father's office, i went there and through to the library "annex," where an unexpected picture met my gaze. martin cortright, the precise, in stocking feet, skull cap, and dressing gown, perched on top of the step-ladder, was clutching a book in one hand, within the other he held miss lavinia's slender fingers in greeting, while his face had a curious expression of surprise, pleasure, and a wild desire to regain his slippers that were down on the floor, a combination that made him look extremely foolish as well as "pudgy." up to that moment, miss lavinia, who cannot distinguish a face three feet away without her lorgnette, thought she was speaking to father. under cover of our mutual hilarity, i led her back to a seat in the study, so that martin might recover his wits, coat, and slippers at the same time, for miss lavinia had stumbled over the latter and sent them coasting in different directions. yes, the postmistress was right, lavinia dorman had a new bonnet. not the customary conservative but monotonous upholstered affair of jet and lace, but a handful of pink roses in a tulle nest, held on by wisps of tulle instead of ribbons. "hortense, who has made bonnets for years, said this was more appropriate for the country, and would show dirt less than black,--and even went so far as to suggest omitting the strings altogether," she said in rather flurried tones, as a few moments later we went upstairs, and i removed the pins that held the confection in place, and commented upon its prettiness. * * * * * martin cortright stayed to dinner, and afterward he, miss lavinia, father, and evan sat down to a "real old-fashioned," serious game of whist! of all things, to the fifth wheel, who is out of it, would not be in if she could, cannot learn, and prefers jackstraws to card games of any sort, an evening of serious whist is the most aggravating. they were too well matched to even enliven matters by squabbling or casting venomous glances at each other. evan played with martin cortright, whose system he was absorbed in mastering, and he never spoke a word, and barely looked up. this, too, when he had been away for several days on a business trip. it was moonlight, and i wanted him to see the new iris that were in bloom along the wild walk, dilate upon the game of leap-frog that the automobile played, and--well--there is a great deal to say when evan has been away that cannot be thought of indoors or be spoken hurriedly in the concise, compact, public terms in which one orders a meal. conversation is only in part made of words, its subtilties are largely composed of touch and silence. i myself, being wholly responsible for the present whist combination, of course could say nothing except to myself and the moon. what a hoard of personal reminiscences and heart to heart confessions the simpering old thing must have stored away behind her placid countenance. it is a wonder that no enterprising journal has syndicated her memoirs by wireless telegraphy for the exclusive use of their sunday issue. i resolved that i must wait awhile, and then if this silence lasted many evenings, i must hunt up a game of cards that takes only two. how could i get out of the room without appearing to be in a huff or bored? ah! a wordless excuse; a slight noise upstairs. ian sometimes walks in his sleep. i go up and sit in my window and look out through the diamond panes at the garden. ian stirs and mutters something about a drink. i hasten to get it, and he, gripping the glass with his teeth, swallows eagerly, with a clicking noise in his throat. "is your throat sore?" i ask apprehensively. he opens his eyes, realizes where he is, nestles his head into my neck and whispers,-- "not zactly lumpy sore, barbara, just crusty, 'cause i made--lots of dandelion curls wif my tongue to-day, and they're--velly--sour," and with a satisfied yawn he rolled back on his pillow, into the funny spread-eagle attitude peculiar to himself, but richard slept peacefully on like a picture child, cheek on hand, and the other little dandelion-stained paw above the sheet. (n.b.--when one's husband and father together take to serious whist of a moonlight night in spring, twins are not only an advantage but a necessity.) i have searched the encyclopedia for the description of an intellectual game of cards, arranged as a duet, and found one. it is piquet! now i can wait developments peacefully, for are there not also in reserve chess, checkers, backgammon, and--jackstraws? * * * * * _june_ . a gentle summer shower at sunset after a perfect day has filled the world with fragrance and song, for do the birds ever sing so perfectly with such serene full-noted ecstasy as after the rains of may and june? or is it the clearness of the air after the rain that transmits each note in full, prisoning nothing of its value? to-night i am unhappy. perhaps that is an exaggeration, and perplexed is the better word, and it is only in pages of my social experience book that the cause can be given. friday was peysey vanderveer's eighth birthday, and it has been celebrated by a party on a scale of magnificence that to my mind would have been suitable for the only son of royalty. though the invitations fortunately were only given two days in advance, richard and ian were agog over the matter to the extent of muttering in their sleep, and getting up this morning before eight, in order, if possible, to make the hour of three come quicker, and to be sure to be ready in time. when the invitation was brought by mr. vanderveer in person, he asked if lavinia dorman and i would not like to come up also and see the children play, adding that i need feel no responsibility about the boys, as he was going to be at home and give himself up to seeing that the "kids" had a jolly time, and got into no scrapes. we agreed that it would be amusing to go up with the children, stay a little while to be sure that they could adapt themselves, and then leave; for if there is anything dampening to the ardour of children at play it is a group of elders with minds divided between admiration and correction, punctuating unwise remarks upon beauty and cleverness with "maud, you are overheated." "tommy, don't! use your handkerchief!" "billy, your stocking is coming down!" "reggie, you must wait, girls should be helped first." the boys certainly looked comfortably and humanly handsome in their white cheviot sailor suits, loose blue ties, black stockings and pumps. they really are good-looking children. lavinia dorman, who is candour itself, says so. i suppose people think that my opinion does not count, and that i should consider them perfect if they were of the human chipmunk variety. but i am sure i am not prejudiced, for i do _not_ think them perfect, only well made and promising, thus having the two first requisites of all young animals. when we arrived at the vanderveers a little late, owing to the fact of father's having been obliged to use our horse for a hurry call, the party had "gathered," to use an old-fashioned expression, and i saw that richard and ian were by several years the youngest of the group of thirty or more, the others ranging from eight to thirteen or fourteen. the house and grounds were decorated wherever decoration was possible. though it was wholly a daylight affair, japanese lanterns hung by festoons of handsome ribbon from verandas, trees, and around the new pergola, the marble columns of which, in the absence of vines, were wound with ribbons and roofed with bright flags, to form a tent for the collation. in an arbour decorated in a like manner, an hungarian orchestra in uniform, much in vogue, miss lavinia says, for new york dinner dances, was playing ragtime, while a dozen smart traps and road carts filled with exquisitely dressed women lining the driveway around the sunken tennis court, indicated that a matched game was to take place. yes, after every one had exchanged greetings, miss lavinia, meeting several friends who not only treated her with something akin to homage, but were unfeignedly pleased to see her, the guests divided, a dozen of the elder girls and boys going toward the tennis court, where monty bell seemed to be acting as general manager. i afterward discovered that two prizes for doubles and two for singles were to be played for, not pretty trifles suitable for children, but jewellery, belt buckles of gold and silver, gold sleeve links, and a loving cup. meanwhile mr. vanderveer took charge of the younger group and led them through the garden to where some young spruce trees hid the wall. here a surprise awaited them in the shape of two of the largest of the growing trees festooned with ribbons and laden with strange fruit in the shape of coloured toy balloons that bobbed about and tugged at their moorings as if anxious to escape. on each balloon a number was painted in white. a wide ribbon was stretched barrierwise across the walk about fifteen feet from the trees, and near it were several large baskets, one full of bows and dart-pointed arrows, and the other heaped with expensive toys and bonbon boxes of painted satin, for prizes, each article being numbered. "step up, ladies and gentlemen. stand in line by the ribbon and take your turn at the most unique shooting match ever seen in this county,--one at a time,--and whoever points the arrow at anything but the balloons is ruled out," rattled mr. vanderveer, after the manner of a fakir at a country fair, and beaming with pleasure. for evan says that outside of business dealings he has the reputation of being the most good-natured and generous of men, and that to invent ways to lavish money upon his son and his friends is almost as keen a pleasure to him as to promote schemes for winning it. mr. vanderveer picked up a bow and dart to illustrate the game, aimed at a balloon, the arrow glanced off, but at the second shot the balloon went pop and shrivelled away with the whistle of escaping gas and shouts of applause from both children and their elders. feeling assured that my boys were quite at their ease and not likely to balk and act like wild rabbits, as is sometimes the case with children when they find themselves among strangers, and seeing nothing that they would be likely to fall out of or into, except a great bowl of lemonade arranged in a bower that represented a well, we came away, lavinia dorman sniffing in the spectacle like a veteran war-horse scenting powder, and enjoying the gayety, as i myself should have done heartily if it had not been for the boys. i was not worried about their clothes, their taking cold, or sticking the darts into their fingers, but i was beginning to realize the responsibility of consequences. what would the effect of this fête be upon the birthday parties of our village community, where a dish of mottoes, a home-made frosted sponge cake, and a freezer of ice cream (possibly, but not always) from town, eaten out-of-doors, meant bliss. i suppose it is only the comfortably poor who have to think of consequences, the uncomfortably rich think they can afford not to, and tired of mere possession, they must express their wealth audibly at any cost. * * * * * richard and ian came home about half past six, driven by timothy saunders, who was in a sulky mood. when i asked him, by way of cheerful conversation, if the vanderveer grounds did not look pretty, and if he had heard the band (he is very fond of music), he fairly glowered at me as he used in his bachelor days, before martha's energetic affection had mellowed him, and he began to jerk out texts, his dialect growing more impossible each moment, so that the only words that i caught were "scarlet weemen--philistines--wrath--mammon o' the unriteous," etc., until i seized the boys and fled into the porch, because when timothy saunders is wrathful, and quotes scripture as a means of expressing it, some one must fly, and it is never timothy. the boys, however, were jubilant, and began at once to unwrap the various bundles they were hugging, prizes, it seemed, for every game they played, that represented enough plunder to deck a small christmas tree. after these had been duly admired, with some misgivings on my part, ian jumped up suddenly, clapping his hand to his pocket, and coming close, so that he could rest upon my knee, he began pulling out shining new dimes and quarters, until his hands, moist and trembling with excitement, could hold no more, and he poured the coins into my lap. "count them please, barbara, vely quick, 'cause i can't say so many," he begged, standing with his curly head a little on one side, and his eyes flashing with eagerness. wondering what new form of extravagance it was, i counted, "one, two, three dollars and a half." "then we can go and buy the red harness for corney to-morrow, without bothering to dig up any more dandies, 'cause dick's got some too," he fairly shouted. "it was all bully fun, but that swizzle game where the marble ran round was the bestest of all, only some numbers it sat on took the pennies and some gave them back," and he indicated something flying round in a circle as he capered about. ian's slightest gestures, like his father's, are very realistic, and i turned sick as i realized the game by which the silver had been won was probably roulette! could it be possible? how had mr. vanderveer dared? no, there must be some mistake. at that instant my attention was attracted by richard, who, after unpacking his toys, had curled up in a deep piazza chair, where he sat without saying a word, but looking flushed and heavy-eyed. "do you feel sick? perhaps you ate too much cream, and then ran too fast. come and let mother feel of your hands," i said. his hands were cold and his head burning. "it wasn't the cweam," he replied finally, as if not quite sure what was the matter, "it was the lemonade with the bitter currant jelly in it that made the cweam and all swell up,--and i guess it's going to spill pretty soon." "lemonade with bitter jelly in it?" queried father, coming out, "what sort of a mess have they given him?" father stooped, smelled his breath, saying, "astringent wine of some sort, unless my nose fails me. did you have any, ian?" "not pink, only yellow. i was all full up by then." "when?" "why, when the big boys caught some of us and said we must drink pink lemonade to make us grow quick." father gave me a keen glance of intelligence, and i took the boys upstairs, where richard's trouble soon righted itself, and, early as it was, they went quickly to sleep with the precious money under their pillows, fatigue conquering even their excitement. evan came home rather late, and at dinner we talked of other things. as far back as i remember anything, i can hear father's voice saying alike to aunt lot, myself, or a complaining servant, "the family board is sacred; meals are not the time for disagreeables." immediately after dinner, and before i had a chance to tell evan, mrs. jenks-smith stopped on her way home from a drive, the whirlpoolers not dining until eight, to ask father if she might take some friends in to see the hospital to-morrow, an appeal having been recently made for new bedding, etc., saying: "we're going to have smashing strawberries and roses this year; they'll come on before the crowd moves along in july, and we might as well shake up a fête for the hospital as anything else, as we're bound to keep moving. "were you up at vanderveers this afternoon? oh, yes, to be sure, i saw you going down hill as i drove in. quite a chic affair for a little between-season place like this; but after all, it's the people, not the place, that make the pace, isn't it, miss dorman? and a swell new yorker can leave a wake that'll show the way anywhere. "you don't look happy, though, mrs. evan. the boys ate too much? no? roulette a little too high for you? "well, my dear, i half agree with you. i think things were a little too stiff this afternoon for such youngsters; but vandy is such a liberal fellow he couldn't do enough,--nor tell when to stop,--actually lugged up half a dozen bags of new silver and dealt it to the kids in handfuls. harm? why, he didn't see any, i dare say. he wasn't robbing anybody; besides, i'll bet monty bell put him up to it. i know how you feel, though. i wouldn't play for money myself, if i'd young boys; but as i haven't, it doesn't matter, and one must be amused. that's the way mrs. latham jogged poor carthy off and began the gap with her husband. latham gambles on change, of course, but drew the line at his house. didn't know it? you poor innocent, you're as bad as sylvia herself. why, yes, they're as good as divorced, by mutual agreement, though; he's kept away all of two years. i expect that they will announce it any time now. "won't let the boys keep the money? don't be silly now and make a fuss; change it to bills and put it on the church plate; that's what all the really conscientious women always do with their lenten winnings anyway,--that is, when they can afford it. "i'll allow, though, they didn't manage the drinks well this afternoon. the lemonade was for the youngsters, and their spread was in the pergola; the next age had claret cup in the tea house back of the tennis court, and there was also a spread there with champagne cup for the elders. "claret cup? oh, yes, nowadays you insult a boy over twelve if you offer him lemonade. but the trouble was, the big boys tumbled to the champagne cup, got hold of a bowl of it, grew excited, and fed the youngsters with the claret stuff, and made a lot of them sick. your richard one of them? i see,--i don't wonder you're put out, my dear, indeed i don't. i should be too, that is, if it mattered; but one person disapproving won't turn the wheel the other way, it only means to lose your own footing." so saying, the lady of the bluffs rustled away, promising to call for father in her 'bus in the morning. "is this true?" asked evan, presently, and i had never seen his eyes look so steely cold. "yes, i'm afraid so," i answered, meeting his gaze. "where is the money?" "under their pillows; they expect to buy the red goat harness to-morrow." "it's a crying shame, the whole thing. the poor little babies!" "what shall i do?" "you? nothing. i shall return the money. this is my business; man to man. as a woman you inevitably must be emotional and make a doubtful issue of it. you mother the boys well, god knows; this is my chance to father them." "but the money,--shall i get it now?" "no, in the morning; they will bring it to me, and i will make them understand, as far as babies may. in one way, i fear, we are unwittingly somewhat to blame ourselves. every one who is drawn toward a social and financial class a little beyond his depth, and yields, though feeling the danger, is unwise. i think, sweetheart, this commuter, his wife, and babies had better be content to wade in safe shallows and not go within touch of the whirlpool current." then evan and i went and stood silently by the two white beds, and now he is walking up and down in the garden smoking quietly, while i am writing up here, and unhappy because i think of to-morrow and the boys' disappointment about the little red harness. xi rearranged families _june_ . sylvia latham has returned alone. her father came with her as far as chicago, where, having business that would detain him for perhaps ten days, and warm weather having set in, he insisted that sylvia should at once proceed eastward. at least that is what miss lavinia tells me; but she has suddenly turned quite reticent in everything that concerns the lathams, which, together with mrs. jenks-smith's random remarks, have inevitably set me to thinking. i had hoped to form a pleasant friendship with sylvia, for though i have only met her two or three times, i feel as if i really knew her; but there will be little chance now, as they go on to newport the first of july, and the continual procession of house parties, for golf, tennis, etc., at the bluffs, even though they are called informal, necessarily stand in the way of intimate neighbourly relations between us. monty bell has been dividing his week ends between the ponsonby, vanderveer, and jenks-smith households, yet he always is in the foreground when i have been to see sylvia, even though i have tried to slip in between times in the morning. i do not like this monty bell; he seems to be merely an eater of dinners and a cajoler of dames, such superficial chivalry of speech as he exhibits being only one of the many expedients that gain him the title of "socially indispensable" that the whirlpoolers accord him. personally anything but attractive, he seems able to organize and control others in a most singular way. perhaps it is because he has a genius for taking pains and planning successful entertainments for his friends, even to the minutest detail, and giving them the subtle distinction of both originality and finish, without troubling their givers to think for themselves. miss lavinia-says that he has the entree of the two or three very exclusive new york houses that have never yet opened their doors to mrs. latham and several more aspiring whirlpoolers, mrs. jenks-smith having penetrated the sacred precincts, only by right of having been presented at the english court in the last reign through the influence of her stepdaughter, who married a poverty-stricken title. "i don't know what it all amounts to," said the outspoken lady of the bluffs on her return, "except that i'm in it now with both feet, which is little enough pay for the trouble i took and the money jenks-smith put out. "our son-in-law? no, he's not exactly english, he's irish, blood of the old kings, they say; but all the good it does him is, that he can wear his hat with a feather in it, or else his shoes, i can never remember which, in the presence of royalty, when if it wasn't for good american money he'd have neither one or the other. "money? oh yes, that's all they want of us over there; we've no cause to stick up our noses and think it's ourselves. we know, jenks-smith and i, for haven't we been financial mother and father in law to a pair of them for ten years? jenks-smith was smart, though; he wouldn't give a lump sum down, but makes them an allowance, and we go over every year or so and bail them out of some sort of a mess to boot, have the plumbing fixed up, and start the children all over with new clothes. that's what we're doing when the papers say, 'mr. and mrs. jenks-smith, who went to carlsbad for the waters, are now in ireland, being entertained in regal style by their daughter and son-in-law at bally-whack house.'" miss lavinia says with a shiver that whoever marries monty bell, and it is absolutely necessary for him to make a wealthy connection in the immediate future, will have all new york doors open to her, and that, as mrs. latham is leaving no stone unturned in order to become a social leader, a marriage between sylvia and mr. bell would secure her the complete prestige necessary to her ambition, while rearranged families are so common and often the results of such trivial causes, that the fact of the man's having a lovely wife and two children living abroad does not militate against him in the least. it all seems ghastly, this living life as if it was a race track, where to reach the social goal is the only thought, no matter how, or over or through what wreckage, or in what company the race is to be won. since her return sylvia has looked pale and seemed less buoyant. she is much disappointed because her plan of going to rockcliffe to see her class graduate cannot be carried out. miss lavinia had promised to go with her, and the poor child was looking forward to a week of girlish pleasure among the friends with whom she had spent two years, when, lo and behold! the rose and strawberry festival, that the lady of the bluffs had stirred up for the benefit of the hospital, assumed such huge proportions that the entire colony became involved, and the dates conflicting, it was impossible for sylvia to leave home without entirely tipping over her mother's plans. the places on the north side of the bluff road are to be thrown open, grand-chain fashion, each contributing something by way of entertainment, games, a merry-go-round brought with great expense from the city, fortune telling, a miniature show of pet animals, and an amateur circus, being a few of the many attractions offered. the spectators are to pay a fee and enter by the ponsonbys', the first place on the south, and gradually work their way up to the jenks-smiths', where the rose garden and an elaborate refreshment booth will be reached. the latham garden is too new to make any showing, but mrs. latham, who has been much in new york of late, promises something novel in the way of a tea room in her great reception hall, while mrs. jenks-smith insisted that sylvia should have charge of her rose booth, saying: "your name's suitable for the business, you'll look well in a simple hat and baggy mull gown, such as artists always want to put on the people they paint, and i must positively have some one who'll stay by me and see that things are not torn to bits, for all the rest of the girls will slide off with the first pair of trousers that comes along. anyway, you don't match the little ponsonby and chatfield minxes that your mother has chosen for her six geisha girls, for you are a head taller than the bunch." nothing is talked of now but this fête. of course it will help the hospital, even though ten times the amount is being spent upon the preparation than any sum that can possibly be made for the charity; but it pleases the people to spend. father says that the whirlpoolers are already bored; that they have used up the place, for the time being, and if it were not for this festival, the bluffs would be deserted for newport and long island long before july. social ambition has even infected our rector's jolly little wife, who has never felt able or called upon to entertain in any but the most informal way. after hearing the report of a clerical luncheon in new york, where the clergyman sat at the foot of his own table with a miniature shepherd's crook before him, and the favour beside the plate of each female guest consisted of a woolly lamb, she, not to be outdone, immediately imperilled the possibility of a new winter gown by inviting all the non-resident members of the congregation to lunch, and serving the ice cream in a toy noah's ark, while the animals from it were grouped about a large dish of water, to form an appropriate decoration in the centre of the table, and sugar doves at each plate held leaves in their mouths, upon which the name of the guest was neatly pricked with a pin. * * * * * lavinia dorman has decided to stay with me and do without her maid, rather than take a cottage, or board, for we find that we do not wear on each other in the least. we never plan for one another, or interfere in any way, and each takes it for granted that if the other desires assistance of any sort, she will ask for it. miss lavinia pokes about the garden at her own sweet will. i gather the flowers,--i could not give that up to any one,--and she takes charge of arranging them in the house. she is very fond of doing fancy work, i am not, so that her offer to re-cover the sofa cushions in den, study, and library comes in the light of a household benefaction. besides this, she has a very good effect upon the boys, and without being at all fussy, she is instilling their absorbent minds quite unconsciously with some little bits of the quaint good breeding of other days that they will never forget. they love to go to town with her, one of her first stipulations being that if i chose to include her in some of our long drives, well and good, otherwise she wished the liberty of telephoning the stable for horse and man, whenever she pleased, without my troubling myself about her movements. meanwhile, i really think that this living in the midst of a family without losing her independence is making lavinia dorman grow backwards toward youth. she has bought an outing hat without strings, trimmed with fluffy white, she takes her work out under the trees in a basket, and has given up tying her head in a thin and a thick veil every time she drives out. if she could learn to sit comfortably back and lounge a trifle, and if a friendly magpie would only chance along and steal her stock of fronts, for a nest, so that she would be obliged to show her own lovely hair that shades like oxidized silver, the transformation would be complete. martin cortright also is developing mental energy. he always had considerable physical vim, as i found the sunday after he first came, when he accompanied evan upon one of his long walks, and was not used up by it. he has stopped fumbling with reference books and shuffling bits of paper by the hour, and writes industriously every day by the west window of the attic, where he can refresh himself by looking out of the window at the garden, or across at the passers on the highway. i was afraid that he might wish to read the results nightly to either father or evan, but no, he keeps them safely under lock and key in a great teacher's desk that he bought second hand over in town. he stays to dine with us two or three nights a week, but he has grown flexible, and our meals are very merry ones. laugh softly to yourself, experience book, and flutter your leaves just a bit as i write, that of their own volition, miss lavinia and martin have drifted from whist to piquet, as by natural transition, and evan is free for garden saunterings once more. * * * * * _june_ . yesterday was the day of the festival, and it was neither sultry, foggy, nor brought to a sudden stop by a thunder shower, as so often happens at this season. by half past two in the afternoon the country teams could be seen winding bluff ward by all the various roads, and before three, the hour at which the gates were to be opened, every available hitching place was occupied, and the line of vehicles extended well up one of the back lanes that was bounded by a convenient rail fence. horace bradford arrived home at pine ridge night before last. he had expected to see sylvia and miss lavinia at rockcliffe. missing them, and not knowing the cause of their change of plan, very naturally his first thought was to drive down to oak-lands and make a double call. on taking up the local paper he saw the announcement of the rose festival set forth in ornamental type, which gave him a key to the situation, so that the substantial, if not ornamental, farm buggy, drawn by a young horse with plenty of free-gaited country go but no "manners," was one of the first to reach the bluffs, horace innocently hoping to have a few moments with sylvia before the festivities began. he therefore inquired his way to the latham house direct, instead of going into the fair grounds by way of the ponsonbys', and encountered perkins, potts, and parker, who were on guard at the door, as well as two footmen who stood by the steps with straw wheel guards ready to assist people from their traps, and two grooms in silk-sleeved buff jackets, who waited to take charge of the horses of the men who were expected to ride over from a neighbouring social settlement. the outdoor group seemed to be in doubt how to proceed. bradford had all the ease of bearing that they instinctively felt belonged to a gentleman, but his turnout was beyond the pale, and the grooms hesitated to give it the shelter of the perfectly equipped stable. perkins, however, did not hesitate, and before bradford could open his lips, came through the doors that were fastened wide open, and, with a wave of his hand said, in freezing tones, "you've come in the wrong way; the entrance gate and ticket booth is below, as the sign shows." "i wish to see miss latham," said bradford, handing his card, and at the same time with difficulty suppressing a violent desire to knock the man down. "not at home," replied immovable perkins, vouchsafing no further information. "then take my card to mrs. latham," thundered bradford, nettled by his slip in not asking for both at the first instance, and; as the man still hesitated, he strode past him through the porch and into the hall. as perkins disappeared through one of the many doorways, bradford stood still for a moment before his eyes focussed to the change of light. the pillars of the hall that supported the balcony corridor of the second story were wreathed with light green vines, delicate green draperies screened the windows, the pale light coming from many japanese lanterns and exquisitely shaded bronze lamps rather than outside. half a dozen little arbours were formed by large japanese umbrellas, under which tea tables were placed, and the sweet air of the summer afternoon was changed and made suffocatingly heavy by burning incense. of course all this paraphernalia belonged to the festival, and yet bradford was not prepared to find sylvia living in such daily state as the other surroundings implied. he knew that she belonged to a prosperous family, but his entrance to what he supposed would be, as the name implied, a country cottage, was a decided shock to him. he had been drawn irresistibly toward sylvia almost from their meeting in the lecture room several years before, but he could hardly allow himself the luxury of day dreams then, and it was not until his promotion had seemed to him to place him upon a safe footing, that he had paused long enough to realize how completely she was woven into all his thoughts of the future. now, as he waited there, a broad gulf, not a crossable river, seemed to stretch before him, not alone financial but ethical,--a sweeping troublous torrent, the force of which he could neither stem nor even explain to himself,--verily the surging of the whirlpool at his feet. babbling girlish voices waked him from his revery, and half a dozen young figures, disguised in handsomely embroidered japanese costumes and headgear, their eyes given the typical almond-shaped and upward slant by means of paint and pencil, came down the stairs, followed a moment later by a taller figure in still richer robes, and so carefully made up by powder and paint that at a distance she looked but little older than the girls. coming toward bradford with an expression of playful inquiry, she said: "is this mr. bradford? i am mrs. latham. did you wish to see me? i've only a moment to spare, for at three o'clock i lose my identity and become a geisha girl." bradford was embarrassed for a moment, even quite disconcerted. why should he have taken it for granted that sylvia had spoken of him, and that he should be known to her mother? but such was the case, and he felt bitterly humbled. "i was one of miss latham's instructors at rockcliffe two years ago. i have returned now to spend the vacation with my mother, whom perhaps you know, at pine ridge, and finding that you have come to live here--i--ventured to call." if poor bradford had desired to be stiff and uninterestingly didactic, he could not have succeeded better. "ah, yes--rockcliffe--sylvia was there for a couple of years, and will doubtless be glad to hear of the place. i myself never approved of college life for girls, it makes them so superior and offish when they return to society. even two years abroad have not put sylvia completely at her ease among us again. "we do not live here; this is merely a between-season roost, and we leave again next week, so i have not met your mother. the only one of the name i recollect is an old country egg woman back somewhere in the hills toward pine ridge. you will find sylvia at mrs. jenks-smith's, just above, at the rose booth. pardon me if i leave you now, i have so much on my hands this afternoon." thus dismissed, bradford went out into the light again. he noticed for the first time that his horse and buggy, standing unheeded where he left them, looked strangely out of date, and as he went down the steps, the horse turned his head, and recognizing him, gave a joyful whinny that caused the grooms to grin. he could feel the colour rising to his very eyes, and for a moment he determined to go home without making any further effort to find sylvia, and he felt grateful that his mother had declined his invitation to come with him to the festival. his mother, "the egg-woman"! what would she have thought of sylvia's mother thus painted and transformed in the name of charity? he experienced a thrill of relief at the escape. as he found himself on the free highway once more, he faltered. he would see how sylvia bore herself in the new surroundings before he put it all behind him. this time he found a bit of shade and a fence rail for the too friendly nag, and entering the jenks-smith grounds afoot, followed the crowd that was gathering. the rose garden of five years' well-trained growth was extremely beautiful, while the pergola that separated it from the formal garden of the fountain, and at the same time served as a gateway to it, was utilized as the booth where roses and fanciful boxes of giant strawberries were to be sold. bradford, standing at a little distance, under an archway, scanned the faces of the smart married women who bustled about canvassing, and the young girls who carelessly gathered the sumptuous roses into bouquets for the buyers, making a great fuss over the thorns as they did so. then one tall, white-clad figure arrested his attention. it was sylvia. she handled the flowers lovingly, and was bestowing patient attention upon a country woman, to whom these pampered roses were a revelation, and who wished a bouquet made up of samples, one of each variety, and not a mass all of a colour like the bunches that were arranged in the great baskets. as sylvia held the bouquet up for the woman's approval, adding a bud here and there, pausing to breathe its fragrance herself before handing it to the purchaser, horace's courage came back. she was plainly not a part of the vortex that surrounded her. circumstances at present seemed to stand between. he could not even venture a guess if she ever gave him other than a friendly thought; but a feeling came over him as he stood in the deep shade, that some day she might be lonely and need steadfast friendship, and then the opportunity to serve her would give him the right to question. now thoroughly master of himself, he went toward her, and was rewarded by a greeting of unfeigned pleasure, a few moments of general talk, and a big bunch of roses for his mother. "no, you shall not buy these. i am sending them to your mother with my love, to beg pardon for miss lavinia and myself, for we've been trying to go to pine ridge all the week; but this affair has kept me spinning like a top, and when i do stop i expect to fall over with weariness. i was _so_ sorry about rockcliffe commencement. some day, perhaps, mamma will have finished bringing me out, and then i can crawl in again where it is quiet, and live. ah, you went to the house and saw her, and she said we were going away next week? i did not know it, but we flit about so one can never tell. i've half a mind to be rebellious and ask to be left here with lavinia dorman for guardian, i'm so tired of change. yes, i enjoyed my flying trip to the west, in a way, though father only came as far as chicago with me, but i expect him to-morrow." then the crowd surged along, peering, staring, and feeling, so that it would have blocked the way conspicuously if bradford had lingered longer. as he vanished, monty bell sauntered up, and, entering the booth, took his place by sylvia. under pretext of good-naturedly saving her fingers from thorns by tying the bouquets for her, kept by her side all the afternoon, and when a lull came at tea time, strolled with her toward the refreshment tent, where he coaxed her to sit down to rest in one of the little recesses that lined the garden wall, where she would be free from the crowd while he brought her some supper. this she did the more readily because she was really tired, almost to the point of faintness, and even felt grateful when mr. bell returned with some dainty food, and sat beside her to hold her plate. she was so used to seeing him about at all hours, making himself generally useful, that the little attentions he continually showered upon her never held a fragment of personality in her eyes. now, however, something familiar in his manner jarred upon her and put her strangely on her guard. one of the man's peculiarities was that he had a hypnotic manner, and presently, almost before she could really understand what he was about, he had put his arm around her and was making an easy, take-it-all-for-granted declaration of love. for an instant she could not believe her ears, and then his tightening clasp brought realization. tearing herself away, and dropping her plate with a crash, she faced him with white face and blazing eyes, saying but one word--"stop!" in so commanding a tone that even his fluency faltered, and he paused in exceeding amaze at the result of what he had supposed any woman of his set would esteem an honour, much more this strange girl whose mother was engaged so systematically in securing a place at the ladder top. "if i had understood that your casual politeness to me and usefulness to my mother meant insult such as this, we should have checked it long ago." "insult?" ejaculated monty bell, looking over his shoulder, apprehensive lest some one should be within ear-shot, for to be an object of ridicule was the greatest evil that could come to him. "you don't understand. i want you to marry me." "insult, most certainly! what else do you call it for a man with two little daughters, and divorced by his wife for his own unforgivable fault, to ask any woman to marry him! yes, i know, you see. lavinia dorman is a friend of mrs. bell!" "the devil!" muttered the man, still looking about uneasily, under the gaze of her uncompromising accusation. in some way the directness of her words made him feel uncomfortable for the moment, but he quickly recovered, changed his tactics, and burying his hands in his pockets, assumed his usually jaunty air, while half a smile, half a sneer, crossed his face as he said lightly: "what a droll, puritan spitfire we are, aren't we? as if rearranged families were not a thing of daily happening. don't feel called upon to kick up a rumpus, it isn't necessary; besides, take a tip from me, _your mother won't like it!_ if you are through with that cup, i will take the things back," and nonchalantly shying the bits of the broken plate into the bushes, he went toward the refreshment tent, saying to his host, mrs. jenks-smith, who was inquiring for sylvia: "yes, she is yonder in the second arbour. i've taken her some tea, for she's quite done up; that beastly overland trip home was too much for her in the first hot weather." consequently the warm-hearted lady of the bluffs was naturally prepared to find sylvia sick and faint, and urged sending her home, where she could slip in and get to bed unobserved, which was the one thing that the girl most desired. also this shrewd lady was wise enough to give no sign, even though she drew her conclusions, when on turning to leave the arbour she saw a bit of the broken plate lying on the ground at the opposite side near where a point of the rustic work had torn a shred from sylvia's mull drapery as she had pulled herself away. * * * * * by the time that sylvia had gained her room the warm twilight sky had been transformed to a silver lake by the moon, but she neither enjoyed its beauty nor heard the music that was beginning to come from the rose garden above, as well as the tea room below stairs. she sat by the window, deaf to all outside things, with only one thought in her mind; she would gladly have buried the occurrence of the arbour, if it were possible, but as it was, she must tell her mother, as now, that his motive was made plain, monty bell, as a matter of course, could no longer come to the house. finally she went to bed and slept from sheer exhaustion, never for a moment doubting that her mother would take her view of the matter. presently the french maid crept in and closed the blinds, wondering why mademoiselle often seemed to take pleasure so sadly, and appeared older than madame, her mother, and then, feeling at liberty, hurried down gayly to dance on the back porch with the loitering gentlemen's gentlemen who gathered there. * * * * * mrs. latham slept late the next morning, and at eleven o'clock had only finished looking over her mail without yet touching her breakfast, when, without waiting for an answer to her knock, sylvia entered. her mother looked up in some surprise, for she did not encourage running in and out at all hours, or any of the usual intimacies between a mother and grown daughter who are companions. in fact she did not even ask sylvia to sit down, or if she was ill, though her pallor was very apparent, but merely raised questioning eyebrows, saying, "what is it?" as she turned her attention to some legal-looking documents in her lace-decked lap. chilled to the heart sylvia seated herself in a low chair by her mother, so that she need not raise her voice, and twisting her hands nervously, told what had happened in as few words as possible, much as if she had repeated them over and over until they were learned like a lesson. mrs. latham's cold gray eyes at first snapped viciously, and then grew big with wonder as sylvia ended by saying, "i should never have spoken of this to any one, and tried to forget, but you would think it strange that mr. bell should stop coming here--and--" "think it strange?" said mrs. latham, speaking harshly and rapidly, a thing she rarely did. "do you know what i think of you? that you are the most absolute little fool i ever imagined. you not only refuse a man who could make your social position secure, but rant and get into tantrums over the compliment he pays you, and call it an 'insult,' exactly as your canting grandmother latham might have done. i've no patience with you; and if you think that this nonsense of yours shuts the door in monty bell's face, you are wholly mistaken. "while we are upon this subject of divorce that seems to shock you so, i may as well tell you what you will not see for yourself, and your father appears to have been too mealy-mouthed to explain,--we have agreed to separate. no need of your getting tragic, there are no public recriminations on either side, no vulgar infidelity or common quarrelling, everything quite amicable, i assure you. simply we find our tastes totally different, and have done so for several years. mr. latham's ambitions are wholly financial, mine are social. he repelled and ignored my best friends, and as we are in every way independent of each other, he has been wise enough to avoid possible and annoying complications by standing out of my way and making it easy for me to legalize the arrangement and readjust myself completely to new conditions." "but what of carthy and me?" gasped sylvia, in a voice so choked and hollow that the older woman hesitated, but for a single instant only. "have neither you nor father thought of us? where do we belong? where is our home? can people who have once loved each other forget their children and throw them off so? does god allow it? you must have cared for father once, for i remember when i was a little girl you told me that you called me sylvia, to have my name as nearly like father's--sylvester--as possible. have you forgotten it all, that you can do this thing, when you say in the same breath that father has done no evil?" "don't be tragic, sylvia, and rake up things that have nothing to do with the matter. as to your brother, it was your father's foolish severity about a card debt, and insisting upon placing him away from me, that is primarily responsible for the divorce, not any wish of mine to exile carthy. and you ask where your home is, as if i had turned you out, when you have just refused an offer that any unmarried society woman, who can afford it, would clutch." sylvia sat silent, looking blindly before her. her mother waited a moment, as if expecting some reply, and then continued: "now that the matter is virtually settled, i suppose in a few days the papers will save me the trouble of announcing it. under the circumstances, i shall rent the newport house for the season, as i have had several good offers, and go abroad for two or three months on the continent, so that before my return the town house will be redecorated and everything will be readjusted for a successful winter. you had better take a few days before deciding what to do. you can, of course, come with me, if you are not sick of travel, or go to your father, who is ready to make you a handsome allowance; though you will find that awkward at present, as he is moving about so much. if you choose to feel aggrieved just now, you might persuade your dear, prim miss dorman to either stay here with you or take that little furnished house that is to rent on the lower road, if you prefer that form of discomfort they call simplicity. you needn't decide now; take time," she added genially, as if she was doing all that could be asked. when she ceased speaking, sylvia, with bowed head, rose and quickly left the room. then mrs. latham gave a sigh of relief that the interview was over, threw the papers into a bureau drawer, called to the maid, who had been all the while listening in the dressing room, to prepare to arrange her hair, and, taking the chances that sylvia would keep her room, at least for some hours, wrote a hasty note to monty bell, inviting him to luncheon. meanwhile, sylvia, instead of going to her room to cry, took her hat and crept out into the lane that led to the woods. she must be quite away by herself and gain time to think. this was a terrible sort of grief that could neither be kept secret nor halved by sympathy, but must be worn in the full glare of day. her heart condemned her mother wholly, and she understood why her father kept the silence of shame,--to whom could she turn? as she gained the woods, and throwing herself down on a soft bed of hemlock needles, closed her dry, burning eyes, two people seemed to stand side by side and look at her pityingly,--lavinia dorman and horace bradford,--and mentally she turned toward one and shrank from the other. in miss lavinia she saw her only refuge, but between herself and horace the shadow of his upright mother seemed to intervene. what could they think of her mother playing at geisha girl in her own home at the very hour of its wreck? xii his mother _july_ . it was several days after the festival before the news of the latham divorce was made definitely public by a paragraph under the heading of "society news," in one of the new york papers, though of course the rumour had crept into every house on the bluffs, by way of the back stairs. miss lavinia was greatly distressed, and yet did not know exactly how to act in the matter; for though mrs. latham was seen driving by, as usual, sylvia made no sign. we may read of such cases often enough, and yet when the blow falls in the immediate neighbourhood, one must feel the reflex of the shock. while sympathy for sylvia keeps the thing ever present, like a weight upon the chest, i find myself wondering if anything could have been done to avert the disaster, and we all rove about in a half unsettled condition. half a dozen times a day lavinia dorman starts up with the determination of calling upon sylvia, but this morning decided upon writing her a letter instead, and having sent it up by timothy saunders, is now sitting out in the arbour, while martin cortright is reading to her from his manuscript; but her attention is for the first time divided, and she is continually glancing up the road as if expecting a summons,--a state of things that causes an expression of mild surprise and disappointment to cross martin's countenance at her random and inapropos criticisms. i see that in my recent confusion i have forgotten to record the fact that miss lavinia has fallen into the rôle of critic for martin's book, and that for the last ten days, as a matter of course, he reads to her every afternoon the result of his morning's work, finding, as he says, that her power of condensation is of the greatest help in enabling him to eliminate much of the needless detail of his subject that blocked him, and to concentrate his vitality upon the rest. this all looks promising, to my romantic mind; for the beginning of all kinds of affection, physical, mental, and spiritual, that are huddled together in varying proportions as component parts of love, has its origin in dependence. father declares independence, selfishness, and aloofness to be the trinity of hell. now martin cortright has come to depend upon lavinia dorman's opinion, and she is beginning not only to realize and enjoy his dependence, but to aid and abet it. is not this symptomatic? when i approach father upon the latham affair, he says that he thinks the rupture was inevitable from the point of view and conditions that existed. he feels, from the evidence that long experience with the inner life of households has given him, that though a thoughtless woman may be brought to realize, and a woman with really bad inherited instincts reclaimed, through love, the wholly selfish woman of mrs. latham's type remains immovable to word of god or man, and is unreachable, save through the social code of the class that forms her world, and this code sanctions both the marriage and the divorce of convenience, and receives the results equally with open arms. as to the effect upon sylvia, father exhibits much concern, and no little anxiety, for he has read her as a nature in some respects old for her twenty-one years, and in others, the side of the feminine, wholly young and unawakened, so that this jar, he thinks, comes at a most critical moment. he has a pretty theory that the untroubled heart of a young girl is like a vessel full of the fresh spring sap of the sugar maple that is being freed by slow fire from its crudities and condensed to tangible form. when a certain point is reached, it is ready to crystallize about the first object that stirs it ever so lightly, irrespective of its quality: this is first love. but if the condensing process is lingering, no jar disturbing it prematurely until, as it reaches perfection, the vital touch suddenly reaches its depths, then comes real love, perfected at first sight, clinging everlastingly to the object, love that endures by its own strength, not by mere force of habit; and this love belongs only to the heart's springtime, before full consciousness has made it speculative. * * * * * when horace bradford drove homeward the afternoon of the fête, he was in a brown study, having no realization of time or place until the wise horse turned in at the barnyard gate, and after standing a moment by his usual hitching post, looked over his shoulder and gave a whinny to attract his master's attention. then horace started up, shook off his lethargy, and hurried to the porch, where his mother stood waiting, to give her the roses, and sylvia's message. mrs. bradford was, for one of her reserve, almost childishly eager to hear of the experiences of the afternoon, and was prepared to sit down comfortably on the porch and have her son give a full account of it; but instead, he gave her a few rather incoherent details, and leaving her standing with the splendid roses held close to her face, very much in sylvia's own attitude, he hurried up to his room, where she could hear him moving about as if unpacking his things, and opening and shutting drawers nervously. "never mind," she said softly to herself, "he will tell me all about her when he is ready. meanwhile, i'll wait, and not get in his way,--that is what mothers are for." but by some strange impulse she loosened the string that bound the roses, and placed them in one of her few treasures, a silver bowl, in the centre of the supper table, and going to her bedchamber, which was, country fashion, back of the sitting room, arrayed herself in horace's gifts,--the silk gown and fichu, with the onyx bar and butterflies to fasten it,--and then returned to the porch to watch the twilight gently veil sunset. upstairs, horace unpacked his trunks in a rebellious mood. in the morning he had felt in the proper sense self-sufficient and contented,--the position, which a few months before he thought perhaps ten years ahead of him, had suddenly dropped at his feet, and he felt a natural elation, though it stopped quite short of self-conceit. he could afford to relax the grip with which he had been holding himself in check, and face the knowledge that he loved sylvia; while the fact that fate had brought her to summer in his vicinity seemed but another proof that fortune was smiling upon him. now everything, though outwardly the same, was changed by the new point of view, which he realized that he had already tried to conceal from his mother, by his scanty account of the festival. he had been suddenly confronted by conditions that he never expected to meet outside of the pages of fiction, and felt himself utterly unable to combat them. under the present circumstances even neighbourly friendship with sylvia would be difficult. it was not that mrs. latham had overawed him in the least, but she had raised in him so fierce and blinding a resentment by her only half unconscious reference to his mother, that he resolved that under no circumstances should she run the risk of being equally rebuffed. he would protect her from a possible intercourse, where she could not be expected, at her age, to hold her own, at no matter what cost to himself. "egg woman!" was it not his mother's pride and endeavour, her thrift and courage to carry on the great farm alone, and the price of such things as those very eggs, that had carried through his dying father's wish, and sent him to college, thus giving him his chance in the world? no regret at the fact, no false pride, dawned on him even for a second. all his rage was that such a woman as sylvia's mother should have the power to stir him so, and then his love for sylvia herself, intensified by pity for the unknown trouble that he sensed rather than read in her face, cut into him like a wound. he felt as if he must pick her up in his strong arms and bear her away from all those clamouring people; and then the realization both of his inability and ignorance of her own attitude fell upon him like a chill, for she had never written or said a word to him that might not have passed between any two college friends. such thoughts occupied him, until finally, as often fortunately happens in our mental crises, a humdrum, domestic voice, the supper bell, called him, and leaving his garments strewn about the room, he went downstairs. his mother was still sitting in the porch, and he became at once conscious of a change in her appearance. as she looked up in pleased expectancy, he recognized the cause, and his sternness vanished instantly, as he said, "how fine we look to-night," and half sitting on the little foot-bench beside her, and half kneeling, he touched the soft lace, and gently kissed the withered cheek whose blood was still not so far from the surface but that it could return in answer to the caress, while she looked yearningly into the eyes that even now were hardly on a level with hers, as if searching for the cause of what might be troubling him. yet she only said, as they rose and went indoors, "i put on your gifts for you, at our first supper together," adding with an unconsciousness that made horace smile in spite of himself,--"besides, i shouldn't wonder if some of the neighbours might drop in to see us, for it must have got about by this time that you've come home; the mail carrier saw you drive out this morning, i'm quite sure." neighbours did call; some from pure friendliness, others to see if "horace acted set up by his new callin' and fortune," and still others, who had been to the bluffs that afternoon, to tell of the wonders of the festival, their praise or condemnation varying according to age, until mrs. bradford was at a loss whether to think the affair a spectacle of fairyland or a vision of the bottomless pit, and horace was in torment lest he should be appealed to for an opinion, which he was presently. "what did he think of the tea room? was mrs. latham painted? was she sylvia's mother, or step-mother, and if she was the former, didn't she act dreadful giddy for the mother of grown children? and didn't he think sylvia was just sweet, so different from the rest, and sort of sad, as if she had a step-mother, as people said, and was sat on?" the questioner being the very woman for whom sylvia had taken such pains in selecting the bouquet of specimen roses, who proved to be the new wife of a neighbour whom horace had not met. it seemed to horace that his mother purposely looked away from him as he tried to pull himself together, and answer nonchalantly that he believed that mrs. latham was sylvia's own mother, though she did appear very young, and that of course she was acting the part of a geisha girl, a tea-seller, which would account for her sprightly manner, etc., unconsciously putting what he wished in the place of what he knew, adding with a heartiness that almost made his voice tremble that miss sylvia certainly did seem different, and as if she was no kin of her mother's. "i guess, then, likely it isn't her step-mother, but that she's worried in her mind about her beau," continued the loquacious woman, pleased at having such a large audience for her news. "i heard some folks say,--when i was waitin' about for my cream, and havin' a good look at all the millionnaires, which they didn't mind, but seemed to expect, the same bein' fair enough, seein' as it's what i paid to go in for,--that the man they call mr. bell, that's been hangin' around the bluffs since spring, is courtin' her steady, but she can't seem to make up her mind. thinks i to myself, i don't wonder, for i've had a good look at him, and he's well over forty, and though he dresses fine, from his eyes i wouldn't trust him, if he was a pedler, even to weigh out my rags and change 'em for tin, without i'd shook the scales well first. the same folks was sayin' that he's a grass widower, anyway, and i shouldn't think her folks would put up with that, fixed as they be, yet they do say," and here her voice dropped mysteriously, "that mrs. latham's a kind of grass widder herself, for her husband hasn't turned up in all the year she's been here, and nobody's so much as seen his name to a check." at this point mrs. bradford made an effort to turn the conversation into other channels; for friendly as she always was with her neighbours of all degrees, she never allowed unkind gossip in her house, and only a newcomer would have ventured upon it. as it was, the loquacious one felt the rebuke in the air, and made hasty adieus on the plea of having to set bread, leaving the rest to talk to their host of themselves, their pleasure at his return, and the local interests of pine ridge. when they had all gone, horace locked the back door, after filling an old yellow and bronze glazed pitcher, which bric-à-brac hunters would have struggled for, at the well, as he had done every night during his boyhood, he left it on the hall table, and going out the front way to the garden, walked up and down the long straight walk, between the sweet peas and rose bushes, for more than an hour, until, having fought to no conclusion the battle into which a new foe had entered, he returned to the house and went noiselessly to his room. here, in place of the confusion he had left, quiet and order reigned. all his clothes were laid away in their old places. he had but to reach his hand inside the closet, the door of which hesitated before opening in its familiar way, to find his night gear; the sheets were turned down at the exact angle, and the pillows arranged one crosswise, one upright, as he liked them,--his mother's remembering touch was upon everything. he undressed without striking a light, and lay down, only to look wakefully out at the dark lattice of tree branches against the moonlit sky. presently a step sounded on the stairs and paused at his partly open door. he raised himself on his elbow, and peering through the crack saw his mother standing there in night-dress and short sack, shading the candle with her hand as she used when he was a little chap, to make sure that he was safe asleep and had not perhaps crept out the window to go coon hunting with the bigger boys,--a proceeding his father always winked at, but which she feared would lead him to overdo and get a fever. "i'm here, mother," he said cheerfully. "are you quite comfortable, horace? is there nothing that you want?" he hesitated a moment, and then said frankly, "yes and no, mother." "is it anything that i can do for you?" she asked, coming into the room and smoothing his hair as she spoke. "ah, that is the _no_ of it, and the hard part," he answered, capturing the hand and holding it tight between his own. "and the hard part for your old mother too, when the one thing comes that she cannot give or do. whatever it is, don't shut me out from it, horace,--that is, unless you must," and tucking the light summer quilt in under the pillow by one of his hands, she kissed his forehead and went away. horace bradford must have slept, for his next consciousness was of the fresh wind and light of morning, and as he drew his cramped hand from under his pillow, something soft and filmy came with it,--a woman's handkerchief edged with lace. for a minute he held it in surprise, and then began to search the corners for the marking. there it was, two embroidered initials, s.l. where had it dropped from? who had put it there? was it a message or an accident? yet it was both and neither. his mother had found the dainty thing in the package from new york that held the gown and ornaments, where it had dropped from sylvia's waist that night, four months before, when she stood leaning on miss lavinia dorman's table, as the parcel was being tied. mrs. bradford had pondered over it silently until, the day when i went to see her and chanced to mention sylvia latham's name, its identity flashed upon her; and when gropingly she came to associate this name with something that troubled horace, obliterating self and mother jealousy, she tucked the bit of linen underneath his pillow, with an undefined idea, knowing nothing, in the hope that it might comfort him. and so it did; for even when he learned the manner of its coming, he put it in his letter case as a reminder not to despair but wait. * * * * * when a week had passed and the matter of the divorce had been well aired, discussed, and was no longer a novelty to her neighbours on the bluffs, mrs. latham's plan of soon closing her cottage and transferring the servants to newport, with the exception of the stable men and a couple of caretakers, was announced, as she was going abroad for the baths. the same day lavinia dorman received an urgent note from sylvia, asking her "when and where she could see her alone, if, as she thought likely, she did not feel inclined to come to the house." the tone of the brief note showed that sylvia felt the whole matter to be a keen disgrace that not only compromised herself but her friends. of course miss lavinia went, and would have gone even if she had to combat mrs. latham, for whom she asked courteously at the door; but that lady, for some reason, did not choose to appear and run the gantlet, and sent an elaborate message about a sick headache by the now somewhat crestfallen perkins. presently sylvia slipped into the morning room, and crouching by miss lavinia, buried her face in her friend's lap, the tension at last giving way, and it was some time before she grew quiet enough to talk coherently, and tell her plan, which is this: she wishes miss lavinia to take the alton cottage (which is furnished) at the foot of the bluffs, for the rest of the season, and live there with her. then as soon as mrs. latham has gone, and the poor girl has steadied herself, her father, to whom she has already written, will come, and what she will do in the autumn will be arranged. everything is as yet vague; but one thing she has decided for herself--under no circumstances will she again live with her mother, and she is now staying quietly in the house and taking her meals in her room, in order to give the scandalmongers and gossips as little material as possible. lavinia dorman, who readily consented to do as she asked, says that sylvia is brave and heartbroken at the same time, that all her girlish spontaneity has gone, and she is like a statue. i am so sorry to have miss lavinia go, even a few hundred yards down the road, it has seemed so good to have an older woman in the house to whom i can say, "would you, or wouldn't you?" martin is also quite upset, and has stopped writing and begun fumbling and pulling the reference books about again; but miss lavinia says that she is not going to give up the afternoon reading, for she thinks the history is a work of importance not to be slighted, and that sylvia will doubtless take up her own reading and practising after a time; that while she herself has willingly consented to chaperon her, she does not intend to give up her own freedom, nor would it be good for sylvia if she did. yesterday morning miss lavinia received a letter from sylvester latham, thanking her for the offer of temporary protection for his daughter, and telling her, in curt business terms, meant to be affable, to name her own price for the office. i have never before seen the ladylike lavinia dorman so completely and ungovernably angry. i could do nothing with her, and last evening it took the united efforts of martin, father, and evan to convince her that it was not a real affront. poor mr. latham, he has not yet gotten beyond money valuation of friendship; but then it is probably because he has had no chance. perhaps--but no, life is too serious just now in that quarter for me to allow myself remotely pleasant perhapses. miss lavinia was too agitated to play piquet to-night, so she and martin sat in the porch where the light from the hall lamp was sufficient to enable them to play a couple of games of backgammon, to steady her nerves, she said; and presently, as the dice ceased rattling, evan gave me a nudge of intelligence, and looking over i found that they had reversed the board and were playing "give away" with checkers. "after this, what?" i whispered to evan. "jackstraws," he answered, shaking with silent laughter. * * * * * horace bradford turned his mind for the next few days to the many things about the place that needed his attention, resolving that he would let a week or so elapse before making any further attempt to see sylvia, and in that time hoped to find miss lavinia at home, and from her possibly receive some light upon the gossip about mr. bell, as well as news of sylvia herself. the sinking-fund for repairs and rebuilding the house that he and his mother had been accumulating ever since he had made his own way, he found to be in a healthy condition. a new hay barn and poultry house was to be put up at once; and, as soon as practicable, his wish of many years, to restore the brick house, that had been marred by "lean-tos" in the wrong places, to its colonial simplicity, could be at least begun. every day until two or three o'clock in the afternoon he gave to these affairs, and then he went to his books. but here again he met with a strange surprise, a new sensation,--he could neither fix his mind upon writing, nor take in what he read; the letters were as meaningless as fly specks on the pages. after a day or two he gave up the attempt. he had worked too closely during the last term, he thought; his sight did not register on his brain,--he had heard of such cases; he would rest a week or so. then every afternoon he walked over the ridge to the little river in the valley, carrying a book in his pocket, and his fishing-rod as a sort of excuse, and poling an old flatboat down-stream to a shady spot under the trees, propped his rod in place, where by a miracle he occasionally caught a perch or bass, sat looking idly into the water, the brim of an old felt hat turned down about his eyes. one day, near the week's end, as he was lounging thus, his eye was attracted by a headline in a bit of newspaper in which he had wrapped his bait box to save his pocket. it was a semi-local paper from town, one that his mother took, but which they seldom either of them read, and the date was three days back. he turned it over idly, pausing as he did so to pull up the line which was being jerked violently, but only by a mud eel. why did he return again to the scrap of paper when he had freed his hook? his eyes caught strange words, and his hands began to tremble as he read. it was the condensed report of the latham divorce that was now going the rounds of the journals. he paused a moment, then folded the paper, put it in his pocket, poled the boat with vigorous strokes to the landing-place, and strode through the woods and across the cornfields homeward, his heart beating tumultuously until he seemed almost to be struggling with suffocation. he stopped at the barn and harnessed a horse to the old buggy, passing by the new one that he had recently ordered from town, and then went into the house, where, taking off his slouchy fishing clothes, he put on the same ceremonious afternoon wear that he would have worn at northbridge if going to call, put sylvia's handkerchief in his inner pocket, and went in search of his mother. he found her in the kitchen, tying the covers upon countless jars of currant jam. she looked surprised to see him back at such an hour, but said nothing, as esther nichols was close by, employed in wiping off the jars. "i'm going over to oaklands for a drive," he said, handing her the scrap of newspaper with a gesture that meant silence. "shall i wait supper for you, or will you be late?" she said, touching his hand with a gesture almost of entreaty. "i may be late, but--yes, you may wait supper," he replied, looking back at her in going out, as if he wanted to carry the picture well forward in his mind, against any forgetfulness. the miles between pine ridge and the bluffs seemed endless. he had at first intended to go to oaklands village to see miss lavinia and gather such tidings as he could of the calamity that had overtaken sylvia; for he never for a moment questioned but that the girl, who had been entirely straightforward, even in days of college pranks, should so regard the matter. but as he drove along, and the very fact that he was moving toward a definite end calmed him and clarified his judgment, he resolved to go directly to sylvia herself. he would certainly do this if he had seen the announcement of her parents' deaths; then why not now, when their love that gave her birth was officially and publicly declared extinct? he drove through the wide gateway and left his horse standing by a stone pillar outside the porte-cochère,--the beast would stand anywhere if there was a bar or post for him to look at,--and walked up the steps with the air of one who is not to be gainsaid. "not at home," replied the singsong voice of perkins, in answer to bradford's demand for miss latham, potts and parker having already gone to open the newport house for the renter, as a staff of servants was let with it, and then he added, as if conferring a favour, "and mrs. latham has gone on the coach to the station to meet some guests, the last 'ouse party before she sails." "before she sails," thought bradford, numbly. sylvia was going? could he believe the man? should he go through the formality of leaving a card that she might not get? no, he would go home and write a letter. sylvia kept the house until late in the afternoon, these days. then she slipped out by the servants' stairway, and through the garden, to walk in the wood lane that ran northward, joining the two parallel highroads; for her healthy body needed air, and she knew that if she did not have it, she could not control herself to keep peaceful silence for even the few days that remained. so it chanced this afternoon that she was walking to and fro in the quiet lane where the ferns crept down quite to the grassy wheel tracks, when perkins said those repellent words, "not at home." as bradford turned out the gate and noticed that the sun was already setting, he thought to save time by cutting through the almost unused lane to the turnpike that led directly to pine ridge. he had driven but halfway across, when a flutter of light garments a little way ahead attracted him. could it be? yes, it was sylvia, in truth, and at the moment that he recognized her and sprang to the ground she heard the approaching hoofs and turned. for a full minute neither spoke nor moved, then going quickly to her and stretching out both hands, he said, his heart breaking through his voice, "i have been to see you. i did not know until to-day." she gave her hands, and in another moment his strong arms held her fast and unresisting--the purifying friendship of those unconscious years crystallized and perfected at love's first touch. they said but very little as they walked up and down the lane together, for half an hour; but as the shadows lengthened, the thought came equally to both--"what should they do next? how could they part, and yet how stay together?" horace, with man's barbarian directness, would have liked to bear her home to safety and his mother; but the shadow of usage and her mother stood between, for in spite of the hollow mockery of it all, sylvia was still of her household. "i must take you home," he said at last, "and to-morrow i will come--all shall be arranged." "to-night," she whispered, clasping his arm in nervous terror. "come back with me and tell her to-night; then i shall feel sure, and not as if it was not real. and when you have told her,--before whoever may be there, remember,--go home; do not stop to listen to anything she may say." they drove slowly back, and went up the steps to the house, from which voices and laughter came, hand in hand, like two children; but they were children no longer when they crossed the threshold and saw monty bell in the group that loitered with mrs. latham in the reception hall, waiting for dinner to be announced. sylvia's thin gown was wet with dew, her hair was tossed about, her eyes big with excitement, and a red spot burned in each cheek in startling contrast to her pallor--all of which gave her a wild and unusual beauty that absolutely startled as well as shocked her mother, letting her think for a second that sylvia was going to make a scene, had gone mad, perhaps, and run away, and that the tall man holding her by the hand had found her and brought her home. taking a few hasty steps forward, and dreading anything disagreeably tragic, she said: "mr. bradford, i believe. what is it? what has happened?" "only this, that miss sylvia has promised to be my wife, and that, as her mother, we have come to tell you of it before i go home to tell my own." horace bradford drew himself up to every inch of his full height as he spoke, bowed to mrs. latham, then led sylvia to the foot of the stairs, saying, "until to-morrow," and walked quietly out of the house. no one spoke. then mrs. latham, choking with rage, feeling herself helplessly at bay (sylvia was of age, and she could not even assume authority under the circumstances), collapsed on a divan in modified hysterics, and monty bell, completely thunderstruck, finally broke the silence by his characteristic exclamation, "i'll be damned!" * * * * * after their belated supper, when esther nichols had gone over to a neighbour's, horace, sitting by his mother's side, out in the honeysuckled porch, where the sphinx moths whirred like humming-birds of night, holding her hands in his, told her all. and she, stifling the mother pain that, like a birth pang, expected yet dreaded, must come at first when the other woman, no matter how welcome, steps between, folded his hands close, as if she held him again a baby in her arms, and said, smiling through vague tears, "to-morrow we will go together to her, my blessed son." "i cannot ask you to do that; there are reasons--i will bring sylvia to you later, when her mother has gone," he answered hastily, resolving that he would do anything to shield her self-respect from the possible shock of meeting that other mother. "horace, you forget yourself, and your father too," she said almost sternly. "i am country bred, but still i know the world's ways. your father's wife will go first to greet her who will be yours; you need not fear for me," and he sat silent. that next afternoon, when horace's first and last love met, they looked into each other's hearts and saw the same image there, while mrs. latham lay on the lounge in her room, raging within, that again her tongue had failed her in her own house, and realizing that, woman of the world as she aimed to be, the "egg woman" had rendered her helpless by mere force of homely courtesy. presently she rose, and railing and scolding the bewildered maid, sent a message to new york to transfer her passage, if possible, to an earlier steamer. xiii gossip and the bug hunters _july_ . it is such a deadly sin to marry outside of the limited set that is socially registered, that i now understand why many of the whirlpoolers are mentally inbred, almost to the vanishing point, so that they have lost the capacity of thinking for themselves, and must necessarily follow a leader. sylvia latham's engagement to horace bradford has caused a much greater sensation than her mother's divorce. to be sure, every one who has met horace, not only fails to find anything objectionable about him, but accords him great powers of attraction; yet they declare in the same breath that the affair will not do for a precedent, and deplore its radical influence. to-day we have settled down to midsummer quiet and to a period of silence after much talking. the bluffs are quite deserted except by a bevy of children left with governesses while their parents are yachting or in europe, and the servants in charge of the various houses. but a trail of discontent is left behind, for these servants, by their conspicuous idleness, are having a very demoralizing effect upon the help in the plain houses hereabout, who are necessarily expected to do more work for lower wages. i am fully realizing, also, that the excitement of living other people's lives, which we cannot control, through sympathetic imagination, is even more wearing than meeting one's own responsibilities. a certain amount of separateness--i use the word in an entirely opposite meaning to that of aloofness--is, i find, necessary to every member of our household, and this chance for intimacy with oneself is a luxury denied to those who live all their lives taking joy and sorrow equally in a crowd. even the boys, young as they are, recognize it unconsciously, and have separate tree lairs, and neither may enter the other's, without going through some mysterious and wonderful ceremony and sign language, by which permission is asked and granted. there are often days when father sits in his study with closed door or drives over the hills without desire for even the boys as companions. this need not signify that he is either ill or worried,--it is simply the need of separateness. the same thing applies to evan when he sometimes slips out through the garden at night, without word or sign, and is only traceable by the beacon his cigar point makes, as he moves among the trees, until this also vanishes, while my attic corner and the seat at the end of the wild walk offer me similar relief. at least the attic did until martin cortright, at my own invitation, established a rival lair at the opposite end. i did not think that it would matter, the presence of this quiet man barricaded by his books and papers, but it does, because the charm of isolation is destroyed. i would not have done otherwise, however; i have all outdoors, and he will have returned to new york to find winter quarters, and arrange for the publication of the first volume of his history when autumn and shut-in time draws near. mrs. latham sailed last week, and sylvia is now in new york visiting her father at his hotel and arranging her future plans. to-morrow she returns, and together with lavinia dorman goes to the alton cottage until late august or early september, when her wedding is expected to take place. at the last moment mrs. latham changed her plan of leaving the bluff cottage in the charge of servants, had all her personal belongings moved away, and offered the place for sale. "yes, my dear," said mrs. jenks-smith, who, being a sort of honorary stewardess of the colony, usually remains a full week after the breaking-up time, and frequently runs in to report progress, "she's not coming back; being divorced she doesn't need to claim residence here. the place is so convenient to town, too, but i can't really blame her,--though of course i'm glad poor sylvia's to be happy in her own way, and all that, for it's plain to be seen with one eye she's too slow to go her mother's pace--you couldn't expect vivvy latham, over all the hurdles but one, and almost at the end of the race, to relish her daughter's mother-in-law being in the egg trade in the very neighbourhood. "at first everybody thought that the bradfords, mother and son, would probably give up work and float on sylvester j. latham's money, for they say (to spite vivvy, most likely) he took to horace bradford at the first, for what did the young fellow do but go straight to town and look sylvester up, and make a clean breast of it before the gossips could even twist their tongues around the affair. "sylvester thought he could handle bradford to suit himself, move him to new york, jam him into business, cut up the farm in house lots, reorganize his affairs, and declare a dividend out of him for his own benefit, as he does with lame railroads,--but not a bit of it! "'with what you may choose to do for sylvia personally, it would be selfish for me to interfere; but our way of living can only be planned upon the basis of what i earn,' said horace, looking mr. latham in the face, and he's a big man too,--sylvia gets her height from him. "it rather knocked sylvester out, because it was a kind of spunk he'd never met, and he told jenks-smith about it. thought they didn't speak? oh yes, they're thick again, just now, over some kind of a deal. "did you know jenks-smith had bought vivvy's house here? yes, the deed was passed the day she sailed. we've got to keep the bluffs select, you know, and if the house was put on the market, goodness knows who might buy it, just to get in with us. "mr. latham had an idea of taking it and giving it to sylvia, but they wouldn't have that either,--are just fixing up the old house a bit, and going to summer at the farm, while the old lady will keep on selling eggs the same as ever. not but what she's a thoroughbred all right, though in a cheap stable. i was down at vivvy's the day she came to call on sylvia! just as quiet and cool, except that her hands in the openwork silk mits shook, as if her son was a duke. i thought there would be a lively row, and i wished myself out of it, but vivvy hadn't a chance to strike out until the old lady got up to go, then she only said: 'you must not understand that i approve of sylvia's folly, or in any way give my consent to this rash engagement. i cannot prevent it, that is all.' "the old lady's eyes flashed, and i thought, now for it; but she only looked vivvy through and through, and said very clearly: 'most brides are better for their mother's blessing, but under the circumstances i think we prefer to do without it.'" well-meaning lady of the bluffs, i'm really acquiring a sort of affection for her in spite of her crudity. if all the whirlpoolers were like her, the pool might be a noisy torrent, but never a dangerous one. * * * * * this is lavinia dorman's last day with me, and i know she is really sorry to go, in spite of a sort of pleasurable responsibility and excitement she feels in managing sylvia's affairs for a time. she waked up with a bad headache--a rare thing for her--and after breakfast seemed so forlorn and blue that i coaxed her into my room and petted her for a while, almost as i would one of the children; and as she no longer conceals the fact of the false front from me, i took it off, brushed and brushed her lovely hair until it grew supple and alive, and began to glisten, and the pain gradually slipped through it into the air; then i drew it up cushionwise from her forehead and coiled it loosely on top, and she, declaring that my fingers had a magic touch, spent the rest of the morning at my desk in writing letters. the lovable woman who has no one specially to love her is a common tragedy of everyday life. strangely enough it more often draws ridicule than sympathy, and it seems to be always considered the woman's own fault, instead of a combination of circumstances, woven often of self-sacrifice, mistaken duty, and the studied suppression of natural emotions. i think that both miss lavinia and martin cortright dread the going back to their old existence, and yet i am not sure that either of them would consent to change it in any way, in spite of their growlings at the modern conditions of life in new york. they have learned to lean upon the very restrictions that cramp them, until the idea of cutting free seems as impossible as for the bulky woman to sever the stay-lace that at once suffocates and supports her. martin cortright stayed to luncheon to-day. not that it is an unusual occurrence, but he wished to have a long afternoon to finish reading a certain portion of his manuscript to miss lavinia before her flitting in the morning. we were seated at the table when she came in hurriedly, apologizing for being late, saying that she had become so absorbed in finishing her letters that she did not realize that it was even noon. i did not look at her particularly until a few moments later, when martin, after fussing with his bread a good deal, looked up and said, with a charming smile, "what a very becoming gown you have on to-day, miss lavinia." "yes," said father, "i was thinking precisely the same thing myself, so you see that in spite of our condemning your sex for paying so much attention to clothes, we men are the first to note the result of them." miss lavinia looked puzzled. she was too much the politic woman of the world to say that the dimity gown was the same one that she had worn for the two or three days previous; besides, the fact would have cast a doubt upon their judgment, and she was particular in all such little details of good breeding; so she parried the compliment deftly, and straightway fell to pondering as to what circumstance the remark might refer. glancing toward the open window, she caught a reflection of herself where the glass, backed by the dark green curtain, made a mirror. she had forgotten to rearrange her hair, and her burnished silver-shot locks remained rolled back lightly from her white forehead without the ugly, concealing front! i rejoiced inwardly, for the spontaneous tribute to the improvement by those two dear, stupid, discriminating men, has settled the fronts in a way in which no arguments of mine could, for to-night she came to dinner not only with her own emancipated hair, but wearing a bit of red geranium stuck fetchingly in the puff. * * * * * _august_ . sylvia has returned, and miss lavinia has gone to her, lucy and the portly cook having arrived from new york last night, in company with josephus, confined in a large hamper borrowed from the fishmonger, in the top of which a ventilator had been introduced. josephus was naturally indignant when first let out, and switched his tail in wrath, declining to recognize his mistress, and starting to explore the house like an evil spirit. this morning i found him calmly perched on our woodshed roof, gazing wickedly at the boys' banty chickens in the coop below. i predict that he gets into trouble, unless his silver collar, like a badge of aristocracy, protects him. but what can you expect of a misguided whirlpool cat, whose only conception of a bird is a dusty street sparrow, when he meets face to face the delicious and whetting elusiveness of a banty chick or a young robin. poor sylvia is nervously tired out, and the month's rest will be a real boon. her plans are quite settled, and there is nothing for her to do but rest until the time comes to carry them out. she and horace are to be married the last week in august, so that they will have time for a canadian trip before college begins and they return to settle down in a scrap of a house in northbridge. august seems to be considered an unusual month for a wedding; but it suits the circumstances, and as sylvia has decided to be married quite privately here at oaklands, for her own sake, as well as for mrs. bradford's convenience, she wisely wishes to have it over before the possible return of the whirlpoolers. horace had hoped that his mother would join them in northbridge, but she said "no," very firmly, adding, with a quaint, twinkling smile, "horace, nobody ever loved each other closer than your father and i, but there were times in the beginning when ever so well meaning a third finger in our pie would have spoiled the baking. best leave old mother on the farm until by and by, when she can't tell a fresh egg from a bad one any longer." so horace comes down twice a week to visit sylvia, and miss lavinia often drives to pine ridge with her and leaves her for a day, so that mrs. bradford may share the pleasant woman's talk of linen for table and bed, and other details of a bridal outfit. we all missed miss lavinia when she left, that is, all but the boys, and they hailed the change with joy, as giving them another house to roam in and out of. how much of the joy of childhood that we so envy comes from their freedom from prejudice, the ability they have for adapting themselves. martin was so distrait for a time that father absolutely ventured to tease him a little, whereupon he turned stoutly about and declared: "i have never denied the inspiration and value of congenial female society, and the mere fact that circumstances have shut me from it so much of late years makes me all the more appreciative of present privileges. oh, dick, old friend, isn't it some credit to a man who has lived backward almost from his birth, if, after he's sixty, he realizes it and tries to catch up with the present? it seems to me as if the best things had always been just within my grasp, only to slip away again, through unforeseen circumstances, and my ill luck reminds me of a story and picture in a comic paper that the boys were chuckling over last night. it was of a well-intentioned beetle who fattened a nice green caterpillar for its family's thanksgiving dinner, and the thing went and spun itself into a cocoon the night before!" martin cortright at times verges on the pathetic, but always cures himself by his appreciation of his own limitations before he reaches the bore stage. he too is taking a short vacation from work, or rather i should say that he has developed industry in a new direction and become absorbed in entomology, to the extent of waging war on the tent caterpillars that are disfiguring both the orchards and the wild cherry trees of the highways with their untidy filmy nests, leaving the foliage prematurely brown and sere, from their ravages. yesterday, in driving home from pine ridge with sylvia, we noticed that even the wood edges had the appearance of being scorched by fire, and many of the old orchards where we go in may for apple blossoms are wrecks meshed in the treacherous slimy webs. martin's methods are regular and very simple, but he goes about his task each day as if the matter was a marvel of military strategy. first he puts a book ostentatiously in one pocket and a flask of alcohol in the other. next he takes his torch, consisting of a piece of sponge wired to an old rake handle, which he keeps on the back stoop, and makes sure that it is tight and secure, finally searching me out to say that in case he meets miss lavinia, have i any message for her. why he does not keep his outfit up at martha's i do not know; perhaps because of timothy's keen tongue. miss lavinia, after her morning housekeeping is over, takes her work bag to the narrow cottage porch and apparently gives herself up to the task of making pin-cushions for sylvia or embroidering initials on napery. suddenly she will get up, say that her feet are falling asleep and that she needs a walk to restore her circulation. will sylvia go with her? sylvia, after pretending to consider, thinks not, making some excuse of its being too warm or that she expects horace that day. presently two prim people walking in opposite directions meet and, taking the same path, may be seen any morning along the less frequented roads and orchard paths, sometimes repairing the torch that has a constant tendency to lose its head, sometimes watching the destruction by fire of an unusually wicked worm city, and frequently with their heads stuck into some suspicious bush, where they appear to be watching invisible things with breathless interest. [illustration: the bug hunters.] father and i chanced upon them when thus employed the other morning. martin turned about and in the most serious manner began to dilate upon the peculiarities of worms in general and particular, as well as of the appropriateness of their study by the book collector, as the score and a half insects that injure books and their bindings are not worms at all, having none of the characteristics of the veritable book worm _sitodrepa panicea_, to all of which miss lavinia listened with devout attention. "what makes them act so?" i said, half to myself, as we drove on, and father stopped shaking with laughter. "there isn't the slightest reason why they should not go to walk together; why do they manoeuvre with all the transparency of ostriches?" "it's another manifestation of suppressed youth," said father, wiping his eyes, "upon the principle that the boy would rather slip out of the window to go coasting at night than ask leave and walk out publicly, and that when a young girl begins to grow romantic, she often takes infinite pains to go round the back way to meet some one who is quite welcome at the front door. when young folks have not had a chance to do these things, and the motive for them lies dormant, heaven alone knows how or when it will break loose." others, however, have observed, and the "bug hunters" has now come to be the local nickname of these two most respectable middle-aged people with ancestors. josephus, who has been leading a sporting life for many days, or rather nights, has at last returned minus his long tail with which he used to express his displeasure in such magnificent sweeps. miss lavinia is in tears, and wishes to have a reward offered for the apprehension of the doer of the deed. evan says that if she does, and thus acknowledges the cat as hers, she may be deluged with bills for poultry, as he has been hearing weird tales on the train, such as are often current among commuters who are not zoologists, of a great black lynx that has been invading chicken coops and killing for pleasure, as his victims are usually left on the ground. thus has country freedom corrupted the manners of a polite cat, and at the same time a hay knife (probably) has rendered him tailless. * * * * * _august_ . summer is at high tide. how i dread its ebbing; yet even now the hastening nights are giving warning. evan has been taking a vacation, and we have spent many days, we four, following the northward windings of the river in a wide, comfortable boat and lunching in the woods. we are pagans these days, basking in the sun, cooling in the shade, and living a whole life between sunrise and sunset. the boys are showing unconscious kinship with wood things, and getting a wholesome touch of the earth in their thoughts. i am sure that the mind often needs a vacation more than the body, and yet the condition of change that bears the name of rest frequently merely gives the head fresh work. how far away the whirlpool and its people seem as we sit perhaps on one of the many tiny river islands enjoying this time separateness, not as individuals, but as a family, for the whirl of the pool is tiresome even to watch. i have felt old these last three months, and i suppose it is a still further carrying out of the allegory and penalty of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge; only the discipline does seem a little hard when, having no desire either to pluck or taste the apple, one stands actually away with hands safely behind back, and yet has the fruit absolutely thrust between unwilling lips. even the feathered things about us are in this mood; their family life is over, the companionship of fall travel has not begun, and the woods are full of moulting birds choosing this separateness in preparation for the tension of new flight and its perils. everything, in short, in wild nature has its corresponding note in our own humanity,--the sweating of the corn, the moulting of the bird, the contraction of the earth by frost, all have a kindred season or experience in the heart. then, too, the august nights--so heavy with the intensity of sleep that is akin to sleeplessness, broken by peremptory thunder voices and searching lightning, or again enveloped by moonlight that floods the room--shut out the world until, kneeling in its tide between the little white beds, i can feel the refrain of that hymn of mother's that father taught me long ago to say to myself in the night when she had gone away from sight and i was lonely:-- "father, on thy heart i lean when the world comes not between." * * * * * _august_ . sylvia and horace were married under sunshine yesterday in the little chantry of the church that is used in winter and for week-day services. to-day the cold northeasterly storm has come, under cover of which august so often disappears and september enters the marshes upon the wings of low-flying plovers, to the discordant call of the first waterfowl of the return migration. mr. latham came to the wedding. in fact, he has been here several times during the month. he is a well-built man, under sixty, dark and taciturn, and would be handsome but for the hard expression of his face. his attitude toward the world has seemed to be one of perpetual parry and self-defence; of course he may have good reason for this distrust, or, as evan says, he may have brought the necessity upon himself by his constant severity of attack on others. yesterday i partly changed my mind about him. he evidently once had tender feelings, but, from what cause who can say, they have in some way been compressed and frozen until they exist only as hurts. sylvia was married in bridal white. she had wished to wear a travelling gown and go away from the chantry door, but miss lavinia argued her out of the notion, saying, "horace has the right to a pretty bride, even if you do not care." it would have taken but very little, after the strain of the last two months, to make sylvia morbid and old beyond her years, her one thought seeming to be to get away from the surroundings of the past year and begin to live anew. our group, and a dozen friends of the bradfords, including some from northbridge who belonged to both, filled the little chapel which horace, martin, and evan had trimmed with flowers wholly from our garden. at the last moment, mrs. jenks-smith, whom we thought abroad, dashed up in a depot hack, perspiring and radiant, her smart gown having a most peculiar and unnatural looking promontory on the chest. "no, my dear, i'm not in carlsbad. jenks-smith was called back on business, and i sniffed the wedding in the air and hooked on,--only arrived last night. _have_ you seen the papers? hush, i'll tell you later," and her voice sank into an awed whisper, and she gave a startled look as the bride entered on her father's arm, with ian and richard as her only attendants. having heard so much talk of marrying and of weddings, they had asked sylvia to let them be "bridesmaids," and it seemed she really wanted them. their faces were solemn to the verge of comedy as they walked hand in hand before her, their feet in brand-new pumps, keeping step and pointing out carefully, while their evident satisfaction brought a smile like a ray of belated sunshine to the face of the serious bride. i watched mr. latham, usually so immovable, during the ceremony as he stepped back from the altar into the shadows, when he left sylvia finally with horace. his shoulders lost their squareness, his head drooped; but when i saw that it was to hide the tears that filled his eyes, i looked away. father says he has seen this type of man, contracted by money-getting, hardened by selfish misunderstanding, recover himself, soften, and grow young again at the transforming touch of grandchildren. who knows, sylvia may find her childhood's father again some day. when we went back to the cottage for luncheon, the bump in mrs. jenks-smith's corsage was removed, and proved to be a gift for sylvia,--a thick leather case, holding a rich neck ornament of diamonds, a sort of collar with pendants, for the lady of the bluffs is nothing if not generous. "i got it in this way without paying a cent of duty," she said in a stage whisper to miss lavinia and me in the hall, as she struggled to release the box, wrenching off a waist hook or two as she did so. "jenks-smith said it didn't look natural, and i'd surely be spotted, but i said i'd like to see mere hired men try to tell a lady how stout or how thin she had a right to be. almost too gorgeous for a professor's wife? not a bit; miss lavinia, you're not advanced. nobody knows nowadays, at the launching, how anybody's going to turn out,--whether they'll sink or float,--and diamonds are an all-right cargo, anyway. if she moves up, she can wear 'em, if she slumps, she can sell 'em, and if she just drifts along on the level, she can look at 'em once in a time. no, my dear, diamonds are a consolation that no woman can afford to miss." considering her usual careless good nature, it seemed to me that mrs. jenks-smith was very fussy during the luncheon, ill at ease, and strangely anxious to hurry the departure of sylvia and horace. the guests, all but ourselves, left first, then mr. latham, who went upstairs to take leave of his daughter alone. when sylvia finally came down, her colour had returned and she looked her radiant self again as she kissed miss lavinia and mrs. bradford, and went down the steps holding horace, not by the arm, but clinging to his hand. as the carriage disappeared around the bend of the road, and as we stood looking at one another, feeling for a second the reaction and the sense of an empty house that always follows the going of a bride, the lady of the bluffs sank into a deep chair exclaiming, "thank the lord, they've gone!" "why, what is it? are you ill?" cried father, who was just leaving, coming quickly to her side. "it's this. i wanted to get her started north ahead of it. when she comes back she won't care so much," she replied incoherently, pulling a scrap of a morning newspaper from her card-case and holding it out at random for the nearest one to take. father caught it from her hand, and going to the window, read aloud in slow, precisive accents of astonishment:-- "an event of interest to new york society. "(special cable to new york herald.) "london, aug. .--yesterday the marriage took place of montgomery bell to mrs. vivian latham, both of new york. the wedding, at the registrar's and quite informal, was followed by a breakfast given the couple by mrs. center--who chanced, with several other intimates of the american colony, to be in the city en route to the german baths,--at her apartment which she always keeps in readiness for occupancy. mr. bell, who is a member of all the best clubs, is known socially as the 'indispensable.' mr. and mrs. bell will return to new york in november and open their magnificent house at central park east with a series of the delightful entertainments which they both so well know how to render unique." xiv the oasis _september_ . three lowering days of wind and rain, and summer, after a feigned departure, has returned to complete her task of perfecting. she does this year after year--the marvel is that we are ever deceived; but after all, what is it but the conflict between arbitrary and natural law? the almanac-maker says that on the first day of september autumn is due. nature, the orbit-maker, proclaims it summer until, the month three-quarters old, the equinox is crossed. nature is always right, and after the usual breezy argument sends summer, her garments a bit storm-tattered, perchance, back to her own. the ill wind that dashed the tall auratum lilies in the garden to the ground, stripped the clinging fingers of the sweet peas from their trellis, and decapitated the heavy-headed dahlias, has blown me good, held me indoors awhile, sent me to my attic confessional once more, with conscience for priest, and the twins for acolytes, though they presently turned catechists with an entirely new series of questions. when i have not opened my desk or my garden book for some time, and the planting season, be it of spring or of autumn, as now, overtakes me unawares, i am always newly convinced that gardening is the truly religious life, for it implies a continual preparation for the future, a treading in the straight and narrow path that painful experience alone can mark, an absorption beyond compare, and the continual exercise of hope and love, but above all, of entire childlike faith. when the time had come in the creative evolution for the stamping of the perfected animal with the divine image that forever separates him from all previous types, it was no wonder that god set man, in whom the perpetual struggle between the body and soul was to take place, in a garden for his education. * * * * * recently the boys have been absorbed in their little printing press, which they have established in my attic corner, the present working motive having come from the card announcing sylvia's marriage to the world in general, according to mr. latham's desire. richard secured one of these and busied himself an entire morning in setting it in type, for the first time in his experience getting the capitals and small letters in their proper places. the result was so praiseworthy that evan hunted up a large box of ornamental cards for them in town, and for two days they have been "filling orders" for every one in the household. i print the names they wish to copy very distinctly in big letters. richard does the type-setting, which is altogether too slow work for ian, who, as pressman, does the inking and printing, and in the process has actually learned his tardy letters. as to the distributing and cleaning of the type, i find a little assistance is gratefully accepted, even by patient richard, whose dear little pointed fingers by this time have become tired, and fumble. to-day, having exhausted the simple family names, they have tried combinations and experiments with the words mr., mrs., and miss, much to their own amusement, "_miss_ timothy saunders" being considered a huge joke. suddenly ian looked up with one of his most compelling, whimsical smiles, and said, "barbara, grandpop's mrs. was grandma, and she's in heaven, but where is mrs. uncle martin?" rather startled, i said that i didn't know,--that there had never been any mrs. uncle martin. "why not?" persisted ian, an answer that is simply an acknowledgment of ignorance never being accepted by a child. before i could think richard chirped out: "but aunt lavinia hasn't any mr. for her card neiver, and martha, she said the other day that there was a mr. and a mrs. for everybody, only sometimes they couldn't find each other for ever so long. she told that to effie, and i heard her." a short pause, and then ian jumped up, clapping his hands with joy, as the solution of the problem flashed across him. "i know what's happened, barbara; maybe uncle martin's mrs. and aunt lavinia's mr. has gone and got lost together, and some day they'll find it out and bring each ovver back! do you think they will, so we can have some more weddings and pink ice cream, and couldn't we hurry up and help find them? i guess we better print him some mrs. cards so as in case." i had drifted into gardening work on paper again, and i believe i said that he had better ask uncle martin what he thought about the matter, and at that moment the bell rang for luncheon. the ringing of bells for meals in this house is what lavinia dorman calls "a relic of barbarism," that she greatly deplores; but as i tell her, our family gathers from so many points of the compass that if the maid announced the meals, she would have to be gifted with the instinct of a chaser of strayed freight cars. ian's queries have brought up a subject that has deluded and eluded my hopes all summer, and has finally ended in the people that i hoped would drift through the doorway of one of my most substantial air castles refusing so to do, or else being too blind to see the open door. martin and lavinia are the best possible friends, have been constantly in each other's society, see from nearly the same point of view, and both agree and disagree upon the same subjects, but they have not settled the question of loneliness of living as i hoped, by making the companionship permanent, _via_ matrimony. of course, i did not expect them to fall in love exactly as evan and i or horace and sylvia did--that belongs to spring and summer; still, i thought that when they started worm-hunting together, and played checkers every evening, that they were beginning to find each other mutually indispensable, at least. but no. martin stored away his papers in the old desk, and went to new york a week ago to see several suites of bachelor apartments that had been offered him. he writes this morning that he has found one to his liking, and will return to-night, if he may, and stay over to-morrow to pack his things. meanwhile miss lavinia has sent her maids to clean and open her house in "greenwich village," and will go home on monday, spending her final sunday with me. josephus went with the maids; the country had a demoralizing effect upon him. miss lavinia has been agitating moving uptown, several of her friends at the bluffs insisting that an apartment near the park is much more suitable for her than the little house so far from the social centre, saying it is no wonder she is lonely and out of things; but yesterday she told me that she had abandoned the idea of change, and had sent orders to have her old back yard garden dismantled and the whole plot paved, as it was now only a suitable place for drying clothes. also that she had written to ask her father's cousin lydia, whose staten island home had been built in by progress, very much like her own garden, to come to pass the winter with her; and, lest she should repent of so rash an act, she had given the letter to evan before the ink was fairly dry, as he passed the cottage on the way to the train, that he might post it in the city. one consolation remains to me in the wreck of my romantic hopes for her--miss lavinia has liked our neighbourhood so well that she has taken the alton cottage that she now occupies on a three years' lease, and intends living here from may to october. the rambling garden is full of old-time, hardy plants and roses, and oh, what good times we shall have together there next spring, for of course she will stop with me when she is getting things in order, and i can spare her enough roots and cuttings to fill every spare inch of ground,--so, with sylvia at pine ridge, what more can i ask? the strain and hubbub of the bluffs seems to be quite vanishing from the foreground and merging with the horizon. that reminds me that the people are drifting back quite rapidly now. the golfers are afield again sundays, and all talk of introducing fox hunting with tame foxes; but they will have to learn the land, with its dips and rocks, better first, or there will be a pretty crop of cracked crowns for father. at present, i think that new england prejudice will soon however get the upper hand here, and tighten her hold of the reins that seemed slipping from her grasp, which is well, for she has long borne aloft the only standard of national morality whose code is not a sliding scale. * * * * * _september_ . martin came back to-night. as he entered the house with evan i positively did not know him, for he has shaved off his mustache and queer little pussy-cat whiskers, and with them has gone his "pudgyness." he is really a very fine-looking man, and his features are developed by the shaving process in an unexpected way. he seems so wide awake, too, and alive to everything that passes, that i could see that father, who came from the office to greet him, had difficulty in restraining his surprise, but he contented himself by asking:-- "how did you fare with the publishers? did you fall among thieves or among friends?" "that is equivalent to asking if my book has been accepted, as it is only when work is refused that we call the mediums through which we seek to reach the public hard names. yes, the fate of my book is soon told; it has found its place, and is to be fully illustrated as well, though it will take me many months to collect the unique material they desire; this insures me a busy winter, for which i am not only prepared but eager. "i wish i could as easily tell you what this summer here has done for me, dick," and he leaned over the chair in which father had seated himself and laid his arm affectionately across his shoulder. "i think in asking me here you rescued me from as dangerous a condition of mental apathy as when you stood by my bed so many years ago." "don't thank me," said father, leaning back and looking up at him, "thank god's sunshine, work, the babies here, and why not woman's society also,--you used to appreciate that, too, eh, martin, old man? give everybody his, or rather her, due." "yes," i heard him answer, as if pondering the matter, while i fled discreetly upstairs at this juncture, "you doubtless are right; lavinia dorman's criticisms have been of infinite value in ridding my work of a litter of words that encumbered the spirit and purpose of it. she is direct and to the point, and yet withal most sympathetic. i had thought of dedicating the book to her in some private way, for really we are joint heirs, as it were, in so many traditions and habits of old new york, that it would not seem strained or inappropriate." "on the contrary, i think it most suitable, and i would not go to any great pains to hide the compliment of the dedication under a bushel of disguise either, if i were you. the lydia languish age of abnormal privacy and distorted, unhealthy sensibility has fortunately passed. nowadays women like men to be direct, outspoken, definite, where they are concerned." "do you think so?" asked martin, in real surprise. "i feared possibly that it might annoy her." "i know so--annoy her, fudge!" was father's comment. * * * * * when we went in to dinner, miss lavinia at once noticed the change in martin's appearance, and said, in a spirit of mischief which of course i alone noticed:-- "back from the city, and with new clothes, too,--how very smart and becoming they are." but poor martin was quite guileless, and looking down at his coat in a puzzled way, as if to make doubly sure, replied, "no, it cannot be my clothes, for they are the same." then, brightening, as the possible reason occurred to him: "perhaps it may be my shaven face; you see, the barber made an error in the trimming of my decorations yesterday, and he thought it better to take them entirely off and have them grow afresh, but i had not thought of the matter in the light of an improvement." "but it is one, most decidedly," continued miss lavinia, nodding brightly across at him, while father, who now realized the change he could not locate, cried:-- "don't let them grow again, my boy. you look ten years younger, at the very least, which you know at our age is not to be despised!" then we all grew hilarious, and talked together like a lot of school children, and when the boys came in to dessert, as usual, they also were infectiously boisterous over the catching of some bass in the river where timothy saunders had taken them that afternoon as a special treat. they clamoured and begged so for uncle martin to stop over the next day for fishing and have one more good time with them, that he, feeling flattered almost to the point of embarrassment, yielded upon evan's suggesting that, instead of going by the eight o'clock morning train as he intended, he could wait for one late in the evening, which would get him to town before eleven. for martin was to move into his new bachelor apartments the following morning. the three men lingered long at the table, smoking, the talk punctuated by long periods of silence, each regretting in his own way the present terminating of the summer intercourse, and yet, i fancy, realizing that it had lasted exactly the safe length of time. to be able to adapt oneself temporarily to the presence of outsiders in a house is a healthy habit, but to adjust a family to do it permanently is to lose what can never be regained. miss lavinia and i agreed upon that long ago, and for this reason i am very much surprised that she has asked her cousin lydia to spend the winter, with a view of making the arrangement permanent. the boys brought some of their games downstairs, and succeeded in adding half an hour to their bedtime by coaxing aunt lavinia to play with them, until i finally had to almost carry them to bed, they grew so suddenly sleepy from their day's fishing. when i returned below stairs after the boys were asleep, father had gone to the village, evan was walking up and down outside, all the windows and doors were open again, and the sultry air answered the katydids' cry for "some-more-heat, some-more-heat." miss lavinia was still in the hall, sitting on the lower step of the stairs, for the boys had been using the broad landing that made a turn at the top of the three steps as a place to play their games. martin stood leaning on the newel post, and from the few words i heard i knew that he was telling her about the proposed dedication, so i went out and joined evan, for it seems as though we had had little leisure outdoors together of late, and as if it was time to make it up as best we might. then, once again, as we crossed the streak of light that streamed like a narrow moon path from the doorway, evan paused and nodded his head toward the hall. i turned--there sat miss lavinia and martin cortright on the stairs, playing with the boys'--jack-straws! "after this, what?" i asked, in my mirth leaning backward on evan's supporting arm. "to be pat, it ought to be the deluge," chuckled evan; "but as these are prosy times, it simply means the end has been reached, and that to-morrow they will put away mild summer madness, and return to the whirlpool to paddle about decorously as of yore." i find that i am not the only person who is disappointed at the absence of matrimonial intentions between martin and miss lavinia. the postmistress told me yesterday that she's been expecting to hear of a second wedding any day, as when one took place it always meant three, though she couldn't "fetch the third couple together, even in her mind's eye," which i have found to be usually a capacious and well filled optic. mrs. barton also stopped martha corkle on the road, and said with an insinuating sneer, "she'd always supposed that the gentleman from new york who lodged with her was making up to the proud old maid at the doctor's, but as he evidently wasn't going to, she'd advise mrs. evan to watch out, as miss lavinia, doubtless being disappointed, might set her cap for the doctor himself, and then the lord knows what would happen, men being so easily flattered and trapped." martha was indignant, and i must say very rude, for she snapped back: "i wonder at that same bein' your holdin', mrs. barton, bein' as you've five maid daughters that's not so by their desirin', folks do say as knows." mud throwers should be careful to wear gloves,--their ammunition is sticky. * * * * * _september_ . this morning father and i were obliged to go to town upon some hospital business, and as we had to remain there for luncheon, or perhaps longer, we took the train instead of driving over, leaving lavinia to pack, so that she might have a free saturday to drive with me to bid mrs. bradford good-by, and learn the latest news of sylvia and horace. meanwhile the boys were to go fishing with martin, who is as careful of them as possible, taking their lunch with them. they did not have good luck, however, and growing restless and tired of fishing without catching, martin brought them home by three o'clock, and as both he and miss lavinia had finished their preparations for leaving, they went out to the seat by the rose arbour to enjoy what was left of the glorious afternoon, for it has been one of those days that come in dreams, so perfect that one knows it cannot last. "i hope that i shall not lose all track of you this winter," said miss lavinia. "of course you will be busy, but you might spare a lonely woman an evening now and then for piquet, or whist if evan or the doctor should come to town." "lose track of you, miss lavinia,--how could that be possible?" queried martin in mild-eyed astonishment. "you know there will be a second volume of the book for you to read and criticise, besides all the illustrations to discuss. no, i hoped that you could spare me two definite evenings every week, at least until the work is in press, though i suppose that is asking a great deal of a woman having so many friends, and places to go." "if you could see the way i spend my evenings alone, you would not hesitate. of course i do dine out once in a time, and people come to me, but between times--i envy even josephus, who can have social enjoyment any time by merely scratching on the door and running along the palings to the neighbours." "i am glad, for i decided upon taking the washington square rooms, instead of moving up nearer the clubs as my friends advised, because i thought it would be so much more convenient if, in proof correcting, i should require to consult you hastily." miss lavinia felt a pleasurable flush rising to her cheeks, when it was chilled by the memory of her invitation to her cousin lydia. why had she given it? then the realization that a third party would be unwelcome to her made the flush return and deepen. * * * * * "uncle martin, where is your mrs.? barbara said i'd have to ask you 'cause she didn't know," suddenly asked ian's voice, so close behind them that they both started. he had been up in the attic to get some of his precious cards, one of which he now held in front of martin cortright's gaze. "my mrs.! why, what do you mean?" he asked in uncomprehending astonishment, taking the boy on his knee; but when the little scamp had explained, the stupidest person in the world could not plead ignorance. "and," ian continued, "dick and me thought that p'r'aps if your mrs. and aunt lavinia's mr. had got lost together we could find them for you, and then there'd be two more weddings with pink ice cream. we're going to look this afternoon, and we're going to ask martha to help us, 'cause she found her mr. after he'd been lost a great while, effie says." "and he was right here in the place, too," chimed in richard, "only he didn't seem to see her, so p'r'aps yours aren't far off, and we might get them in time to have the wedding to-night before you go. wouldn't you like to be in a wedding, aunt lavinia?" "mercy no, child, i'm too old!" she ejaculated, now as red as a jacqueminot rose, while the boys ran off in the direction of martha's, to ask her where it was best to begin this important quest, the prize for which was pink ice cream. miss lavinia did not look up for a moment, and when she did she found martin's eyes fastened on her face, and in them a strange enlightenment that shook her like an electric bolt, as he arose and stood before her, saying:-- "you need never be old. some prefer june strawberries and others september peaches, that is all. when once in june i thought to gather the strawberries, i found they belonged to another, for i loved your friend, who was barbara's mother." "and i loved your friend, who is barbara's father," miss lavinia said, rising and facing him. "as they married each other, why may not we? i know now why my work has prospered this summer and why life seems good again. ian's little fancy shows me the truth." "our mr. and mrs. were not far off, then," said she, laying her hand on his, while she looked into his face with one of those rare smiles of unreserved confidence that makes lavinia dorman more fascinating than half the younger women that i know. after a moment of romance they waked up to the fact of the present and its comical aspect; the boys' talk of weddings brought that necessary episode quickly before them. "may i tell the doctor when he returns? shall we tell them all?" asked martin, eagerly, and miss lavinia sat suddenly down again and realized that she still was in the world of responsibilities. "i think i would rather wait and do it all at once, after--after the pink ice-cream," she said, as he laughed at her hesitation over the word. "i don't like keeping it from barbara, but i'm so tired of talk and fuss and feathers and mrs. grundy." "then let us get it quietly over next week, or tomorrow, if you say, unless you wish time to feel sure, or perhaps to think it over," said martin, with enthusiasm. "time to think it over!" cried miss lavinia, springing lightly to her feet. "no, i'm sure i don't wish to think, i want to act--to do things my own way and give no one a chance to speak until it is done. what have i been doing all my life but thinking, and waiting for it to be a convenient and suitable time for me to do this or that, wondering what others will think if i do or don't; thinking that the disagreeable was duty, often simply because it was disagreeable. surely you have been hampered by this perpetual thinking too, and watching the thumb of custom to see if it pointed up or down. no, i'm done with it. we've agreed to be married, so why not this very afternoon, and have the wedding over before you go, as the boys suggested?" "the best possible idea, though i should have hardly dared suggest it," said martin, tramping to and fro in excitement. "how shall we manage? go down here to the rectory?" "i would rather go over to town," said miss lavinia, beginning, in spite of herself, to realize difficulties. "we do not know who might drop in here." "very well," said martin, decisively, looking at his watch. "i have it! timothy is off to-day; i will harness the grays to the stanhope, as we can't wait to send to the stable, and we will drive over the back way by the ridge and be home again by dinner time. the rector of all saints' was a classmate of mine, and i met him again only the other day, so we shall have no trouble there." "are you sure you can harness the horses properly?" asked miss lavinia, with characteristic caution, and then smiling at herself, as martin hurried off to the stable. * * * * * in less than twenty minutes the sober gray horses turned out of the stable yard and up the road upon the most remarkable trip of their career. nothing strange was noticeable about the turnout, except that the traces hung a trifle loose, and that the occupants sat unusually far back under the hood for so pleasant an afternoon. that is, until after they had passed martha's house in the lane and turned into the unfrequented back highway, then they both leaned forward, gave a sigh of relief, and, looking at each other, laughed aloud. "do you realize that we are eloping, like runaway school children?" said miss lavinia, "we two hitherto sober-minded knickerbockers?" "i realize that i like what we are doing very much, whatever it may be called," replied martin, "and that it is very considerate of you to spare me and do it in this way. the conventional affair is very hard on a man of my years, all of whose contemporaries are either bald or rheumatic; besides, now i think of it, it is merely carrying out the ever-present precedent. my father's great-great-grand father and mother eloped in from staten island to the bouerie, and the boat upset when they were going back." "mercy on us!" exclaimed miss lavinia, "i hope we shall not upset! i wonder if the wheels are on securely. i thought i heard something rattle. there it is again." as they reached the bottom of the long hill, martin let the reins hang loose on the horses' necks and, lowering the hood, looked back to see if he could find the cause of the jolting sound, accompanied by panting, as of a dog running. then he gave an exclamation of impatience, and pulled the horses up short, for there, alternately running and lifting up their feet and swinging, were the twins, clinging to the back of the gig! miss lavinia gave a cry of dismay. "where did you come from, and where are you going?" she questioned rather sharply. "we went to martha's, you know," said ian, as if his errand had been one of such importance that it was impossible she should forget it, "and she wasn't there, so we thought we'd just look for those people we said about, by ourselves. but we couldn't find anybody, only a shiny black snake by the road, and he rubber-necked at us and spit some 'fore he ran away. then we saw grandpop's horses coming, and when you went by we hooked on, and--" "'cause we thought if you was looking for those people and found them, then we'd be there for the pink ice cream," added richard, cheerfully, supplementing ian's story when his breath gave out. "i suppose we must turn around and take them home," said miss lavinia, with a sigh. "not a bit of it. let them come with us; it is too late to turn back, unless," he added, with a ring of mock humility in his tone, "you have changed your mind and wish time to think. as for me, i've turned my back on even thinking whether they will be missed or who will worry. "scramble in, boys, and curl up here in front. you are just in time; two of these people you were searching for are going to be married this afternoon. we are going to the wedding, and you shall be best men," and the boys settled down, chuckling and whispering, but presently ian looked up, as light dawned, and cried: "i spy! it's you, uncle martin, and aunt lavinia is your mrs., only you couldn't find her all summer till to-day," and he hugged his friend around the legs, which were all he could reach, but richard leaned backward until his head rested on miss lavinia's knees, and he reached up his cooing lips to be kissed. the rest of the ride to town was uneventful, except that when they reached the outskirts they met jenks-smith's coach loaded with whirlpool people, but the lady of the bluffs saw nothing strange in the combination, and merely shook her parasol at them, calling, "i'm sorry to hear you're flitting, just when it's getting lively again, too!" fortunately the rector of all saints' was at home, likewise the requisite number of his family, for witnesses. then it transpired that the couple had never thought of the ring, and while martin went out to buy one, miss lavinia was left sitting on the edge of a very stiff sofa with a boy on either side of her, with the rectory family drawn up opposite like an opposing force, which did not encourage easy conversation. however, the agony was soon over, and the bride and groom left, martin giving his old classmate, to whom the world had been penurious, a hand-shake that, when examined by the breathless family a few moments later, was found to yield at least a new parlour carpet, an easy-chair for the rector's bent back, and a new clerical suit to cover his gaunt frame. "now comes the pink ice cream," sang ian, dancing a-tiptoe as they reached the street; and there being but one good restaurant in town, on the high street, next to the saddler's shop where the red goat harness was still displayed, the party drove there, and the pink ice cream was eaten, good and full measure thereof, while on their way out the coveted goat harness found itself being taken from the window to be packed away under the seat of the gig. * * * * * it was almost dinner time when father and i returned to-night, and the boys were squeezed together in a chair on the piazza, close to miss lavinia, while martin sat near by on the balustrade. the boys were in a great state of giggles, and kept clapping their hands to their mouths as if they feared something would escape. i hurried upstairs, not wishing to make dinner late, as i knew martin expected to take the nine o'clock train, just as father came in saying that timothy had returned, and that he found the horses in a wonderful sweat, and feared they were sick, as they hadn't been out all day. by this time we were in the hall and walking toward the dining room. martin stopped short, as if to say something, and then changed his mind, while a bumping at the pantry door attracted the attention of us all. out came ian, a portion of the goat harness on his head and shoulders, followed by richard, around whose neck the reins were fastened, and between them they carried the great heavy silver tea-tray only used on state occasions. in the centre of it rested a pink sofa pillow, upon which some small, flat object like a note was lying. they came straight across the hall, halting in front of me, and saying earnestly, "we didn't ask for the harness, but uncle martin says that people always give their best mens presents." i looked at him for a second, not understanding, then evan, with a curious twinkle in his eye, strode across, whispering to me, "the deluge," as he picked up the card and read aloud, "mr. and mrs. martin cortright!" it was the card that richard had printed several days before and carried in strange company in his warm, mussy little pocket ever since. there was tense silence, and then a shout, as martin took his wife's hand that wore the wedding ring and laid it on mine; then he and father fairly hugged each other, for father did not forget those long-ago days of the strawberries that martin could not gather. when the excitement had subsided and dinner was over, martha and tim, to whom the horse matter had been explained, came over to offer their congratulations,--at least martha did. timothy merely grinned, and, to the best of my belief, winked slyly at martin, as much as to say, "we may be long in knowing our minds, but when we men are ready, the weemen fair tumble over us." "indeed, mum, but i wish you joy, and that he'll lead you as easy a life as tim'thy here does me, 'deed i do, and _no_ disrespeck intended," was martha's parting sentence; and then our wonder as to whether martin was going to town, or what, was cut short by his rising, looking at his watch, and saying in the most matter-of-fact way to lavinia: "is your bag ready? you know we leave in an hour." "does lucy expect you?" i ventured to ask. "oh no, i shall not trouble her until the day appointed. we shall go to the manhattan, i think." "how about your cousin lydia?" asked father, who could not resist a chance to tease. "i forgot all about her!" exclaimed poor lavinia, clasping her hands tragically and looking really conscience-stricken. "and i," said evan, who had suddenly jumped up and rammed his hand into his side pocket, "forgot to post your letter to her!" * * * * * _october_ . we have all been to new york to visit the runaway cortrights, as evan calls them, now that they are settled, and it is pleasant to see that so much belated happiness is possible. the fate of lavinia's house is definitely arranged; they will remain in "greenwich village," in spite of all advice to move up in town. the defunct back yard is being covered by an extension that will give martin a fine library, with a side window and a scrap of balcony, while the ailantus tree is left, that bob-tailed josephus may not be deprived of the feline pleasures of the street or his original way of reaching it over the side fence; and the flower garden that was, will be the foundation of a garden of books under the kindly doctrine of compensation. above is to be a large guest room for sylvia and horace, or evan and me, so that there will be room in plenty when by and by we bring the boys to see our new york. mrs. jenks-smith, who has formed a sincere attachment to lavinia cortright, did all in her power to persuade her to be her neighbour up in town, offering a charming house at a bargain and many advantages. finally becoming piqued at the refusal, she said:-- "why will you be so stupid? don't you know that this out-of-the-way street is in the social desert?" "it may be in a desert, as you say," said lavinia, gently, "but we mean at least to make it an oasis for our friends who are weary of the whirling of the pool." * * * * * we stood looking at the boys as they slept tonight. strange thoughts will crop up at times most unexpectedly. horns blowing on the highway proclaimed the late arrival of a coaching party at the bluffs. "would you like to have money if you could, and go about the world when and where you please?" i asked evan, but he, shaking his head, drew me towards him, answering my question with another-- "would you, or why do you ask?" i never thought that mrs. jenks-smith's stricture would turn to a prayer upon my lips, but before i knew it i whispered, "god keep us comfortably poor." then ian, feeling our presence, raised himself in sleepy leisure, and nestling his cheek against my dress said, "barbara, _please_ give ian a drink of water." rescuing the czar two authentic diaries arranged and translated by james p. smythe, a.m., ph.d. third edition part one rescuing the czar foreword by w.e. aughinbaugh, m.d., ll.b., ll.m. is the former czar and his imperial family still alive? there are millions of people in europe and america who are asking this question. european governments have considered the question of sufficient interest to justify the investigation by official bodies of the alleged extinction of this ancient royal line. millions have been expended for that purpose. commissions have pretended to investigate the subject _after_ the event. volumes have been returned of a speculative nature to authenticate a mysterious _disappearance_ that has never been explained. april ; the universal service carried a cable from paris reading: "czar nicholas and all members of the imperial family of russia are still alive, according to m. lassies, former member of the chamber of deputies, who has just returned from a mission to russia." this was several weeks after the manuscript of the following account of the _czar's escape_ was in my possession.[a] yet this confirmation of the manuscript has not sufficiently overcome the universally persistent doubt that has grown out of many previous imposing reports. in certain royal quarters the anxiety to disseminate the "reports" of their commissions is too apparent to authorize a judicial mind to accept their speculative guesswork as convincing evidence of a legal _corpus delicti_ when no identified bodies have ever been produced. this eagerness to convince the world by substituting a mere _disappearance_, or the lack of evidence, for positive proof of the royal assassination raises very naturally the presumption that certain circles are more interested in misleading than in satisfying the public mind. to those schooled in the methods and objects of international propaganda during the great war it is evident that, in a period of revolution, when thrones and dynasties become unpopular within the area of hostility and discontent, the adherents of royalty may not be unwilling to appease the demand for vengeance by some theatrical display of meeting it with a pretense or an artifice until the passions of the populace have subsided and sober toleration resumes its sway over the sated revolutionary mind. that such may be the fact will seem convincing from a careful study of the incidents narrated in the following rudimentary story of "rescuing the czar." in a technical sense it is not a story. nevertheless, while partaking of the nature of a simple diary, it reads like a romance of thrilling adventure upon which a skilful novelist may easily erect a story of permanent interest and universal appeal. but it is this very lack of art--this indifference to accomplished technique--that makes "rescuing the czar" so interesting and so convincing a rebuttal of the royal executioners' case. there have been many periods in the progress of society when such an original piece of work as "rescuing the czar" would have been welcomed by the historian of serious events. the preservation, discovery and the piecing together of the various scraps of first-hand information by the actual participants in the tragic scenes narrated in these diaries, by the compiler of this book represent a work of so discriminating a judgment that its contribution to the historical wealth of the period involved will assume an increasing, if not a prophetic, value as time goes on, either to explain the mystery or authenticate the evidence revealed. while apparently no connection is evident between the two authors of the first and second parts of "rescuing the _czar_," the discriminating reader will be impressed by the independent way each of them, operating unconsciously of the other, sustains the manifest conclusion that both are recording international secrets that never were intended for the public eye. imbedded in the national consciousness of many european states the historian finds everywhere the shadowy outlines of "nobility" and "aristocracy" delineated on the surface of traditionary pretense and political desire. it forms the inheritance of distributive power in nations ascending from monarchial institutions to theoretical republics or pseudo-democracies, and it imparts a touch of pathos to the lingering hope of royalty that humanity may some day welcome its return to reverence and power. it forms the superstructure on which the crumbling column of aristocracy sustains its capital pretensions amid the ruins of privileged exemption from the universal law of change. consequently the reader will not be surprised nor much alarmed when encountering its subterranean methods depicted in these pages. they will merely fortify the accepted impression among students of events that when time binds up the wounds of revolutionary russia the world will discover an agrarian democracy, instead of a soviet communism or romanoff empire, emerging from the cosmos of organized disorder in that land. this seems to be the trend of thought behind "rescuing the czar." yet it does not conceal a fundamental inclination to sympathize with every rank that suffers in this onward sweep of power. royalty and rags, throughout these pages, find many mourners over the sacrifices each has made to reconcile the eternal conflict between poverty and pomp. in the abysmal void between the disappearing star and the aspiring glowworm men tramp upon, there seems to be sufficient latitude for the play of gratitude or grief. a napoleon exiled by the french or a ney shot down by frenchmen is unthinkable today. in like manner, when the revolutionary passions of russia have subsided, there may be men and women of the humblest estate who will wonder how it happened that their emperor, whose darkest sin, apparently, was loyalty to russia, could have been murdered by their countrymen in cold blood. it will never be believed. in reflecting on the experiments of their revolution, finding much to be admired and more to be condemned, they will not accept without resentment an accusation from posterity that they lacked both gratitude and pity when the test of national manhood came. in exculpation of such an imputation they will doubtless reverence the tradition of a house that fell only with the ruins of their native land. viewing as they may the fragments of their once majestic empire annexed to alien states in compensation of successful perfidy and neglect, they will lament the lot of nicholas ii while reflecting on their fate. if their democracy shall survive their own self-amputation, the lightness of their governmental burdens will stimulate the flow of mercy through their social institutions and direct their thoughts toward pity for the useless sacrifice. in simple justice, therefore, "rescuing the czar" is offered in extenuation of this doubtful charge against the entire russian race. for nothing is better calculated to sanctify a martyrdom and make a race abhorred than a belief in its injustice. nothing is more potent to dissolve a race and scatter its suspected members from the altar of their fathers than the fable of their unrepentant hostility to the cry of mercy from the sacrificial ikon. nothing so quickly exposes their abandoned fields to the tramp of hostile feet and the subjugation of their soil. ambitious rivalry has no better ally than unexplained suspicion. if "rescuing the czar" does no more than set at rest the _fable_ of the "romanoff execution," it will have done its work by characterizing the source and methods and objects of its inspiration. if it raises the presumption of generosity in quarters generally subject to suspicion, it will be equally praiseworthy for expelling the darkness that has always hovered around imperial thrones. if it does nothing but portray the dignified composure of russian womanhood in the presence of unspeakable affronts, it will have justified its publication by adding to the diadem of virtue a few more jewels to glorify the crest of motherhood. if it performs no other service than to place upon the pale face of tragic possibility the red-pink blush of romantic probabilities, it will have justified its presence in the society of the learned by the sincerity of its purpose and the candor of its appeal to the conscience of the world. new york, . [footnote a: february , ] rescuing the czar i from splendor to gloom the ice was breaking up along the river neva, in . at the winter palace, the ladies were rejoicing over the good news. the czar in the field was reorganizing his dismembered armies. america was severing diplomatic relations with the central powers. the asquith ministry had dissolved and lloyd-george was hurling his dynamic personality into organizing victory for the allied forces in the field. kut-el-amara had fallen to the british--bagdad had been taken--the crescent was fleeing before the cross of russia--the grand duke was driving the turk from trebizond. even hindenburg was retiring along the western front--france with unexampled gallantry was holding back the juggernaut--america was getting mad and rolling up its sleeves. the women at the palace did not disguise their happiness over the cheerful events that heralded the approach of victory. the evening star that poured down its steel-blue rays upon the crosses of st. isaac's presaged to their encouraged fancies the early dawn of peace. yet the chilly wind that whistled round their dull-red household was laden with a frosty air that blew from official regions and "froze the genial current of their souls." the icy glances of ambitious princelings, reflecting back the sinister sullenness of designing ministers, fell like a spectral gloom upon their happy hearts. a hollow roar rolled down the nevskii prospekt--a guard burst into the palace and put the women under arrest. the pent-up revolution at last had burst--anarchy howled around the capital--the isolated czar was captive, and plotting princelings joined hands with puny lawyers to browbeat courageous women and drive the chariot of state! the miserable fiasco of a delirious revolution went careering through the giddy maze of treachery and madness until a frenzied wave of rapine and disorder swept all the noblewomen of the imperial household into a barricaded fortress around which lust and inebriety held unsated and remorseless vigil for the prize. (see part ii: tumen.) among these prisoners of state were five women who realized that the power which had organized disorder as a feature of its military strategy had also honeycombed the army, the navy and the state with its agencies of pillage and so undermined the public conscience that their purity and virtue, more than their jewels and fortune, became an open challenge to the vanity of mob lust. the younger of these women in their unsullied maidenhood looked longingly and unsuspectingly in the direction of siberia. they were learning by degrees that the semblance of freedom which offered a pathway to escape was nothing but a strategem employed by pretended friends to entrap them into more cruel and ruthless hands. on every side loomed the evidence of their danger. the villainous stares of foreign interlopers, the ribald jests of guards, the furtive glances of the envious, the scowls of the emancipated underling, the profanity of the domineering agitator who denounced respectability and clamored for possession of the girls,--no moment of their lives was free from ugly threats; no retreat, save the wild jungle or the mountains, offered any liberation from the immodest glare of cruel, licentious eyes. (see part ii: tobolsk.) the eldest of the girls was scarcely twenty-two. like her mother, she was erect and stately and somewhat saddened by the hostile experiences through which the family had just passed. the youngest was a chummy little creature of sixteen years who did not conceal her admiration for her next elder sister, whose courage seemed unfailing through all the trying hours. the next eldest sister, with her little younger brother, was openly planning to outwit the guard and escape to the siberian wilds. it was doubtless her undisguised activity that ultimately betrayed the royal prisoners into the unhappy tangle that beset their future lives. from one camp to another they were carted off like cattle and never for a moment permitted to forget that, if they ever reached a place of safety, they would have to pay the price. along the frozen pathway of their weary eastern journey there did come, here and there, some slender little byways that offered an escape. whenever they approached these places and estimated the perils, they found no one to confide in--there were none that they could trust. treason, like a contagion, lurked in smiles as well as scowls about them, and even their steadfast trust in the invisible diplomacy of european royalty was gradually yielding in their hearts to the dissolving acid of despair. (see part ii: tobolsk.) from the conflicting rumors that reached them they fully realized that it was the politician in all countries who ignorantly obstructed their relief. the ferocious and misleading propaganda employed to fanaticize the populace as an element of military strategy seemed to sweep its own authors from their feet and drag the prisoners through many months of torture toward a time and place set for their execution by other politicians in the drunken stupor of their power. (see part ii: tobolsk.) under the agitated surface of this tidal wave of fanaticism that threatened to engulf the royal prisoners there were a few men in europe and america, as well as in india and thibet, who were slowly converging in the direction of the victims with a _phrase upon their lips_ that none but royalty and themselves were privileged to use. it was that ancient secret code transmitted by tradition to the followers of a sturdy tyrian king. it was made use of by lycurgus, as well as by solomon and justinian; and it was again employed by the partisans of louis xviii to save the house of bourbon. it is that mystic code which binds royalty together and is given only to those whom royalty may trust. that ancient code meant freedom if it reached the prisoners in time! it rested with these silent men to pass the scrutiny of a million eyes to liberate the victims from the fury of the mob. such a rescue, as time swept by, became nothing but a slender hope with any of the women. they began to realize that their blood would not very greatly shock the nerves of statesmen who had become accustomed to the daily cataract that poured down upon the soil of europe. they felt abandoned by the diplomats. their only friends were busy in the red work of war. one chance alone remained. soldiers might be deceived by men disguised as comrades. the secret service might overlook the hysterical entertainers who fluttered under the mask of charitable workers and skipped across forbidden lines protected by a cross. this was the only possibility, this the phantom hope that stood trembling on the brink of the prisoners' abysmal fear. thus the sight of a red cross driver or an english uniform in the midst of their disaster became a welcome incident in the lives of these affronted women. the appearance of either seemed to carry to the prisoners a spirit of encouragement and reflect a ray of mercy into the dark corners of their hearts. they indulged the hope that some of those foreign uniforms might conceal trustworthy friends. and they recognized a basis for such a hope in the mystifying movements of one of those uniforms that met their notice day by day. it was near them at the palace when they were thrown upon a maddened world. they saw it following onward as they passed through pathless wilds. they could see it hovering near them on that last historic night. they learned about its maneuvers in the morning as it moved among the silent rooms of the pretty mansard cottage that had witnessed their withdrawal from the vision of historical events,--how it had paused to scan without emotion the small blood stain on the floor--how an agitated censor informed the credulous that the prisoners had been murdered in cold blood! thus they learned that the world had heard with skepticism that, so far as history and international politicians were affected, their _seven lives had been, technically, blotted out_! (see part ii: petrograd--tumen--tobolsk.) possibly the prisoners of tobolsk may have been willing to suffer what is termed a "technical death" in diplomatic circles in order to elude the hungry bloodhounds of the revolution. they may have welcomed the many opportunities such an event would furnish to read their own obituary in the letters and official documents which treated of their tragic fate. who knows? they certainly possessed a saving sense of humor or they would never have left behind them at ekaterinburg so many little reminders of the tragic romance to which calm investigation hereafter will give birth. for instance, there are a couple of diaries that some men must have kept. of their existence it seems certain that some of the prisoners knew. why and just how the hitherto profound state secrets narrated in these diaries come now to light is suggested by a simple little letter that raises the inquiry, "did the imperial russian family escape?" the letter that started this investigation is little different from others one receives from friends traveling in the orient. by itself it does not clearly identify the family it describes; but, when the scene it pictures is coupled with the events narrated in the purloined diaries which the hands of some invisible diplomats _have_ left behind, the student of the russian revolution will marvel at the skill with which some other royal hands untied the knot of fate. ii what may be read between the lines there may be those in official circles who will suggest that a case of mistaken identity is exhibited in the following quotation from the letter. "it is in a sort of arboreal enclosure, with all sorts of flowers and vigorous vegetation that characterizes this region," the letter reads. "behind the ivy-covered wall that extends around the gardens and shuts out all intruders, i got a glimpse of that man through the heavy iron gate. he was smooth-shaven, slightly drooped, sprinkled with gray and with a scar upon his forehead near the roots of his hair--a little to one side. he was twirling a pruning knife in his left hand and speaking in _english_ to a boy who scampered up to him ahead of four beautiful girls and a very dignified woman moving leisurely over the lawn in the direction of the gate. "when the women reached the man's side they paused for a moment and asked a few questions in _russian_. he seemed to be listening very attentively and answering only in monosyllables. "then i noticed the elder of the women unfold a well-known london newspaper and move closer to his side. they began glancing over its pages together and seemed to be deeply moved by an article they, apparently, were reading as they walked slowly toward the gate. finally, when they were about ten feet from where i stood concealed behind one of the massive palms, the man raised his head from the page and, looking earnestly into the woman's eyes, exclaimed in a skeptical tone: '_il n'aurait jamais cru le fait si ces messieurs n'avaient pu lui jurer l'avoir vu!... tout ce que j'ai prédit!... les faux nobles,--les plagiaires_!' which means in english, "he couldn't have believed the thing unless these gentlemen had sworn they witnessed it!... all that i predicted!... the sham nobles!... the stealing authors!" the comment set me thinking. "who _is_ he? i asked myself. inside of five minutes i had heard him speak in english, in russian and in french! i am certain that he is not a frenchman,--although his accent would have proclaimed him a native of the avenue des champs elysées. he had a danish countenance, the eyes of english royalty and the forehead of an early christian martyr. "no one i have talked to on the island seems certain of his identity. some take the view that he is a retired millionaire, judging from the refined simplicity of his family and the strict guard the government has furnished to protect his undisturbed retirement. others hint that he may be, possibly, some very high dignitary, judging from the almost royal homage that some people in the city pay to his person and family. "the only reliable information i got about him was that he arrived upon the island aboard a man-o'-war accompanied by one of the richest tea merchants in the empire. he declines all membership in any of the clubs, apparently satisfied to spend the time among his orchids and the lovely white-robed debutantes i saw blooming in that fascinating garden. "naturally i was very curious about the identity of this secluded family. but the only information given out about them by the chivalrous tea merchant or the government officials is simply, 'oh, the family have friends in india and are living in retirement.'" one would be very bold to say, after reading the foregoing, that the personages described were the same people who had been driven out of the winter palace upon the ebb-tide of their imperial splendor a few months before. yet a long and somewhat intimate interest in the underground diplomacy of the world will lead one thus engaged to piece together stray bits of gossip that come from different sources to check up the information that some others may possess. in this way will the letter of an american who was held incommunicado at geneva by the swiss government in the latter part of , be found exceedingly persuasive in the process of reconstructing the tragic comedy which struts around the vacant russian throne. the american was en route to turkestan under proper credentials from the united states; yet there were certain powerful combinations sufficiently interested in his mission to cause his imprisonment for a time sufficiently lengthy to enable their emissaries to precede him beyond the caspian, where other secret combinations were incubating that american foreign traders would have given much to understand. it was during this period of restraint that the american, whose name we will call fox, wrote to a friend in the united states: "you have often heard me speak of my brother who was in turkestan when the russian revolution burst upon the world. he is now resting in tasmania after going through one of the most remarkable experiences ever given to an ordinary _tea merchant_ intrusted with some secrets of _the greatest land monopoly in the world_. you may call it a fairy tale; and if you did not know me as a business man of ordinary sense, i should hesitate to intimate that nicholas r---- and all the family are quite well, i thank you, not a million miles distant from my brother." fox had learned from his experience at geneva that governments are sometimes cajoled by diplomatic pressure to do undreamed-of things. the dispatch of an expeditionary force to siberia by the united states without a declaration of war against the revolutionists struck him as an instance of this kind, and he knew his correspondent to be sufficiently versed in the underground politics of europe to look for a connection between some member of that expedition and the subject mentioned in the two foregoing letters. this connection was innocently revealed by a newspaper report from a western city concerning a wounded soldier who had recently returned to an american army hospital. the particular name being given, it was easy enough for fox's correspondent to meet the soldier on some errand of mercy and to obtain the revelations that are hereinafter made. the soldier was a young commissioned officer who was having an artificial jaw supplied to replace the one shot off in a bolshevik encounter. he had greatly recovered when the call was made and an opening naturally presented for the soldier to recount the part he played in the adventure of his country in the revolutionary drama of that hour. "i'm as certain as i'm living," the wounded soldier said, "that a bolshevik is as 'nutty' as a rabbit. the fellow i had by the neck before my lights went out was putting up a holler, in german, and claiming to be a personal friend of some personal friend of the missing czar. before he finally passed in his chips he gave me a bundle of paper _diaries_ he had stolen down in china, and he asked me to return them to their rightful owner so that he might die without a sin upon his conscience. honestly, that chap was dead in earnest in this matter of his conscience. i took the stuff, of course; but i never thought about them until the other day. since then they seem to haunt me. i wonder if you'd mind looking them over if the nurse'd get them out?" "with pleasure," was the reply. the nurse brought in an old leather bag, from which the captain extracted two begrimed and blood-smeared rolls written in a very small but strong and vigorous hand. while looking over the documents in a casual way a loose leaf fell to the floor. upon picking it up, there was found to be written on one side in bold underscored letters: "make no belief in the evidence that was manufactured to satisfy some bloodthirsty men in russia. what i have seen with my own eyes i know is true. for the sake of russia i stoled these papers from the man come from the west who was with them all the way from 'yekaterinburg to chunking. what he write is true. "donetsky" "that's his name," the captain said, "and if you don't find that he was as crazy as a bedbug i'll say i'm general graves." "this diary seems to be written in very good english." "yes," said the captain, "all those fellows keep one. they're like the germans--give 'em a pencil and a piece of paper and they'll scribble all day." "did he say who wrote this?" "no; he cashed in, as i told you; but you'll see the name of fox here and there through the diary that's written in the small hand." "_fox_--who was 'fox'?" "search me! some johnny, i suppose." "may i take these with me?" "sure thing! i'll make you a present of 'em. all i ask is, if you find out whether that fellow 'fox' grabs the peacherino from the métropole or the one called 'maria' you'll send me an invitation." the bargain was struck. then the question was asked: "any idea who wrote this diary--the one written in a quick running hand?' "sounds like some fellow with a grouch against kerensky and lvov. i know enough russian to make out that much--" "evidently one of the revolutionary officials?" "seems so," the captain said. "you'll notice what he has to say about the mixup with the russian royal family at tobolsk and tumen. there's a lot of our fellows who don't take any stock in that assassination business at 'katerinburg." "i began to read: 'i had walked from euston station to madame tussaud's, when the messenger jumped from his motorcycle and rushed up to me--' your diarist starts out in london, i see." "yes, he is some globe trotter--" "'"go to birdcage and walk slowly back to queen victoria memorial. as you pass buckingham, observe the heavily veiled lady wearing white lace wristlets who will follow on behind. let her overtake you. if she utters _the correct phrase_, go with her at once to admiralty arch and follow the life guard to the war office. meet number ... there; receive a small orange-colored packet, _wear the shirt he gives you_, and cross the channel at once"'--i see! from buckingham palace to the war office; sounds interesting." "it is; that fellow is all there!" complimented the captain. "'the meeting at the _huis ten-bosch_ points to wilhelmstrasse. nothing can be done here. they suspect downing street.'--ah, at the hague, and at the _ten-bosch_ too, where the czar and andrew carnegie held their first peace conference in ; this looks significant!" "keep going," said the captain; "that fellow's got 'the man in the iron mask' brushed off the map." "here is something singular about berlin. your man walks through the lines like a wraith--" "not always. as you get into his stuff you'll hear things sizzle." and thus the imperial dead return to life through the pages of these stolen diaries. while the temptation is great to revise the manuscript, so as to make it read more smoothly, it has been decided not to alter a line or letter. truth will be better served by publishing what is prudent, under the complicated political circumstances of our times, _word_ for _word_ as it was written by its daring author. iii what happened at berlin for certain persuasive reasons it is deemed prudent to omit that part of the diary which details the writer's experiences in england, belgium and holland. those who recognize the incidents hereafter given will appreciate this act of censorship. the discerning reader will gain all the information necessary by following the "invisible diplomat" and author from berlin to the end of the diary. the first entry reads: "today i called on count r---- at thiergartenstrasse and handed him the yellow packet. then i went with him to the race track at hoppegarten.... on the way out r. inquired about the incident at buckingham and asked me if i were willing to continue the adventure.... i assured him that nothing would please me better, providing the _lady_ was good-looking.... he said that there were more than one lady as well as a couple of men involved in the affair.... i replied that if there were enough to go around and the men didn't become too meddlesome, their presence wouldn't spoil the 'adventure.'... he assured me that the men were 'fine fellows,' the ladies the loveliest on earth, but the 'adventure' was one that might mean decapitation for me if i failed in the undertaking.... i told him that just suited me.... 'i expect to meet colonel z---- s---- von t---- at the track. if he takes a liking to you he'll invite you to koenigergratzerstrasse for a quiet little talk,' count r---- replied after i had climbed up on the box with him.... we had just reached the old saddle paddock when a man saluted us in a very _knowing_ manner.... it was colonel z---- s----, who put some pointed questions to me about my recent travels and my knowledge of oriental languages.... before returning to the hotel tonight the colonel asked me to call on him tomorrow.... i feel that his request amounts to a positive command.... i shall call early in the morning...." . on the same page the following entry was made: "there were guards everywhere when i called at k- . even the doorkeeper was a non-com, who took my name, entered it in a book with the precise time i called, took down his telephone, merely mentioned my name, hung up the receiver, called an orderly who conducted me through a corridor and three anterooms full of civilian clerks and finally landed me in the private office of colonel z---- s----. he wore the undress uniform of the imperial army, greeted me pleasantly, offered me a cigar and tactfully asked: 'have you _positively_ made up your mind to continue in this service?' "i wanted to know a little more fully what was required of me before answering; but he did not say. he insisted, rather, on my answering his question first.... to be perfectly frank i was not anxious to commit myself unreservedly without knowing all he expected of me, but it sounded cowardly ... so with a mental _reservation_ i finally said: 'you don't look like a man who would ask another to commit suicide. go ahead! i've decided to take a chance.'... colonel z---- s---- looked me straight in the eye and said: 'we expect you to use the same tactics that are used against you. we can't be squeamish.... the interests at stake are too _sacred_ to allow personal considerations to affect your conduct.... you will be required to undertake a journey in the capacity of a guide.... how you make it will be left entirely to yourself ... _but we expect results_.... every resource will be placed at your disposal, but if you get into _trouble_ you'll have to get yourself out without calling on us for help.... we _must not_ be known in the matter. and understand this--the assignment is dangerous from start to finish; no official help can be given you under any circumstances.'... to get a line on things i asked, casually, what my compensation would be.... he replied: 'you will be allowed a regular retainer fee, an allowance for daily expenses and a _bonus_ sufficiently attractive to make the undertaking worth while, as _you_ should know.' i thought a little while before asking, 'when do i start?'... 'there's another thing,' he said. 'i suppose you know we _retain_ one-third of your fee for the benefit of your family in the event of any trouble.'... i merely nodded and said, 'all right.'" in a moment a clerk brought in a check for , which colonel z---- s---- gave me, saying: 'this is your first month's allowance for expenses; your retainer will be paid quarterly.'... 'how do you know i won't swindle you?' i asked, being a perfect _stranger_ to him. 'i am taking my orders from above,' he answered.... '_who?_' i asked. 'young man!' he thundered, 'learn this quick--don't ask questions; keep your ears and eyes open and your mouth shut.... _be here_ at tomorrow.' . the next entry of interest read as follows: "i met colonel z---- s---- at today. my head was not clear. guess i had too much at kempinsky's last night.... a saturnalia of spending on the theory that the allies will pay.... even the ride in the grunewald this morning didn't clear the cobwebs away. i was constantly thinking of that girl at the métropole with her long eyelashes and dimpling smile; resembles the veiled lady at buckingham,--and i was trying to make out why she managed to occupy a seat at the next table to mine at the admiral's palace an hour or two later. she seems to know some of the performers who mingled in the audience, especially the energetic dark-eyed circe with the greek nose, and said to be some sort of a baroness, who so often approached my table. i wonder what the connection is between these two.... there is _certainly_ some sympathetic tie between those girls! this i know, for when i had breakfast at the cafe bauer, u.d.l., they were both there, slightly disguised, and occupying _the same_ table!... who is syvorotka? her lover?... i wonder what the game is.... come to think about it, the titled performer of the métropole looks like a twin sister of marie amelia, countess of [cszecheny] chechany, a perfect composite of juno and venus and hebe all rolled into one.... these enigmatical personages crowded everything else out of my mind as i walked into colonel z---- s----'s office.... "... without any preliminaries he said, 'come with me!'... we entered a cab and a few minutes later i entered the wilhelmstrasse and was in the presence of that tall, iron-gray, wiry gentleman with eyes like a searchlight and the manners of a chesterfield. 'thank you, colonel,' he said. the colonel sprang to attention, bowed, saluted and backed away. we were alone!... 'in ten minutes,' he said, 'you will be conducted to another room. when you arrive advance to the middle, make a right wheel and stand at attention facing the portière. maintain perfect silence, answer all question,--make no inquiries--understand?'... i was taken downstairs, along a wide corridor to a solid-oak door guarded by two sentries and an attendant in the royal livery. the door was opened by an officer of the erste garde; i entered a large room, advanced to the center and faced the divided portières of an adjoining chamber! there sat the man whose nod shook the earth!... behind a heavy, old-fashioned desk, in a dim light, apparently absorbed in writing, sat a deeply tanned, lean-faced, blue-gray-eyed counterpart of frederick the great,--the very embodiment of majesty!... eyes that blazed in their defiant depths with a steady and consuming fire--the kind of eyes that seem to defy the world.... i stood there fully five minutes before i heard the sharp, high-pitched voice pierce through the portière saying: 'adell, i will see the c----'... i was conducted to within six feet of the man at the desk and in the same shrill voice asked how familiar i was with russia, with turkestan, india, and the far east.... my answers seemed to convince my questioner.... handing me a note he said: 'no one besides ourselves is to know that you are to undertake the mission outlined in that note.' then he sat forward abruptly, his elbows resting on the desk, his head between his hands, his eyes fixed on space.... i began to study the note.... i was dumfounded!... i had thought all along that this man was the mortal enemy of the persons this note commanded me to rescue from danger.... i could not understand how there could be the slightest co-operation between this man and the other great ones of the earth that note commanded me to call upon for assistance in case i should need it. it was utterly incomprehensible! yet there were the directions in plain black and white.... and i could not ask a solitary question!... in the same shrill voice the man asked: 'have you memorized it?' i had! it was burned into my very soul. i could not forget a syllable of it!... without another word he took the note, struck a match and watched it curl into shapeless ashes.... then making a quick gesture he plunged into the documents before him.... i backed away until the door closed and shut out the sight of the lonely figure enveloped in a green light, his face illuminated against the shadowy background of an underground chamber of the foreign office.... on the way to friedrichstrasse depot i met that girl of the métropole again!" iv when royalty gets double-crossed . the next entry was: "on the orient express, or what was the o.e. before the '_grosse general stab_' took over the whole job of mixing up these schedules.... well, well, well, the veiled lady of the métropole and buckingham is in trouble in the next compartment ... at least so she says!... she just came into my compartment and said she had been insulted by the man who is sharing it with her.... confound him!... but ... now i've heard of such 'plants' before.... while i'd like to go in there and kick the brute through the partitions i believe discretion is the better part of valor.... let her call the guard if the case needs attention.... the guard is a reservist and i believe she _knows_ it.... furthermore, i must be at donaustrasse , budapest, tomorrow, and meet colonel shuvalov at the hotel de paris, belgrade, the day after.... i wonder if that petit paris looks the same as when i met my old friend count arthur zu weringrode and kazimir galitzyn coquetting with cecilia coursan, mlle. balniaux and the petite valon at the card tables after our sparkling dinners a few years ago.... and where is that fire-eating prince now?... he was a great friend of grey and churchill at monte carlo.... and notwithstanding that meeting in the taunus they must be friends yet.... the monte carlo combination holds good today.... the taunus meeting so far as haldane and winston spencer were concerned was a _frame-up_ to catch waechter and 'his whiskers' (both the admiral and the general).... that's where the wilhelmstrasse fell down!... and yet i am on a mission of mercy, in behalf of one of the principal double-crossers, today!... _must see kovalsky at donau sure_.... mademoiselle must take care of herself today...." the next entry read: "this is a great combination--roumania is sidestepping wilhelmstrasse.... _greece_ is tying up with servia, bulgaria is likely to form a wedge between a complete coalition of these mutually hating and suspicious grafters.... montenegro is the only honest combination in the whole bunch.... in another hour i will see kovalsky and _astonish_ him with the news i bring." . then the following entry: "_k---- is absolutely opposed_ to taking any part in this business.... will not raise a hand without the sanction of charles.... looks as though i'll have to bring pressure on these despairing creatures.... they wanted the balkans,--that was the deal in the black forest,--and because some one doesn't hand it to them on a silver platter they complain of der grosse general stab's neglect!... at two i get my answer.... if o.k. i'll be in odessa in hours unless that veiled minx of the métropole sticks a knife under my fifth rib.... her conduct is becoming _mighty suspicious_!... watch me give her a run for her money!" . then there was this entry: "charles refuses to see me but tells k----_not_ to put any obstacles in my way.... this is a pretty mess!... how in the devil am i to slip through the lines with those devilish english and french officers scattered around everywhere?... if roumania had only listened to reason!... i think that mackinzen will be able to help me out,--i might as well ask envir pasha as these dervishes of sofia to lend a hand in this affair!... yet i _must_, simply _must_ be in odessa in time to meet vladimir k before the order of execution!... either that--or jump into the danube!" . the following entry is significant: "i have been deaf, dumb and blind for the last hours! the veiled lady was responsible.... she had me kidnapped and carried out into these infernal hills, wherever they are.... never saw them before.... looks as if a cyclone hit them.... one can pick up enough shells and scrap iron to stock a foundry.... the trees are all shot off--nothing but stumps and slivered trees and broken wheels and boxes littered around.... looks like some fight had taken place in this _strong-smelling_ hopyard among these hummocks.... apparently the hogs have been rooting up the ground all around here.... there isn't a sign of a living thing in sight ... and not a drop of water to be had!... who was that woman?... the baroness, who?... must find out more about syvorotka." . "... been tramping all day in the direction of the rising sun.... mud, mud, mud everywhere.... it may have been a good thing that i wrote my brother fox at mendocino about this trip before i set out.... if i am lost and this comes into a white man's hands who understands america he will know what to do with it.... hunger and thirst are delirious bed-fellows.... seems like a hundred years since i heard that métropole woman's voice when they were choking me in the carriage.... she was saying, 'search him, search him; i know he ran away with it; it belonged to the princess!' then that deep heavy voice: 'what did it look like?' every word he uttered seemed to add pneumatic pressure to his grip on my neck.... 'it was almost a light purple, the size of a hickory nut, shaped like a pyramid and gives out the reflection of a cluster of stars,' she cried like a wench.... 'worth a great deal of money,' the deep voice grunted as his hand pressed harder against my windpipe.... 'priceless!' she shrieked. 'it couldn't be duplicated for , rubles; the most gorgeous sapphire in the world!'... 'are you sure this man has it?'... 'certainly!' she insisted; 'didn't i see that little wasp kerensky give it to his cousin, and didn't i see that cousin give it to this man in america?'... 'who is this man?' he asked, tightening his grip until my tongue hung out.... 'they call him fox on the west coast of america; but that is not his name,' was the last i remember until i found myself lying on the roadside among the hills back yonder.... i certainly do resemble my brother slightly and am hoping that if he has a sapphire the size mentioned by that hissing vixen he will keep it for the honor and glory of the family of foxes.... and to think that a few days ago i was falling in love with her at the métropole!... if man is a meditating atom, woman must be a _premeditating subterfuge!_... i see smoke rising over the hills away to the east.... yes, it's the smoke of guns.... i can hear the hoarse roar of heavy artillery to the right and the spitting hollow barking and coughing of lighter pieces on the left and i feel the ground quiver as i write these lines." . the next entry read: "what a somersault has taken place in the general slippery coalitions of these capricious provinces! every potsdammer, a little while ago, was counting on roumania!... the breaking up of the confederation of the balkan states under russian influence was what the central powers required; while the allies desired a broken turkey and a strong balkan federation under russian sway able to throw a million men into the field against turkey's northwestern frontier so as to keep austria in check and allow an easy glide of forces toward the dardanelles.... then roumania was with the wilhelmstrasse, and bulgaria was an ally of the quay d'orsay and the neva, but now the osmanlian and the bulgar and his cousin fritz are in the same bed snoring at the romans who look greedily toward transylvania!... from what i can see i'm sure these bulgars will be first to give up the ghost, although when i talk to kovalsky and hear the whine of these wienfloss kwabins i feel sure that they will be first to snap for peace!... i am writing this in a elaborately furnished dugout that has been abandoned by some german officers--i know this because i found several tubes of _erbswurst_ tucked in one of the berths. with a little water i managed to make a good meal which saved my life,--blessed be the goths or whoever it was who invented those compressed sausages!" . the next entry: "i'm becoming worried about the size of this diary ... getting so bulky as to almost prevent concealment in case of capture.... yet i know a way to prevent detection ... so simple!... usually the most elaborate effort at concealment leads to detection while the most obvious and simple will be entirely overlooked.... i'll try it and if it goes through i'll patent it!... someone is coming--sounds like a dozen auto-trucks!... no, it's an _aeroplane_ skirmishing mighty close to my headquarters.... they've _landed_ and are coming this way!... i'll be ready for them...." v when titled women stoop to conquer . the next entry: "my ammunition was no good!... but i am at a loss to understand what they are trying to do with me.... certainly i don't look like a very important personage in my present state.... yet my captors are not treating me very badly ... aside from being locked up in this deserted villa with its broken chairs and vacant picture frames and general air of hasty abandonment there's nothing to disturb the tranquillity of my reflections except the recurring tramp of the muffled sentry below my broken window ... this building has a sort of byzantine cut in its architectural design.... on the other side of the valley there's a minaret or two visible through the smoky haze.... off to the left i can make out quite distinctly the outlines of a greek cross.... the road leading toward that cross looks like the work of a muscovite engineer,--which speaks well for it.... it's built of the same material as the one over the mountains from tiflis to vladicaucaz and kislovodsk.... i must be on russian soil!... but what is _mystifying_ to me is, _how did that veiled girl_ of the métropole manage to know the sentry who is guarding my person so methodically down below?... she has been here twice, now, and talks to him very confidentially.... quatsch! if she thinks to find _any_ jewelry clinging to my person she'll have to fry me to get it out." . then this entry: "the veiled métropole nemesis was to see the sentry today.... she seemed to be quite happy about something and looked up in the direction of my window a number of times.... she was eating some of those champagne-colored rose leaves that are crystallized by the firm of demitrof at moscow and sold as confections to the ladies of the court!... what does it mean?... furthermore, if that _sentry_ is not the same man who acted as valet to prince galitzyn at monte carlo when delcassé, grey and galitzyn (otherwise "count techlow") were gliding about the grand hôtel de londres! "the mystery is solved.... "that métropole woman was the companion to countess c---- at the nouvel hôtel louvre the day i met her at monte carlo!... and this man was the _same_ fellow she was supping her café turc and smoking her medijeh cigarettes with out on the terrace gardens of the hôtel de londres the night i was waiting for an american millionaire to break away from the hungarian noblewoman at the table decorated with la france roses and the same kind of roses pinned to her corsage.... the american, if he ever sees this in print, will remember the lady with the wonderful jewels flashing from her wrists and neck and whom the man with the boulanger moustache at the adjoining table was trying hard to flirt with ... the same dark-eyed juno that same american met in the salle des �trangers at the casino, the following day about noon.... well, that is the connection!... but i did not observe that that wonderful lady wore any large sapphire that night ... nor when she changed her quarters from the _nouvel_ to the _london_ did she need any such jewelry to have all the spendthrifts of europe at her feet.... if she was a 'princess' then i was completely fooled.... i never saw a real princess, except _eulalia_, who knew how to be democratic enough to select an american for a quiet exchange of ideas ... the rest, no matter how desperately they may want to be free from court _restraint_ and bodyguards, remind me of the poor little caged girls at the convent of the sacred heart at seville!... well, so my captors have some connection with the countess c----([cszecheny] chechany)--with the tolna festetics of hungary.... and this is _strange_, for i had surmised that she, at least, would be _friendly_ to my mission, if she knows anything at all about its origin.... _she_ should _aid_ me to reach odessa instead of having me sandbagged and cooped up here in this soviet cage.... i'm certain this métropole lady is a traitor to the countess now, and will have me murdered if i don't produce that sapphire of the princess." . this entry may serve to identify the author of the diary: "i am certain that the former occupant of this villa was some russian of taste and means. today, while leaning against a wall that was paneled after the fashion of the walls in the hermitage, one of the panels gave way and i found myself toppling backward into a very large room resembling a gallery. there were a number of wall hangings of silk from which the pictures had been removed. the candelabra was of malachite. there were clumps of violet jasper, porphyry, lapis-lazuli, aventurine and syenite scattered around as though the place had been divested of its furnishings in a hurry. i have seen the same things in the hermitage when for architectural elegance, richness of ornamentation and lavishness of decoration it was unequaled by any art museum in the world.... while poking around among the piles of tables and vases that were moved over to one corner i came across a box of paintings that must have been stolen from st. petersburg.[a] ... here is the _madonna del latte_ of corregio, or a mighty good imitation, that everyone remembers, from the hermitage. here is rembrandt's '_girl with the broom_,' the _portrait of sobieski_, and the '_farmyard_' of paul potter. here is the '_expulsion of hagar_' by rubens in which sarah wears a white handkerchief and yellow veil around her head, with one of her hands resting on her hip and the other encased in a blue sleeve raised in a threatening gesture toward hagar, and here is '_celestine and her daughter_ _in prison_,' that one never forgets because of the controversy between the partisans of murillo and velasquez over which of these two painters did the work. and here is lossenke's '_sunrise on the black sea_,' ugrimov's '_capture of kazan_' and '_election of michael romanov_,' in which the artist reaches the heights of oriental splendor in color, composition and design.... there is a fortune going to the devil in this room!... this house is l-shaped. the garden in the rear faces a pretentious two-story dwelling surrounded by a wall, like a governor general's mansion in its yellow-pinkish coat. tall poplar trees wave in front and the classic columns running up to the entablature give the place an official sort of front. there is a drug store on the corner across the way doing business under the name of _torkiani_. to the right, at the end of the street, is a girls' college; to the left, about feet away, in the center of the street, is the _alexander nevsky church_, if i'm not very much mistaken. this city must have been a wonder before the war...." then this entry: "something is about to happen!... my sentry seems very excited over the desertion 'on ekaterine street' and swears quite often at the failure of some one to appear '_along the levashov_.'" . this entry may explain the difficulty: "there is an army corps approaching from the southwest.... the air is surcharged with electricity and puts one's nerves on edge.... there is an ominous roar overhead that grows more nerve-racking every second.... zip, zip, zip, bl-r-r-r-r-oo-ow!... a flock of foelkers heading east like wild ducks toward a few faint specks zigzagging in the firmament away to the northeast.... now there are a number of specks from the south speedily joining these and all seem to be flitting higher and higher out of sight.... now the foelkers are circling rapidly upward.... the tramp and rattle of an army can be heard coming up the road behind my villa.... ah! here comes a daring plane like a streak of lightning over the alex nevsky church _directly toward this prison_!... i'm between the devil and the deep sea!... whoever gets me, that flyer or those noisy and unseen dogs of war back yonder, means nothing but plain hell to me!..." . the next entry is interesting: "well, i'm not dead yet!... a trip through the clouds is not the most delightful of experiences for one in summer togs.... especially when one is gagged and blindfolded and roped down like a rebellious steer.... so here i am cooped up again in a log cabin in the center of an undulating plain where there might have been unending wheat fields once upon a time.... not a solitary animal is in sight.... the road out yonder looks much the worse for wear. it seems ground into a pumice stone by the hoofs of horses and the swift movement of heavy wheels. every gust of wind sends a cloud of fine dust pyramiding its way across the fields and through the crevices of this suffocating den furnished with a few wooden chairs, a hand-carved bedstead, a small picture of the '_virgin of the partridges_' and a brass crucifix above the bed.... i greatly suspect my present whereabouts.... i am as much mystified as ever why that veiled métropole circe continues to dog my flights.... it was she who was the daring flyer and she beat the whole army getting to my retreat in that neglected villa and spiriting me away...." [footnote a: still the german nomenclature.] vi the lady and the firing squad . this looks exciting: "i must jot down this experience: when i was taken from the log cabin i was blindfolded and again strapped into a flying machine. there were half a dozen soldiers present; and one was certainly an englishman,--i had heard his voice before. i never forget a voice. if his eyes ever meet these lines he will remember me, i know. i can describe him from memory. he was medium height, wore a drooping moustache slightly sprinkled with gray and used two pairs of tortoise-shell glasses. when i met him at the pines in the isle of wight we had both been through the battle of the somme and were recuperating from our siege amid the shell holes and the mud. i claimed to be an american, and he, as a _descendant of the victor of trafalgar_, scolded me roundly and _vicariously_ for not forcing the united states into the war on the side of britain,--he'll remember _that_.... perhaps it was because he did recognize me that he insisted on my being blindfolded and handled roughly when i was led away.... the rest of the squad spoke french very poorly.... they asked me a number of questions, to which i shook my head; and, candidly, i could do so without doing violence to my knowledge of idiomatic french!... i heard them say to one another, 'when we get him to the stockade we'll see what he is made of.' 'yes; a firing squad'll be the best thing for all of them.' 'certainly! we'll follow machiavelli's recommendation in _the prince_,--exterminate the whole race!' that's the idea! there should be no louis xviii bobbing up a generation from now to overthrow the democracy.'... to be honest with my conscience i felt creepy.... i really wanted to tell them that they had got the wrong fellow, but when i tried to speak my tongue felt so dry and thick that i could not utter an audible word.... so i remained involuntarily silent.... well, on this flight i was more comfortable than on the last; but i thought it would never end and i felt horribly seasick.... finally i was landed and hustled into a court made from the ends of small logs pegged into the ground like an improvised palisade,--it was in a little village.... "... there were hundreds of tatterdemalians of all nations in various uniforms and smoking vile cigarettes, lounging carelessly around.... in a little while a dozen prisoners issued from a small guardhouse in one corner of the enclosure and were conducted at the point of the bayonet to the spot where i stood.... the officer of this firing squad looked viciously at me and ordered me to '_fall in_.'... we were then marched to the log wall about fifty paces to the left of the guardhouse and commanded to 'about face.'... when we did so we saw a firing squad of eighteen men in command of a sergeant who gave the order '_prepare to fire!_'... at this point the officer stepped forward and, addressing me personally, said: 'do you know of any reason why you should not be shot for participating in the abduction of the imperial family?'... this was a puzzler.... i was innocent enough of such an accusation, but the officer before me looked about as much like a royalist as i in my present disheveled condition looked like a member of the french cabinet.... if i denied my guilt i felt certain of a bullet in my heart from such an ugly, unkempt mob.... glancing at my apparel i looked fit to be one of their number, so i said courageously: 'i am proud to say that i am the _ringleader_ who engineered the whole business!..." if it gives you any satisfaction to see me die, don't waste your breath asking me any further questions,--go ahead and fire!'... 'very well,' he snapped and made me about-face to the firing squad ... for a few seconds he held a silent conversation with the sergeant.... that functionary approached with a handkerchief. 'will you be blindfolded?' he asked. 'thank you, i prefer to see what's going on,' i answered.... the other prisoners followed my example.... we were ordered to step back against the wall.... the squad raised their rifles at the command of 'aim.'... i _now_ know that i felt positively nauseated at the moment, but i actually smiled.... 'fire!'... there was a rattle of musketry and every prisoner beside me fell forward dead.... i stood there alone, uninjured and alive ... coming toward me down the path was the daring female acrobatic aviator with her friend, the performer of the métropole, robed in a shimmering sport outing costume, and smiling very sweetly to the officer of the guard.... "... i am certain now that this veiled lady from buckingham is in league with this gang of bolsheviki,--and i am also certain that i owe my life to the boast i made of being a murderer myself!..." . the following entry reads: "a man who has escaped death is not to be trusted on a point of discretion,--he doesn't know how to select his friends. he is like a spirit emerging from nowhere in the eternal void and grabs at the first apparition that promises companionship in his embarrassing and momentary isolation.... well, i was so glad to see that buckingham clorinda that i was willing to take her into my confidence at once.... she _seemed_ so sympathetic!... 'i commend your bravery,' she said prettily, offering me her hand.... it was small and beautifully moulded, yet firm and steady, and sent an electric thrill through me like a flash.... her eyes would disarm the most suspicious diplomatic free-lance in the world.... struck with admiration, hypnotized by her voice, i could only blurt, 'i thank you.' "...'we are looking for a man of approved courage,' she continued earnestly; 'we are more than satisfied that you are the man.'... again i muttered my thanks.... 'how long have you been a member?' she then asked carelessly.... this was not so easily answered.... i thought quickly.... 'long enough to know my lesson!' i answered oracularly.... 'you still remember your instructions?'... 'what instructions?' she answered my question by asking, 'were they not burned?'... 'who is this encyclopædic lady?' i asked myself. 'what manner of trap is she setting for me now?'... 'why did you sandbag me?' was my answer.... 'you are not to ask questions,' she returned. 'are you not satisfied with results?'... "... 'i am still alive.'... 'well,' she smiled, 'a _live_ bolshevik, of our kind, is much better than a dead diplomat!'... i was taken into an improvised kitchen and indulged in a splendid meal.... i took no wine.... "... my meal being finished _she_ offered me an excellent cigarette.... glancing up through a ring of smoke my eyes fell upon a rough black-and-white sketch of a tall, smooth-faced, keen-eyed man with rather large ears, firm and thin-cut lips, high forehead and steadfast gaze, dressed in the uniform of a general officer, with a single decoration on his left breast.... _she_ observed me closely as i gazed.... i knew this man and was about to exclaim: '_the savior of this country!_'... but something restrained my enthusiasm.... 'you recognize him, i see,' she insinuated.... 'who is he?' i dodged.... she merely smiled.... she evidently realizes the wonderful power of that disarming smile and the fascination of good teeth in a shapely head.... 'you'll do!' she said with apparent reservation as she tapped a tiny bell.... "... a short, thickset man appeared--he is not positively _ugly_, but he has a way of staring at one that is rather ill-bred.... there is a gold band around his left wrist and a scar upon his right cheek.... i am sure he is the same man i met at one of sadakichi-hartmann's readings from ibsen's _ghosts_.... he may recall the time.... it was in an abandoned palace on russian hill, somewhere in america; the lady at his left was discussing the difficulties of getting her motor car into ragiz; the younger one on his right was known as alma and gave her address as east st street, new york.... and all three were quite convinced that the central powers will defeat the allies.... he is an international character and will remember this incident as well as the following: '... this gentleman will join your party for ekaterinburg tonight, you understand. if there are any mistakes i shall not answer for results!' there were no introductions.... the man bowed and began to back away.... 'you may accompany him,' she said, rising and flitting from the room.... i believe i understand what this _party_ means!... there is to be a shooting party at ekaterinburg under the auspices of the bolshevists in a day or two and i may be one of the '_mistakes_' for which that mystifying lady disclaims responsibility.... my companion certainly looks like a bandit, and manifests the strength of a wild bull.... he seems much interested in that _patch_ on my shirt sleeve...." vii the royal bolshevik and the nurse . "my charybdis conducted me to the barracks where a lot of undisciplined philosophers were discussing the parceling out of land.... the ringleader was a round-headed, long-nosed and bulky individual with a shaggy beard and dirty uniform.... i knew him in an instant, but he did not recognize me ... he was one of von der goltz' men who aided in the defense at gallipoli.... the night before the allied fleet withdrew he was lying beside a short, thickset and dark-haired associated press reporter with a german name and tortoise-shell eyeglass and was telling that same reporter that unless reinforcements arrived at once the defenses would collapse!... the next day he was at headquarters informing the general in command that but for him the turkish forces would have surrendered!... he is now wearing a number of decorations for his military skill and bravery.... such are the fortunes of war!... this is the man who one minute preaches communism and another minute gravely asserts that it will be a good thing for the kaiser to get killed in the war so as to guarantee the succession of the empire.... perhaps he is doing this for my benefit.... anyway he occupies the center of the stage at present and governs this greedy and unruly mob by kicking discipline into a cocked hat and allowing every unshaved bolshevik his own unrestricted way!... under other circumstances i should dearly like to meet this boasting _furioso_ in a ten-foot ring when a little exercise is needed to keep myself in trim.... but now i am accepted as a bolshevik,--one of the elect, privileged to select my lady and rob and pillage when i please!... _this suits me very well_ ... but on mature _reflection_ it seems to me that a few in this literally ungodly gang are playing a very cunning part.... if that be so i am _not_ so sure how far my own assumed conversion to the doctrine of rapine will protect my skin.... so far, however, i have adopted the policy of vindictiveness, and, when asked a question, i merely growl and swear like a trooper.... _i am making an impression_...." . "on the way here the hero of gallipoli took quite a fancy to me, because i could beat him swearing perhaps.... growing confidential over his liquor and turkish cigarettes he asked point-blank: 'didn't i see you at the twelfth day ceremony at the winter palace the time the archbishop lost the golden cross in the river, a few years ago?'... i thought it better to deny the acquaintance and the incident.... i could have easily recalled the ceremony on the neva, the decorated pavilion on the ice in front of the palace, the procession of church dignitaries in their stiff byzantine robes and scintillating mitres moving slowly across the road followed by the grand dukes and the emperor, the clear voices of the choir cutting through the frosty air, the ladies of the court standing near the window and crossing themselves as the czar stood motionless beneath the gilded and fretted canopy,--_i could have recalled it all_ ... but i swore profanely and declared emphatically that all religion was a cobweb and a snare to emancipated minds.... i pretended to get violently mad about it and told him i would strangle any man who insulted me by accusing me of the most distant relationship with any religion excepting the religion of free love.... he laughed like a lion with a sliver in its paw. 'you are _absolutely_ the best counterfeit in circulation that i know of!' he guffawed. 'well, i'm going to fire syvorotka and put you in charge of a little firing squad when we get to our camping ground at ekaterinburg!' were his exact words, half whispered, half insinuated and wholly growled across the table in the diner.... with assumed hostility i actually barked: 'the dirtier the deviltry the more diverting!'... he opened his eyes widely like one emerging from a solemn drunk and winked knowingly as he shook my hand.... 'you know where kerensky got his orders to release our fellows, of course,' he whispered. 'i guess you know why he sent _some people_ to ekaterinburg a couple of days before the czecho-slovaks are scheduled to _take_ it, and i guess you know too how it happened that so many motor trucks came all the way from archangel to ekaterinburg so as to be on hand when a certain indian officer shows up, the ridiculous ranter raved.... but...." "... if these lines should ever come to light i want to record right now, in justice to that apparently besotted creature, that i am under unutterable obligations to him for assigning to me the most diabolical piece of brutality that has been conceived during this period of moral leprosy and unrepenting malevolence.... _i shall do my work well_." . then the following odds and ends appear: "... the métropole performer is a baroness sure enough.... she knows a syvorotka but declines to give his rank or whereabouts.... she tells me that this place was founded by count tatischshev in ... when catherine was a baby.... the monastery of 'our lady of tikhvin' looming up before me is a very graceful compliment to the mosque of st. sophia it resembles in so many ways.... fine place to radio from to friends at odessa ... especially if the nun has been obeying orders.... lvov is out of the way, over in the city prison, _cooking_, where he can't betray the prisoners at ipatiev's.... when i was alone with my imperial prisoner i tore the patch off from my shirt sleeve and handed it to him.... '_sa lettre!_' he exclaimed in an undertone.... his manner was exceedingly polite.... '_ouvrez, lisez_,' i advised.... '_oui, oui, je sais! je sais!_' he said softly, '_mais malheureusement cela est impossible!_'... 'soak it in water', i replied.... '_et vous, monsieur_, _êtes-vous américain ou français_?' he came back.... '_je suis né a paris, mais je suis américain_, and if the prisoner has no objection i'd rather speak in english.'... 'that will be delightful,' he said; 'i shall do as you say.'... he ran back to the bathroom. in a moment he returned holding the patch up before him.... 'ah!' he continued aloud, 'this merely says that the heir apparent will make a cruise of the world in a man-of-war; what does that signify?'... 'if you recognize the writing,' i replied, 'you will, doubtless, remember the methods of its author when extending an invitation.'... 'yes, yes, i see; how clever of you! had you been a subject of mine i should have made you an ambassador!'... 'that would imply infinite wisdom on my part, _sire!_ i bowed very humbly.... it made a hit with my prisoner." this entry follows: "alice will give up her wheel chair when the nun gives the word ... she is worrying about my prisoner's sister, olga, and her two companions, who insist on offering their services to the poor in the crimea ... and well she may!... '_facing the east,'_ they are likely to travel _south_!... i must get rid of this old valet, _parafine domino_, who makes a nuisance of himself hovering around my prisoner like a hawk.... gallipoli says he'll get rid of alice's physician before the tents arrive,--substituting a fake doctor from the red guard, who'll tell me when the prisoners are fit to travel.... as 'captain' of this soviet guard i am as cold-blooded as gallipoli before the spies and hangers-on.... '_captain?'_... that title seems to stump the old russian soldiers,--they claim that there is no such animal.... the sergeant has suggested that i put the prisoners under a small guard when we take them to the ural district soviet court of workmen.... nice trap to catch me.... if i agreed to this i'd be in the same category as denikin or dutov or ekhart and be shot by the gang outside by _mistake_, so as to fulfill the prophecy of my lady of buckingham.... my answer was to order the guard on the balcony to keep their guns pointed at the prisoners whenever they appear in the garden ... this will satisfy the eavesdropper in the red brick across the way and scare the wits out of old parafine, besides giving him something to talk about when we get away.... to satisfy that suspicious sergeant that there is no japanese money secreted by the prisoners i have ordered my men to use their bayonets against the walls and ceilings ... even the frame of the bathroom is not to escape!... gallipoli is growling around that i'm doing my work too damned well to _seem reasonable_!... the poor boob! his idea of being _reasonable_ seems to consist in spreading rumors that the prisoners have been disposed of in a dozen different ways.... when maria and tatiana mounted the truck in the yard this confiding swaggerer started the gossip that they were being loaded up to be taken out of town and shot.... now i am told by some of the excited guard that that report is true because they heard some one in the attic of the red brick yelling: '_the baggage is at the station_!'... "when i asked them what we wanted with 'baggage' they went away growling that i wasn't playing fair!... to my somber-robed lady of buckingham, who seems to have deserted me, as well as the slender guard at the huis ten bosch, as well as those at the wilhelmstrasse and odessa, who are part of this 'baggage,' my guard's agitation will assume the humorous character of unconscious prophecy.... suspicion is in the air!... this undisciplined gang of cutthroats under that half-baked sergeant are demanding hostages from _me_ for _my_ conduct of this business ... they want 'the grand dutchess olga,' her two companions, and fifty other women!... at last!... the _planes are buzzing in the sky_.... the ikon of holy nicholas is being wrapped up.... the nun has copies of the letters to oldenburg and gendrikov.... it's time to say to my prisoner: _come with me to the u.d.s. of w.a.r.a.d._'.... if he has the code from odessa he will ask: '_are you taking me to be shot_?'... '_runmobs_'.... i'll have the guard go through his pockets to find the letters that'll turn him over to my '_vengeance_' ... then for ekhart's tunnel and oblivion!" . then this entry follows. it seems to be sufficiently circumstantial to justify its reproduction here: "murder, like jealousy, in this country is a disease," begins the narrative. "my part in this international murder will paralyze the politician and mystify the sober mind of intelligent belief.... history will not be satisfied, however, without a victim, and i must furnish a victim that will satisfy the mob outside!... the order has been given.... there are celebrations among the banditti.... there are moistened eyes among many peasants; there are strong men and gallant men among the gang out yonder whose very looks betray the hatred they entertain for the suspected _executioner_ of their former ruler and his excited family.... they fear, they try to avoid me; and i can see in their looks that, given a favorable opportunity, they _will hang me to the highest electric wire pole_ in the city!... "i am not so certain, though, that everyone outside will accept my theatric 'slaughter' as the gospel truth. "diagonally across the way there has been a red cross nurse eternally peeking through her window in this direction.... if we go out into the courtyard she can see us plainly behind the other buildings, for there is nothing to obstruct her vision.... and she seems mighty anxious to keep tab on all proceedings in the yard.... i have tried to figure out a resemblance between this nurse and the capricious métropole baroness, but the nurse _seems_ much older.... perhaps she is disguised.... if she ever reveals her identity she will remember me as the man who tipped _my_ cap to her after posting the two sentries in front of the palisade between the telephone poles and the british consulate.... if she remembers me she will also recall the drillings i gave my awkward squad for the few days i kept them parading after my prisoners in the yard.... and if anything happens to me she will know that i did my job well up to the minute i write this.... in a few hours more the future political history of the world may be changed forever.... to blot out _seven_ lives is all.... _dokónchet the romanoffs!_" . this entry follows: "to satisfy the mob i had to perform a very unpleasant _duty_.... i use the word duty advisedly, remembering the instructions i committed to memory in the underground office of the wilhelmstrasse .... knowing that i am continually watched and spied upon, not only by that nurse in the window over there, but by a number of crazed lunatics in uniform, i was compelled to treat a very pretty princess _shamefully_.... news was spread yesterday that japan had loaned siberia $ , , , and the mob was clamoring for the jewels of the prisoners. this unoffending princess--this girl, hardly more than seventeen--was holding a conversation in french with her brother alexis, a little lad of fourteen, in the courtyard. the boy was pale and emaciated from abuse, solitude and confinement. the princess, a radiant beauty under this hot july sun, was trying to cheer alexis up. her gown was badly soiled and of a simple soft material that seemed to accentuate her modest resignation and glorify her courageous cheerfulness in gloom. her three older sisters, in gowns that spoke of yesterdays, were walking moodily down the path, when a crowd of ruffians burst by the sentries, tore through the doors, and dashed into the yard in the direction of the startled girls.... taking in the situation quickly, i raised my voice and began swearing like a demon, and prancing around like a _skberny_ madman.... then rushing up to tatiana i tore from her ears the jewels that had descended from her early ancestors and howled: 'aha! you'll wear those cursed things, will you, when your betters are starving in the gutters! get back, all of you, into your ipatiev sepulchre and get me all the jewelry in the place or _i'll turn these men loose upon you_ in three quarters of an hour!... soldiers,--_attention!!'_ ... the mob crawled into line.... 'the next time any of you men come into this yard without any orders,' i said, i'll have you shot with these people in the mansion!... column right!... march!'... i heard them mumbling as they passed the first sentry that the cursed interloping _tovarestch_ intended to _keep all the loot!'_.... following alexis and his sisters into the ex-emperor's study i laid down the earrings upon the flat-topped desk and apologized for my apparent act of cowardice and cruelty.... "there was pathos in that father's soft and courteous voice as he looked at me and said: 'i _understand_,--yes, yes, i know. you are right--quite right. my darlings, you must not blame this man.'" viii when royalty faces death . this entry follows: "i must jot this down now--who knows what may happen?... reminding the family that i had promised results in three quarters of an hour, i instructed them in the part each one must take.... alexis appeared to be listlessly unconcerned and sat upon one corner of the large flat-topped desk, swinging his feet indifferently; but when i started for the door he sprang to attention like a well-trained soldier and awaited the results.... going to the door fronting in the main street, i called the sentry and ordered him to call out the guard.... shortly _my selected_ guard appeared.... "i conducted them through the dining room and told them to help themselves.... then we roamed through the living rooms, the boudoirs, straight through to the washing room and bath; then back through the oblong archway into the little square room beyond the study, where i halted them and said: 'men, these women will die before they'll tell us where the treasure is at present. the old man and woman seem utterly indifferent to their fate; we can get _nothing_ out of them. now, what do you say to giving them a night to think the matter over before we _line them up_? we may get more by waiting than by closing their mouths forever....' "'_not another day_!' said one of the men whom i had all along suspected of being _suspicious_ of my conduct.... 'what say the rest of you?' i asked.... 'well,' droned the most courageous of them, with a hangdog expression, 'we might give them until midnight.'... 'very well,' i snapped viciously, i'll put off the execution till that hour; then if they don't disgorge i'll kill every one of them _myself_!'... 'not so fast, comrade!' returned the rebellious one; as a member of the guard i believe _i'll keep you company_.' "... i knew better than to object.... that man is a cutthroat beyond redemption and will hesitate at nothing to satisfy his lust.... that'll be _fine_,' i rejoined; 'you stay with me; the rest of the men are dismissed!'... when the men disappeared i made a run and jump at my diabolical 'comrade' and struck him squarely on the nose. then i smashed him on the mouth, and, with a down drive of my left, i bored into the pit of his stomach and sent him sprawling on the carpet, where he bled as profusely as a corn-fed bull.... this blood was exactly what i wanted, and in my anxiety to make a good job of it i kicked him several times in the face until he lay there, motionless and senseless, bleeding from every gash.... in the joy of giving this remorseless bully what he needed to overcome his pride i overlooked entirely the propriety of making him bleed in all the other rooms.... this little oversight may cost me a well-earned reputation for efficient management i have hitherto enjoyed among many great men of our times, if the omission be detected by some enterprising commission, some journalist or service man who will certainly check up my report if i leave this place alive...." . this entry follows: "it was a long wait till midnight when the mob outside expected to be invited to a division of the spoils.... but my plans were taking shape gradually as the moments slipped away.... in this isolated, though nicely furnished and elegant two-story dwelling, i got closer to the heart of my celebrated prisoner and his family than any other man alive.... in the few hours left to us before the time set for their 'execution'--in these evening shadows of july, ,--we have been discussing the effect of their sacrifice upon the history of the world.... i put this down from memory: "'it is understood already in certain chancellories,' my prisoner significantly replied, 'how my execution will be publicly accounted for.... each ministry will appoint a commission, suggested by the crown, to investigate and publish its own report.... the report published will be given out under the name of a naval or military commission to impart an official sanction to the supposed inquiry and support the authenticity of the document agreed upon.... naturally these prearranged reports will vary so as to satisfy the state of mind in each particular country.'... 'if regicides are so easily arranged,' i observed cautiously, 'perhaps the duration of this "revolution" is also definitely determined?'... there'll be a period of revolution and distress,' my prisoner remarked, 'before our country settles down to industry and contentment. but the desire of "self-determination" will mislead the unfortunate and cause them to embrace a tyranny of the most cruel and selfish type. this will last for a time until gluttony destroys itself, as all excesses do. when the country is dismembered by the activities of rival greeds, my poor and honest peasants will turn upon their masters and restore this nation's power. they need but education to accomplish glorious results. they will obtain this education while they suffer and evolve a science of self-government while learning to govern themselves. it may seem strange to others when i say so; but not one of my whole family is covetous of the imperial crown. we prefer peace and liberty to all the pomp and penalties of royal isolation from the rest of men and women in the world. royalty means slavery of the most humiliating form. the boy or girl that is doomed to royal birth steps into a prison with the first breath he breathes.... take my own case; i longed to get out and play rough-and-tumble with the boys i saw staring at me in the streets. but i was taught by my english tutor, heath, that it would be lowering my dignity to associate with those fine young boys. my "dignity" was placed in a strait-jacket and, in a namby-pamby way, i was taught to play alone. i had cousins scattered over europe who took their lot more happily than i; but even they regretted the mocking barriers that laid down a barrage between us and the more fortunate chaps outside,--outside, they enjoyed freedom,--within, we were all prisoners in our little cells of etiquette and traditionary bondage. at fifteen i was dragged away to the military academy at petrograd[a] and made to listen to old danilovich until i actually hated the very name of war. i resolved at that time to inaugurate some means to get rid of such senseless waste of life if intrusted with the power. the hague was my interpretation of what should constitute a proper exercise of international obligation. you realize, of course, the precarious state of russia in a military sense,--while force was indispensable to hold us all together from within, it always exposed our weakness when directed toward external issues. i could not map out my own general education, even; forced by the traditions of my family i was placed in charge of the holy synod and taught by pobedonostzev to regard myself as the source of spiritual power and instructed to regard an unorthodox opinion as a transportation offense. now, while i reverence profoundly the sacred tenets of my holy religion, i regard religious freedom as indispensable to the dignity of spiritual belief. for that reason i made that reformation in . as i grew up i rebelled against my intolerable confinement,--i went out among the people and talked with them. they were friendly in most instances and gave me very good advice. i did not need a bodyguard to go about. i was as safe among the people as i would be in the winter palace. often have i walked to the hotels alone to call on some particular friend without any thought of fear. nor was it necessary,--i liked the people as genuinely as i believe they respected me. i learned their hunger for land by going around; and it was on that account that i projected and completed our siberian railways so as to give our people the coveted opportunity and an outlet to the markets of the world. given an opportunity to accumulate and prosper, men will hesitate about going to war unless they are misled. i saw such an opportunity in international trade. i visited the orient, extensively investigating the commercial field in that direction. it was a mighty task, necessitating a reference to others who should have been as much interested in the accomplishment as i was myself. their mistakes have made me quite unhappy and there has always been contention between my ministers and myself. if witte had kept his hands off when count solsky got after the plotting school teachers and rebellious students, the propaganda against my reign which has honeycombed the empire with sedition might have been checked in time to prevent this dissolution,--for it is more than a "revolution." it is idealism run amuck. france, england, the people of america, have been duped by the intelligentia--the kadets--who never seemed to realize that in order to hold this empire together not only force but superstition was required,--'_si mundus vult decipi decipiatur_,' it is the only principle that will hold unorganized ignorance in disciplinary subjection to orderly and regulated progress; and without this discipline the army, or the power that holds this incongruous nation together, will dissolve, as you may now see, while the whole empire will fly to pieces. my strong ministers were too physical and myopic to look beyond their noses. they were afraid to seem afraid of _truth_,--and they even accused me of plotting with kazantsev and feodorov against the life of my minister of finance,--always excuses for fomenting discontent! they never seemed to realize that the happiness of the people meant the security of the crown. as a matter of fact the only loyal supporters i ever had around me were my wife and family besides a few others in the service of the state. when i announced my war aims on the pacific for the benefit of my people my leading minister had the audacity to obtrude upon my privacy at tsarskoye selo and demand that i withdraw the manifesto. this piece of impudence cost me the decision in that war. that magniloquent minister, with his versatile irish amanuensis, not only turned my mother against me, but he had the temerity to demand that i dismiss my best agent, azeff, who alone kept me advised of the machinations of the social revolutionists, who, in turn, accused me of murdering my uncle sergius--the greatest theologian of the age. as i recall the time, now, i am, of course, convinced that the only _real friend_ i had among those social revolutionists was burtzev,--but i understood him too late!'... my prisoner spoke regretfully. his voice was soft and courteous, breaking at times into the altisonance of the tragic muse. he does not think that any act of his can be wrong; the mere fact that he ran counter to accepted standards divests, in his mind, the act itself of turpitude. that seems to be the way he looked upon his former eastern encrouchments. that's the way he justified his subterranean deals with the kaiser; and he even goes so far as to assert that '_if the vyborg-björkesund treaty had not been denounced the present war would not have happened_.' he speaks of this a little passionately, scorning the very memory of count witte for 'questioning the morality of that arrangement.' that great minister my prisoner refers to as '_an uncouth bully who bellowed like a mad bull_.' in this respect it is my impression that the ex-empress indorses his state of mind. what he likes she will place in the superlative; what he merely hates, _she_ elevates to positive abhorrence. in this way she seems to flatter his decisions, which makes him smile quite indulgently at her, and hold her ascendency over his apparently veering mind. i can notice this in so many little things: she oozes delicate flattery and he likes it; she plays upon his _prejudices_, and he seems to have a lot of them submerged beneath his inalienable urbanity and instinctive grace of manner that even this misery and abysmal gloom have not relieved of polish. beneath it all i get the impression that he is very much in love with every member of his family.... that he would like to be _alone_ with 'alice,' whom he addresses as 'my darling' and experiences a shell-shock if she stubs her toe. his final words are: 'now it is all over and i will welcome the oblivion that will release us all from the memory of our devoted bondage!'... while my prisoner conversed alexis assisted his stately mother and his four beautiful sisters while putting on their superannuated wraps.... one by one they filed out the door leading into the open yard.... my prisoner stood up and stretched himself.... he was about to resume his seat when the report of a revolver resounded in our ears.... the brute on the floor, wallowing in his blood, was raised upon his elbows and firing recklessly.... after he had fired six rounds without apparent injury i drew my own revolver and fired deliberately into the wall.... the fellow slunk back to silence.... my prisoner and i followed the ladies out into the night, _forgetting_ a jewel or two in our leisurely departure.... out in the open we descended into the old abandoned tunnel that formerly led from ipatievs to the medical office of a foreign consulate a thousand feet away...." [footnote a: nicholas used "petrograd," not the german nomenclature.] ix what is learned in a secret tunnel . the next entry is mystifying: "we are between the devil and the deep sea!... which gives me time to write.... the beastly tunnel has caved in midway in our passage.... it seems, from the roar overhead, that we are somewhere beneath the railroad tracks. yet there must be a vent somewhere, as there seems to be a draft of air through this passage.... the family are congregated off to the right, in a kind of stoping where the dirt has been removed, leaving a small room like one meets with in the gogebic iron mines in wisconsin and michigan, back in the united states.... our little electric bull's-eyes come in handy just now.... with my bull's-eye propped up on a sand-encrusted box i am noting down some things that must not be forgotten.... while trying to find a passageway out of this hole in the ground we gyrated back and forth for the last two or three hours until the women became exhausted.... then my 'prisoner' and i returned to the mouth of the entrance. there we heard a horrible row between the unruly brute we left on the floor and his wild-eyed fellow conspirators.... they accused him of double-crossing them and making away with the treasure that they insisted should be _theirs_! "... he insisted that there was no treasure except the jewel he apparently was exhibiting.... we could hear, quite distinctly, a sullen voice saying: 'i do not believe you; you are trying to steal the whole of it!... we'll give you ten minutes to produce all you have hid away, and if you don't do it, we'll fill your body so full of lead that your rotten carcass won't float in the kolunda.'... the culprit replied: 'let me explain. you remember that i was suspecting that _interloper_ when i insisted on watching him; well, my suspicions were correct,--he was a traitor to our cause. he was planning to steal away with his precious gang when i covered them with my pistol. then when i had the drop on them i made them open all of their trunks and boxes. nothing was found. i felt sure they were holding out on me, so i took a shot at the kid. the interloper made a dive at me. i knocked him down with that chair there.... then in my rage i emptied my pistol into the hearts of the whole gang.... that's all there's to it.'... 'he's lying!' 'traitor!' 'betrayer!' 'down with the thief!' flew back and forth from one to another above our heads.... then in a more subdued voice we heard 'hist! _silence_! some one is coming!' a moment later i heard distinctly the unmistakable growl of my hero of gallipoli overhead demanding, 'what have you cutthroats done with our prisoners?' ... there was a _silence_ that could be felt.... none offered an explanation that i could hear.... 'why don't you answer?' thundered gallipoli.... there was an unmistakable murmur.... 'don't you try to slide out of this, you coward! i'll hold _every one_ of you responsible for this! _where's my lieutenant_?'... he _means_ me.... "'out in the yard,' i heard one of them reply.... 'go and tell him to report here at once!'... poor devil! the humor of this whole situation is displayed in the tragic possibilities of criminal greed when crooks fall out!... '_where are the others_?' my gallipoli hero demanded.... i heard no answer.... 'do you hear me?'... still no audible answer.... '_crack!'_.... the report of a revolver, then a scuffling and '_stand back!_ another move and i'll blow you all to hell,--_line up there!_.... now i order you to explain the whereabouts of the prisoners.' "... we could hear a voice boasting: 'did you see that blood in yonder? well, that is our answer. we were suspicious of that lieutenant of yours so we took the matter into our own hands.'... 'who did the killing?'... 'the sergeant.'... 'and what did he do with the bodies?'... 'threw them into the well!'... 'the devil! you'll have to fish them out again!'... then there was a long silence.... finally we heard: 'here, sergeant!' from he of gallipoli; 'when will my lieutenant report?'... 'the captain said to present his compliments and say that he is temporarily detained.'... my 'prisoner' poked me in the ribs impulsively and smiled.... 'where are the bodies?'... 'burned!' said the sergeant. 'what?'... 'burned up?... 'who burned them?'... 'i did, sir.'... 'didn't throw them in the well?'... 'no, sir.'... 'well, i'll be damned!... fall in! _unless those prisoners are produced i'll court-martial every one of you_!' "... we could hear the measured tread of a squad overhead tramping away until the thump, thump, thumping sank into a faint indistinct vibration which was caught up by the beating of our hearts and the throbbing of our fascinated and incredulous ears.... 'well!' ejaculated my amused '_prisoner_'; 'it'll be exceedingly interesting to read the future accounts of my double execution. i am sure my family will read it with greater interest than they've ever manifested in any of london's or gorky's fanciful novels!'... 'i assume that you will not be surprised to learn that you have some mighty good friends in that crowd outside,' i ventured.... 'oh, not at all,' my prisoner returned, 'and i venture to say that your friend from gallipoli will find it convenient to contribute to the general misunderstanding and confusion by allowing the suspected executioners to air their conflicting explanations of my disappearance.' "'_we haven't disappeared yet, my friend!_' i grumbled, as we turned back in the direction of our underground camp.... 'if we had some shovels it would solve the problem; but the way we're fixed it looks like a case of starvation or surrender for the whole of us,--we can't stay down here indefinitely!'... 'patience, _courage_, my friend,' my 'prisoner' replied whole-heartedly; 'this is the first time in my life i have been absolutely alone, the first moment in our lives we have been positively free!'... he took a few swift steps and swung around gracefully, like a figure in a dance.... 'i love the mazurka!' he exclaimed!... 'i'd like to have a real pillow fight again with the children!... we used to have such fun!... it was about the only time my wife would ever smile!... i used to tell her that she reminded me of the sad goddesses that stood on the dull red cornices of my winter palace looking coldly into space during any of the court ceremonies.... really that was true,--a woman like my wife, in a _manteau de cour,_ a head flaming with the rays of her kokoshnik and supported by that long white veil, does resemble an icicle in the winter palace!... but when we are _alone_!... the zaritsa is a motherly mother!... you'll see.... we have always loved simplicity.... this is our chance.... i never did like the late suppers and high life indulged in by some of my relations.... my greatest dissipation was at the marinsky when we'd sup between acts and go straight home to bed.... grand duke alexis never wanted to go to bed.... after the theatre he was always primed for another party out at the islands.... our motto has always been, "early to bed and early to rise."... had to.... at work early after breakfast till eleven ... luncheon ... to work again at half past twelve until dinner ... back to work until very late at night.... now we are hearing of our misguided _workmen and soldiers_ attempting to run the country on six hours work a day!... that would be delightful if they would only devote the remaining hours to recreation and study.'... my 'prisoner' seemed positively _boyish_.... "his voice was in pleasant contrast to the shrill staccato accents i had heard in that gloomy underground room of the foreign office at berlin.... i could see at a glance that his present attitude was not a pose,--his simplicity, like his courage and democracy, was genuine.... it explains the reason for his composure at this very minute when a less courageous man would be excitedly running around in circles and making my life miserable by bemoaning our ill luck.... to show the _morale_ of this family of cave dwellers i'll record this incident: 'be careful about those electric lamps,' i requested of the ladies. 'if they give out we'll be in darkness.' ... 'then we'll use our hands and dig ourselves out to daylight!' exclaimed maria.... 'why can't we start doing that now?' exclaimed tatiana.... 'come on!' chorused alexis and his four sisters as they fell to and are now pawing the dirt away from the embankment that impedes our escape.... i'll have to supervise that work a little, for if these girls continue to pile back the dirt the way they are doing it they may stop up the passage both ways and _bury us all alive_...." x romance in sight of death . the next page of the diary is badly blurred and torn, but the following can be made out: "we are all about played out.... the boy is exhausted and lying over in a little excavation upon his sisters' wraps, his fingers bleeding and one eye blinded with the sand.... the passageway behind us is almost closed up.... in front of us we have hit a solid wall.... the exhausted mother is binding her boy's hands with a portion of her petticoat.... as she kneels there, with the faint flicker of a light falling on her finely chiseled profile, she resembles botticelli's _magnificent_ madonna in the uffizi gallery at florence.... the picture is completed by the dark background and the solicitous attitude of the girls as they cluster around the sufferer.... with a little imagination one can delineate the jeweled crown which the two girlish angels are holding above her head.... pathos, resignation and a sort of recreating faith are painted against that threatening wall and overhanging dirt.... if that should fall we are all bound to suffocate before any help can come.... my 'prisoner' is not a bit discouraged, however.... he is using his jackknife against the concrete wall with great patience and whistling softly and slowly an air from 'the blessing of the waters.'... water!... i know those girls are choking for a drink as i have been for the last ten hours myself.... still, not one of them has murmured at our grief and anastasie has become quite chummy in pretending to cheer me up.... aristocracy or royalty, even, with democracy in a tunnel, makes us all of one size! under certain conditions a man of my education and family connections might be privileged to forget the veiled lady of buckingham and accept these endearing little attentions with some guarantee of hope.... but what if we all are buried here like the happy families of herculaneum and pompeii?... future inquisitive scientists may find this diary with our _bones_ and classify us as a species of an extinct tartar tribe!... the wall my prisoner is gouging out _seems to be getting wet_...." . then there follows the entry: "_water has burst through the hole my prisoner has been making in that wall_!..." . the next entry has been evidently water-soaked and is entirely blotted out. . this entry seems sufficiently distinct to make out what the writer has been through: "i tried in the foregoing to jot down enough of what was happening to enable anyone who would find our bodies to make out how we had died.... what i forgot to record in the excitement i'll put down now.... when the wall caved in and the water burst down upon us it seemed that we would soon be drowned alive.... the small hole in the wall had allowed enough water to filter through at first to slake our thirst and make us all quite happy.... but gradually the ground beneath us became damp and sticky and the blue mud clung to our shoes like glue until we could hardly move.... the little air that crept in with the water, though, was a positive blessing to us all.... we should have stifled.... finally the water ceased and our hearts began to sink.... "... it was maria who brought on the flood i have learned today.... with a stone she found uncovered by the filtering from the little opening she began pounding against the wall.... suddenly the wall bulged inward.... there was a swish, and a roar, and a deadening gush,--and then a rushing flood tore open the side of the wall and burst like a torrent into our muddy, narrow cell. higher and higher it mounted, enveloping us to our arm pits.... my 'prisoner' moved calmly over to the stately woman, who was holding up the boy, and patted her gently on the head. 'it will be all right, darling,' he said.... then he kissed all his children and impulsively _dashed in the direction of the cataract_. "... struggling hard against the flood he worked his way nearer and nearer toward the broken curbing and finally dove through the waterspout and clung grimly to the wall.... for a moment his body seemed to tremble.... then with a supreme effort he pulled his body into the opening and for a moment checked the flood.... it seemed like a gallant sacrifice.... at the same time.... the girl, maria, waded back toward the opening that was now completely sealed by the sticky clay and began to tear frantically at the bank.... "little by little she seemed to make headway.... but it appeared like an eternity,--and i felt certain that the man in the wall using his body as a plug must presently give up the ghost and be hurled back into our cell.... i then noticed the water around us drop quickly, and, turning in the direction of maria i saw her body being caught up by the current and sucked painfully forward into the opening her delicate hands had made.... it was too horrible to endure!... now, while there is no blood of martyrs in my veins, and while i had promised the sombre figure in berlin to do a certain thing which a martyr impulse might prevent if i tried to be a hero in this instance, i simply could not look at that girl's struggles without going to her rescue _no matter what it cost_...." . the following then appears: "i have no recollection of what happened after i grasped maria by the feet.... all i remember is that i felt myself being dragged along after her through a blinding sheet of muddy, gritty substance, head foremost like a drowning man.... i imagined myself in mid-ocean clinging to some broken shaft after my vessel had been torpedoed, and i clung to those slender ankles as the only hope of life!... when i did recover there was maria bending over me and vigorously see-sawing my arms back and forth in an effort to resuscitate me.... if ever there were an excuse for the chivalry of the middle ages it must have crept out of those dark moments when some puissant knight opened his tired eyelids upon a vision such as i then beheld!... but there was no time for don quixoting in that damp and muddy tunnel.... we noticed that the waters neither rose nor fell.... so we plowed our way back to the other members of our party as speedily as we could.... on arriving at the wall again we found my 'prisoner' lying propped up against a large slab of concrete and breathing heavily while he held the empress' hand and essayed a feeble smile...." . the following entry seems to dovetail in: "the walls of this old _cistern_ promise very little assurance for our escape.... still the cistern has its uses in circumstances like these.... we know, at least, that some kind of human beings are not beyond our voices if we decide to call for help.... but what kind of help?... that is the question.... last night, as i stood on the floor of the cistern i heard an amusing conversation.... a voice overhead was growling; 'i'm as certain as i'm alive that the loan of $ , , has been made by japan to those fiends who have escaped,--and i know they have the gold, for why have those trucks disappeared?... so it is worth while to keep up this revolution until we get our hands on some of it if we have to follow them all the way to vladivostok.'... 'that rumor has been floating around for the past week,' another bass voice grumbled, 'and i'm inclined to think it is all a game of bunko to divert attention from the pile of , , the gang have smuggled into omsk.'... 'nonsense,' grunted the other; 'haven't we a thousand eyes at harbin who know about the chinese eastern deal?'... 'well, the only thing to do is to keep this hell in a constant bubble until we get the stuff at omsk or the coin japan has sent to this cremated family here!'... "... 'cremated, ha! ha!... why, did you notice those stoves in the house?... they're not big enough to burn up a good-sized dog!... my judgment tells me that that whole squad of double-crossers are in league with that skunk of a "captain" who pretended to be a friend of comrade trotsky.'... 'well, we made a mistake when we endorsed that burning lie,--we are all in for it now, and the only way to get out of it is to stay in it and lie it out to the end--'.... 'unless--' 'unless what?'... 'unless the lett who pretended to do the killing is taken out and shot!'... 'oh, give him a little more rope and he'll hang himself!'... when i related this conversation to my 'prisoner' he was very much amused.... 'this is a real adventure!' he smiled. 'we're like tennyson's light brigade, with cannons in front, and cannons behind us and brigands on every side of us, thirsting for our blood,--these fellows are certainly not russians!'..." . then we have this entry: "i have noticed all day that the family is gradually succumbing to the ravages of hunger and thirst.... if we call for help it will mean a firing squad for sure.... the criminal crew who have already reported our death will have to kill us to make good their boast.... so we must stay here and silently watch one another collapse from day to day.... "... my prisoner says he is willing to give himself up if his death will enable the rest of us to escape.... the girls will not listen to such a proposition,--they are all agreed that they would rather organize themselves into a little platoon and fight it out if we can ever get out of this cistern.... it indicates a mighty good spirit,--but that gang outside would have us strung up in the twinkling of an eye.... "... i know that marie expects me to do something from the inquiring way she gazes in my eyes.... she says nothing, but any man of spirit who looks into such clear, unflinching eyes under conditions such as these, will understand instinctively what is written in their suggestive depths!... they literally shame me for the little i can do.... some lounge lizards may speculate on the nature of the sentiments this grateful princess will reveal if i display sufficient ingenuity to save us all from this slowly approaching death!... how dramatic!... how absurd! "... i have lately laughed at those italian poets who bewail the isolation of their lauras, yet, recalling my lady buckingham's repeated rescues, i begin to recognize a reason for the existence of that poetic fervor which agitates the artistic heart when either its safety or its vanity is at stake."... . this entry offers a little encouragement: "there is no such thing as physical exhaustion.... hunger and thirst may weight us down, but with the right kind of inspiration a man can do miraculous things.... i began rolling up balls of mud from the tunnel and carrying them into the cistern until my tongue hung out of my mouth.... with those balls i started making a winding stairway around the wall of this cistern until i had a dozen steps completed ... then the girls began making the balls and bringing them in to me like muddy little hod-carriers.... my masonry took on proportions as the minutes dragged by.... finally we have a stairway four feet wide and extending from the bottom to within four feet of the top as i write these lines with the girls sitting a few steps below me in the slowly hardening clay.... we can all hear plainly the tramping of feet on the planking overhead.... it is a kind of shuffling one hears when seated somewhere beneath the dancers in a ballroom, and it may mean that we are headed directly toward the lion's den."... . in this entry the emperor speaks of rasputin, spooks and jews: "it became dark and spooky when our lights gave out.... and while we sat huddled together the subject of 'ghosts' came up.... 'ghosts!' the 'prisoner' almost snarled; 'that reminds me of the jewish propaganda against my government.... there was hardly a yiddish banker in the world who did not accuse me personally of inspiring sheglovitov to have the jews executed for _ritualistic murder_; and i am sure their influence will be very strong with certain statesmen and opportunists to have my empire dismembered when the time comes to settle the terms of peace, as poor nilus predicted.... i wish i could show you a letter i received from a jewish banker in new york threatening to kill my loan in america and have our existing treaties denounced unless i complied with certain jewish demands.... i did not think it possible and ignored the letter, of course.... you may judge of my astonishment when the jew's threat was made good by the american government doing precisely what the threat implied.... these people have been persistent in accusing me of having communication with the _spirits_ and of engaging in all sorts of _magic_, like the infamous papus; well, if that be so let me exercise my gifts to prophesy that the denationalized jews will attempt to hereafter enthrone themselves as masters of the civilized world by their mastery of its amusements, its money, its politics and its industry,--and you will find them demanding and receiving special privileges in many countries where, at present, they are suspected and abhorred.... i have not the slightest doubt but that kerensky will be succeeded by some jewish politician within a little while--and they will blacken his reputation as they have tried to blacken mine.... the methods may be different but the result will be none the less effectual.... only the other day, i might say, when we were leaving tumen, a rabble of yiddish _suttlers_ began _yelling at me: "rasputin! rasputin! where is your rasputin!"_ ... now grisha rasputin was a friend of the metropolitan archbishop of protopopov. he was seeking to redeem the reputation of a horse-stealing father if i remember right--'he was a friend of stuermer, niki, not a friend to you,' interrupted the ex-empress... 'you are right, darling,' returned the 'prisoner,' 'quite right, i know.'... 'what kind of a mountebank was rasputin?' i asked to feel my 'prisoner' out.... 'he was a worthless _rasputnik_ at best,' the fallen emperor answered.... and you think the jews are responsible for your reported attachment to him?' i asked.... 'undoubtedly,' he said bitterly with a sigh of resignation.... 'when we were being taken to the boat at tobolsk did they not make faces at me and alice and flout me with their cries: "take him to the criminal court and let him read the record of his libertine, rasputin! let his barnabas teach him how to sin for the joy of gaining absolution!"... how little do those enfranchised jews understand the meaning of forgiveness!' lamented the ex-czar.... 'may i ask your actual estimate of creatures like rasputin?' i ventured.... 'our rasputin was a hardened criminal beyond a doubt until his conversion by father zaborovsky, the good rector at the theological academy at tomsk,' the ex-czar replied.... 'he would have made an excellent subject for investigation by lombroso, by havelock ellis or other eminent criminologists ... but i believed the man was sincere in his repentance and accepted him as a sort of text for other sinners to point a way toward regeneration.... the higher rasputin rose, the greater his fame became, the more impressive would be his textual example to other aspiring souls,--even a criminal should not be denied the consolation of hope where crime is the result of ignorance or misdirected patriotism.... if i sinned in pardoning a sinner then sin must be an unpardonable crime!... nathan treated david as i treated rasputin, although both were guilty of the same offense.... he was grossly illiterate,--the only schooling he ever got was in the monastery abalaksky and what he acquired from the lips of monks while making his rounds as a barefoot pilgrim from place to place.... his claims of having _visions_ i ascribed to his empty stomach, although others gave credence to the nonsense.... alice at first abhorred him; finally she began to regard him as a rare specimen in self-hypnosis who was worth studying to learn how far the fascinations of self-delusion were capable of deluding and swaying stronger wills and more cultivated minds.... we both learned, by observing him, that an ignorant mujik, like an egotistical minister, if granted the semblance of authority for any length of time, will demoralize the finest organization in the world.... that was the lesson both alice and i acquired from rasputin.... and i am accepting rasputin as a standard to estimate what will happen when men of his type and origin attempt the government of the world.... without education, with no experience in governing even the smallest unit of society, unfamiliar with the trend of history, ignorant of military and commercial strategy, building their philosophy of life and their science of administration upon some isolated text, they will overturn the whole structure of civilization by arrogating to themselves the supernatural privileges and persuasiveness of the voice of god!... the prospects are not inviting.... there are rasputins in all the chancellories of europe.... you have them in north and south america,--some educated, others like marat and danton, while some are simple cagliostros who deceive the people and themselves.... if they were only gideons instead of joshuas their strategy might be reassuring,--but they are merely rasputins and papuses, after all!... against all laws of nature they will try to triumph by commanding the heavenly and mundane bodies to stand still until they readjust the motions of civilized society to some dissolving and ruinous invention of emotional insanity where everything runs wild!'" xi the invisible diplomat appears . this entry is mystifying: "last night i waited until there was not a sound overhead.... i knew it would be taking chances--but i had to get water.... we could no longer survive on mud!... i began pushing against the planking overhead to see if there was anywhere an opening, but every plank i pressed against seemed as solid as a stone sidewalk.... finally i began thumping with my clenched fist ... and this brought on the fracas.... i heard a heavy pair of feet bounding on the floor directly above my head.... then there was a scraping and a sound like the tearing up of carpets.... presently i heard an iron bolt crack back and the floor above my head began rising slowly until i found myself looking into the muzzle of a mauser held in the clenched hands of a tall square-faced man with a jaw like a prize fighter.... "... another pair of hands reached down and caught me by the collar and i was yanked like a squirming spaniel out of my hole into a large oblong room that was only slightly lighted by a blue student lamp upon a small roll-top desk.... against the wall was a large steel engraving of king george of england, and i could see the union jack displayed upon another wall.... there were papers and documents and army tents in piles here and there round the room.... but the impression that flashed upon me was not at all reassuring for a man who had made his way into such surroundings directly from the other underground corridor in berlin!..." . then this entry follows: "from that very hour i am strongly for the british.... i will not attempt to describe that meal.... it was all a king in exile or any of his suite could ask for; and the silent men who prepared it will always be remembered for their discretion and manly hospitality.... neither of them appeared to know me nor any of our party.... but those gallant fellows are adepts at dissimulation.... i'm certain that the tall, slender and soldierly bearing officer will remember the day we had our strawberries at carlton terrace, and the slender, willowy duchess who forgot her fan until he picked it up and brought it to her at my table, where she paused for a moment to say to me, 'my father is in london and wishes to see you badly.'... i am certain he remembers what i told her about the gordons and the devons in that slaughter at the somme,--when so few of those brave lads returned!... if we ever meet again i shall thank him for the robes and provisions and motor trucks he furnished to transport us safely rolled up in army tents for many rough miles across the country in the direction of chanyi lake...." . we find this entry of the diarist next: "i have never beheld a more beautiful landscape than the scene before me.... i am writing this on the banks of altai lake.... the balsam from the cone-like firs along the gorges surcharges the air with an intoxicating flavor and reflect their inverted gracefulness in the calm waters of the lake.... the mountains sloping up from either side are delineated in the mirroring surface and form an archway for the snow-capped and broken pinnacle that towers above the others like a sentinel brooding in his frosty and eternal isolation.... far off in the distance i can see the black and white walls of the katun glacier and know that, throughout this region, gold and silver, as well as lead and copper, most certainly abound.... in our unending tramp today i have discovered many evidences of the presence of zinc and nickel and other minerals lying around.... my 'prisoner' tells me that there are mines already working in the upper part of the talovsky river and that the copper runs very high in the vicinity of chudak.... alice wrote to princess g---- today at t----.... i am not much impressed nor favorably by the attitude of these natives in the hills.... they seem to be a mongrel mixture of tartar and mongolian who are always ready, like the huge ungainly bears we have encountered in our pilgrimage, to grapple and devour one for the mere pleasure of seeing blood!... maria seems quite interested in these notes,--today she insisted on giving me her impressions of how a novel should be written.... she says that to make a story interesting it should be all movement from the opening line to the final wedding bells.... when i told her that i was writing history she pouted prettily and remarked: 'i never think of history without wondering who subsidized the writer of the misleading fairy tale.' "... this girl has lived close enough to the source of history to know what propaganda is.... still, i like her uncomplaining buoyancy of spirits in the trial we are going through.... we are headed south toward kuria and khotan, where arrangements have been made to receive us by some people who know our secret and will respect the rights of asylum in a land where oblivion may mean liberty and love!..." . there seems to have been quite a skip in the notations of the diary. evidently the diarist has become more interested in something else: "the fact that we have been on foreign soil during the last fifteen days has considerably relaxed our nerves.... aside from the rumor constantly reaching us that the mongolian mercenaries are in the employ of the bolsheviki and offered big rewards for our capture, we have not been disturbed in mind or bodies.... maria asked me today if i were any relation to charles james fox, whose oratory she claims to greatly admire.... when i informed her that i had never met this gentleman her eyes grew very big.... "'what are you?' she inquired. 'are you an englishman, or a russian,--you can not be a german,--or are you an american? oh, i just hope you are an american!... when i informed her that my ancestors fought beside _kosciusko_ and pulaski and that their names might be found on the muster rolls of the first line regiment of new york colony and state, along with the names of goose van schaick and jeremiah van rensselaer, she burst her sides with laughter.... 'what a happy family you must have been!' she rippled. 'when a fox and a goose may dwell in peace and amity together there is nothing that is not possible for their race!' "... this quick-witted girl, certainly, belongs in the united states--the plains of eastern turkestan are no place for her...." . there seems to be another skip in the neglected diary. evidently the scenery has lost all its charms.... he merely notes: "my 'prisoner' seems very much interested in my family connections.... he seems jolly enough about it.... but i can see that something is disturbing him.... he is very obstinate in little things, lately.... when we get into cashmere perhaps his mind will be diverted.... he loves the languid charm of scenic beauty nearly as much as the flattery of his wife.... anyway, what can i do?... there is a naturalness about this whole affair that one simply can't get away from.... danger has a generous way of bestowing blessings on the bold..." . then we find the following critical entry: "i shall never read 'lalla rookh' again!... the vale of cashmere may sound fine in poetry but it feels tough beneath one's feet whenever one dismounts.... i might overlook the rough spots easily enough had not olga suddenly interested herself in my ancestry while she found employment for maria with her brother, who seems sadly out of breath.... my 'prisoner' has forgotten all about me in the absorbing interest he displays in what he declares to be early missionary work of jesus in these very interesting stretches. it has been no easy matter for me to pilot this party outside the range of camel caravans and soldiers on their way from the punjab valley toward rawal pindi.... the rattle of our tongas might be heard at any moment and then our little caravan, disguised as buddhists, might spend some time in the guardhouse at murree.... we will not regret the shade and comparative coolness of that pleasant summer resort,--but none of us are longing for any more confinement.... the road from murree down the valley was gullied by the terrific rain we have been wading through.... i have never seen a blacker night nor a heavier rain than we have just come through... we were constantly in fear of the falling of those gigantic boulders that overhung our path behind the swishing trees that clung along the precipice.... the zigzag road that runs down this slope is like a spiral stair in crookedness and bumps.... we could catch a glimpse now and again of a light from the little bungalows that clung to the mountain sides.... but we dare not arouse the dwellers for many obvious reasons.... finally we did encounter an abandoned inn or hut where we camped for the night.... next morning in a fierce and searching sun we rambled into a village set upon a wonderful defile in the heart of the mountains, where we ate our frugal meal.... at night we reached the jhelum coursing gracefully over rocky beds and through picturesque gorges that rise into the azure and serene skies of the himalayan heavens.... it was a delightful place to camp for the night.... at nine the next morning we had reached the little hamlet strung along the river bank and known as tongua.... here the girls made a number of purchases and we replenished our commissary for the march before us into mystic dominions of the lama...." xii the flight to tibet . then we get this entry: "i did not count the number of hindu castes we encountered at the trading post of tongua.... there were a hundred, at least, each bearing on his forehead the mani-colored mark of his particular caste,--while the stately kashmirian in his snowy turban and long white tunic seemed carved out of the frozen snows of the towering mountain sides.... we were offered many cabriolets to assist us on our journey, but one look at one of those backless and circular tables between the wheels upon which one must sit like a turkish mouker with his legs crossed to keep from rolling down the precipice was enough to convince us that the camel route was good enough for us. "on the tramp to horis, along the banks of the jhelum with its wooded mountains on the right and its rocky precipices on the left, we met a number of pilgrims who had religious scruples against taking part in letting blood of any kind of bird or beast or whale.... they had evidently been to their mecca.... another thing we discovered that is not generally understood among the unelect.... on the way we came upon a hindu squatting by the roadside with a pail of rich fresh milk.... being thirsty i pointed at the pail and asked him for enough to give our party a drink.... the fellow became enraged and informed me that i had defiled his milk by pointing my finger at it.... i said i'd take it all, which was evidently what he wished. "after we had all drunk our fill i took the half-filled pail, approached the grinning rascal and deliberately dashed the contents in his face!... my 'prisoner' was horrified, but maria enjoyed it very much.... 'i had one experience in japan,' my 'prisoner' confided, 'that has taught me never to oppose the local customs of a country no matter how absurd they may seem to others.... at that time one of my party poked fun at the peculiar art displayed in the statue of a buddha.... the priest became enraged and attempted to split my head open when i was not looking.... had it not been for my cousin i'm sure i would not be with you today!... you will please me much if you respect the ancient practices of these people.'... "then going to the dripping figure he laid a gold louis on the fellow's upturned palm,--he seemed to know what was coming--which was proof to my mind that there is more in yogi philosophy than has ever been let out.... "... frankly, however, i suspect that my 'prisoner's' kindness has only whetted the appetite of that knave.... the way he looks at us would convict him in any court of justice that he meditates our murder...." . then we have this entry: "i am not at all mistaken in my estimate of that hindu with the pail of defiled milk.... he is one of the renegade spies that hang on the brow of civilization and infest these retreats and mountain gorges in search of easy prey.... there are other powers above them that lounge in gilded palaces and seem always interested in the charms of lovely women who may suddenly disappear.... i know the brood of vultures from stamboul to the red lights of new york and the dens of singapore!... the quicker we get down out of these mountains and into the populated valley on our way to seranagur the safer i will feel.... it is all very pleasant to take a look at this silver ring that encircles the plateau with its eternal snows, to watch the sparkling waterfalls, the gardens and the dimpling lake with its little islands with cottages resting on them and to imagine one's self in the fairyland we used to read about as children,--but for a full-grown man, in my position and _charged with an important mission_, i prefer to be on my way.... there are too many places where one may be accounted for as having fallen down the mountain side in the event of some sudden disappearance!" . by the initiated the following entry will not be misunderstood: "it was an unlucky piece of folly that sent us in this direction halfway round the earth to a destination we could have reached in fifteen days.... on our way to bombay where arrangements had been made to slip us quietly across the peninsula and on to our permanent retreat, we were confronted with the information that people of my prisoner's nationality were _leaving_ bombay _by request_,--and hence _our_ unheralded appearance might attract too much attention to be entirely satisfactory to the interests i was serving ... how this information was conveyed to us i may jot down some later day.... but to make a note of it is sufficient for my purpose now ... there are other wild beasts in these mountains besides panthers to account for the death of a man who knows too much. "... were it not for a positive feeling of dread that has followed me since i threw milk into that hindu's eyes, i should like to describe the many fascinating spots encountered in the embrace of a squalid and picturesque degeneracy.... i should linger with my brush over the opalescent lake and the sweet, calm repose of seranagur with its purling river scouring the festooned landings and retiring abodes of tranquillity and ease,--i should like to jot down the scenes of bathers at their twilight dips when both sexes mingle as innocent as our first parents were of a bathing costume and as devoutly fervent in their ablutions as the fabled peris of this paradise themselves. but there is a feeling in the air that some one is pursuing us and which cuts these memorandums short...." . "for purposes of self-protection i shall no longer jot down exactly our location," the next entry reads. i note merely that we are somewhere in little thibet and that i have met the man in yellow robes and yellow turban at the low white monastery as i was told to do in the _memorandum_ at berlin.... and i approached him with the right foot first, my hands held in the appropriate position, until he asked me in excellent french: 'whence come you?' then i made the proper sign and whispered the name of the room adjacent to another room which satisfied the lama that i was the bearer of a message to the exalted dalai-lama as well as the principal khutuktus of the east.... my little audience was much mystified, but the man in yellow robes understood.... he began whirling a brass prayer wheel as he advanced toward my 'prisoner' and salaamed.... then laying his right hand on the 'prisoner's' shoulder the lama said: 'your credentials, sahib, are correct,--and it is well; as your misfortunes have been great, great will be the blessings that will fall upon thy family and thy name. thy piety hath been known to all my brethren, likewise thy toleration,--although the infidel hath been a thorn pressed evilly against thy side ... _beware of that same infidel today_! he is plotting evil here against thy very life,--he envieth the lives of thine!... a _religious war_ now breweth in this land!... spies haunt thy footsteps from the rising to the setting sun.... beware lest thy fair daughters and thy wife shall disappear!... our prayers, sahib, shall attend thee; and our numerous eyes shall remain open to the perils as thou goest east where arms are open to receive thee,--but see thou, sahib, that thou dost walk diligently in the direction of those arms!... "... the lama backed away.... never did he cease whirling the prayer wheel as he spoke ... this constitutes the perpetual prayer of lamas, the theory being that the wheel communicates the petition to the air and, thus, mingled with the elements, it ascends naturally to the heaven of the blessed.... we were then conducted through a long row of very low rooms ornamented with a variety of buddhist statues that have never been dusted nor apparently disturbed, to an open terrace which overlooked a dreary waste of gray rocks and broken ledges and offered to our view the slender roadway that lay like a ribbon across the plain until it faded into the golden glow of the eastern horizon.... when i looked at that _single_ road, and recalled the warning of the lama so solemnly given to my 'prisoner' about the care to be given to his daughters, i realized fully the meaning of the prying eyes that followed us everywhere after my encounter with the milk-fed mussulman disguised as a hindu mendicant!..." xiii an enemy in pursuit . local color is given in this note: "we have had an exciting day.... the strategy one must sometimes employ in traveling through a hostile country is based upon the principle of deception.... it was the work of maria too, who had evidently been reading up on certain occult works of the eastern magicians and brought them into play at a moment when we were surrounded by a band of marauders in the company of my 'hindu' friend.... to explain: there is a certain kind of little animal held sacred among these strolling outlaws.... the possession of one of these animals is supposed to be a guarantee of future happiness as well as a protection against all danger.... they are very hard to entrap and the ladakian islamites will spend a month endeavoring to ensnare one.... we were quite a distance from the convent at saspoula, where the road runs around among the rocks and turns back upon itself like a horseshoe in the wooded hills.... at one of these bends the pursuers had encamped ready to dash down upon us as we turned the bend and make away with the girls in the direction of their camp in the secluded mountain passes.... maria had secured a number of those little animals, and, twisting a fine hairpin around one of their hind legs, she let one by one escape.... the animals clambered toward the higher elevations where the banditti lay in waiting.... their movements being impeded by the hair pins on their legs they offered an apparently easy prize to the superstitious islamites.... abandoning their present enterprise against our party they dashed after the deceptive animals and disappeared over the hills in a mad scamper for good luck.... this little ruse cleared our pathway and permitted us to reach saspoula before the sun had set.... here we passed a number of shrines besides the french and thibetan convents.... avoiding the convent with the tri-color floating from its mast we approached the other.... here again were the dusty idols, banners and flags thrown into one corner, the floors littered with ugly masks and prayer wheels and books and rolls upon rolls of sacred papers mutely breathing their delegated prayers. "... as we had been informed, the lamas here were ready to receive us, with meal and beds prepared and our own apartments all in order.... the lama who greeted us was about five feet tall, low flat forehead, flat nose, full thick lips, rather round small head and with a sweep of black whiskers falling from his chin.... in fact, none of these lamas are gray,--the only thing that suggests age is their stooped and slender bodies and bent and bony fingers.... and they allow the practice of polyandry in their diocese!... one woman has a dozen husbands ... and every third man we meet with is a lama. "... still the women we see here are more attractive than those we encountered in cashmere. "... before leaving the convent we were again cautioned against holding conversation with strangers we might encounter in the numerous caravans along the road to leh.... we punctiliously obeyed these instructions during the rest of our journey until we reached the petak convent, which stands upon an isolated rock beside an abandoned garrison or fort, with its two towers looking like ant hills beside the majestic mountain that rises ten thousand feet above our resting place.... this mountain is the sentinel that protects our entrance into thibet.... six miles away is leh, elevated eleven thousand feet above the lowlands and around whose shadowy convents rise those immense granite pinnacles to an elevation of eighteen thousand feet, where their frosty crests are enshrouded in the fezzes of eternal snows!... "... leh, with its circlet of stubby aspen trees, its succession of terraces, its old fort and the palace of its forgotten moguls, has its arms outstretched for us.... the mystic word has been passed along our route and behold we are encamped in a well-furnished three-story white bungalow with odors oozing from the kitchen that promise a night of security and content!..." . the next entry gives a glimpse of the country through which our party passed: "traveling toward the east we have passed through a number of villages of neat two-story houses in these narrow walled-in valleys.... the inhabitants are, clearly, of a mongolian race,--the homeliest i have ever seen!... they cultivate but little patches of the land, sit around all day and gain their hollow cheeks and shrunken chests and wrinkled foreheads by squinting at the sun.... even the women are tiny things with a perpetual smile that pushes up their high cheek bones into a horn-like prominence and apparently belies their apparent gaiety.... the belts of these men are perfect arsenals of curious-looking things.... with their cloth caps with ear flaps hanging down, their knee breeches and their linen shirts hung with a dozen prayer wheels, they characterize this country well.... "... if it were not apparently made compulsory by law these fellows would not wash their faces once a year.... they seem never to have changed their clothing until it is beginning to fall off their indolent frames.... they are so lazy that their hair falls off their heads.... and i have not yet seen a coat that does not carry the smear of their dirty hair.... that characterizes the men.... the women are altogether different.... they are perfect water rats and like to bathe many times a day.... their gowns are red, worn like a shirt-waist over well-rounded shoulders, and tucked into green pantaloons at their waist line, over which is thrown an elaborately plaited skirt that reaches to their red embroidered shoes.... a lambskin is thrown over the back ... the hair dressed in italian fashion ... the veil festooned with beads and coins and trinkets of all description ... an oriental pelisse touched with its fringe of gold.... that's the type of woman of these silent places we are traversing.... maria has discovered the origin of the bolsheviki tenet of free love and marriage.... today she explained to her father that the idea was imported into russia from this country together with the mercenary hordes from a region east of here.... 'these women,' she said, 'do not understand what one means by love.... they think it is too great a luxury to be tolerated among self-respecting people.... they believe no man is good enough to monopolize a whole woman to himself.... that sort of monopoly is contrary to the ethics of a first-class communism everywhere and it must not be tolerated in this blessed bolsheviki world!'... 'tut-tut!' said her father. 'please discontinue comments on subjects that no longer interest us.'... manifestly my 'prisoner' is becoming bored by this unending and dreary pilgrimage along the camel route in the direction of the rising sun.... however, his gallantry to alice is inexaustible, unflagging and unfailing. if she stubs her toe he wants to kiss the bruise.... _maria's comment has apparently aroused the hostility of certain personages in this camp_.... if i were not positive that the thing could not be possible i'd swear the tall square-shouldered lama is well known in constantinople...." xiv where the prisoners disappeared . then this entry reveals the sequence: "we had been a number of days on the road,--our lives imperceptibly growing into a closer and more intimate companionship as the days ambled slowly away with the bleak snow-clad mountains that we left behind.... descending down the slopes into a fertile valley, the hillsides terraced with a series of rice yards, and our paths softly shaded with the mulberry tree.... behind us was the white-fringed mountain of the lama, before us loomed the sacred pinnacle of omay and off to the south spread an ancient walled city with steeples pointing heavenward surmounted by the cross.... where the pagoda stood a thousand years ago now rise the hospital and the christian missionary school.... here the people walk on well-paved and broad sweeping streets and the tourists spend their afternoons promenading along the smooth and high and broad city wall.... as we approached this city a stream of 'rickshas came dashing in our direction commanded by the tall slim 'lama' i had supposed we left behind!... the coolies appeared to understand their parts.... quickly making a circle around us they pulled the women from their camels and tried to rope and bind my 'prisoner' and myself. "of course we were in full view of the consular flags of a dozen different nations; but that did not seem to bother the ringleader of this tatterdemalion mob.... my 'prisoner' fought like a demon.... he well remembered the lessons he received from heath in the manly art of self-defense.... right and left he boxed like a well-trained athlete delivering his dynamic punches well.... but finally the gang overpowered him and turned their undivided attention to me.... i was vainly attempting to reach the side of maria and her sisters, whom the tall bully was forcing into a waiting 'ricksha manned by two barelegged men,--a dozen coolies pounced upon me, tore my clothing into fragments, furrowed my face with their infernal nails and actually attempted to bite me on the ears!..." "i have no notion how well or hard i fought, but as i knocked one down another took his place as i fought my way to the side of the now bound and helpless girls.... their hair was streaming down their backs, their faces flushed, their eyes filled with tears ... that sight maddened me!... i have been in many fights before, i have lain beside the dead in flanders and among the balkan highlands, i have seen blood flowing by me like a river,--and the thought of all these seemed to electrify my soul and fill my veins with steel.... i tore madly right and left.... i never struck such herculean blows before or since. "i literally grabbed the tall man by the heels and whirled him round like a flail and tore into that gang of snarling hellhounds with cyclonic fury.... i literally mowed them down.... but finally a dull thud sounded in my ears.... a wave of light blinded both my eyes.... i knew nothing more until this morning when i awoke in a tent. beside me was a loaf of bread and a canteen of cool water.... not another sign of a living creature is in sight.... i am in a deep mountain gorge, leading to the south along a narrow roadway that has apparently witnessed the procession of unnumbered ages." . then this entry: "after tramping all day i finally emerged in the sight of a swift-flowing river on either bank of which, in the distance, appeared two walled-off cities of considerable size.... foreign gunboats were lying in the harbor in holiday attire.... as i approached the city a courier came running to meet me.... when he approached i drew back prepared to fight.... "but his friendliness disarmed me and i allowed him to draw near.... 'li'l' ladee wantee see you quick; you cum foller me,' he said, and turned back from where he came.... i followed him with beating heart.... on the dock at the landing where the gunboat was steaming up maria met me with moistened eyes.... "she informed me in a low voice that the officer was ready to receive me and accept my orders.... and then she said, "'before you go i wish to thank you for all you have done for us.... if our paths should ever meet again i want you to know my heart will beat more quickly when i shall see you coming up the path.'... that said, she flung her slender arms around my neck, impulsively, and looked calmly in my eyes.... when, involuntarily, my arms showed signs of being prehensile, she sprang away quickly and flashed along the gangway to disappear, like a holy vision, behind that gray storm door!..." . the last entry reads: "it has been a habit with me for many years to never be surprised.... when i appeared on deck to give the code to the commander of that vessel this habit was unmoored.... a tall, square-jawed man approached me with a twinkle in his clear blue eyes.... i looked at him inquiringly and a little reminiscently until i heard him speak.... 'i see the loaf of bread came in handy,' he said, extending me his bony hand.... 'i thought i left you at ekaterinburg,' i exclaimed, recalling the moments we spent after our escape from the abandoned tunnel.... 'oh,' he laughed, 'yours was not a one-man job; there are others in the world besides yourself intrusted with state secrets.... 'but what do you know about the bread, you just spoke of it?' "'my company was following on behind,' he answered. 'when we came round the bend we saw you scrapping with that outlaw from trebizond. you did quite well; you had all but three of them laid out in manly fashion when you got that clip on the back of the head. then we stepped in and conducted your party to their present quarters ... thought it better for you to remain in the tent while the authorities here locked up those cutthroats for your disappearance.' "'have you the code word?' i asked.... he whispered it in my ear.... then i lettered the order.... finally he asked, 'would you not like to meet my sister who has been so much _interested_ in you?' "his sister! i had never heard of her!... 'of course!' i answered amiably enough for one completely stumped.... "he called a petty officer and said a few words in an undertone.... in a minute a radiant young woman with springing steps glided gracefully down the deck.... she was not, in her present attire, much different from maria ... but as she drew near i noted the difference at a glance.... she came forward quickly and held out her hand. 'congratulations, mr. fox!' she said smiling.... the métropole!' i gasped,--'what brings you here?' 'still asking questions!' she coquetted prettily. 'i merely called, of course, to inform you that the sapphire is in america!'... i thought hard for more than a minute.... then it occurred to me that i had seen her in a dozen disguises shadowing me from buckingham to the room upstairs on downing street,--to charm me later at the hague--to disappear like a will-o'-the-wisp,--then to fascinate me at the métropole.'... "well, the commander of the vessel tells me that it is _fourteen hundred miles down stream to woosung_ and that the voyage will take seven days from there.... with his _code_ word still ringing in my ears to be repeated to one man at _berlin_, to another man in _england_, another in _japan_, and to a dignitary in _italy_, the mission i have undertaken shall have been successfully discharged, so far as _history_ and _public policy_ is concerned.... but there is _another_ mission that i shall, some day, undertake that will be enshrined in lovely memories and lively fancies until _that day_ shall come." part two rescuing the czar introduction the daring reference by fox, in the foregoing, to personages and events, to locations and the life incident thereto, that may easily be confuted are they false in any of their details, leads to but one conclusion. yet there are other incidents that reinforce that conclusion, that are only casually touched upon by fox. the references to "the performer at the métropole" who "is a baroness sure enough" and to the person named as "syvorotka," in whom the baroness is interested, display an unconscious connection between the mysterious underground diplomats and the secret agents who were acting independently in the _rescue_, and supplementing the activities of fox, will be found to be fully authenticated in the vivid incidents recorded by the diarist of _part two_. this diarist was doubtless a russian gentleman of the official class, of elevated standing with the former government, and of pronounced aristocratic sentiments. his previous official connections seem to have been with the high administration, the ministry of finance, or with the council of ministers. like many others of his class in the old régime, when the revolution broke, he was forced to degrade himself and mingle with the evil elements that were bent on loot and rapine. by may, , he appears to have been transformed into a perfect type of "red" that deceived and terrorized the russian population and gave credence to the bolshevik assertion that "former officialdom is now acting with the proletariat." how well the diarist deceives the bolsheviki and sustains this claim of trotzky is fully revealed in the dramatic incidents recorded: _nowhere in literature is found a better illustration of social metempsychosis,--of the abasement of moral and intellectual refinement to the elemental and unconscious vulgarity and irresponsibility of predatory communism and mob indifference to shame_! it is the devolution of moral responsibility into organized iniquity and characterizes primordial passion released from sentiment and law,--and _it was the necessary camouflage of the diarist in his struggle for life and in his efforts to promote the czar's escape_. in translating part two, or the memoranda of this imperial rescuer, from russian into english, or the frequent french, to characterize the event recorded, there were found to be many situations, phrases and expressions that may shock the sensitive reader; in the conceptions of the diarist, however, in his cynicism and degradation he photographs _red_ _russia_ and reveals the characteristics necessary to visualize the horror that accompanied the event. a truthful picture of this unique segment of human history can be preserved only in a _word-for-word_ translation of this document. therefore, with the exception of a few letters involving the name of a.f. kerensky, nothing has been withheld from the inspection of the reader to view the conduct of nobility subjected to privations, temptation and the fascinating power of sin. translator. i. petrograd . ... and, post factum, everybody claims that "he (or more often she) predicted it long ago, but they would not listen." it is a lie; we all knew that the war has been conducted abominably, that rasputin and stürmer were plotting, that the administration was greatly inclined to graft,--all gossip of the town. but no one whom i had seen since the execution of the monk was aware of the real fact: the revolution was in the air. rodzianko, to whom i spoke at the club only a fortnight before the abdication, said that everything would turn out all right. in fact, the court, and people around it,--were much better posted; perhaps they felt something growing instinctively, as they were too silly to crystallize their fears in some concrete conception. maroossia was in tsarskoye selo not long before the old admiral's death; they said that the danger was expected from the "town and country union." but all these whispers and chatterings were always of the category of a "so-and-so, whose brother's friend knew a man who...." with all my running around about the town i must confess i did not notice any movement; i always thought that the reason of the unrest--was the shortage of food, and a little provocation, to put stürmer in a disagreeable position. the realization of the serious danger approaching all of us came to me only when the police fired on the mob on the nevsky and the first real clash took place. i happened to cross the liteinyi near basseinaya street, when i heard for the first time in my life the whistling of bullets and the peculiar drumming of the machine guns. i felt weak in the knees and around the waist and had to stand in a porte-cochère for a while. it was only for a few moments, and i felt ashamed of this disgusting feeling of fear. a crowd of cooks, or maids, passed near me shouting and screaming for help; they had disgustingly lost their self-control. i reached home in a hurry and found maroossia pale and frightened. i had to tell her not to show her nose in the streets. then mikhalovsky called me up and asked how did i like the revolution. he did not like it: his cook had been shot in the knee; a very moderate cook, in fact. . committees, everywhere committees! everywhere suspicions! no more cheerful faces! permanent meetings of the new elements! much conversation! greetings! wishes of prosperous free life! hopes of the allies that we will continue the war! all this still characterizes our poor country. today--for the first time in my life (it is only the beginning!) i saw a real communist alive. he was a man of rather short size and dark complexion, if such could be detected under his greasy cheeks. he wore a small beard twisted at the end in a tin hook. his ears--transparent and pale--were unproportionately big. i stopped near the elisseiev store to buy score cards for this evening's bridge, when a little group of men--civilians and soldiers--gathered near the communist. the usual crowd of nowadays loafers,--shabby looking, discussing something, casting around looks full of hostility, hatred and superiority. a boy brought a chair from a cigar counter, and the communist stepped on it, and started his talk. "tovarishshi," he said, "the time has come."... they all applauded, though nobody knew what was going to be next, and the speaker could even have been a reactionary. "this is he," shouted a sailor to me; a big chap with hair falling off of his cap. "who is _he_?" i questioned. "you, burjooi," a soldier said to me, "no wonder you do not know him. this is comrade trotzky. he comes from america. you had better move on or i'll tell who you are,"--he continued staring at me very resolutely, and spat on the sidewalk right near my foot. i moved on. what people! i crossed nevsky and stood on the other side. from there i could not hear comrade trotzky, but studied his movements and gesticulation, his manner of scratching his nose, of quickly turning his head in a derby, and the nervous shrugging of his shoulders. the mob applauded him after every phrase, making his speech a series of separate sentences and thus giving him the advantage of thinking of most radical ideas, while awaiting for the listeners to finish the applause. i have finally decided to give in my resignation. what is the use? no work is being done. we only talk. the whole administration, the whole administrative machinery, stands still, evidently retrograding every day. many understand it. rodzianko is going away south; a man whom they think too old and too much of a reactionary. he is quite depressed, i presume, but likes to look perfectly satisfied. when i asked him whether the war looked to him as though it were to be continued, he gazed at me, and not after hesitation sighed, and said: "yes, if the army will stand the effects of order number one." and then, fearing the next question coming, he assumed the air of a busy man and shook hands--"as he had to go and see his relatives." nearing the house i saw kerensky in the emperor's car, proud, and smiling to left and right. his excellency, the minister of justice! . everybody is sure and proud that he is building up the new russia. lawyers and doctors, engineers and priests, all run with busy faces,--they think a statesman of today must run,--everybody gives orders, counter-orders, nobody carries them out, nobody listens. there are about , napoleons in petrograd today; as they multiply by section, this number will be enormous before long. the situation, however, does not improve.... in the office there was quite a discussion of the probabilities, and i was listening to the younger people. criticism and "my own opinion" are the main sicknesses. perhaps the private initiative used to be so hardly oppressed, that it comes out at present in excess. why should lawyers be convinced, that their profession gives them the right, _primo genio_ to be statesmen? i should suggest an archeologist, or a man in charge of a lighthouse. . we all went to the "farce," maroossia and f., myself and misha. afterwards we had supper. at the next table to us were the m's., alexander ivanitsky and the baroness b. since her return she certainly looks much better. at first i did not see her, then before all she reprimanded me in her usual kind manner. she had grown a little thinner and has more jewelry i should say, and is as fascinating as before. when she speaks one can see that she thinks of far distant things. "we all are busy these days," she said, when i asked her whether she came here from england just for curiosity to see all of us under the provisional government. "you did not change at all." misha, who did not know b. before, did not like her very much,--in fact, they all think she is suspicious. aren't these youngsters peculiar? especially misha who is so grouchy lately--all seems dangerous to him. i never think that a woman can be anything but pretty or hideous. there is no middle, and no suspicion about them. if a woman is, what they perhaps would call "suspicious"--then there is a man's influence behind her--so find the man (and it is easy) and she is as plain as a card on the table. baroness b. is pretty. and if she likes to talk like a pythia,--that's her way of making people interested in her. maroossia complained of a headache, so we left early. baroness is in the hotel d'europe--she is so sorry that "her astoria" became such a hole. well--not only her astoria. . it certainly would be a wonder to expect anything but confusion from the men who recently became the leaders of millions. the leaders are sure they can make wonders. prince lvov! this old squeaking carriage, as polenov says, is a man from whom i would not expect anything. it is enough to look at his beard, with remnants of yesterday's dinner on it, at his small blue foxy eyes always reddish and always dropping tears. miliukov! minister of foreign affairs! all his experience consists of a continuous chain of political breaks and a series of moderately paid, superficial articles on balkan questions in a provincial newspaper. and, monsieur kerensky,--_la fine fleur_--the minister of justice, a little man with a single kidney and a double ambition. insects! these people would not be able to administer a small country community, and here they are confronted with three immense propositions: the great war, the building up of a new state, and the fighting of an organized propaganda directed against the war, and against order. it was enough for the ladies (and for maroossia too) to see all of these people in power, in order to find interesting points, not only in their political activities, that would not be so bad--but in their private lives too. they all already know who these people are, what they eat, when and where they were born, what their wives and mistresses look like, etc., etc., up to the most intimate deeds and traits of their characters. the foreign ladies also take a very keen interest in those little tea-chats. all prefer to listen to them much rather than to the events at the front. vadbolsky wrote me a letter sent through the "help the soldiers" society. of course he could not say much. they all realize that discipline is going down with tremendous speed, at least at the northern front. the soldiers listen more to what the council of deputies say than to anything else. this treble power--the council, the government and the army authorities--must be united, but there is no one to realize it; and if there were, there would be no possibility of co-ordinating the different currents. . evening with the ivanitskys. after dinner we all went into the library and started as usual to speak of our very bad affairs, the high cost of living, even here, in a private home, reserved, not to be accused of reactionary tastes. the ladies looked at every one who would start to talk, as if he would be _the man_ to solve all of our complicated problems and mishaps. baroness b., whom i had seen very much lately, talked to me for a while in a corner, to the ridiculous anger of maroossia who went to bed tonight without kissing me. she (the baroness) said that sophie had already reached london after the stay in copenhagen and paris. "her mission," she said,--as usual coquettishly and childishly looking around with a fear of being overheard,--"was a failure." in copenhagen "they would not even listen", to sophie, and she was told that the solution and the "démarches" must be made, if made, from london, as there people have every means to arrange with berlin. i asked the baroness to keep all of this news to herself, and not to drag me, or what would be worse, maroossia, into any conspiracy. "be just as you are and don't try to become more serious, it may spoil you"--. heavens knows what the baroness has become since her peculiar conduct with the vassilchikov and her permanent whisperings to madame vyrubov and the rest of the gang. but still, there was already a movement about tsarskoe selo. if i were not so particular about avoiding silly conversations, i would have asked her what she meant by communicating sophie's failure to me. finally, i am glad, i did not ask her questions. what is the use of the emperor's release to me? a man who did not know how to pick his advisors, who did not know how to arrange his home affairs, his alice von hessen darmstadt, his monks and his generals, does not deserve to be too much regretted, and certainly does not deserve too particular interest. baroness b's. actions are strange. is she paid? by whom? cash? promises?... (_a page missing_) ... was stopped by me and slightly pursed her red lips, we joined the rest, where a british major (i never can think of his name) was telling of his experiences in the research work for german propaganda in petrograd. so sorry he had to speak french with his typical anglo-saxon struggles with "d" and "t," that makes french so perfectly ununderstandable in an english mouth. it is horrid that people like the ivanitskys don't know english well enough, and now, when we all have to be among our british allies, we make ourselves, and the allies as well, simply ridiculous! so the major explained that their man was at several meetings of a body, which he called "le conseil secret du parti bolchévique" (that must have been something very bad indeed), where a man by name lenine was present, also communists bronstein, nakhamkes, kohan, schwarz and others, i forget. they all are conspiring. "be no war with our brethren," "be peace on earth," "closer together peasants and soldiers, workingmen and poor," "to hell with the intelligentzia," "long live the international," etc., etc., was all we saw on the banners lately. the queerest thing is that the british agent at the meeting saw amongst the anarchists several men from the police, and a fellow by name of petrov, the same one that had the accident on the moscow railway and was asked to leave the foreign office a couple of years ago. now petrov is with the communists. again the agent reported the presence of the blackhundreds. they all are there, and instead the "boje tsaria khrani," they shout the international. they all understand their people (the agent said) and they all are with the lenine and others, to return to the sweet past by destroying the bitter present. sir george, the major continued, knew all about these significant political blocks, and reported them to london, but the foreign office and the conseil de guerre seem to be either ignorant (i would not be very much surprised), or know more than the ambassador, so, as yet, our cabinet has not been warned. our cabinet! it sounds majestic.... since miliukov left, and the mercantile monsieur tereshchenko took his hot seat--everything goes to the devil with our policy abroad. it is strange, for mr. tereshchenko must be well posted in foreign relations: both of his french twin mistresses gave him every possibility of becoming "bien versé." but--oh, shades of count nesselrode and prince gorchakov! inspire the newcomer, looking from the walls of the foreign office, at his struggles! your illegitimate son needs your sense and help ... . since the scandalous discovery of the plot (mr. kerensky took personal care to make it scandalous)--perhaps it was not a plot, but just a few letters of the gr. duchess m.p., tsarskoye selo has become very difficult to reach and to visit. a few days ago maroossia came home from a. very late and so tired that i thought she was ill. the communication seems completely stopped, and soldiers were looking in the automobile every five minutes. once she thought they would arrest her. sentinels not only around the palace, but in the garden too, with a double chain of reds on the streets! the general told maroossia that some one explained to him that these difficulties and impediments were provoked by the successes of the germans on the riga front, and that they expect a serious drive on petrograd, and twice insinuated about her going to yalta, or gurzoof, or gagry,--as things there rapidly were becoming complicated. so said the admiral too, in his peculiar way: "the rats before a shipwreck usually feel the coming wreck by instinct, and run on the decks." he said that was his impression in tsarskoye. every rat is exceedingly nervous and tries to disappear from the palace under some pretext or other, and the palace is deserted. kerensky is coming there very often, usually with his milk-fed a.d.c.... this man wants to be generous, he wants to be square, in fact,--he wants to be magnificent. he calls the emperor "colonel romanov," or "nikolai alexandrovich." never says, "your majesty." he feels sure that he is beloved in tsarskoye, and that they speak of him with tears of gratitude, admiring his justice and his manners. i hardly think kerensky realizes that they are simply frightened, and feel with their inborn appreciation of the man, that by playing on his exceedingly well developed self-veneration--they might be saved. i have been told in the club that the government is planning to get rid somehow of the whole family. the foxy old polenov explained to us after bridge that he would not be surprised if kerensky would say to the lenine crowd that the emperor should be taken somewhere in the country on account of the german advance, and to buchanan ... on account of the growing strength of lenine. "many more people are interested in this affair," he said, "than even kerensky knows. if he knew, he would have a larger field for bargaining." devil knows who is who now! if police officers enlist in the communists,--what is next? trotzky's going to a high mass? . dined with buchanans and the lazarevs. ros. was wounded. we all enjoyed this little story:-- a german girl was asked: "können sie ibsen?" to which she replied: "nein! wie macht man das?" . i suspected, and feared, that it could or might have happened,--and so it was! yesterday mikhalovsky asked me to come to his office. he looked queer and worried, and when i stepped in, he closed the door and started to reproach me with every sign of excitement, so proper to him; spitting all over my face. "i never expected that from you! i never expected! how is it? what is it!?..." and so on. i stopped him and asked him to be more explicit, as i could not grasp all of the meaning of his eloquence. after he lit a cigarette (how many times this little thing has been a salvation!) mikhalovsky became more comprehensible and told me that misha phoned at one o'clock in the night and asked him to come immediately to the intelligence in his private office. mikhalovsky, who is now taking great care of himself, drinks some waters, takes green pills and goes to bed at nine, became enraged and refused, but misha said he was an ass, and simply had to dress and go to the headquarters. so the old thing had to dress and appear. misha showed him a short note from the french agent which read something like this:--"baroness b. evidently communicating with copenhagen through sharp and starleit m. general z. to be approached, also quart.--general r. in one instance a package carried to sestroretsk by a lady in a blue tailor suit with white fox fur. trail lady, arrest baroness b. watch finland depot, radio to generals z. and r." no signature. my astonishment was very great, and i said that "though i have known baroness b. quite well since i met her in paris and monte carlo and...." (_five lines scratched out from manuscript_).... "quit your damn jokes for a while," he exclaimed. "do you realize, what you are talking about? the lady with the fox--is maroossia!" "maroossia? spying?" i said, becoming angry in my turn. "you will have to account for it, boris platonovich, as even an old friend and relative must think over those accusations." then mikhalovsky explained that misha's man followed the lady--up to the house, and that it _was_ maroossia. another one "listened in," and understood from maroossia's and baroness b's. conversation, that my wife took the package to a certain madame van der hüchts in sestroretsk, on being told to do so by the baroness, and that she did not know what there was in it, and even did not know who madame van der hüchts was. "you see, you boneheaded fool," mikhalovsky continued, "what was the danger? if misha had not succeeded in having his own man listen in, and do it quietly, all of this detective work, your maroossia would be gone by this time." "but,"--he continued, "now the case is closed, as far as your wife is concerned, and the only thing i wish to insist upon,--is to get maroossia out of here right now. furthermore, you should give her a scolding." i said it would not be omitted. . maroossia left for her father's. we certainly had some explanation! she cried and felt indignant, and finally understood why i was so angry when the evening papers came out with the news of baroness b's arrest. then--she understood that she never should do anything that was asked her "without her husband's knowledge." the case, as mikhalovsky says, is closed. the last two or three evenings i spent with both mikhalovskys. they told me strange stories. i simply cannot believe them. first--that the german staff sent lenine here with a special message to some people now in power. "we know all about it," said misha, "but the time is not yet ripe to act." second--that a certain person received a request not to touch grimm, nor any of the communists. third--the strangest--to get the tsar's family out. "all of this news would have been much fuller if only we could decipher some of this,"--and misha took out of his pocket and presented me with this strange slip of paper.... (_missing_) ...--all of these crossings of the lines are words, or ciphers, or phrases, god knows what, and they _must_ mean something very important for they were taken from members of this web, and stand in direct connection with our present, or rather our future, attitude. but that is about as much as we know of it. . i went to cubat's for luncheon, as the cook had to go to a meeting,--how do you like that?--and i do not regret it, for i learned much. when i think of cubat's, contant's or the hôtel de france's public before the war, and compare them with the present, i find the difference on the style of people simply enormous. they never were here before,--these types of men with eyes looking for quick money, for instantaneous riches, for some "_affaires du ravitaillement militaire_." yesterday's poor chaps, that would not know the difference between a côtelette and a jigôt are ordering and easily eating things that it would take me some time to think of. democratisation of french cooking, or vulgarisation of exclusive tastes (?) which? i met frank at cubat's.... heaven knows how he got released from custody. i could not help it when he approached my table and greeted me; i asked him whether he had heard anything from colonel makevich. he asked me about maroossia, so one thing led to another, and finally the waiter brought a chair. "can i join you?" he asked. i growled something like "delighted" and so he sat down. the conversation at first was rather general, and then suddenly: "did you hear anything of the baroness b's. case, and how is she now?" he said. this unexpected question put frank in a new light. i had to take several puffs of my cigarette to think over my answer. frank gave me time to prepare the response in giving orders to the maître d'hôtel. quite a bit of time elapsed after he questioned me. i hoped for an instant that he was going to forget about it, but, alas, when he was through with his orders (from which i understood that he either had become rich, or expected me to pay his check) he looked at me and repeated: "yes, sir, did you hear anything new of the poor baroness?" "well," i replied, "the only thing that we all know: she is in jail." "your information," he smiled, "is quite old. they released her about a day or two after this misunderstanding was cleared up." "what do you mean 'misunderstanding.' you would not call such a case so gently, i suppose?" "here we are!" frank said, lowering his voice. "so you must know more than the average person. i, personally, knew only that there was an arrest, and a release (as i saw the baroness) after they understood that there was no reason for holding a perfectly loyal lady. i think we should talk it over again, but not here. i read in the town activities column that your wife went to tula. couldn't you join me for dinner tonight at contant, say at seven-thirty?" my first impulse was to refuse him flat. then i happened to think that my avoiding him would perhaps somehow reflect on maroossia for her silly behavior with the package. besides i was interested to know what frank would talk about, and to know what happened to the b. and again it interested me to know what he was doing at present. so i hesitated. "please do, decide affirmatively," he begged. "i feel sure you will not regret a good dinner." "very well," i said, "at seven-thirty." after luncheon i crossed the street to see mikhalovsky, whom i was sure to find in the club. he was going out with polenov. "aha, dear boy!" polenov said to me. "the wife is away, and here he runs around like--... (his comparisons are striking, but very rough!) come on with me. there are no political parties or platforms at nadejda stepanovna. a little lawyer, and an old soldier are equally welcome. nadejda stepanovna just telephoned there are new ones." the old fool! as if there was a single living being in the town that would not know that all his pleasures were reduced to kissing a new girl on the forehead and petting her behind the ears! nadejda stepanovna told me how they all laughed watching polenov through the keyhole.... "thanks," i said, "i am through with the oficerskaya street." so he went alone, trying to look younger and straighter. when he left i asked makhalovsky to explain to me what happened to the baroness. he almost fainted. "for heavens sake! don't shout that damned name! there are ears everywhere," he whispered. he took me by the arm and dragged me all along the morskaya, giving me short and hard kicks as soon as i would open my mouth. and only when we reached his room and he verified as to whether or not the door was well shut, he said: "now what seems to be your question, and what in hell do you know about her? who told you that something happened to her?" as this is the time when "homo homini--lupus," i said that nobody ever told me of her, but having met mikhalovsky at the club i thought of the baroness and asked. "well," he said, "she was released." and mikhalovsky became sad and worried, looking humble and frightened. "i am all tangled up, friend!" he said. "i think i am in mortal danger. last friday kerensky asked me to come to his office and said she must be freed, and everything was a misunderstanding. he said he had received proof; her arrest was a mistake. he also said that we all must be careful about our arrests, "from the left, as well as from the right." "did the british embassy intervene?"--"not at all (it seems though they never had heared of it)." --"and here," he continued, "we received a letter signed by executive committee, department of political research, saying that unless the whole dossier of the baroness b. was burned, the undersigned of the message reserved the privilege of knowing how to deal with it. misha was so disgusted with the letter that he went to see kerensky, and explained that a body of doubtful prerogatives and no official standing had no right to insult an official institution by threats. kerensky read the letter, studied the attached signatures and said "that he would not pay any particular attention to the letter, that there was decidedly no reason to think that the authority of the department was offended, or held in contempt." he took the letter from misha saying that "as i see it affects you too much, i will make a private and personal investigation and let you know when i get some results." "now," mikhalovsky continued, lowering his voice, "misha has disappeared. he is not in the office. he has never come home since the morning he told me all of that. when i asked his chief whether he knew anything about misha--i got an answer that he was looking for him all over the city and could find neither misha nor a dossier which he needs more than misha himself! i feel,--i know, misha is dead. and surely, all that in connection.... "look here, boris platonovich," i said, "you must not feel so terribly depressed about that story. nothing happened to misha ..." and i continued in that tone of consolation, though i knew how weak the words sounded. mikhalovsky shook his head. "anyhow i won't let it pass so easily. i'll try to know, and i'll try to clear it out...." i left him with his head down on his hands, in an agony of sorrow for misha, and in an agony of fears for his own sake. at about twenty to eight i entered the restaurant, having decided to keep silent, to give no chance to the man to understand me not only by questions, but even by the association of ideas: i decided to be like stone. he was talking to a chap in the hall, a tall, pimply young man of twenty-five, in the french style of blue khaki and with aviation insignia on his sleeve. frank left his friend and we both went to the dining room. when we were through with our soup, frank said: "i have touched today upon the case of the baroness. in fact you know the story from many sources, especially from mikholavsky.... please, please!" he exclaimed, when i made a movement of protest,--"don't. so, if you are apt in making logical decisions and conclusions, you are in a position to understand all. don't try to destroy anything by going around with your personal impressions, for it really would be bad. just look!" the telegram he showed me read: "michael mikhalovsky's body found on the track near vyborg station four in the morning suicide presumed." "there is no need for explanations," he said, in putting the message back in his pocket, "nor sorrow--all is over. but it would be an excellent idea to appreciate this mere fact properly, don't you think so?" "so," continued frank, "to come closer to our own affairs, i must say that a young and charming lady is leaving for stockholm on a special mission--i know not exactly what it is--and i must give her some information, some of which could be furnished by you. before i ask you for this little information, however, i must clearly apprehend one thing: do you feel sufficiently interested in anything closely connected with the old régime? and if so,--how deep is your interest? you understand?" "i understand," i said, after a second of thinking. "i also get your threat. now--my answer will be clearer than your insinuations, as i fear nothing that i cannot see." (what a liar i am!) then i assumed my best poker face and calmly continued: "i don't know, and do not care to know, what you are after, frank. personally--i cannot find anything in the old régime that i would regret to any important extent. on the other hand--i honestly do not see anything attractive, or particularly elegant, about the new régime. practically there is no régime whatsoever in this present concoction of kuvaka and elevated ideas. so, finally, damn it all! i would be grateful to a friend who would advise me how to get out of any activity, and of course, would not consider any suggestion leading me into it. my decision is plain. i resign. then i realize all i can and disappear from this rich field of political life. that's all, frank." he looked at me. he was very grave. and then suddenly his face changed and he again became the chap that amused maroossia and myself in marienbad a few years ago. "so i feel, old man, exactly so," he laughed,--"aren't all of them the rottenest types one ever saw? trash, my dear sir, trash. and i greet your decision." the tension which i felt at the beginning of the dinner disappeared completely, and we began to talk about different things, remembering the time when we met, and recollecting our mutual impressions of - , when things and people seemed to be so very different. i could not help, however, asking frank at the end of our dinner: "are there any especial reasons to try and be foxy with me, or any reasons to frighten me with mysteries?" he answered:... (_several lines scratched out_) ..."no such things as mysteries. this is the commonest of all planets and everything is plain and entirely within the old three dimensions. some very cautious persons do not see the matter clearly--or perhaps they are too stubborn to see it right,--and it makes them suspicious.... you'll kindly forgive me," he added, "if i'll have to be going?"... after his departure--it was only about : , as i had nothing to do, i went to the new club. no misha there. i saw boris vlad. drunk as a sailor in company with three or four other rascals; i think the short one was the man from the red cross. in the card room--a gloomy game of bridge, no word said unless for a real mistake.... so i came home and looked out of the window onto the deserted and neglected streets of my northern palmira.... . millions of those who fell for their countries in europe and asia paved the way for a general depreciation of life; human existence has no more value. for years they were killing people on the battle fields. it is justified.... they were killing lately, in russia, officers (for the reason that they were such.) it can be understood: the crazy mob is not responsible. but what can one think of murders? for reasons unknown to the murdered, and perhaps to the murderers. here are the results of three years of war, the results of three hundred years of slavery. maroossia read the news of mikhalovsky's accident in the papers in tula, and came yesterday. "nothing could stop me," she said, crying bitterly, and leaning on me so that i would not be too angry. "dearest, everything is so strange! misha's death, and boris platonovich's death!... please, let us go away somewhere, i cannot think of you, here alone...." i told her that i had made arrangements to resign, and why it could not be done yet. "then," i said, "we will go to gurzoof, where our house is rotting without care". i succeeded in calming the poor girl, explaining with all of the eloquence that i had, that misha's suicide and mikhalovsky's accident in the lift had nothing in common, and that both deaths were not to be put in the same angle of view. later she showed me a postal card from misha, from vyborg. he did not sign it, but his characteristic handwriting spoke only too clearly. "wanted to send you some fruit," he wrote, "but here there is no fruit, so you'll have to get some yourself from the south." "poor misha, there was something strange about him before he killed himself," she said. "i never asked him for any fruit. he was very nervous, the poor boy, i see it! and to think that almost in his last hour he thought of us!..." fruit from the south.... i see misha's dead hand pointing to us the way out of petrograd. it is a warning, a cipher warning from the other side of the grave; one more inducement to leave this filthy place. . i again hear that something is growing amongst the bolsheviki. there are indications that if everything passes well for them--kerensky will join the movement, passing from the left social revolutionary party to the commune. both parties deal with internationalism, and finally the only difference is that the bolsheviki act more energetically. the country will then become an ideal state: people would not know any laws, would not pay taxes, would not marry, or sell or buy.... fine! about the last, however, i have my doubts. there will be always somebody to be bought in petrograd. it is in the climate, i guess. the allies! our allies who were ready to fight germany to the last russian soldier.... do they understand that the fraternization at the present time is so intense, that pretty soon the boches will get the foodstuffs from the very hands of their russian comrades? they must know that at present there are only few men to be hanged. the war will be won in a month. tomorrow their number will be so big, that not enough hangmen could be found in the world to clean up russia,--unless some powers wish to see russia amputated. this looks probable. today saw the british major. he expressed his condolence for our grief. i received the impression (or perhaps i am getting too nervous and suspicious?) that he knows more than i. . quite unexpectedly the baroness b. came today to the office. at first i did not want to see her, but then thought that it would be better not to make these dangerous people angry, as heaven knows what they are liable to do if irritated, and besides--she is so fascinating. so she was shown in. she was veiled as much as only she could be, for mystery and to conceal the slight and ingenious coat of rouge, i guess. the usual feathers, rings and perfumes; and i had thought that i would see an ascetic face tired out by seclusion! she said that she had nothing serious to tell me, but had just run in to say good-bye and calm me; she was not going to call on maroossia: "too busy and other reasons." "i appreciate your other reasons," i said. "you have already shown what a friend you are. why did you drag maroossia into your business? you probably are well protected against any disagreeable event, but we are not. so next time please, use your other reasons...." "there was no dragging your wife into my business. the package of laces she took to madame van der hüchts is not a crime. besides everything is over; so, as if nothing had happened." "yes, it probably is nothing. misha would be of a different opinion, i am sure." "no, he would not." there was a silence for a while, and then she said, sighing: (_line illegible_...) "for instance, we wanted to give you the whole outline inviting you to do something for your country--and you refused to help." "baroness," i said, "honestly and truly i don't understand these speculations. just as honestly and just as truly i don't care for them, no matter what they are for. i hate this manner of operation. the manner! i hate plots. i hate underground work, and the only thing i care for--is my own comfort and my own affairs." "you don't know what you are talking about," she said, "or the atmosphere has made you so clever, that i don't know whether you are trying to get something out of me or not. very well, i _am conspiring_. i am now with these people, with whom i would not have thought of being--only three months ago. as soon as i succeed--i shall leave all and become free and independent...." then she corrected herself; "i don't mean to say, of course, i am not independent now, but.... what time is it?" i told her. "thank you. so you see.... what were we talking about?... ah, yes, indeed,--how silly of me! well so i am in a big game. it may seem that i am in the wrong. but think of the time when there will be a moment, when just a few persons, maybe only one person, will be able to appear again on the stage and become the nucleus of regeneration? and if i am wrong--and such moment will never come--it is so easy to get rid of those whom many persons are trying to preserve...." "yes," i said, smiling at her enthusiasm and innocent cynicism. "please omit your insinuations and sarcasm, you bad thing. i only see you are not patriotic, or you have something personal against me." "you can judge better than others on this last point. it looks to me as though you were wrong about the rest, however.... (_a page torn out_) "... i saw tatiana (don't ask me questions, if you please!) and the girl said that there are only two acceptable ways: to be released by the will of the people, or taken against their will, a kidnapping staged. other methods will meet with a refusal. that is why the emperor refused a formal foreign intervention, for it would place them in a position of parasites with the "ex" title. after everything is through--all of your kerenskys--a parasite could not be popular and desirable.... well, she got up,--"goodby! kiss maroossia for me. and here is a friendly warning: don't talk. _it is dangerous._ don't trust. _it is silly_. write to sophie's house in paris--it will reach me. so sorry we cannot be together!" she left me. . saw a real picture of the time: general s-sky in the renault with joffe! smiles and hand-shakes. red arm-bands. the tall dolivo-dobrovolsky from the foreign office was with this couple. in january, when s-sky got his car he said: "i'd rather sell the car than let a jew ride in it," when gunzburg asked to use the automobile. madame d's apartment was robbed. nobody knows "how it happened." the house guard keeps silent on the subject. paul sent her a wire to kursk, very laconic: "home emptied everything stolen." now he received a reply: "sublet unfurnished." she is a darling. never saw such energy. i wonder whether she is trying to get the emperor out too?... . my interview with his excellency is worthy of description. since my graduation from the lyceum up to the present time--i have seen many men of power; when young--they usually knocked me down by their aureole of magnificence; with age i learned how to distinguish almost unmistakably in the splendor of that scenery an idiot from a crook. this one--was quite peculiar. kerensky made me wait for about one hour during which i had enough time to ascertain that since the new régime the rooms had not been dusted. so what kerensky said to some foreigner: "regenerated russia will not have recourse to the shameful methods utilized by the old régime"--were untruthful words. the dust evidently was old régime's. at the end of the hour (it was enough for kerensky!) i decided to go home and mail the resignation. when i got up, however, one of his men (the young rascal was watching me, i am sure) entered and asked me to step in. the staging of the reception was prearranged and intended to impress the visitor; on the desk of the minister i saw maps and charts, specimens of tobacco for the soldiers, designs of the new scenery for the mariinsky theatre, models of american shells, foreign newspapers, barbed wire scissors, etc., etc., just to show the newcomer the immense range of his excellency's occupations and duties. when i stepped in, kerensky looked at me, posing as being exceedingly fatigued in caring for the benefit of others. he almost suffered! he never looked to me so exotic as at this moment: the palace--and, at the same time the perspiring forehead, the dirty military outfit. the magnificence of power,--and the yellowish collar, badly shined boots. he was glad of the impression produced on me, as i registered disgust,--he, with his usual knowledge of men, thought it worship. "look how we, new russians, are working"--shouted his whole appearance, "look, you pig, and compare with what you have been doing!" "alexander fedorovich," i said approaching him, "i thought i had to bring my resignation personally. you'll find the reasons as "family circumstances,"--and i gave him the paper. he rose. with one hand on the buttons of his uniform and the other on the desk, he believed himself to look like napoleon. like napoleon he looked straight into my eyes. but his weak and thin fingers were always moving like a small octopus--napoleon's were stronger. "may i ask you the real cause of your resignation?" he said, vainly forcing his high-pitched voice lower. "if you care to know it," i said calmly,--"it is disgust." napoleon faded away from his face, and before me was again monsieur kerensky, a little lawyer with whom i had once made a trip from moscow to petrograd. a little lawyer who tried to please me and looked for my sympathy. "that's the appreciation of our work!... poor russia! she is deserted! here i am all alone to carry this burden"--and kerensky showed with a circular movement of disorder on his desk,--"but you," he continued, after a pause,--"you! why should _you_ be disgusted, and why should _you_ leave us at this strenuous moment? don't you see that the building up of the state needs the full co-operation of every element of russia,--the new ones, as well as the old?" i said that i did not think i was more of an old element than he, but repeated my categoric decision. as if wounded right in the heart, with a theatrical sigh, kerensky looked out of the window, then smiled bitterly, and took the paper from me. "i grant you your request. i know what disgusted you,--and, and--i understand. i hope you will not regret this step." he sat down thus politely indicating the end of the audience. here, on his desk, i noticed one of the last numbers of the "l'illustration" with a large picture of himself on it, which he was studying while i was waiting for his interview. how easy i feel! left to my own affairs, to my own business, all to my very own self! thank god! i never felt this way before. and our national tartarin of tarrascon--at his desk in the palace, with his people, always meeting polite and covetous eyes,--will continue his hard work. under every smile and every bow, he will see--up to the grave, the veiled appreciation: "by god, what a small thing you are." on the pages of history his name will forever remain and look like the trace of a malicious and sick fly. . how glad i am that maroossia went away! i feel more at ease though the housekeeping is up to me. there was more shooting and more of revolution, than heretofore, during all of these days,--one more evidence that the building of the new state is in full progress. of course,--these days brought kerensky as high up as he only can go. next will be his precipitated downfall,--much speedier than his elevation. why do the allies make this mistake of letting a worm like kerensky endanger the cause--it is a mystery ... though "there are no mysteries in this plainest of planets." nahkamkes and trotzky--found! and in jail, for the moment being,--perhaps like the baroness, or even easier! but the man, the real german hound of petrograd, monsieur ulianov-lenin,--could not be found. _could not be found_ is true. he has not been looked for, as any ass knows where he is. they send him meals from félicien, or ernest. away from here! i must be going as soon as i get the things straightened. have wired to maroossia that i am still alive, otherwise she is liable to appear again. elisabeth wrote a letter from moscow and said that "here--everybody is well and things look satisfactory. food supplies in abundance. all active in building up the state." is she sick? who is building the state? we destroy. they speak of putting the emperor in jail,--the st. peter and paul fortress. on the other hand polenov was told that kerensky won't tolerate any abuse to "private citizens." how about other private citizens? . so finally they all lost. the emperor was taken away,--and both mikhalovskys died for nothing, just looking for the plotters, i think, or, perhaps, they were plotting themselves? mr. kerensky did not dare to do it himself personally, as he used to say it repeatedly in tsarskoye. no! lies usually led him to other things: to give to the family a "detachment of special destination" under col. kobylinsky (a fine man,--emperor's a.d.c. during the empire, and his jailer during the republic!) and monsieur makarov, under whose command they all left for tobolsk. i had to buy a map. sorry to ascertain it, but i have always mixed up tomsk, tobolsk and yakutsk. which was which was a puzzle to me. we russians must be proud of our perfect ignorance of siberia. monsieur makarov? nobody knew him, but, of course, polenov. "oh," he said, when i told him the news, "makarov. a man who looks like turguenev, smells of french perfumes, speaks of the arts and is a contractor!?... of course i know of him. he is from the "brussov and makarov contracting company"--the rascal! kerensky knew him long ago, i am sure. the first thing when he got powerful he appointed makarov as something in the ministry of beaux-arts!" from what i learned afterwards from admiral and b-tov, all of "the rats of tsarskoye" ran away. only a few remained with the family: botkin,--capt. melnik, countess g. and her governess, m-e sch., and gillard. that's about all i guess that i know of--maybe some will join them afterwards. i am so sorry i had to go to tula when they took the family. i'd have gone to watch the departure with the admiral. petrograd simply died. the city does not reflect a thing. all seem to be satisfied with mere existence, and to have lost interest in the rest of the world. they look animated when it comes time to converse of food and clothes.... funny, strange, weird city! they don't clean the streets any more.... and everybody finds it natural. there is nothing in the stores--and we feel perfectly at ease. the country is being maliciously run down--and all repeat that fiction of building up. perhaps the only place that has not changed since its foundation is the club. the same old grouches are there, on the same sized seats, with the same expressions of old indigestion and fresh gossip. boys keep up! the revolution will probably bring the sacred card games onto the streets. your progressive institution must preserve the classic rules for the next generations. people now are divided into two distinct camps: those of today, and those of yesterday. the former--cover their disgust under a smile of opportunism; kin and kind--don't. we hate each other, and envy each other,--as we cannot see which way things will turn.... we will be united only if the ones of to-morrow,--the commune, the third class of people happen to take into their hands the war machinery. then we both will be crushed, annihilated, forgotten. it is coming.... ii. tumen ii. tumen only five months ago--i had a wife, income, good food.... only five months ago--i had a country. the mean and envious beast that lived in our midst,--as it lives in every other country,--unseen, but felt, and always ready to crush the acquirements of existing civilization,--_the mob_ came out from the underground world; criminal hands let _the mob_ on the streets. weak and shaky fingers unlocked the trap; a magnificent gesture of an ignorant don quixote invited the spies, the thieves, the murderers "to make the new russia." i see foreign faces around me; i hear foreign accents in every line of each new edict; i listen to the strange names of our new governors. the mob is in power; and the friendly faces of our allies became dry and cold.... looking backward--i try to find out whether there was a mistake of my own, or my own crime, for which some unknown and heartless judge is now so severely punishing me? * * * * * here i am, a graduate of the two best institutions in russia and germany, a man with five generations behind me,--all thoroughbred, all civilized, all gentlemen. here i am in disguise--as apparently thousands and thousands of other russians are, just as bearded as they, just as dirty, just as hungry, just as alone in the world. my name is now alexei petrovich syvorotka, formerly non-commissioned officer, th of hussars, born in the province of kursk. i dress in an old military overcoat, have a badly broken shoulder blade (second degree injury at stanislau), and as my documents say--have been evacuated to tumen, where i am supposed to receive my soldier's ration. syvorotka! would you talk to a man with such a name? this syvorotka, a humble creature--a shadow of yesterday--has only one thing of which he cannot be robbed, his only consolation: the sorrow which he wears deep under his uniform jealously concealed from the rest of the world. my baggage--the handbag--was found. those peculiar things can happen only in the present russia. she is like a good make of automobile after a wreck. everything seems to be crushed and broken--machinery, wheels, glass, body.... still some parts are strong enough to keep moving. so miraculously there moved a part, which brought my handbag here from moscow,--the very first ray of sun in my existence for a long time. i came to the depot this morning--i had been coming every day since schmelin gave me the baggage check--and saw a few men unloading a baggage coach. i approached them. "hello," i said to a tartar whose abominable face was covered with pock marks, (nowadays one must always address the most hostile looking person in a crowd, never the most sympathetic, for one should not show any weakness to the mob), "any work"? "hello,--yourself," the tartar answered grouchily and without looking at me, "there is. don't let them skin you. ask fifty rubles, understand?" "is that so?" i said, spitting through my front teeth onto a sidewalk covered with gleaming white snow, "not me, damn them! whose baggage?" they did not answer--in their language it meant 'don't know, don't care, and go to hell!' on the coach i saw "_moscow special_" written with white stone and i decided to take one more chance and ask for my handbag, presenting my luggage check. "it came at last," said the man in charge of the luggage depot, "thank god i won't see your _muzzle_ any more. what's in it?" "since when has it been your business, your burjooi honor?" i said, "you did not pay me for buying my belongings, so better keep your trap shut!" i took the dear old bag--it was maroosia's before, and came home. what did mlle. goroshkin put in the bag in moscow? i opened the rusty lock--and found my silver toilet kit, razors, "la question du maroc," on which the shaving soap had made a big yellow spot, laferme cigarettes, some linen (the thing i need the most), night slippers, manicuring box, and poor maroossia's fan,--she wired me to take it to gurzoof in the last telegram i ever got from her. the fan was fragrant with her perfume on it; so i shed a few tears. on the inside of the bag was written "all well, write often," and on the bottom of the bag--was this book of my notes. i had decided to sell the silver kit and the fan and get some money as i was very short of it. both the fan and the silver outfit looked so inharmonious in my little room with a small window on a triste court with a yard full of blindingly white snow. here is what brought me here: i could not leave petrograd on time on account of the house. nobody wanted it for , . i waited and waited--day after day, week after week. many and many were giving me advice to leave and were warning me, but i would not listen. when the wire came that poor maroossia was killed,--i lost interest in life completely. so i was living in petrograd, until the clash for the assembly. then,--perhaps my nerves needed a good shaking up,--i became active again. i went to the volga kama for my money,--the were already closed and gave me rubles, and allowed me to take another in a week. i went to the volkov's. the clerk said that i had no right to withdraw more than . i knew the man from moscow well, and he recognized me from the time that i was coming to bros. djamgarov bank. he was really kind, and said that he could at once arrange that i should receive % of my money and the contents in the safe, out of which % should be paid to some mysterious commissary. "i advise you to take it. the appetites are growing, and perhaps to-morrow it will be more,-- % or %." i wrote out some kind of understanding, by which i sold my rights on the th of october to a certain kagajitsky. that was all fake, as my arrangement was made about the rd of november, i guess. my ticket, for which they asked me , rubles, was obtained through the cook's sweetheart, and i left petrograd on the th for moscow on the usual : , and arrived uneventfully at the depot in moscow next morning at about : . on the stairs of the nikolaevsky depot i stopped. where was i going? in fact i had never thought of it. i had no place, no destination, no desires--nothing. perhaps only one desire, to avenge myself and all of us. so i hesitated, for in moscow they had been shooting right and left for the past week, persecuting the burjoois and officers. i had never felt so helpless and so unnecessary to myself and to others as on this snowy morning in moscow. besides, all of the way from petrograd to moscow i had had a hideous headache and chills, and i was in a fog of indifference. "good morning, sir," said an astonishingly polite voice behind me, "i congratulate you upon a safe arrival." i turned around and saw a man of rather short stature, cleanly shaven, and politely smiling with the whole width of his mouth. "good morning," i said, "i cannot place you, but you seem familiar to me, i am sure." "that's due to my former occupation, your excellency. i am goroshkin, the usher from the ekaterinensky theatre. so sorry to apprehend of your sorrow, sir, in connection with her excellency's death." this man, goroshkin, was a real friend to me, although i hardly recollected him. we never used to pay much attention to the ushers! there was no use in trying to go to a hotel with my appearance of a gentleman and my pockets filled with money; my fever and my indifference were growing; i had no desire to do anything for myself. i think that goroshkin understood me and the state of my mind when he said, "may i venture to offer your excellency my humble house, and perhaps call a doctor?" this is as much as i remember of the next fortnight. i had a terrible attack of typhus,--and when communists were killing the boys from the military school, bombarding the hotel national, destroying the kremlin and pillaging private homes, i was quietly lying in a little house somewhere behind sukharev tower under the care of a doctor and goroshkin's fat sister, whose conspicuous parts of the corsage were soiled from cooking, and whose face was always red and radiant. my return to life, and with it my return to the desire for activity and eating, was commemorated by the appearance at my bed of nobody else but marchenko. one bright morning, when my room seemed to be full of sunshine and hope,--a man in the uniform of a communist soldier with a red rag on his coat sleeve, walked into the room bringing in a breath of fresh and frosty air and a whole arsenal of munitions. i did not recognize him at first, a little pointed beard and heavy boots had transformed him into a regular "tovarishch." "hello," he said, "glad to know you're alive." "yes," i answered, "i am about the only one whom they have not happened to exterminate, but it is coming"! marchenko smiled. "you should not stay here for very long," he said, "it is getting dangerous and raids are being planned to finish with the burjoois who are hiding in the outskirts of moscow." "don't think," he went on, "that i am honestly with the communists. my task is the same and if we failed to do something before,--now we know we will be successful. kerensky is out of the life, living evidently under the friendly protection of lenine; i think lenine was the only man that he did not attempt to double cross." "now," he continued, "let us speak of you. i think that you must understand that the little services that were asked of you some months ago would have prevented many, many disagreeable events. behind you, you can see only sad memories and mourning,--before you, the very dark existence of a man in hiding. if you will join us, i could guarantee you a more or less protected life,--of course you will have to care for your own self, too." "please your excellency," said the voice of goroshkin behind me, "don't refuse this time. if your esteemed father could have known the circumstances, he would have consented, and he was a strict man. i recollect that his excellency would not deign to wait a second for his overcoat." "very well, i accept," i said to marchenko, "but i must say to you that it is not for the protection you promise me. i do not care much for my life, but i would like to preserve it. not to die right now, but hold it until the moment when i could avenge myself. and that's my personal aim. as for your plan--it suits me--for it is a measure not of russia's good--but a weapon against our present enemy--the red flag. and, i may add that in me you will find a disciplined man." goroshkin disappeared and came back with a bottle of abrau-durçot, with which we celebrated my consent. indeed i had nothing further to think about. my task was to go to tumen in disguise, meet some people there, and through goroshkin communicate with marchenko. my instructions included.... (_a few pages torn out_) goroshkin brought me a passport of mr. syvorotka, with my description and my particular marks (broken shoulder), documents and uniform, and gave me a few names in tumen which i had to remember and to whom on behalf of mr. andrei andreivich vysotsky i should address myself. "your excellency understands that nobody assumes any responsibility for your safety. you just must be in touch with the people," he said, "and be ready for what you were told to do, as we must have a man in tumen. if i may suggest, you should not speak or act like a gentleman." i decided to joke a bit with goroshkin: "go to hell, you old fool," i said, "you damned plotter," and then i kicked a chair. to my great astonishment not a muscle twitched in goroshkin's face. "not bad, not bad," he said calmly, "but even your slang is a gentleman's. your excellency should imagine having been born a swine. that's the point. i should recommend more of silence, and if you happen to speak,--a brief articulation, roughly conceived and expressed. don't bother at all with the person you are addressing." the old man amused me very much that evening. i let him sit down and he told me episodes of his life for about a couple of hours. for thirty years he had been present at every performance in his theatre and he knew the world better than i did, only by watching the artists. january the tenth in the early morning at about six o'clock the fat mlle. goroshkin entered my room clad only in a nightgown. that was the only time i saw her pale and sordid, but she was just as uninteresting as ever. "quick! get up," she said, "they are searching. brother has already left, and he said you must dress and get your documents and run out. go to tumen, i'll send your effects there." "they" was enough for me. i was all ready in two minutes, put all of my money and jewelry in my hip pockets, assumed the aspect of a wounded soldier and walked out. i barely reached miasnitskaya street before an armored car full of working men and soldiers passed by at about fifty miles an hour. half a dozen bad faces looked at me. i decided to continue calmly on my way, but i heard the car coming back very soon sounding its siren. it stopped near me. "come in, cavalry man, there is a seat for one. they found somebody in yousupov's house." i stopped and scratched my neck. "it cannot be done, i am going to the hospital. if i am late, i won't have the bandage changed today. could you take me to the hospital on the devitche pole?" "are you crazy?" said the man at the wheel, looking at me with fury. "comrades, do you think i am going to drive so far for his rotten wound?" and without asking for his friends' consent, he turned the machine and continued on his way towards yousupov's. this was my first interview with russia's rulers. i was stopped four or five times on my way to deviche pole. i took this route just to show those that might have watched me that i really was going to the hospital. then i thought i could take a street car to a station and go somewhere south, to tula, for instance, then wait there for a while and afterwards reach moscow again (they cannot keep on shooting and shooting always, i reasoned) and thence to tumen. so i continued along miasnitskaya. near the post office some people approached me. "where to?" they asked, and a woman caught me by the arm. i made a suffering face. "for christ's sake," i exclaimed, "don't touch me. i am wounded!" they let me go and stopped a long, young fellow in student's uniform. i saw them drag the chap away regardless of his protests. "comrades! it is a mistake! i am a member of a local committee...." he attempted to protest,--but the woman said he looked like a suspicious plotter and they all disappeared in a side street. near milutinsky a man in the cap of a chauffer stopped me again and asked me to follow him. "where?" i asked, but he did not reply and invited me to follow with a slight and nothing-good-promising-smile. "follow!" he said. near a small church, there was a hardware store which we entered. about ten people were sitting on the counter. among them were three street girls, if i might judge by their appearance and manners. without saying a word, they all came near me, two men got me by the shoulders, two others by the legs, and in one second, my pockets were emptied, my diamonds went to the girls and a formidable blow on the spine with the butt of a rifle threw me out onto the street. "if you report," i heard a voice,--"you won't be able to count your bones." that was really too much! all they forgot to take was a handkerchief, in which i had put some money. with that i had to reach tumen and live there! then i turned left and went by small streets toward the depot from which i thought trains were running to tumen. where this tumen was i really did not _realize_. it should be somewhere east of the ural mountains, and all i recollected was that cheliabinsk was the place to buy a ticket. near a large school, i think it was an armenian school or something, i stopped to rest and see how much money i had in the handkerchief,--but as soon as i took the handkerchief out, a man of no profession came to me and asked me to help him. while, like an idiot, i tried to figure how much i could give him,--he helped himself, grabbed my all and ran. all i could do was to send him a few greetings in my best russian, recollecting the sins of his mother. that relieved me, of course, but only as a palliative. i sat down near a door to think over my situation. again a motor passed and again someone asked me who i was. i showed this time such a realistic indifference and such a display of pure disgust with life, that the man at the wheel inquired what was the matter. "nothing, you beasts," i replied, "but that some of your own scoundrels robbed me right now." "get after him," i continued, "perhaps you can rob him in your turn." i thought they would shoot me; nothing of the kind--they became almost sympathetic, and only asked how the man looked and which way he had gone. "hardware store," i said, "around the corner." it was saturday night when finally our train reached tumen: a _voyage_ of eleven days by rail, by snow sledge, by foot, and again by rail, was at an end. god! what a sojourn, what people, what disorder! people full of onions, parasites, wounds, dirt, misery and fear! but still, in all of their misery, amiable and sympathetic, at first always desirous of helping the other fellow. saturday night, and the church bells were ringing sadly, desperately, as if they knew nobody would come and pray. to whom? god had proved to be so far away from these people.... (_pages missing_) ... the city,--and i shall continue to call it a city,--was dark and dreary, and so cold that i resolved to spend the night at the depot where it was warm at least. i bought some hot tea and a large loaf of bread at the buffet, and, as a sick and poor soldier who knows his place, i sat in a corner. there were some people in the station--mostly peasants, one could easily recognize such in them; quietly talking and drinking tea with dignity and care and biting their sugar with the force of explosions. they never put their sugar into the tea-tumblers. later a man with a disagreeable face entered the room and looked around. this was not a peasant, i said to myself,--he would not take off his hat. the newcomer was evidently looking for me, as when he noticed me, he first bought some tea and a sandwich, and then, as if there were no other place in the room, picked out a seat near me. "an enemy," i thought to myself and buried my face in my supper. the man wanted to talk, but evidently felt embarrassed. "cold outside, isn't it?" he asked. a foreign intonation. no accent, however. a pole or a russian-german. "hm, hm, very!" "yes, severe climate, dog's cold. going to stay in tumen, or plan to go further?" he asked after a pause. "going to stay, or going further,--what do you ask for? but if it interests you--going to stay for a while. if i croak here, or somewhere else--you aren't going to attend my funeral. so what's the big idea?" "oh, nothing, nothing! you see i am a stranger here and lately live practically at the depot. am looking for a man by the name of vysotsky, so i ask almost everybody for the man." "vysotsky?" i asked, assuming an air of astonishment, "vysotsky?" (marchenko and his crowd flashed through my mind, especially in connection with my mission)--"no, i don't think that i know anyone by that name." "here, here," the man laughed, shoving me with his shoulder, "lay it out, old man, you _must_ know him" "no, comrade" i responded. "you probably take me for some one else, indeed. i am syvorotka of the th hussars. we had a man by name vysotsky, a sub-lieutenant, but i don't think it's the one you are looking for: the vysotsky i knew has been taken prisoner, at lvov, or at the sziget pass ... yes, at sziget pass, of course. vysotsky, vysotsky, what was the christian name, perhaps that would help me out?" "you white-collared trash!" my man suddenly became angry, "you can't fool me about his first name. don't be too slick. i'll tell you" (he started to whisper very low and knocked on the table with his finger) "they will jail you right now, if you don't tell me why in the devil's name you came here. aren't you going to tell me? no? very well, i'll fix you for life, you damned russian swine! hope you'll choke on your tea!" that's how he ended his friendly wishes, and left me in a fury. but when someone threatens and is in a fury there is no immediate danger, i know. it is true in every case of life. so i was quiet for the night. i put my overcoat under my head and slept all night. next morning i began to work ... (_several pages missing_.) (_first letter to m. goroshkin_) "madame l. obtained from the princess g-n some particulars. so in addition to the reports forwarded to you through hatzkelman, i herewith send you more: the tsar's family arrived in tobolsk from tumen on the s/s "russ" september rd, together with ss/ss "kitai" and "petrograd." on the last two were the accompanying persons and the "detachment of special destination," with col. kobylinsky in command, and mr. makarov supervising the voyage.... for three days the "russ" was lying near the pier, for the governor's mansion was not yet ready for occupancy. so nobody was allowed to go ashore. during these days crowds of people were assembled near the piers, and though in the mob there were certain evil agitators, the people in general were sympathetic, understanding the exile as a "dreadful plot of ministers against the emperor." the heir was the center of the attention of the tobolians, and his personality was not at all blasphemed. the emperor and the empress, with the children, were finally put in the mansion,--by the way its name is now "the home of liberty," which is on the main street of tobolsk,--the great piatnitzkaya, also renamed now into liberty street. the governor's mansion is a three-story stone house, white, with a big entrance hall from tuliatskaya street, there is not any entrance from liberty street. there is a small square place before the entrance. here they built up a fence, not very high. they fixed the fence so that no one can go over it, as the boards are trimmed sharp and have nails. all the windows look onto liberty street. on the opposite side of liberty street are private houses. right across the street is the house of kornilov brothers, also a stone building; three stories, and in this house are those who went with the family in exile. there are sentinels around. on tuliatskaya street near the fence--at its ends and in the middle,--three soldiers, on liberty street--four soldiers; two soldiers near the entrance hall. though the entrance is fenced, one can see the street from the house, also from the street one can see what is going on on the stairway. in the kornilov house (both kornilovs are away) are living: dr. botkin with his son gleb and miss botkin; dr. derevenko--a man with the same name as the tutor of alexis; monsieur gillard, a swiss instructor of the hier; captain melnik (i heard that he is going to marry m-elle botkin); lady-in-waiting countess g.; m-me schneider and several others; i shall give you their names in my next letter. the emperor and the empress used to have certain liberties, they could even go to church. but then no one was admitted there, unless they could get in under the pretext of being singers in the choir. many were going,--used to go to the anunciation church. they would put soldiers all of the way from the mansion to the church. reports are coming that these church parades are stopped and a chapel is being built in the mansion. shortly after their arrival, mr. kerensky sent two boxes of wine to the tsar; the soldiers broke the boxes. they do not want any "luxuries" for the exiles. the empress has no coffee--it is a luxury. but otherwise the attitude is not too bad. m. wrote that under the charming manners of the tsar and especially the heir, before the soviet rule came, the soldiers very often changed their manners, their revolutionary hearts were melting--and then col. kobylinsky used to send those "soft rags" back to petrograd, for they might be counter-revolutionary. kobylinsky himself was trying to maintain good relations with the soldiers, with kerensky (who promised him promotion) and with the family through kornilov's house, for the emperor, like everybody else in tobolsk, despises him. the emperor has never said anything to or about kobylinsky directly, however. once only, when kobylinsky was changing sentinels he bumped into the emperor, and the latter said' "still a colonel?" that was really a sarcastic remark! of course, now with the bolshevik! everything has changed and the family's position is very bad. i am well, send me some very thick socks if you happen to have an opportunity. greetings. attached--a map of tobolsk. yours, al. syv." (_several pages missing_) when i returned from the princess, tired and worried about the absence of news from moscow and about the whole "organization" so badly and unsystematically managed, i found a dark figure sitting on my bed. a woman was attempting to light a candle. but even before i understood who was on my bed, the odor of a woman, fine perfume, burned hair and soap--struck me very strongly. i had quite forgotten during all this time of hardships this side and these agreeable ingredients of civilized life. i took my pistol, closed the door, and always sharply following the movements of the dark figure, approached her, pointing the browning. she put her hands up. when i finally saw the woman,--i almost fainted: it was the baroness b., friend or enemy, but she. she did not recognize me at first. then: "for god's sake!" she muttered, as if to herself, and swallowing the words, "you are syvorotka? my god, what a horror!... how are you?" "madame," i said, kissing her hand,--"it certainly is a surprise,--i hope for both of us! how can i explain your presence here? who and what brought you here?" "it does not matter--they went away," she answered. she was looking at me with wide-open eyes, in which i noticed the sincerest amazement, if not stupefaction. "syvorotka, you! how perfectly crazy you look with this beard! if you only knew!" and silvery laughter unexpectedly sounded in my poor quarters--in this place of mourning and sorrow--for the first time since i have come here. "oh, you _must_ shave it!" "let my beard alone, pray," i said. "it really is not the time for any personal remarks. besides--look at yourself; there is more paint on your cheeks than flesh. and this wig! to tell the truth i like your own hair far better. your wig is outrageous. you look like a bad girl." "exactly. that's what i am now. lucie de clive, monsieur, a vaudeville actress. that's me." "a nice party, isn't it?" she said. "syvorotka and lucie?" "but--tell me before everything else, can i stay here?" "stay here? pardon me, baroness...." "call me lucie, please...." "pardon me, lucie, but really i don't quite comprehend. in these times, of course, everything has changed; but still i wish i could understand it correctly...." "oh, yes, you will not be bad to a poor girl, alex, will you? i simply have to stay here--i have no other place to go." to show her resoluteness, she took off her shabby overcoat and started to arrange her belongings, an impossible suitcase and something heavy rolled in a yellow and red blanket, looking to me from time to time with curiosity and doubt. "lucie de clive! a woman certainly could not think of anything less snobbish even in these circumstances. you look like a real russian katka-chort in this outfit." "that's what is required. how did you happen to pick out _your name_?" we both laughed. indeed, if our meeting were compared to all the luxury and brilliance of the cote d'azur, or petrograd--it was laughable. "have _we_ anything to eat?" she asked. "i came home for my supper," i said. "i have some trash in the pantry." while i was preparing in the so-called kitchen something nice out of a piece of frozen pilmeni--hashed meat and an old can of sardines (my pride) she began to arrange the room. she acted as if she were trying to justify her presence, it was clear. but with all the pleasure of seeing someone around my house, i simply could not think what had happened to her. baroness b.--a lady who would not hesitate in olden times to play a thousand pounds on a horse or order ten dresses at pâquin's,--here, asking my hospitality! if she were a russian--i could understand it,--wives of privy counsellors and ambassadors are selling cheese in petrograd now. but she--a foreign lady?... it was clear, she was in some intrigue as usual, and it had led her too far. possibly she is after me.... and besides--her very presence would affect my work, and endanger myself. "i must give her something to eat, and then get out of here. the l. would keep me for a while, and then i shall go away. let her stay in this house with all of her strange intrigues, for i cannot throw her out." thus trying to understand, i finished my cooking and asked her to the _salle-à-manger_--the same little kitchen. but no matter how proud i felt of my housekeeping, the baroness found fault with everything. "don't _we_ have a table cloth? or napkins? what are these daggers for?" "good god, syvorotka," she said, "_we_ cannot live in such a miserable way. i'll have to change it. there are no reasons why _we_ should revert to cannibalism!" talking in that manner, jumping from one subject to another and always very nervously, she arranged the table more or less decently, and even put the salt in the lid of a little powder box. "now," she said, "i want you to wash your hands, and comb your hair, and brush your khaki, and ..." until i got almost civilized. when we were through with the meal and a half of bottle of beer (they call "beer" this indecent looking beverage in tumen) i asked her what brought her to tumen? she told me some story--of which i believed only the fact that she was here, in my house, and that a great embarrassment had fallen on my shoulders. "i'm glad," i said, "you _did not_ change at all, lucie. it is just as true--all this story of yours, as the one you told me in petrograd. but i have no use for reforming you. now--take me as an example of sincerity: in me, my dear lady, you see now, nothing but a poor man in hiding. all for me is in the past.... and you,--i see it--are still plotting, nothing could persuade me that you and i are here by mere coincidence. you come to me--have time to curl your hair--and you even don't tell me whether your intrigue could reveal my existence to those that persecute me. you wouldn't hesitate to pass over my dead body--for the sake of your affairs.... again,--please do not feel offended,--there is another side. i am a working man. tomorrow i must be at my job early in the morning. the night is growing old. so, regardless of other things,--what would you advise me to do now?" "i have nothing to say," she answered sadly and in a low voice, "you are the lord here." "what do you advise me to do?" i repeated growing angry. "i'll do anything you say," she answered blushing and lowering her head, "i am ready." "lucie," i said, "it is not a question _of that_. you see i cannot put you out on the streets. a good master would not do it to his dog. but, on the other hand they have not yet built the ritz here." "i am not asking you to go from your house, alex. i had for a moment,--when i saw who syvorotka was--a little ray of sunshine. i see i am mistaken. could you take me to the depot, then?" "i shall do nothing of the kind," i answered. "nobody warned me you might come here. i was not ready. so--please stay here for to-night. i have a place where i can find an abode, and tomorrow we can decide what to do. there is some frozen milk in the pantry and if i don't return--right where you are sitting in the mattress there is some money. good night, lucie." "alex, are you really going?" she asked taking me by the arm, "are you _really_ going out just not to be with me? is it a pose? or are you serious? please don't do it...." "good night," i said and went out. a night in a small city of siberia! one can see only because the snow is white. no moon, no electricity.... where is my new peugeot now? who is driving it now? where is anton? whose chauffer is he now, and is he still a chauffer, or has the wheel of fortune turned and made him commissary of arts, or commissary of public health? or, true to his master, was he hanged defending my automobile? kismet!... there were only two blocks to the l.--but the snow was so deep and it was so windy and cold, it seemed to me a good mile, till i reached the house. it was dark as usual. as usual it seemed dead. but, when i was quite close to it, i heard some movement inside and i detected something in the yard. this something materialized very soon into a couple of evil faces and rifles with fixed bayonets. inside of the house there were muffled voices. near the rear gate (i could see it due to the sloping of the lot) three horses and a snow sledge were standing. a few voices were raised in dispute in the barn, swearing a blue streak. "arrest"--it was clear. when i was trying to think of something to help,--and what could i think of?--the double pane of the bedroom window was suddenly broken by something heavy thrown from the inside and a desperate piercing voice of pasha--i immediately knew it was the poor girl--shouted with all of the strength of her lungs: "help, help! in christ's name, help...." the cry was broken off in the middle, muffled by the palm of a hand, and became a mutter of despair and horror: "m-p-p, maa...." somebody stuffed a white pillow in the hole. again all became quiet. then the front door suddenly opened and a man jumped out into the street; another,--a short fellow clad in a wild siberian overcoat,--appeared on the stairs, aimed a mauser and fired at the man's back. i scarcely had time to sit down behind the fence. ff ... ap ... ff ... ap ...--sounded two dry, sharp shots. the first man took two more steps--and rolled in the snow, feebly groaning from pain. a black trickle of blood swiftly ran along the snow near my knees. the siberian overcoat looked at his victim and with "you, damned carrion," slammed the door. again all was dark and silent. the man was indeed dead when i reached him. he had a package of something wrapped in paper--so i took it,--i thought it might be something belonging to ls. all that was pretty bad, and i did not know how to get away,--my position being really a poor one in a strategic sense of the word. i had to escape without attracting too much attention. when i was thinking over how to do it--a voice called: "bist du dort, swartz?" "ja wohl!" i answered as nonchalantly as i could, having covered my mouth with my glove, "soll' ich noch warten?" "we'll be through in a minute. wait a while!" i did not wait. through wind and snow, crawling like an indian, i passed the dangerous spot near the gate where i could be seen, then hurried home, almost crying for the poor ls., and pasha--such a sweet girl, probably at that moment being nationalized--condemning all and everything and especially the impossibility of helping my unfortunate friends. all was frozen inside of me, due to the cold and this fear of a helpless creature. when i was about a score of yards from the house--shooting started behind me--just as idiotic as in petrograd or moscow: in every direction, bullets cracking the windows, the street lamps, the passers-by,--on this occasion myself,--i got a bad one in the sleeve, right near the elbow. i did not have to knock at the door as i feared running home: the door flew open, and lucie dragged me in, closing the door behind me on the lever. "oh, i am so glad you came! silly man! are you wounded? no? i heard it all--i was so afraid that they had shot you! i am so glad, alex dear! do stay here, i won't be in your way, honest. please do stay!..." (_pages missing_) (_second letter to m. goroshkin_) "i must bring to your attention the fact that a certain lady, whom i knew in petrograd in other days, came here quite unexpectedly, under the name of lucie de clive. she was in the plot in june, and at that time was very strongly protected by a.f. k-y, who released her from jail. she is an englishwoman, but knows russia well, as in fact, she knows all european countries. she came here the day the l's were killed and pasha taken away. she made me understand that she is in a new plot to save the emperor's family. her task will be to stay here for a while "and make some preparations" and then go farther on. i must tell you that her arrival here is of great inconvenience to me: in a city like tumen it became known to the g-ns, and, though the princess thinks i am nothing much and _her_ morals are not for my class of people, she is a little hypocrite and pulls a long face at me. i tried my best to avoid having this lady in my house; but the president of the local soviet, who has a great respect for me as marchenko's protégé, allowed me a short stay for the lady; i explained to him that she is my old affinity--"a civil wife." therefore, he found it a sufficient reason, but did not like it much, and i am afraid his trust in me may diminish. now things have turned out in such a manner that i cannot possibly throw the lady out of my home: but what i want you to do is to notify me at once whether you know something about this arrival and whether lucie is working for the same purposes. i don't trust her much; she feels it, and plays a strange game with me, the part of an enamored woman. this does not interfere with her writing (and receiving) some correspondence. she takes the letters out when i am busy, so i cannot trail her. i'd rather go away from here, leaving her; i would not care much to be obliged to watch her. there are certain ethics which would prevent me from liking to trail this particular lady. i was greatly surprised when i heard that mr. kerensky was living in the rossia insurance company apartments, pushkarskaya , flat . if so, why this game of the smolny crowd? why not take him? the man of whom i wrote you in my last letter states that k-y is now planning to go to stockholm and that a passport will be given to him by the smolny institute. please communicate that to marchenko. schmelin says it is not his business. the ring was taken from k-y. nothing new in tobolsk. the empress has been sick for the last ten days. yours, alex. syv." (_third letter to m. goroshkin_) "as i told you in one of my letters, the actions of some people in tobolsk are more or less significant. father a. vassiliev has become welcome to the emperor and has all of his confidence. we tried to warn him of this pope, but i don't think it worked, for they know that vassiliev received some very important documents from the emperor, and also his revolver and sword for safekeeping. at present there is an organization in tobolsk helping the family with money and food; the ordovsky-tanaevskys, the prince khovansky's family and the budischevs. the latter house is on rojestvensky street about four blocks from the mansion. bishop hermogen comes often, as well as bishop irinarch and some others. none are really good. the empress is sick--the same old nervousness. the heir is all right, barring a little accident--he fell down stairs and got a bad bump on his head. they say that the bishop received a letter from the dowager empress which was brought by a german war prisoner. others think that this letter was an act "de provocation" and has been fabricated by the bolsheviki to circulate a bad story about the bishop. they speak a great deal about taking the emperor from here to european russia and the whole family is scared. the situation is very precarious: there is a decided tendency on the side of the bolsheviki to take the family away--some say, to ekaterinburg, others to berezov; deputies from petrograd and ekaterinburg, arrived in tobolsk asking the local soviet to give up the family. the members of the "detachment of special destination" do not allow that, saying that the family will be given only to the constituent assembly and the population is on the side of this detachment. there may be an outbreak. in certain houses there are firearms. the situation would be better if the soldiers from the detachment had been paid; but since last september they have not been, so discontent is growing. colonel kobylinsky's behavior seems to be strange. the ufa movement is gaining in strength. yours, al. syv." (_fourth letter to m. goroshkin_) "in case you would like to eliminate the work of my companion,--let me know, and it could be very easily done: she could be taken out of the house and put on the train going in any direction. schmelin would help in this case. then i would go away, for instance to ekaterinburg or omsk. i shall wait for your letter in regard to this, and in the meantime i'll remain just as i am now. please do not let me stay in my actual position. i simply refuse to be aiming at her back with a concealed dagger. even as it is, my life is untenable--the way i live, and the people i have to meet, make it perfectly horrid...." (_end of letter missing_) i never knew that a wireless apparatus for a range of more than one hundred miles could be such a small thing. really this war has brought about some wonders, and it is clear to me this particular station, that was delivered yesterday, is a military outfit. i remember little about wireless telegraphy; only few explanations given to me by capt. volkhovsky, and after the very solemn inauguration of the "spark-radio" we had a gala-performance. it is but a superficial study indeed. i cannot understand this strange silence of goroshkin. is he dead? if he is dead--what happened to marchenko? are they both dead? now since the ls are gone and pasha has become some bolshevik's property (poor little thing!) i have no idea what to do. shall i consider myself in the game, or did the whole organization end; shall i continue on my own behalf? i have been thinking, and thinking about it, and have decided that i must continue my informative functions, and must wait as i have been told. they said i shall be on my post--and i must remain. the absence of letters does not mean much: they can be in a terrible situation in moscow now--we know nothing. if my letters have not reached goroshkin--they have reached somebody else; in the latter case i would have been hanged long ago, or shot, or something similar, if the letters did not reach friends. lucie? well if she is not the crookedest woman! i do not think i could get rid of her now even if i would. schmelin knows of my going out of town, it is clear. of course he closes his eyes,--but i never can doubt that he will be the first to "put me on a clear water" as soon as he apprehends that the other commissaries know of my wanderings and trading with the letts, and of what is now under our bed. something new: lucie received a rubber bath, so i have to warm up the water and then wait.... (_end of page missing_) ... she would come back, as soon as i shall be ready putting the wires instead of the ropes in the yard for drying the linen. i was glad to know it. certainly. personally i am very glad to see her around: she is a nice little woman when she does not plot. it is agreeable to have tea at five and then everything looks so clean and neat since she came. good god, should she be simply a nice little lucie! how agreeable everything could become--as if there were no revolution, no bolsheviki, no emperor.... but no; fate has to put a drop of tar in a barrel of honey. however, perhaps i would have hated to see a cook around here: as soon as a woman gets too domestic--she infallibly becomes unattractive. as for lucie--enclosed in a cage as we are--i never saw her unwashed, uncombed, frivolous or unladylike. so let her be a plotter. i must be grateful as we never quarrel.... she sends me away when.... (_end of page missing_) (_fifth letter to m. goroshkin_) "... a man by name alexander petrovich mamaev from novo-nikolaevsk. he has a plan of his own, which he wants to accomplish. he has some people working for him, nothing serious, if i may judge. mamaev's plan is being worked out this way: his people will buy out the sentinels and take the emperor and the heir (perhaps the princesses, but, as he says "the old woman will never be considered") and rush both eastward by the old highway. on the stations mamaev's people are now hiring horses and coachmen. they have collected money amongst the merchants. they plan to take the emperor as far as blagoveshchensk-on-amur. thence to san-haliang, on the chinese side of the river. from san-haliang somewhere out of the country,--i never heard where to. the organization works successfully in the region of tomsk, where all is ready for immediate action. there is much imagination in mamaev's plan, and though i know his preparations are watched in ekaterinburg, they do not meet with approval at all. captain kaidalov of the crimea horse regt. is now the soul of ekaterinburg and he does not approve. he is a fine fellow, i know, and very courageous: he went to the local soviet, became their confident and _persona grata_ and i think is virtually the only one who really understands the problems and realizes their difficulty and their danger. please let me know whether i should inquire any longer about all of this! yours, alex. syv." sunday she came back from the trip. i felt quite lonesome all of this week. two men were with her: one--a russian, the silent type, with a big hat, who was taking care of the horse: the other, a tall, broad faced anglo-saxon fellow, whose bronzed face would be appropriate in the tropics but not on the white steppes of siberia. a little longhaired pony brought the trio in a fancy sledge early in the morning. the englishman (his name is stanley) started to work with the radio, silent, serious, smoking a short black pipe. he took me for lucie's servant. if i had had any doubt of his nationality, i never could have mistaken his tobacco: navy cut,--_the one make_ i can't tolerate. he filled our small house with blue clouds of stink. when they all came i ran to the sledge, but from a distance lucie signaled to me with her eyes that no tender expressions were needed. she sent me out for food, then to a drug store, then to the post-office, etc., etc. i obeyed. so around noon i went to see the princess. they all make me sick, especially since the l. tragedy. "if god does not help--we cannot." a certain mme. k-v is now hanging around her. a suffragette--that's what she is. she said "some women are now here--we know nothing about ..." alluding of course to me. i hardly could wait until evening. it was evening when s. finished connecting the kitchen station with the city current. when i came home he and the russian were trying to harness the pony. the poor little horse was choking from the smoke of his pipe and trying to bite the torturer. "say, lucie," the englishman said to her, as shivering in my overcoat, she came out to say good-bye to him, "the benzine is in the barn, over there under the hay. tell your man to be careful and not to smoke around here." "if it did not explode after your pipe, sir," i replied in my best shakespearian, "my cigarette won't do any harm. so don't be alarmed." it took him about half a minute to digest the fact that i could understand his cockney. lucie became almost hysterical with laughter and ran into the house. then he made a serious face and sprang into the sledge and the russian flicked the horse with the whip. near the corner, i saw him say something to the russian and they turned back. "say," the englishman asked, "are you english? or canadian, i fancy?" "never mind me, major or captain, or whoever you are. i'm just i. don't fancy, and proceed. i'm busy." i closed the gate and heard another formidable crack of the whip on the pony's fat flanks. hundreds of bells started ringing again, and then died away in the distance, drowned out by a locomotive whistle.... and here i was in my room again. in the corner stood lucie, lovely creature with all her funny actions and thoughts, heaven knows by what and whom inspired. "look what i brought, alex! here are canned goods, and chocolate and coffee, and ham, and ..." and she threw package after package on the bed. on one of them i read "army and navy calcutta," but said nothing and looked away. i'm getting sly. she noticed it too, the little devil! she sent me out to see whether or not the gate was closed, and when i came back the label was scratched out. (_sixth letter to m. goroshkin_) "there are, virtually, three--or perhaps more--organizations, members of which have decided to save the emperor from imprisonment. they all realize the danger of letting things go on by themselves, or of relying upon german promises. the latter are well known here and in tobolsk from bolshevik sources. when during the brest-litovsk _pourparlers_ the russian delegates were waiting for the germans, the latter entered the room of conference, and found it filthy with smoke; the bolsheviki were extremely hilarious, and laughed and joked among themselves. to show his independence monsieur trotsky was sitting on the table; others were without collars and in the most unrespectable state of humor. when the german delegation entered they did not move; the leader of the germans, an old general, stopped for a moment, looked at them in disgust, and then suddenly shouted: "stand! attention! get up, you, kameraden!" electrified--they all got up, trotsky first, although with the remark "for why"? the general continued: "by order of his majesty the king and emperor, i declare that there is at tobolsk in your hands the relative of my august master,--her imperial majesty the empress of russia with her consort and children. until this is arranged--we shall not proceed with this conference of ours. we demand your guarantees that st--you vouch for their perfect safety; d--you immediately will take steps to deliver the prisoners abroad. now, at rest! sit down!" i was told that the delegates from the soviets had the authority to vouch for them in this regard, for they say unofficially that the matter had been previously taken up by russian and german diplomacy. so a telegram was sent by joffe to lenine, who answered, "measures taken." then the brest-litovsk sale commenced. this evidently was not fulfilled, although i have heard that there is certain movement on the part of germans, especially amongst the war prisoners. i consider it impracticable. at present the military situation is as follows: the czechs are nearing the samara-zlatoust line; in siberia--there is a very big movement of czech war prisoners and russians--to assist the czechs in their task of reaching the pacific. battles are raging on the volga front. it is evident that the salvation of the family cannot come from germany, for there would not be any place and way to take the emperor out of tobolsk, but by way of the trans-siberian,--a long journey with no possibilities of getting out of this country. the local bolsheviki are beyond the control of the centers. they want to "govern" themselves--evidently with no orders and particularly confidential (i think this one would be such) would not be executed. the ekaterinburg organization is weak as i already wrote you. first because the organization is in ekaterinburg and the emperor in tobolsk. who are these people? they want first of all, and altogether, restitution for the sake of getting good positions for valuable services rendered the family. they all see that the restitution is problematic,--so their desire is not strong. they act weakly, they think lazily, they move with an agony of indifference. all that they have done is certainly known to kobylinsky and--to the commissaries. and if they are not yet all arrested--it is because the sovietists want to know their actions. if the damned lack of organization, that we all are suffering from, can be noticed in our present life--it is ideally clearly seen in the ekaterinburg circles. the princess g. and others are of the same sort; dully thinking, believing in and hoping for marvels and miracles, trying to look busy and tired. they gossip about each other, they are ready to sink each other in a spoonful of water. now what is their plan? they haven't any,--at least, nothing definite. they all say vaguely "we are going to buy out col. kobylinsky and the sentinels and the bolsheviki." all right. supposing there were someone among them who would go and try this buying proposition? supposing they were to buy kobylinsky, and the sentinels and the bolsheviki. what will they do with the emperor? against them there would be the whole world. there is no way for the ekaterinburg people to get him out, just as there is no way for the germans. all is closed for them, except a crazy scheme of taking the family into the interior, which i do not consider feasible. it is impossible. i was told to watch all that i could in connection with the move in tumen; i was instructed to watch the ekaterinburg organization and the princess. i hope i am not considered a member of this organization as it is a failure, and i hate to participate in deadborn adventures. again there is the work that lucie is doing. i do not know for whom she works, though i can see she is not working by herself. i can see that there is st, a certain participation of people with means--she has money and certain buying capacities, a sign of great importance at present: d, there is evidently a planned and systematic scheme of work in all the actions around me; d, there is an unseen hand directing the whole enterprise, decisive and strong. what is this plan? i can as now see only one thing: provisions are made, both in food and munitions, and shipped through my home east. there is an intense wireless communication--i cannot know what it is about. a man in smoked glasses comes every evening and sits--near the apparatus. sometimes he only listens in; sometimes he gets his "tune" and talks. in the latter case, lucie goes down town and leaves me at home. i think she mails the communications or maybe someone waits for her in the post office, or, what is possible.... (_few lines scratched out_) ... her russian is not at all good, she hardly speaks it in fact, but she gets along as lucie de clive, a french demoiselle. with her, as far as i can see are the following elements: st, the british officer,--stanley, or whatever his name really is; d, the silent russian, with wiry siberian hat and extremely profane language (i think he swears when praying): d, two letts as she calls them, though there is just as much lettish in them as in you, or me,--they both speak russian like russians; th, myself. about the last point i can tell, that lately i am in the traffic business. lucie asks me very often to take loads to the outskirts of tumen, near the freight depot, which we receive with the siberian pony, and i take it in my sledge behind the depot, where i deliver the goods--only in the evenings--to the letts. sometimes we speak, but never much. usually, "very cold," or "how snowy," or "have you a cigarette?" after delivering the goods--altogether i have done it about five times, i return home. the letts wait to move until i go away; i did not succeed in trailing them--and honestly would not want to very much. i have my private reasons for not getting into lucie's way. besides, why should i? i am sure that we all are working for the same purpose, but perhaps from different standpoints. on the other hand, it astonishes me exceedingly, that lucie.... (_two lines scratched out_) and he arranged for my protection and undisturbed life here,--so seemingly everything is in perfect accordance. you never answer my letters, but couldn't you manage to acknowledge them? please do it. yours, alex. syv." "i have been here so long!... isn't it funny, alex, how the time has passed?" the night was a windy one as though winter knew it was its last chance to freeze people to death before spring would come; the long night seemed slow in coming. all day we had worked very hard in the barn preparing a big load which lucie had asked me to take to the letts. after dinner, we had kippered herring and some meat stew à l'irlandaise, we were sitting near the open oven. "lent bells! i wonder who is praying?..." "yes, six weeks, dear. six weeks of perfect sincerity and mutual trust,--it is not a little thing." she accepted my remark without turning her face from the fire near which we were sitting. "six weeks," she said again. "do you remember the man who was playing near me in monte carlo the day we met?" "there were too many of them. which one do you mean?" "the tall man, mr. osborne--never mind trying, it does not matter, i just happened to think of him." "anything identical with our six weeks of life?" i asked, and immediately regretted my bad temper--i am getting impossible. "very much," she said sadly. "very much; only under other circumstances, other climates, other people. not so inconsiderate." when i looked at her my heart filled with pity. who _is_ this woman? i don't know her. perhaps she has something in her heart--the very existence of which i had oftentimes doubted. perhaps, in her life of adventures, she has had more hardships, more of tragedy than i,--with all of my selfish sufferings of a man who used to be rich and prominent, and is now humble and poor? perhaps she has more of self-control not to show it,--nevertheless the amount of her bitterness of life must be the same, if not deeper, than mine? we have been here for six weeks.... i have no place to go. so i am here. but she? i am sure she could be somewhere else, in better surroundings, amongst people better than i am. and during these six weeks--we were not friends. we were only plotters, joined under one roof, and secretly hostile to each other--"i am ashamed," i said to her, "honestly i am. you must think that i have never cared to know what is in your mind. we have always been distant and mysterious, always absorbed in our own affairs. why should i trouble you with my questions? especially, if i knew beforehand that you wouldn't answer. yes, we have been together six weeks--more than that--we live under the same roof, eat the same food, have our life as close as two human beings can,--and yet--here we are,--apart from each other. you are a woman, it's up to you to break this distance and build a bridge over it." "well," she said, putting her small hand on mine, "you approach the question evidently from another angle. i am not speaking of our business, which may, and which may not, be the same. why am i so sad and so blue? it is that i feel i am all alone here. i can tell you and i think that you have already understood it, that i came to tumen with orders to see a certain syvorotka. i had to be with him, use his house, use his protection, use his connections. i did not know who this syvorotka was. a cave man? an ex-soldier? a sick man? a fat butcher? a sentimental, but dirty druggist? of all the men in the world,--and while coming here i imagined all possible types,--that i should have met you, alex! you have always meant so much to me. i have always liked you. when i saw you last in petrograd i tried to get you into my affairs. why? i don't know. you have no ambitions, you have no character,--nothing. and still, i tried to get you, only to be with you. you refused--for you never cared: perhaps once in marseilles, when you wanted to kiss me (you see i did not forget)--and even at that time you were drunk.... and here in tumen--you were the man, with whom as they told me, i had to go as far as was necessary to get his good services...." "strange life, this one of mine," she ended her remark and again turned to look into the flames. "lucie, you never told me you cared, i thought you were for your own affairs much more than for anything else; now i see it in a different light." "you do? it _is late_. i am going. i am leaving you--this time for good. a week--or so, and i am far away from here, from you--with all of your good and bad qualities. the time in which we live--does not allow any speculations. one must get what he sees." what do you mean by 'going away'?" "just what i say. i received orders to move to another place. no, i cannot tell you. that's all. you, and this little house, and some hopes i had here,--all, all, must be forgotten. other people, and other scenery. a radical change again. heavens knows how soon i can forget this little white cold town...." "yes," she continued, looking at me, "yes, this cold town, with you; and you--with your double-crossings, with your reports on me, with your bad behavior, with your treason. alex--love is a strange thing. i don't mind it at all! you never knew it. you never loved your poor maroossia: she was your comfort--that's all. you never thought of lucie de clive as such: for you--she was a little girl that possibly might have been in your way, but you let her stay because she comforted you. now--she is going, and very likely you won't see her any more. in your life--she was a page of a book; now you've read it!..." she was crying, really crying! such an actress! i came home at seven from the village--nobody in there! nobody to give me my tea. all looks empty, abandoned. on the bed pinned to the pillow,--a note: "good-by." my companion left me--today. and i had so much to say to her.... she did not forget to look in my bag before leaving, as i see. i thought so. my diary _has been censored:_ many pages are missing and some rough hand-made corrections in the text have been made leaving greasy spots on the paper. some of my documents are stolen. i don't see the letter from marchenko to schmelin, the chart with mamaev's stations, and a few others. fortunately, kerensky's letter to grimm was not taken, as i had put it under the floor of the barn with my money and watch. she must have had the help of the man with the specs--she would not be able to understand my scratching. they must have been busy all day! but what really gets me wild--almost all of my letters to goroshkin are here! how did she get them? i understand why goroshkin's letters missed me--she got them!... now i understand what she meant by saying that i was trying to double cross her! in fact lucie is right,--and that's why it's maddening. i wonder what goroshkin and marchenko think of me? to whom i must seem a swine! and what a bad way of her's, to leave my letters--a present for me! she did what she wanted, this creature of intrigues and no personality: with "lips of fire and heart of stone." she got in me a good guardian of her barn, a good transport agent for her britishers and letts, she tangled me up in such a way that i could not report on her, she enjoyed the privileges of local soviet's protection through me,--in short all she wanted.... and here i am alone from now on,--good-by"--that's all. she left me this little note--and a bitter feeling that formerly i was not alone,--and now i am. for these sensations of lonesomeness a man should never start companionships,--whether with a woman, or a dog, or even a goldfish. the one who is alone--is alone. the one that becomes alone--feels doubly rotten.... "quidquid ages--prudenter agas, et respice finem"--and i was a fool,--here i am alone like shelly's moon, and "pardessus-le-marché"--robbed! am i not an old ass? she will laugh with her silvery laughter in somebody else's house, she will mend somebody else's socks, and sit on somebody else's lap. the "other chap from monte carlo," will be asked whether he remembers _me_. and the other chap will probably answer her, as i did. how tactless! my god! long and uninteresting life looks to me! does it only look, or did it become?... i must sleep all of this off! my sole connection with the rest of the world is my work in the princess' garden. a dull, tiresome, uninteresting work, in fact--labor. as a diversion--the corpulent cook. my god! if she would only wash oftener!... when i come home--i look out of the small window; the landscape is magnificent: about twenty yards of virgin soil with spring grass on it and the barn on the horizon. behind--the fence, over which i see the tops of the heads of passers-by. "suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis spectare laborem...." i forget how it runs further! my latin gets weak. i wish i had virgil, or even "commentarii de bello gallico." i'd be arrested and tried if i asked for them in a book store.... if only i could obtain some money, and buy a decent suit and get away,--to vladivostok, and then through america to france. it seems as though france is all. it is life. it is salvation from my miseries. in the evenings i try to arrange in shape my documents and writings after the looting. for the documents i could be well paid, here,--but i do not want that. let the russia of to-morrow see what has been done by our present leaders, and by those who gave us to the scaffold.... m. kerensky's letter to grimm--alone would make me happy if some day its contents are known.... where is lucie now? how empty my house is! the princess came out to me in the garden and asked me whether i could go to tobolsk and deliver a letter to mr. botkin there. "of course, i can, your ladyship, if i have enough money." "i don't mean that," she answered coldly, looking with disgust at the manure i was mixing, "don't worry, we will pay you. i mean whether you could arrange with your bolsheviki for a permit." "why not?" i answered, "they do not want _me_. i am not a _rich man_, nor a _nobleman_...." (i simply love to annoy her). "that will do, alexei," she said, casting at me a nasty look, "you may come for the letter at dinner time. tell the cook that you want to see me." she does not think that i am a man. she hates me. under my beard and shabby flannel shirt she sees neither my face nor my person. she has no shame before me: were i in my uniform of a gentleman-in-waiting, cleanly shaven and speaking her language, and not in the one i acquired lately, she would have buttoned her shoes, gartered her stockings, and would not have shown the bad quality of her corset cover under her wide-opened _robe-de-chambre_. if she only knew how her hired help understood her. at four i was in the kitchen. here--another interesting phase of life! the woman from moscow who claims to be a cook, does not think i am from her midst, but feels with her organic cleverness that i am an imposter. "you,--gentry! you liar! hate your face! hope the devil will get you soon!" she says,--but she isn't a bad woman, she means well, only she is not as clean as her profession demands. altogether the kitchen is a mournful place. "what is your business?" she asked, "you want to see the princess? don't lie to me!" "my business is none of your business," said i, "forget it! better tell me if i can have some beer? go on, cookie, lay it out. don't be so stingy!" the stubborn woman would not give it to me, until i took her gently around the waist and pinched her arm with all of my force,--that's the way to get cook's sympathies; it's astonishing how it works! i got some beer. then i was invited in: "come in, you scabby devil." "you will have to take this," said the princess, giving me a letter so that she wouldn't touch my hand, "and be sure they don't catch you with the letter. be careful, don't drink, alexei. it's bad to drink; when you come back we'll give you rubles." "_je né le tolère pas_," she said to the prince, "_il a l'air si commun! il nous vendrait tous, s'il etait assez intelligent_!" the prince did not answer (i guess he knows more than her highness) and looked aside, grumbling something just to calm his better half. i stared at her, just to scare this bad female, from under my eyebrows. "_vous voyez_," the princess almost cried, "_vous voyez! mon dieu! quel type horrible! j'ai peur de lui! c'est un dégénéré! il nous trahira_!" she complimented me in this manner for a while, and then started to give me some silly instructions,--how to get there, etc. finally, i left the house, went to schmelin and got his permission in a minute, and tonight--i am leaving. my house and all in it will be taken good care of,--schmelin promised to look after it. good-by, my humble hut! good-by tumen! iii. tobolsk iii. tobolsk the irtysh opened its dark blue streams for navigation not so long ago. from my place on the deck i see spots of old yellowish snow on the hills; near the banks--the fresh, innocent grass is already daring to appear on the surface. peasants are doing something on the vast plains. the very, very old story of the mythical lei! white and chaste birches, triste and flirtatious women amongst the trees, are trimming their spring fashion dresses. however this coming back to life, of the hills, and plains, and trees, this warmth in the air--does not affect the passengers. who in the devil will nowadays snivel about spring and myths? all sentiment died in russia; everything, at least, looks dead,--but the co-operative societies: they plan a large business, meaning "trusts" when they advertise for "co-operation." with the exception of the representatives of the "creamery union" (who were fat and noisy),--the rest of our fellow-travelers were gloomy and sordid; i rarely could detect a smile, and if there was a hilarious expression, it was at somebody's expense, always malicious and malignant. a boy cut his little finger and squealed for "mama" like a young pig--people smiled. an old woman passed on the deck and fell so badly that tears came into her colorless eyes--smiles became bright and gay; somebody even whistled. a stowaway was caught in the baggage room--a pale faced young chap with a forlorn expression--the crew committee started to "investigate" (just undressed him on the deck)--and people became joyful and gigglish.... is it my people? are _those_ bad creatures--our men who fought in the snows of hungary armed with fists and patriotism,--for the munitions were yet the subject of speculations; did these men cross the scorched plains of persia, sent there clad in uniforms prepared for archangel? _did they_ make efforts to save small mutilated nations? is the history of russia--these pages of blood and sacrifices--_made by them_? did russia take _from them_ pushkin, chaikovsky, mechnikov, tolstoi and the brilliant web of savants, musicians, soldiers, explorers and poets?... i am from this same bulk that centuries ago came from asia and settled here. they--and i are the same. but i can't understand them! in france, in england, in germany, i could understand the crowd better. but these men and women are so far from my conception.... and they all pay me back with the same coin: they not only misunderstand me and my kin,--but they mistrust me. i can deceive a bolshevik commissary, or the princess g.; these--with their psychology never would let me come closer. i am an intruder to their caste. before--in petrograd--we all have had this very same fear of our select caste for a newcomer, just as these have. in our midst the man who tried to break in would be caught right away. now i understand this little, mean, reptile impulse of catering to the one whom you seek, this feeling that the parvenu must have felt, this sensation of the necessity of flattering, for which one blushes in the nights, for which one can't sleep and turns endlessly in warm cushions. the parvenu! pushkin said: ... and an exchange of silent glance forever took away his chance.... it was enough for us to look at each other--and the parvenu would not come near us any more. here--instead of the poetical form of pushkin i must recollect the words of the tumen cook: "you liar! hate your face of a gentry!" isn't it a correct translation from my russian into theirs? well,--i'd rather stop my scratchings: tobolsk. "do not write too much," said a walking corpse clad in rags, seating himself near me on a soft pack of his baggage. "it is better to forget all about it. why do you do it? what _is_ the use?" his suffering face was not at all familiar to me,--so, when he asked me, "haven't we met before?"--i said no. he looked to me like one of those siberian peasants. then, under the coat of dirt, under his rags and an old orenburg shawl, i really saw something familiar. "perhaps we met," i said. "petrograd?" "yes, indeed," he bowed his old head and sighed. "i used to go very often to the french theatre. you remember 'l'aiglon?' can i chat with you a bit? this silence is simply killing me. four months of silence! don't you think, mister writer, of what a sweet, what a wonderful word 'revenge' is? if you write--do write about it! revenge for having cleaned the streets, for having been thrown out of every embassy, every legation, every consulate--whose three sons are sleeping there, on the prussian frontier--forever?--when i begged them to help me and let me go to paris only to die near my wife? revenge! just to see england--torn to pieces, france--robbed, japan--licking our feet,--to see them separately doing what we suffer combinedly. they all betrayed us, they sold us, they mock at us! we are paying for our readiness to save serbia. we are dying for it--and i do not regret it. i know that from our dead body, from our bier--poisonous flowers are growing; their fragrancy will send pestilence and destruction to our lucky allies, and ruin them, and ruin them.... if i only could help it.... if only i could live long enough to witness it." the man looked crazy to me. he evidently is one of those whose minds gave way. his eyes were sparkling flames--while his greenish face with a sluttish beard remained immovable and serious. from away--we both were talking of our village affairs. he continued: "don't you think i am talking for myself. it is for russia. i am finished anyhow. go ahead! betray me too. tell them i am counsellor of state, and a landlord, and marshal of nobility. i do not care! i am finished.... yet in my better days i had cancer. it was almost a pleasure then. don't smile, it's true. now--i need oysters, and fruit, and fine port wine, and medicine,--and i have bread, which i cannot digest, and they kick me out of every hospital.... i'm sure the cancer is nearing my heart. if i die,--i won't see my remuneration: the downfall of our traitors. friend,--what can i do to hasten it? how can i avenge russia?..." "it is a hard question to answer. i think you exaggerate a little. i am myself after a settlement, but i do not go so far. my goal is smaller. i would like to find a man in petrograd, so that i could make the rest of the world understand what he really is. he is a criminal cretin. yes, _it is_ this man, exactly. but not at this time. look around: the spring is here. don't you think the air is pacifying? the air calls to a perfect selfishness. so, if i had seen the man right here, i would have shot him of course, but i hate to think of getting into trouble now." "air! spring! are you in love, young man?" then he grew sad and silent for a while. "no, i can't see any pleasure in spring." he became sunk in his thoughts, and looked away. i love winter just because it dies every year, and gives place to a new life! and again the thin birches become green and chastely white. and i know _my birch_ is somewhere--looking for me. tobolsk! pretty town--i must admit. the high bank with green slopes is covered with churches, white buildings and gleaming gold crosses. something tranquil about tobolsk! blue, red and green roofs look shy from their cozy nests of trees. it must be very exciting to live here when all is normal. good god! i see from the deck the fine foggish veil of dust and gossips hanging over the town. they must still play "préférence" here, or "vint." in these little "centers" bridge must be unknown. i took a room in a hotel and went to the kornilov house. it was about four. i heard the noise of forks and knives, dinner time is so impossibly early in these longitudes. a man answered my ring and said i should wait outside and never ring the front door bell. he explained where the kitchen entrance was. the man, even in explaining these disagreeable things, was polite: by profession, for i immediately saw he was a former chamber-lackey, though he had a moustache and was looking meager. "wait on the street, service-man," he said, "i cannot let you in." very well,--i know these "waits" and "call later ons." they don't hurt me. i crossed the street and went down the slope. there is a post office on the corner,--and a soldier near it,--a regular lett: white eyebrows, red face and the meanest steel blue microscopic eyes deeply placed under a low forehead. he looked at me and impendingly changed the rifle from one shoulder to the other. i turned upwards and continued all along this "great liberty street." i did not want to pass near the mansion. i turned on the tuliatskaya, passed two blocks and explored where the budishchevs were. again a lett, again no eyebrows over the same piggish eyes. and again a lett. gracious! one more in here--and the whole letvia must be in tobolsk! when i knew the city well enough i turned back to kornilov's. the same chamber-lackey opened the rear door almost killing me with the smell of cabbage. "dr. botkin is not in," he said, when i explained what i wanted, "sit down, service-man. take it"--he gave me a cigarette with a gold crescent on it--the kind they served at the palace. i looked at the crescent and then at the man. in one glance he got i was not "service-man," but he did not show his discovery,--only got up and continued talking. "the doctor is very busy right now. he was asked across the street twice today. have you come from russia? demobilized?" "yes, quite demobilized," i answered. "i must see mr. botkin right now, so won't you please tell him about me as soon as he returns. don't worry about the kitchen--i cannot stay here: i'd rather sit outside." he showed me through the dining room into the front hall. from there i could see the mansion quite well. a little square in front of it was fenced in, but not very high. on the front stairs i noticed two women and a boy, in whom, notwithstanding his torn-out shoes and unhappy looks, i recognized the unfortunate heir to the russian throne. someone called him in--and he went slowly into the house. two reds passed near the women smoking pipes and dragging the rifles by their bayonettes. they both looked piercingly at the women and exchanged a few words with each other. the women slowly moved toward the house. their life must be a real torture within this fence! a man of medium height passed from the mansion and crossed the street. he entered the kornilov house, and after short conversation with the chamber-lackey,-- "did you wish to speak to me?" he asked,--i am dr. botkin." "yes, sir." "now,--what is it?" "i come from tumen, dr. botkin. i have brought you a letter from your friends." a grimace passed over his face, and he stared at me with suspicion. "tumen? who are you?" "i hardly think my name would tell you anything, doctor. here is the letter." he stopped my movement: "please, please, not here. let's go in. don't be so sure of this place." we entered the dining room, and he took the letter and opened the envelope. after reading--there were no more than two pages--he said: "no answer. do you know the contents?" "i don't. but i can guess." "oh! is that so?" all of this commenced to irritate me. i shrugged my shoulders. "very well, very well," the doctor said, "we must not be offended. you know what times we live in. won't you sit down, please?" the doctor was very nervous: rubbed his hands, looked around and showed other signs of impatience. finally he expressed what was in his mind. "can't the princess understand how risky these writings are for us?" "just as risky as for the authors and bearers," i replied feeling sorry for the lady who meant well. "if there is no answer i don't think i'll return to tumen. i have nothing to do there. i see all these affairs are managed in the same way, as we managed them in our country. i am through. i thought we had changed. i'll attend to other things." "please," he said looking at me with amazement, "don't misunderstand me. you see,"--he tried to invent something, or say something,--"all is very dangerous...." we were interrupted by a movement on the street. a crowd of soldiers (for i cannot call it a company, or a detachment,--just a crowd of man-haters clad in uniform) passed, and made a demonstration against the mansion. a few stones and pieces of wood flew onto the mansion's roof, where they landed and rolled down with a rattling noise, scaring the inhabitants. a frightened face looked out of the window--and hid immediately. "the hooligans!" said botkin. "every god's day the same, every god's day!" with laughter and whistles the crowd went down the great liberty street. all started suddenly and just as quickly ended; the street became calm again. botkin turned to me and continued: "perhaps i was too hasty about this 'no answer.' i should've said it otherwise. i think it is of _no use_ to attempt to do anything, that's the idea. if any plan will be successful,--it will not be this," he showed the letter, "though it is appreciated, trust me when i say it! we are confronted with other interests, we happen to be in somebody's game." he wanted to add something,--but stopped. "perhaps our misery was seen abroad through this dead screen of general selfishness! believe me, sir, any attempt is hopeless. our effort only spoils, or might spoil, more cleverly prearranged plans. now--if you wish me to be frank, i personally don't believe in what i say to you. i think the song is sung...." "very well, if i happen to communicate, i'll say so." an old lady passed the room and searchingly gazed at me. then a man, tall and thin came in, got a drink of water and left. we both kept silent. an atmosphere of distrust reigned for a while. i got up. "wait a while," botkin said, "i still would like to know whom i have the pleasure of speaking to?" "syvorotka is my name. i'll stay here in the hotel for a while." he looked at me without any confidence. "as you please," he said, "i cannot force you to take the mask off. good-by." we shook hands,--and i left the kornilov's house. here i am in the hotel. dirty hole--that's it. no linen. a mattress covered with spots. rotten humor. botkin fears that the efforts might compromise those who are around the mansion. he fears even those who are in exile. he fears everything. but--not for himself. i think he is an honest man. there is nothing to do here--with these scared people. suspicious, having lost faith in each other, and jealous! i must try to approach them against their will,--perhaps i can do something better than in tumen. it is evident that the tragedy develops here. i would not be surprised to know that lucie is somewhere around. with my pass from the tumen soviet and a very sure feeling of a perfect disguise, i came yesterday to the local scoundrels,--the "high commission of investigations" as they call this filthy, impossible place where they meet. it used to be the ecclesiastical school in other days. i had quite a time penetrating these regions guarded by the reds. the man to whom i was recommended was an elderly kind-faced fellow. all he was saying to me was virtually addressed to the crowd of reds in the room; as for the room, i think it used to be in former times the professors' room. "yes, yes,--your credentials are perfect. comrade schmelin,--of course i know him! you have no such troubles in tumen as we have here. but--all must be done. and for the sake of the revolution and the proletariat--we are here, and will do our duty." to show how much power he had, he gave some orders to the reds. they would come near him to take these orders, stand still as they were standing only a few months ago before an officer, and then turn in the brusque manner of soldiers. the kind faced man--with his sly jewish features and bulgy big eyes, did not ask me who i was, how i was, and why i wanted the position of an "advising commissary" with the detachment. he looked at me, and smiled,--read the letter i presented,--and, seeing on my face an admiration for his splendor, accepted me. my god, how alike these people-in-power are! i remember, in my early days, the count witte, a man with heavy, depressing looks. he liked this move of a man-of-power. i recollect mr. kokovtzev who liked so much to see admiration on his visitor's face.... i see this little insignificant and blunt kerensky, that fished for worship.... and here,--this "tovarishch" nachman--sitting in his chair and ruling--had the same identical signs of self-respect, self-adoration, and independence. and--with all of them--i would, without any effort, just by instinct, get on their feeble side, change the whole expression of my face,--even think like them, and love them,--and win. the instinct of accommodation is a great thing,--and, it seems to me i possess it in sufficient volume. so--accepted in the ranks of those that go wherever they wish, that do whatever their left foot feels like doing, those that continue to remodel the country, those that are so free in every action--i sat near the powerful man,--comrade nachman--as equal to equal. but--what i really could not conceive,--was the range of his duties; he was judge, and governor, and military commander, and lawyer, and coroner, and administrator of the city, and the notary public--all that used to be connected with business--was his concern.... they could not do it in the olden days; they had to have a specially trained man for every branch before,--and now! "how perfectly you perform all of these different duties," i said. i am a jailer; i guess the first in our family. together with comrade adolf pashinsky,--a pole from the dreadnaught "andrey pervozvanny,"--i am walking on the great liberty street, and inside of the fence, watching the prisoners in the mansion, and watching to see that _supreme justice_--the will of the people--be done. my companion--is a muscular man of thirty, without front teeth; his thin lips are always curved in a bad smile; his brain is such that he cannot think and speak of anything that would not be vulgar and vicious. the very first night we came to change sentinels--i felt embarrassed, as i do not know the ritual; but--there is nothing military about these things nowadays, all is abolished. the soldiers come to change sentinels, talk freely, laugh loudly. instead of military traditions--like parole, pass-words, exchange of salutes, etc., etc.,--they ask: "ah, howdy! what are "they" (meaning the prisoners) doing? anything to look at? all right--now you go, we'll stay." they have, however, a tradition. when the changed jailors are assembled near the entrance,--they start to knock on the rain pipes of the mansion with their rifles, to throw sand and small stones into the windows of the heir and the princesses. when they think enough frightening has been done, they start to sing something hideous and pornographic. "she went to the ma-a-rket, bought a bell as a locket...." begins a thin trembling voice very calmly and even bashfully, as if nothing bad will come out of this quiet song. and then, suddenly, a chorus of twelve big fat swine would belch the notorious refrain: "ah, you brunette of mine, o-oh, curly girl of mine...." and so forth, with the licentious words of this song accompanying it with whistles and jazzing with bayonettes, field-pans and general noise. i tried to analyze all of this. why? why is there such a hatred for these,--this poor man, these five women and a boy? such unnecessary torture of people of the past,--nothing but a man who awaits the end of his tragedy, nothing but a frail boy, nothing but five trembling ladies. and the picture of the old woman that broke her hip on the deck--and provoked laughter, comes to me. the second day of my occupation,--it was about eleven when the sentinels were changed and the night was warm and bluish, the demonstration, perhaps in my honor, was exceptionally noisy and obscene. "how do you like it?" asked pashinsky gloriously, looking at me and showing, instead of teeth, a burned-out cemetery in his mouth. "don't they get enough? they just went to bed--and here is the music." "fine!" i answered. "why don't we shoot? it makes more noise and frightens much more." "we used to do so," he said with regret, "but all these burjoois, and the popes, and the whole carrion of tobolsk did not like it. so we have decided for the moment not to. nobody can forbid singing. we are free. the air belongs to the soviet government." then he continued: "you should have seen those little ones"--he winked his eyes--"they got scared to death the first time we sang the "parson's daughter" right near their windows! and i'll tell you...." he whispered something in my ear. i decided to start with him when it comes to rid the world of some of these reds. "good!" i said with extreme pleasure and tapping him on the shoulder, "where are their rooms?" "right where the white curtain hangs ... you see ... one ... two ... three ... fourth window on the second floor. they all are there in one room, they are never alone lately. they used to be on the first floor. that--was a holiday for us boys. everything seen,--and we would...." the smile on his face stretched from ear to ear. "but," he continued,--"again the popes intervened. i hope they'll croak soon. and kobylinsky consented. he is with us, of course,--but we _must_ get rid of him." "well, you boys have good times here," (i said dreamily) "i am glad i came. it's great! all these people had enough of our blood. now--the people rule themselves! great life!" "you bet! stay with us longer and you'll see better things...." next day,--it was about four,--pashinsky, who sticks near me thinking i am his best friend and admirer, punched me with his elbow and said: "look, look. who is coming." the emperor, stooping and walking with tottering steps, was passing from the garden into the house. dr. botkin was with him. the emperor's hands were clasped behind him, his eyes were staring downwards. an old, soiled soldier's blouse of khaki flannel was hanging on his spare, bowed, bony body. he was walking slowly, evidently trying to appear indifferent and calm. i had not seen him for a year and a half or even more. there was more gray in his whiskers,--and to me, at this moment he never seemed to so strikingly resemble his more fortunate english cousin. they passed very near us. pashinsky loudly yawned and stretched right in the emperor's face, who looked at him blankly; but under a dignified and elaborate calm--i detected a spark of wounded majesty. then he looked at me,--evidently seeing in me nothing but a new jailer,--sighed, and turned his suffering face away. dr. botkin looked at me, too; he recognized me with a start. "ever see the bloodsucker before? did you see how i treat him?" "never saw him. where in the hell could i?... as for you--you certainly are some boy!" i was so near to the emperor that for a moment i feared he could recognize me. but he did not, for he glanced twice at me and--passed by. when they were on the stairs, botkin said something to him, and the emperor turned around, his eyes resting for a moment on my figure. i brought up my hand,--so, that for the emperor--it was a salute; for pashinsky--a mosquito which i killed on my forehead. both emperor and botkin immediately turned away and entered the mansion. "you watch him closer, syva," pashinsky said, "i think we'll take him away for good pretty soon." today,--during my watch hours i had time to make observations, especially, when the evening came and the night began. in the house silent figures were walking; these delicate shadows of yesterday; later--princess tatiana sat near the window with a book. ... (_line illegible_).... has not changed much. from time to time she would stop turning the pages,--and look--without expression, without moving--down at pashinsky and me, and at the quiet city, at clear skies, at the distant golden crosses shining under the moon. there was something natural,--and yet not ordinary, in this dark figure behind the curtain. did she think of our black ingratitude, she who did so much for the wounded soldiers and for the families of those killed? did she think of the capricious fate, which played with her young life so nastily? did she pray--crushed, humble, and lost? did she cry for the past, or dream of the future?... or, perhaps, in her mind was the present,--and behind those noble eyebrows, were thoughts and plans to fight still.... perhaps there was hope? this dark figure and the other frightened silhouettes of the endangered ladies in the mansion, surrounded by their jailers, keep me turning from side to side each night. i see crooked smiles full of rotting teeth; i see perspiring low foreheads and piercing oily eyes; and i know that new russia has no compassion. nachman invited me to a dinner. later dutzman came and brought a smirking girl with him. nothing very interesting. a girl. she sang gypsy songs accompanied by a guitar. good voice--and bad manners. we had champagne, caviar and cigars,--_real uppman_. "eh," he said, "after all--this life _is_ good! much better even than when i was secretary of the 'courier of moscow.' of course, it is transitory.... won't you take some more, please?... and we all will be out. perhaps those of us who will not, by that time, hang, will have already some money put aside. not i--i am a spender. i can't keep this money." he was happy and therefore talkative and sincere. he continued.... "you ask how we get this money? easily, comrad, very easily, indeed. besides what we receive from petrograd, we have other incomes. for instance, here, take this case of the emperor. why do you think we intend to send him to ekaterinburg? why should we send him towards the approaching czechs?" "everything has been taken by them; they threaten to crush us if the allies will assist them, even in the slightest way. still we send. it is a question of two hundred thousand rubles,--but nobody knows that i, nachman, a scabby jew, got about fifty thousand out of them. now another thing: who got the pay for the heavy trucks, and for the benzine, and for the tents, and for the ... oh, many other things!... who got it? this very nachman, yes, comrad ... have some more, please, it's good!..." "quod forti placuit legis habet valorem." sailor khokhriakov--the special envoy of the sovnarkom--and his band. here is the real danger, but only in case colonel kobylinsky and his detachment of special destination would consent to join the soviets. they all hesitate, not the colonel, however. the meeting of the peoples' commissaries from petrograd (khokhriakov) and kaganitsky (from ural, i guess) is certainly worthy of description. i went there, leaving for that reason my mansion duties--(simply by saying to pashinsky "tell them i am not coming to the mansion as i have to attend the meeting"); nowadays military service is really a pleasure. we all were sitting in the recreation room, about sixty or seventy of us in all. khokhriakov presided. his neck is like a bull's, but rougher--and red. he started the meeting by a thunderous "shut up, you over there!" and "somebody open the window; who in hell is smoking such ... tobacco (i omit the adjective, though correct and strikingly expressive, but profane)?" the noise stopped under this voice, the windows were thrown open, and our peoples' commissary began: "comrades,--before us are three questions; st--whether to release the prisoners and give them to the tobolsk people under the auspices of comrade kobylinsky and his men, or d--whether to try the prisoners right here by the people's tribunal, or d--to comply with some other requests--which i have the authority to propose--to send the prisoners to a ural city. let us proceed with the first question. i put this proposition to the ballot in this way: the tobolians, and amongst them the popes, the monarchists, all of the counter-revolutionary trash do not want the peoples' rule. so they say that the nikolai family must be given to the constituent assembly. now, what in the hell of hells, do they mean by this? what _is_ a constituant assembly? isn't it a crowd of the same enemies of the people? isn't this 'parliament' against our will? shall we, proletarians, consider the question of a constituent assembly? would it not be an act of counter-revolution? come out here, right before me, the one that will dare to propose such a thing," and the ten pound wooly fist of the sailor was lifted and held for moments in the filthy air of the recreation room. this rhetorical question, in fact, was not necessary, as we all, hearing the word "proletariat" in the middle of khokhriakov's speech had already started to make a noise and to applaud, the cheers densely hung in the room,--and even before he said, "i knew you are good proletarians and would drown this proposition, god damn you,--carried,"--the fate of this weak and impossible thing at that time, the hope for a constituent assembly,--was told. in no way would it do. "now comrades,"--khokhriakov continued after a short confidential chat with the curly, blond, small-faced and long-eared kaganitsky,--"comes the next proposition. i warn you, however; no matter how tempting this proposition is, do not make any harsh decision. we know your zeal in petrograd--that's why we all would want you to say your word, but ... if i see that someone is too zealous, i'd rather keep silent if i were he. can we try these bloodsuckers here?" an impossible noise began after his words. "try?"--"why? kill them all, that's all." "kill the czar,"--"kill the brat." "let them go." "to hell with all of them." "let's try them, of course." "give the women to the people." "put their guts out," etc., etc.... "shut up you all," shouted khokhriakov, "let me count the votes. i see you cannot decide, though you _all_ don't want the trial _here!_ is that so? all right, as you wish, the will of people must prevail. what? who said it is _not_ so? come out you counter-revolutionary, you monarchist, you royal carrion,--come out and say it to _my face_, don't hide, you...." nobody came out. this categorical imperative could surpass the kant's.... kaganitzky's face, smiling, and with moving flappy ears, was in accord with this understanding, and when khokhriakov barked his--"carried," he bowed his head. the audience was then silenced. "now, comrades, comes the next proposition,--to send the prisoners away,--to the ural city, probably ekaterinburg. comrade kaganitzky is here. he says, they will be treated _very well_ (laughter) and they _will not be in danger_ of the czecks, and popes, and monarchists. the comrades of the detachment and comrade kobylinsky--agreed. how do you like _this_? say, _who_ is against it? come out!" free people in a free country--consented. after which consent a commission under the chairmanship of kaganitzky was appointed to elaborate particulars. the detachment of special destination was thus dissolved and comrade kobylinsky was allowed to proceed to petrograd. with a headache from the noise and smoke i left the court-room and went out in the city square to breathe a little fresh air. children were playing with sand and toys. children of the new russia! russia of free speech, free thoughts, free ways! god, what will grow out of _you_?... i wanted to pet one of them, a little thing with gray eyes, but frightened to death of a "red"--the child yelled and ran; from a distance it shook at me a little trembling fist. so--it is not so bad. while in the garden--the court room probably was emptied, as few shots were fired behind me,--on the hill, and shortly after, a gala-demonstration started--with a rattling of stones on the roof of the mansion, whistles, songs and a general delirium of the uncontrolled and wicked _mob_ ... feeling the bridles of the high commissaries, unable to do something to them, understanding the guidance under a sauce of self government, the _mob_ was avenging itself on the inhabitants of the mansion. i wonder where lucie is now? something heavy and depressing is in my mind this last time; some fog in my thoughts; i think i am losing my standing of a gentleman, dealing with all of these people. my language has become vulgar; my manners, also. i begin.... (_few lines scratched out_) ... this morning pashinsky repeated that the em. will be taken to ekaterinburg with the empress and the heir. the daughters will stay here for a while. "believe me, we'll have a good time," he said, offensively breathing in my face. i stood near the gates of the fence when dr. botkin passed. nobody was near me, pashinsky having gone for a drink of water into the quarters. i said without turning my head: "decision taken to send only the em. and empress and the heir. daughters will stay here." dr. botkin did not stop. then, as guard, i did not let him in, and as if i were examining him (that was my right) i said, "please warn the ladies, and tell the emperor that the commissary did not act badly; i guess there is no danger in his going away. i fear for the ladies only." "you don't mean it! they double-crossed us! they assured us all would go. the scoundrels! now please let me go,--and thank you, you strange man." i let him go. pashinsky appeared and looked at me. "are you getting tired of this muzzle, too? isn't he a ...?" "yes," i said, "i must watch him closer now. i think we had better watch him. you stay on the other side, and i'll be here near the windows. "all right," he said. "then we can meet here. i'm going to walk from the garden to the fence, and you stay right here. what is your suspicion?" "nothing in particular," i answered.... "just the ordinary one; i don't like him. that's all." so we walked the way he proposed. every time he would be near the garden, he would cough in such a noisy and sardonic way that the heir, who was sitting with derevenko on the bench would turn his long, pensive face, and his old sailor guardian would look with hatred on the rascal. when pashinsky was away, the window behind me opened very cautiously and a lady's voice said to me, "don't turn. is it true they are to take father away? now, i know you are a gentleman. what would you advise us to do? i think we are all lost." pashinsky started to come back; then a lett passed, so the voice stopped. pashinsky came near me and said, "the heir never cries when i tease him. believe me, he is a hard kid. what do you think if i scare him more?" "yes," i said, "a stubborn child." "i must try again," and he walked away. the window again gave way. "please," the same voice said, "can't you give any advice to us? we are so frightened! father is praying; mother's very ill; we are all alone." "i'll write you," i said, (without moving my lips), "what i think and bring it back." "thank you." i went to pashinsky, whose teasing was becoming hideous and rough. he said to the heir that they had decided to shoot the whole family. tears were on the child's face but he kept on bravely; he could not go away--pashinsky was at the gate. i wished: "just a day or two,--and i will be able to do something. oh, god! send something to stop it right now." i guess that my prayer was heard. the tutor's face,--one of those broad russian faces,--gradually grew purple and then grey. slowly, and hypnotising pashinsky, he approached the scamp, took him by the collar and pulled him towards the fence. then, losing his breath, derevenko said, "leave the boy alone, you scoundrel! you,--you call yourself a russian sailor? you? have this...." and the slap on pashinsky's face sounded to me like chopin's first nocturne. what divine music! i expected a clash. but no! the rifle fell out of pashinsky's hands and, silent and tamed, with half-closed eyes, he was waiting for another smash. then derevenko saw me and thought i was going to shoot him, but i made no such move. i slipped away and went innocently towards the big gate. so, when pashinsky came to me--he was sure i had seen nothing, and when i asked how the teasing was going on, he answered: "oh, i let this trash go. it annoys me." the left side of his face was inflamed and tears were frozen on his eyes. it was a good one, by god! after this incident i turned to the quarters "for a drink of water" and wrote a little note that "nothing bad could happen to the princesses when they were alone" and that, "i shall exert all in my power to prevent any disagreeable happenings." i wrote that i knew some people were working to save them. my letter, i thought, would brace them up and would give them an idea that there was, amongst these beasts--one, that would not be an enemy. in case of a struggle this idea would keep them from losing hope and their power of resistance. then i added that i could be found in the hotel, and that dr. botkin knew me. contemplating my scratchings, i went over to the window; somebody was patiently waiting and looking around, for the voice said: "i am so glad derevenko slapped this awful man." "i am too, your highness. now--there is a letter. i'll put it on the bayonette and stay still; you take it." pashinsky passed near me talking with another red. he felt badly i am sure,--he did not look at me. i rolled the piece of paper, stuck it on the edge of the sharp bayonette and putting the rifle on my shoulder, directed it towards the window. i felt when it was taken. then i joined my fellow jailers. today i saw a man who resembled strikingly the tumen russian of the profane language. and it reminded me very much of the ls., of the english officer, of the fellow with dark eyeglasses--and of lucie. i felt abandoned again. so i went to the church, but then turned back: i cannot go in, for it might spoil my reputation of a red. however, i stood for a bit near the doors and listened to the singers, and then decided to go to the catholic church, for only russian reds must not pray; polish reds happen to have this privilege. there is no difference in fact. i wanted to be closer to something elevated. the lights were so quiet and peaceful looking in the dark church through high-colored windows. there were not many people in their church, so i could concentrate. but instead of a christian quiet, i got something else. i guess the idea came to me when i thought that pashinsky was a pole. i began to think that i could not do very much here,--but still something. they will try to annoy the princesses, and i must protect them. thus--my staying here will be justified. if pashinsky or the letts should do something that would be bad, i'll kill them,--or some of them. when i thought of it, i looked at the holy faces; the sun came out of the white clouds, the rays fell on the walls,--and the faces smiled at me. "yes," i thought, "if my decision is not agreeable,--the sun will hide behind the clouds again. i'll wait for five minutes"--the sun did not hide,--so--this was accepted. then i tried to figure how to do it, and found a way. i'll get pashinsky at the first attempt. my god, what nonsense i think of!... schtolz. jackson. vieren. the man with the wounded leg. kitser. dutzman. khokhriakov. fost. pashinsky. kart. fedor. laksman. vassiliev (son). kobylinsky. perkel. niestadt. cymes. leibner. vert. wang-lee. frenkel. the fat kister. vygardt.... (_a few lines scratched out_) the "kitai" was at the pier when we--the detachment of twelve, guarding a silent man and a hysterical woman--came there under the cover of night; it was raining, though the air was warm. the irtysh stood fragrant with this odor of a big, noble river. the waters--in which sank yermak under his heavy corselet--the same waters were carrying toward the unknown--the imperial family. though their departure was supposed to be made in secrecy, there was a crowd of people on the pier--we tried to chase them away, but they stood there. an ascetic figure was standing on the next pier, lit only by a few lanterns. this black figure lifted a cross and blessed the emperor, who tenderly released his hand from the spasmatic grip of his terrified wife and made the sign of the cross. "quit that, reverend scoundrel," i heard khokhriakov's voice. "who asked _you_ to come?" the priest answered: "thou knowest not what thou art committing." "ah, shut up! to hell with your citations, you old idiot! "take him down over there. isn't there anyone to choke him?" continued khokhriakov bending over the hand-rails. "this ass is propagating,--don't you see, comrades?" no one, however, moved. this crowd around the bishop all answered. their answer,--a blunt roaring,--sounded like distant thunder and there was such a frightening unity in this dull noise,--that i had the shivers. "you cowards!" bellowed the sailor, "i'll have to come back and finish with the pope myself! it will not be the first one, anyhow. it's too late now! be damned you all! go ahead!" the gangplanks dropped. the steamer started to move. the priest stood still blessing her passengers,--the emperor, the empress, the bolsheviki,--the crew,--all, all of them. and, wet under the rain, this figure vested in black, with a shiny cross lifted high in the air, will for a long time remain in my memory. the mansion was black; not a light in the windows. the four girls, left alone in this nest of rattlesnakes,--were probably sitting in some far distant corner,--crying, trembling, praying,--and waiting for the worst, which they feared was coming. to kill a man? nothing more agreeable if it is the right one,--i should say! and in such country where the trial is impossible. i did not know i ever could,--but... pashinsky started soon after the emperor was taken. he and fost asked me for a conference behind the quarters, when we were waiting to change the watchmen. both had a confidential expression on their faces. "you see here, syva,--what is planned. you and fost stay under the windows, and go around, just as you please. i'll go upstairs, and listen. if there is no one around i'll call you up. i know that they are all alone." i consented, and when they left i wrote a note: "_si, se soir, quelcun tâche de forcer l'entrée de votre chambre, je vous implore de rester calme et sûre que je suis avec vous et vos soeurs à vous protéger. ne craignez rien, né criez pas_!" i wrote it in french in order to assure them of the faith in me--and prove my identity--and signed my real name. it looked funny to me; i think now i am syvorotka,--honestly syvorotka, formerly of the th of hussars! i went out and looked around. the pole and the lett were talking and gazing from time to time at the upper windows. then the pole approached: "how much would you take from me not to go up at all, and let me do it alone?" and then, becoming sweet and fawning--. "you see, syva," he said, "fost consented. why shouldn't you? i'll give you just as much." "did you consent, fost?" i asked. "yes," said the lett, digging in his short nose, "i did. i have grown-up daughters at home. i cannot. besides he gives me money, so why shouldn't i? i will stay in the corridor and won't let anybody come in, on this side of the house. i know nothing of your business. go on, have your pleasure." "no, pashinsky," i said, "that will not do. i must be with you. i have to protect you besides, you idiot; fost can only see what is in the house, but supposing someone comes from down here? you think they will forget such an outrage to the soviets? i will be with you somewhere behind, and when you call me i will come out. hope you won't forget me." pashinsky thought over my proposition for a second,--thinking was a strenuous effort for him. his obscene face wore a suffering and preoccupied expression; then he said: "i think you are right. we'll let fost stay and watch the inner doors, and you and i will be alone in this side of the house. then the men on the streets can't catch us, and we will be protected from the inside too...." then he had some idea. a bad one, i am sure! "all right, that's a good way, anyhow. now i am going to take a bath,--i need it. if somebody asks for me, say so." the lett and i remained. i stood for half an hour near my window,--then it opened. i fixed the note on the bayonette and it went to its destination. after, a voice said: "mister * * *, we are afraid! what can we do? do you think that you can protect us? please tell the truth, don't try to console us." "i am sure, your highness," i said, "please don't worry." the voice continued: "they took out the keys from the doors. we cannot even lock ourselves in, or hide. can't you tell this to the budishchev's--perhaps they can do something?" "you shouldn't try to hide, and there is no use to tell it to anybody, believe me. be in the room on the second floor and wait there. i will be on the watch as i said." --"you know better perhaps,--we believe you." with a "thank you so much" and "we are so frightened!" repeated with despair and horror, the window closed. i had to invent something, and invent quickly, for i had no plan as yet. the browning was with me but i reserved it for the last chance, and i decided to keep it loaded to finish some of the reds--and myself--if it should come to an open fight. with such thoughts i was desperately rambling within the fence. my vague plan was to come right after pashinsky and knock him on the head with something heavy,--then i rejected this project: the scoundrel could yell and i would be discovered. i came to the quarters and looked around. it was the office of tanaevsky before occupied by us. in the classic disorder, with an inch of cigarette butts and dust on the floor, among the remnants of the governor's house stored here, i saw a gold metallic rope cord which in better times had been used to support the heavy drapery of the reception room. the idea of a silent strangulation came into my head with the picture of jacolliot's thugs. i cut the tassel away and put it under somebody's pillow, and hid the rope in my bosom. at seven pashinsky finally came back, surprisingly clean, shaven, and smelling of some cheap and penetrating perfume. he was slightly drunk. when clean,--he looked to me a thousand times worse. neither pashinsky, nor i, could wait until the night came. he was continually repeating what i should do, and continually asking me whether i thought everything was safe. finally night arrived. at nine the lights in the mansion were put out--all but in one window. i knew how hearts were beating there: mine was echoing. --"i am going, syva," pashinsky whispered. "i can't wait any longer--all is burning inside of me." he put his rifle behind the rain-pipe, straightened his belt, and started towards the entrance door. the door of the mansion squeaked and swallowed him, and before i heard him walking up the stairs i followed him. all was dark inside, only a feeble light from the court penetrated through the windows. we passed the corridor, then a large room, then a small room. here pashinsky stopped--and i heard his heavy breathing. then he threw open the door. i saw mattresses on the floor and in a far corner pale, trembling figures, glued together by fear. pashinsky hesitated for a moment--to pick out the one he wanted--and then with an outcry, suddenly rushed to this mass of helpless panic-stricken bodies, and a struggle between a delirious man, feebled by desire, and these ladies, began. i jumped on him from behind; preoccupied, he did not feel when i put the rope around his neck so that the collar wouldn't be in my way, tightened my weapon in a deadlock and dragged him away--almost before his carnal touch contaminated the princesses--into the next room, and shut the doors. he was making some efforts to free himself, hitting my knees with his heels, and growling from rage; then he bit me in the hand. but in a minute i was already firmly sitting on his back, with my knees on his awkwardly turned arms, twisting the rope with all of the strength i had. "please, don't kill him," i heard a sobbing whispering voice say, and other voices, too, repeated the "don't kill." this kerensky idea made me quite angry and i said as calmly as i could under the circumstances: "with all of my reverence for your order, your highnesses, i refuse to obey. please shut the doors and don't wake up the others,--i have my own accounts to settle." and when the doors closed, i kept tightening and tightening the rope until his head turned and his tongue,--rough and dry,--came way out and was touching my hands, and his face became hot and wet. he made a few convulsive movements--and became still. when his head fell with a dull sound on the floor, i took him out under cover of the night, and threw his body into the well. i walked out onto tuliatskaya street and chatted for a while with leibner and vert. i was changed and nobody asked me where my friend pashinsky was. comrade fost was shot yesterday at nine in the morning for murder. it was a glorious inspiration to put the tassel under _his_ pillow. in the afternoon we buried pashinsky. i gave my share for a wreath with red ribbons and the inscription "to him who fell for proletariat--long live the international," and was present at the funeral. dutzman made a speech; a very pathetic one. in the evening the sentinels were doubled. there are lights in every room now. there was a light in every corridor. the ladies--are,--for the moment being, out of immediate danger. the soviet decided to transport all to ekaterinburg,--as soon as a steamer will be available. today nachman called on me. he took me to the square and when we were sitting on a bench, he said, that "it was well done" ("that's all right, sir, perfectly all right"), but if he were in my place he would go away. "it's easy," he continued,--"supposing i give you a good letter of recommendation to my people in ekaterinburg? the interesting part of all of this,--believe me, has started only. don't fear me,--this scabby jew, this very nachman,--will not betray." i thought it over and said: "i would do so, if i only could leave some trace here. a friend may ask for me here, and i would be sore if she could not find me,--if she only cares." "oh, she will," he laughed, "she will. of course, i am not posted in your personal affairs, but--a lady always _can find_ one, _if_ she cares. ha-ha-ha! youth is always youth! but you better go without leaving traces...." i continued: "nachman, there is another thing. here is an old man,--a friend of mine,--he is very sick. his days are numbered, and i feel very sorry for him. if i go away all will be lost for this old chap; he has nobody in this world. could you use your power and place him in a hospital? i will give you money, of course,--i have some." nachman sighed: "this is so out of time! nowadays love and charity are much more dangerous than murders and thefts." then after a pause, he continued; "very well, friend, i will take care of your man. hand me the money." then he gave me a letter to his friends in ekaterinburg (it was ready in his pocket) and we parted. i am free, happy, independent, with a good standing amongst the present russians. and if only _she_ could be near me ... but there is no perfect happiness on this strangest of planets of ours. (_pages missing_) ... heavy trucks, and other military paraphernalia. some of the men on them surely are not russians, letts, or germans, or ... (_nine lines scratched out_) ... i don't know whether it was nachman's talk or the truth. anyhow i am going away,--again alone,--alone forever. damn life! i cannot look backwards--i feel sorry for my past; the present--is sufficiently bad not to speak of it; the future--is just as dark--as this night. not a star, not a single star. the old man was taken to the people's hospital this afternoon. he thanked me. ... starting rumors of the killing of the whole family, and always emphasizing that this tragedy--was the supreme penalty brought to the altar by the emperor. nachman, and others, who--it seems to me, know what they are talking about, foresee many chances; the best of them, is of course the fact, that some ... (_few lines scratched out_) ... are in this enterprise, and therefore it might be crowned with success. i really do not know what to think. only one point is clear: i cannot believe that our sufferings, the sufferings of the _whole country_, are unknown beyond our frontiers. they must be known; the tears shed cannot during so long a time fall on stones,--even stones get wet. if they are not known,--these sufferings,--if our hands stretched for help are not seen, if we are condemned just for the only fact that we are russians,--and if ... (_a page missing_) ... knocked at the door. i hardly had time to say "enter," when something enveloped in a thick brown overcoat rolled in, jumped at me and in a second covered all of my face with hot kisses. i answered them very attentively. then i noticed that the amiable creature was lucie. "no, you don't hate me! no, you don't hate me! i know it! i knew it!..." "lucie," i said, "before we proceed, please let me put some of these papers in my pockets." "alex! don't remind me of that! how _did_ you dare to write such stories about me? you can't blame me, can you?" "perhaps i don't--for some pages you destroyed. how about the chart, and about the?..." she covered my mouth with her hands. "if we recollect everything it will be endless. and besides i don't think i took anything from you. let's forget! i'll forgive you, if you promise me not to write nasty stories about your lucie." i promised, and consented, of course. how can i do otherwise? no use! i put her near me, poured her some tea and offered her the cookies. for a time we looked at each other. she certainly looked like a peasant girl! "how do you like this costume?" she said. "next bal masqué i certainly will wear this kind, you may be sure. of course all of this, and that must be chiffon, and silk, and...." a woman cannot get on without these chats. on the other hand--woman speaks to the man about it with a concealed contempt: what does _a man_ understand? she does not get angry when she sees that the man does not listen; he only _looks_. "now,"--she said, gazing around with a dear grimace,--"again in your element, in dirt? what shall i do with you, alex? i can't stand it!" "dirt is my protection, dear. why did you leave? don't run away any more." "we will see about it. but first--what are you doing here? are you following me? don't you think i saw you here? why do you risk your life? how did you think of leaving tumen? how is your cook?" "do _your_ questions give _me_ the same right of investigation? i'll answer you, anyhow. i've decided to lay down my cards, lucie. i came here on business. i broke all ties. nobody wants me. i am investigating at my own expense, at my own risk, out of curiosity only. but i am free. don't you need me? don't you need a friend? can't we live without deceiving each other, without robbing,--eh? i came here, lucie,--and behind all of my intentions was one thing only: i hoped to find you, and tell you how much i love you. i knew you had to be near the center, and the center is, at least now--here. don't lie to me, bad girl, i know what i am talking about. now--when i think we again will part--i have chills; especially when i think of your manner of going away: pinning a "good-by" to the cushion. please, let us be together!" "you should not tempt me, alex. i feel just as you do, only--i don't think i can even dream of our being together--right now, i mean. what will be after--we'll see." "cannot you arrange something for me so that i could be with you in your business? did not you ask me before to do so? now--i come to you." "it's true, i did. things have changed. can you believe me when i swear i am telling the truth? yes? you'll try? well, i wanted you in petrograd--you fascinated me; that was all,--and if then, after being with us, you had come to know too much and something had happened to you, i would, of course, have been sorry,--but,--how shall i say it? not too much. in tumen,--you know i came to syvorotka with certain purposes: you described them well in your diary, so well that i had to put my censorship on them,--i did not suspect syvorotka was--you...." i made an impatient movement. "again your fairy tale?" "alex!" she exclaimed, "i conjure you to believe me! can't you see? get me to tell you the truth when i am so happy as now! i could not lie to you! so that's how i came to tumen. you were there, and you know what happened. now--don't laugh at me,--i understand that you risked too much,--and i ran away, because i saw--i loved you. i'd die if i knew something had happened to you on account of me. i told them that you had gone to kazan, or nijni, that you had turned into a real bolshevik. they think you are out. for them--you are lost. and they must not see you here." "who are 'they'? and how about _you_ knowing too much?" i inquired. "your mysteries don't sound grave anyhow." "alex,--i'll be angry! again you ask silly things." so i kissed her and asked how stanley was and the russian and the letts, and the pony. "poor little thing! it died. we tried to reach tobolsk with it." "your stanley poisoned it with his chimney," i said. "don't hold anything against him, alex. he is a good fellow. and don't be jealous, you bad, dirty, lovable crank. he still thinks you are a canadian." "he never thinks. he fancies." she laughed. "yes, you _are_ jealous. it is silly of you, but agreeable. i did not know you could be." "now, let's be serious. you can't stay here. i must insist on your going away,--dear, for your own sake,--for our sake! i promise it won't be for a long time,--perhaps it will only seem so, if you love me! don't say no. can't you picture how happy we can be afterwards? how somewhere away from here we could marry, and.... you must go away. why not go to england, or japan, or sweden? just a trip?" "how funny you talk!" i said. "listen to my reasons. one: i must stay near you. two: i must see the end of this tragedy. three: i must close _my_ bit of an account with some people. four: all i have is not enough to pay for this room,--so no trips for me. five: ..." "stop! stop!" she exclaimed, and crawling into my lap, continued: "my poor boy! that--is killing! i know why you are so poor! you spent every penny on others! you had some earnings! and to think of all you were bringing to me in tumen ... then you did not care even, but just to be hospitable to an intruder.... and other things.... how can i repay you!..." "there are no reasons for crying on this account. forget it please. don't put me in the light of a benefactor,--i hate it." "no, no! i feel so guilty now. i'll give you money." "don't offend me. all i want is not to be an idiot in the future and not to lose you. so i have said it,--and it is said. when it comes to stubbornness--i hardly think anybody could beat me. so just understand: _i am going to stay_ where you are, and if you try this time to get away, i'll have to take measures. i'll kidnap you. i'll put you in a place where no 'navy-cut' is smoked. now--it _is_ serious. understand?" we talked, and argued, and even quarrelled, and again made peace, until she declared herself beaten. maybe she was angry; perhaps scared; but surely greatly flattered. a woman is a woman--always flattered when she sees persistence. she consented to take me into her game. i had to swear, and cross my heart, and give endless words of honor,--all that for a position of a traffic man, like the one in tumen. i had to swear that no cooks, or maids, or ladies (especially ladies!) would distract me from the thought of her. very selfish, but understandable. it was late, when she left me. "alex," she said on the threshold,--"please don't talk. do not write, please! you'll have time to finish your diary, and write even a series of books on the subject afterwards. maybe i'll help you even. close your diary. give it to me, i'll hide it!..." "is _that_ so?" i said,--"there is nothing now that would be of interest _to you_." "everything interests me, dear. aren't you mean to your lucie?... very well, hide it yourself, burn it, if you can't hide it. can't you keep in your mind your impressions? do you promise? consider me too!" "i promise. i'll do it. i must only write all about this evening. every word. this evening i almost trust you. it is of historical value therefore." she gave her consent. when the door closed after her, and my lips were still burning, hideous phantoms of doubt poured into the room; they tortured me, and sneered at me, and kept me awake.... and with the pale rose of the first sunrays the phantoms of doubt left me exhausted, miserable and helpless like a wet cat. * * * * * _translator's note._ with paragraph ends the diary of syvorotka. among his documents, however, has been found the following letter, not in his characteristic handwriting, but in that of someone else, bearing directly upon the incidents narrated by the diarist. written in ungrammatical russian, bearing many orthographic mistakes, this document seems to be a fragment of a report, by some unidentified co-operating agent, to his unrevealed superior. it is deemed necessary, therefore, for purposes of clearness, to append this document, as i find it among the literary remains of al. syvorotka: ... "four or five days after your departure, i gave the story to p.d.; he took it to the e * * * *; the latter made but a few corrections in it, and p.d. copied it,--as you ordered: with different ink, and on different paper. the fourteenth passed quietly. the new man who took command of the guards and his assistant, assembled the men and organized a meeting; syvorotka was present. some of the people spoke of the "hidden treasury"; some spoke of the people's tribunal; some insisted upon a wholesale killing,--for the loyals and the czechs are rapidly approaching, and from everywhere come rumors about uprisings. finally it was decided to try the family immediately. the next day we were busy with the trucks; towards evening all of them were in shape including the number -m in which you ordered the change of magneto, and ready to move. so you see--_we have done what you ordered_, and if all happened so that we could not foresee, it was not my fault, nor syvorotka's, nor phillip's. all the day of the th the investigation continued, and the commissaries asked for the e * * * * twice; once four men went to ipatiev's; their conduct was outrageous. at eight in the evening i was on my post in the red house, the wires were working fine and philip answered. nachman's place answered too. at nine i signalled to the ipatiev's, and princess waved "all well," but could not continue for a red came to the window and shut it with a bayonet. it had already begun to get very dark, so i phoned again to philip and syvorotka and asked them whether they had orders to start. i was told that they had not heard anything from the house. i decided to wait a little longer and then to 'phone to tikhvinsky to inquire whether or not the nun was on her place, so i could go and investigate why s-y did not start. at ten i called up, but the 'phone was dead. while i was waiting for some movement about the house, philip himself came and said that s-y had ordered him to remove the trucks away out of the city. philip refused to do so, and tried to reach me by 'phone but it was out of order, so he left syvorotka in charge and came to ask me personally. while we were trying to digest what all of this meant and what should be done, a movement began in the house; lights flickered in the windows and shortly afterwards, we distinctly heard the report of a revolver. as this looked bad we both left and ran across the place, but the reds would not let anybody in. already there were about fifteen men trying to break down the fence. the inside guards resisted and some shots were exchanged. the assailants were reds, asking for "a treasury," and some of them were asking for the family as it was rumored that they had already been killed. seeing that nothing could be done from this side i went to the rear and squeezed in, for ch. was there and he let me do so; but he said that he had heard shots inside and that he thought all was finished, and said also that leinst and three others went to search in syvorotka's home--they evidently don't know that all was taken out yesterday. in the house i found complete commotion. the family had disappeared, and no one knew where or how. pytkan was shot in the stomach and in the throat and i saw him lying on the floor in the room. khokhriakov and his men were shaking the rest of his life out of him, asking where the e. and the jewelry were, but all that pytkan could say was "they were taken away." no one could make out what really had happened and who had shot him; some said that they went away in trucks, yet, in the evening, some that a detachment sent by the soviet took them secretly out, some said aeroplanes. all were wrong, for philip had just come back and the trucks were in place, no one came into the ipatiev's house as i was on guard, and there had been no aeroplanes since six o'clock. pytkan was almost dead when khokhriakov finally got from him that the family had been shot and taken away--and then he began to expire. later the german appeared and chased us all away,--he sent for his assistant, but they could not find him. the family disappeared,--it is true; there was no trace of them. i continued to look everywhere up to the time that the soviet representatives arrived, having been ordered to arrest all people who were with the family, and commenced searching for the bodies. the whole place was surrounded by reds, and all were ordered out, but nothing was there. then a resolution was made that the prisoners had been taken away and shot, and they sent a wire to moscow. i only know that inside the house they killed two people and nobody else, anyhow. pytkan and kramer were dead; kramer probably had been shot from a distance--the bullet was in his head. there were no more than two men killed, i know it; so you may feel sure, when you hear that all were killed in the house that it is a lie. somebody must have been burning things in the stove long before--maybe in the daytime or the early evening; the stove was almost cold,--the reds got something out of it, i did not see what it was. when i understood that the whole family had been taken away, dead or alive, or had somehow disappeared, and that there was nothing for us to do, i took philip and we rushed back to syvorotka. the trucks and the chauffeurs were all gone. in the garage we found syvorotka tied with a rope and shot in the spine, and bleeding from scratches and other wounds. from the appearance of the garage we understood that there had been a struggle, but he could not speak comprehensively; all we got from him were moanings, separate phrases and words like "treason," "run away," "leave me die here," etc., etc.,--he was decidedly raving and very weak. we helped him as best we could and came back to the city at about five in the morning and philip went to nachman's. they both reported that shortly after two o'clock, three of the trucks passed on the highway to sysertsky works. some people were in them, and the nachmans thought it was our affair, for the rumors had already reached them that the family had disappeared or had been executed. this sysertsky direction is more or less correct for i know from syvorotka that supplies were lately being sent continuously with him to tubiuk. this way also went syvorotka's woman. s-y and all the rest left,--some people say in the evening, some early in the morning of the th. maybe something could be told by syvorotka if he ever survives his wounds, and if the reds do not find him and finish him before they leave, for he is under suspicion. he still is unconscious, and has fever. all philip and i know is that either all our organization has failed to succeed, or we were all betrayed and sold, or that you intentionally detracted our attention from the truth. this letter will be given to you by mrs. nachman who is going tonight to ufa. as soon as the reds leave ekaterinburg we will both follow,--we are hiding now,--and will report on the facts that we witnessed and the rumors we heard." end eve's diary by mark twain illustrated by lester ralph translated from the original part . extract from adam's diary perhaps i ought to remember that she is very young, a mere girl and make allowances. she is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can't speak for delight when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it. and she is color-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the wastes of space--none of them is of any practical value, so far as i can see, but because they have color and majesty, that is enough for her, and she loses her mind over them. if she could quiet down and keep still a couple minutes at a time, it would be a reposeful spectacle. in that case i think i could enjoy looking at her; indeed i am sure i could, for i am coming to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely creature --lithe, slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and once when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder, with her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes, watching the flight of a bird in the sky, i recognized that she was beautiful. monday noon.--if there is anything on the planet that she is not interested in it is not in my list. there are animals that i am indifferent to, but it is not so with her. she has no discrimination, she takes to all of them, she thinks they are all treasures, every new one is welcome. when the mighty brontosaurus came striding into camp, she regarded it as an acquisition, i considered it a calamity; that is a good sample of the lack of harmony that prevails in our views of things. she wanted to domesticate it, i wanted to make it a present of the homestead and move out. she believed it could be tamed by kind treatment and would be a good pet; i said a pet twenty-one feet high and eighty-four feet long would be no proper thing to have about the place, because, even with the best intentions and without meaning any harm, it could sit down on the house and mash it, for any one could see by the look of its eye that it was absent-minded. still, her heart was set upon having that monster, and she couldn't give it up. she thought we could start a dairy with it, and wanted me to help milk it; but i wouldn't; it was too risky. the sex wasn't right, and we hadn't any ladder anyway. then she wanted to ride it, and look at the scenery. thirty or forty feet of its tail was lying on the ground, like a fallen tree, and she thought she could climb it, but she was mistaken; when she got to the steep place it was too slick and down she came, and would have hurt herself but for me. was she satisfied now? no. nothing ever satisfies her but demonstration; untested theories are not in her line, and she won't have them. it is the right spirit, i concede it; it attracts me; i feel the influence of it; if i were with her more i think i should take it up myself. well, she had one theory remaining about this colossus: she thought that if we could tame it and make him friendly we could stand in the river and use him for a bridge. it turned out that he was already plenty tame enough--at least as far as she was concerned--so she tried her theory, but it failed: every time she got him properly placed in the river and went ashore to cross over him, he came out and followed her around like a pet mountain. like the other animals. they all do that. tuesday--wednesday--thursday--and today: all without seeing him. it is a long time to be alone; still, it is better to be alone than unwelcome. friday--i had to have company--i was made for it, i think--so i made friends with the animals. they are just charming, and they have the kindest disposition and the politest ways; they never look sour, they never let you feel that you are intruding, they smile at you and wag their tail, if they've got one, and they are always ready for a romp or an excursion or anything you want to propose. i think they are perfect gentlemen. all these days we have had such good times, and it hasn't been lonesome for me, ever. lonesome! no, i should say not. why, there's always a swarm of them around--sometimes as much as four or five acres--you can't count them; and when you stand on a rock in the midst and look out over the furry expanse it is so mottled and splashed and gay with color and frisking sheen and sun-flash, and so rippled with stripes, that you might think it was a lake, only you know it isn't; and there's storms of sociable birds, and hurricanes of whirring wings; and when the sun strikes all that feathery commotion, you have a blazing up of all the colors you can think of, enough to put your eyes out. we have made long excursions, and i have seen a great deal of the world; almost all of it, i think; and so i am the first traveler, and the only one. when we are on the march, it is an imposing sight--there's nothing like it anywhere. for comfort i ride a tiger or a leopard, because it is soft and has a round back that fits me, and because they are such pretty animals; but for long distance or for scenery i ride the elephant. he hoists me up with his trunk, but i can get off myself; when we are ready to camp, he sits and i slide down the back way. the birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and there are no disputes about anything. they all talk, and they all talk to me, but it must be a foreign language, for i cannot make out a word they say; yet they often understand me when i talk back, particularly the dog and the elephant. it makes me ashamed. it shows that they are brighter than i am, for i want to be the principal experiment myself--and i intend to be, too. i have learned a number of things, and am educated, now, but i wasn't at first. i was ignorant at first. at first it used to vex me because, with all my watching, i was never smart enough to be around when the water was running uphill; but now i do not mind it. i have experimented and experimented until now i know it never does run uphill, except in the dark. i know it does in the dark, because the pool never goes dry, which it would, of course, if the water didn't come back in the night. it is best to prove things by actual experiment; then you know; whereas if you depend on guessing and supposing and conjecturing, you never get educated. some things you can't find out; but you will never know you can't by guessing and supposing: no, you have to be patient and go on experimenting until you find out that you can't find out. and it is delightful to have it that way, it makes the world so interesting. if there wasn't anything to find out, it would be dull. even trying to find out and not finding out is just as interesting as trying to find out and finding out, and i don't know but more so. the secret of the water was a treasure until i got it; then the excitement all went away, and i recognized a sense of loss. by experiment i know that wood swims, and dry leaves, and feathers, and plenty of other things; therefore by all that cumulative evidence you know that a rock will swim; but you have to put up with simply knowing it, for there isn't any way to prove it--up to now. but i shall find a way--then that excitement will go. such things make me sad; because by and by when i have found out everything there won't be any more excitements, and i do love excitements so! the other night i couldn't sleep for thinking about it. at first i couldn't make out what i was made for, but now i think it was to search out the secrets of this wonderful world and be happy and thank the giver of it all for devising it. i think there are many things to learn yet--i hope so; and by economizing and not hurrying too fast i think they will last weeks and weeks. i hope so. when you cast up a feather it sails away on the air and goes out of sight; then you throw up a clod and it doesn't. it comes down, every time. i have tried it and tried it, and it is always so. i wonder why it is? of course it doesn't come down, but why should it seem to? i suppose it is an optical illusion. i mean, one of them is. i don't know which one. it may be the feather, it may be the clod; i can't prove which it is, i can only demonstrate that one or the other is a fake, and let a person take his choice. by watching, i know that the stars are not going to last. i have seen some of the best ones melt and run down the sky. since one can melt, they can all melt; since they can all melt, they can all melt the same night. that sorrow will come--i know it. i mean to sit up every night and look at them as long as i can keep awake; and i will impress those sparkling fields on my memory, so that by and by when they are taken away i can by my fancy restore those lovely myriads to the black sky and make them sparkle again, and double them by the blur of my tears. after the fall when i look back, the garden is a dream to me. it was beautiful, surpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost, and i shall not see it any more. the garden is lost, but i have found him, and am content. he loves me as well as he can; i love him with all the strength of my passionate nature, and this, i think, is proper to my youth and sex. if i ask myself why i love him, i find i do not know, and do not really much care to know; so i suppose that this kind of love is not a product of reasoning and statistics, like one's love for other reptiles and animals. i think that this must be so. i love certain birds because of their song; but i do not love adam on account of his singing--no, it is not that; the more he sings the more i do not get reconciled to it. yet i ask him to sing, because i wish to learn to like everything he is interested in. i am sure i can learn, because at first i could not stand it, but now i can. it sours the milk, but it doesn't matter; i can get used to that kind of milk. it is not on account of his brightness that i love him--no, it is not that. he is not to blame for his brightness, such as it is, for he did not make it himself; he is as god make him, and that is sufficient. there was a wise purpose in it, that i know. in time it will develop, though i think it will not be sudden; and besides, there is no hurry; he is well enough just as he is. it is not on account of his gracious and considerate ways and his delicacy that i love him. no, he has lacks in this regard, but he is well enough just so, and is improving. it is not on account of his industry that i love him--no, it is not that. i think he has it in him, and i do not know why he conceals it from me. it is my only pain. otherwise he is frank and open with me, now. i am sure he keeps nothing from me but this. it grieves me that he should have a secret from me, and sometimes it spoils my sleep, thinking of it, but i will put it out of my mind; it shall not trouble my happiness, which is otherwise full to overflowing. it is not on account of his education that i love him--no, it is not that. he is self-educated, and does really know a multitude of things, but they are not so. it is not on account of his chivalry that i love him--no, it is not that. he told on me, but i do not blame him; it is a peculiarity of sex, i think, and he did not make his sex. of course i would not have told on him, i would have perished first; but that is a peculiarity of sex, too, and i do not take credit for it, for i did not make my sex. then why is it that i love him? merely because he is masculine, i think. at bottom he is good, and i love him for that, but i could love him without it. if he should beat me and abuse me, i should go on loving him. i know it. it is a matter of sex, i think. he is strong and handsome, and i love him for that, and i admire him and am proud of him, but i could love him without those qualities. if he were plain, i should love him; if he were a wreck, i should love him; and i would work for him, and slave over him, and pray for him, and watch by his bedside until i died. yes, i think i love him merely because he is mine and is masculine. there is no other reason, i suppose. and so i think it is as i first said: that this kind of love is not a product of reasonings and statistics. it just comes--none knows whence--and cannot explain itself. and doesn't need to. it is what i think. but i am only a girl, the first that has examined this matter, and it may turn out that in my ignorance and inexperience i have not got it right. forty years later it is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life together--a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall have place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time; and it shall be called by my name. but if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be i; for he is strong, i am weak, i am not so necessary to him as he is to me --life without him would not be life; how could i endure it? this prayer is also immortal, and will not cease from being offered up while my race continues. i am the first wife; and in the last wife i shall be repeated. at eve's grave adam: wheresoever she was, there was eden. eve's diary by mark twain illustrated by lester ralph translated from the original part . saturday.--i am almost a whole day old, now. i arrived yesterday. that is as it seems to me. and it must be so, for if there was a day-before-yesterday i was not there when it happened, or i should remember it. it could be, of course, that it did happen, and that i was not noticing. very well; i will be very watchful now, and if any day-before-yesterdays happen i will make a note of it. it will be best to start right and not let the record get confused, for some instinct tells me that these details are going to be important to the historian some day. for i feel like an experiment, i feel exactly like an experiment; it would be impossible for a person to feel more like an experiment than i do, and so i am coming to feel convinced that that is what i am--an experiment; just an experiment, and nothing more. then if i am an experiment, am i the whole of it? no, i think not; i think the rest of it is part of it. i am the main part of it, but i think the rest of it has its share in the matter. is my position assured, or do i have to watch it and take care of it? the latter, perhaps. some instinct tells me that eternal vigilance is the price of supremacy. [that is a good phrase, i think, for one so young.] everything looks better today than it did yesterday. in the rush of finishing up yesterday, the mountains were left in a ragged condition, and some of the plains were so cluttered with rubbish and remnants that the aspects were quite distressing. noble and beautiful works of art should not be subjected to haste; and this majestic new world is indeed a most noble and beautiful work. and certainly marvelously near to being perfect, notwithstanding the shortness of the time. there are too many stars in some places and not enough in others, but that can be remedied presently, no doubt. the moon got loose last night, and slid down and fell out of the scheme--a very great loss; it breaks my heart to think of it. there isn't another thing among the ornaments and decorations that is comparable to it for beauty and finish. it should have been fastened better. if we can only get it back again-- but of course there is no telling where it went to. and besides, whoever gets it will hide it; i know it because i would do it myself. i believe i can be honest in all other matters, but i already begin to realize that the core and center of my nature is love of the beautiful, a passion for the beautiful, and that it would not be safe to trust me with a moon that belonged to another person and that person didn't know i had it. i could give up a moon that i found in the daytime, because i should be afraid some one was looking; but if i found it in the dark, i am sure i should find some kind of an excuse for not saying anything about it. for i do love moons, they are so pretty and so romantic. i wish we had five or six; i would never go to bed; i should never get tired lying on the moss-bank and looking up at them. stars are good, too. i wish i could get some to put in my hair. but i suppose i never can. you would be surprised to find how far off they are, for they do not look it. when they first showed, last night, i tried to knock some down with a pole, but it didn't reach, which astonished me; then i tried clods till i was all tired out, but i never got one. it was because i am left-handed and cannot throw good. even when i aimed at the one i wasn't after i couldn't hit the other one, though i did make some close shots, for i saw the black blot of the clod sail right into the midst of the golden clusters forty or fifty times, just barely missing them, and if i could have held out a little longer maybe i could have got one. so i cried a little, which was natural, i suppose, for one of my age, and after i was rested i got a basket and started for a place on the extreme rim of the circle, where the stars were close to the ground and i could get them with my hands, which would be better, anyway, because i could gather them tenderly then, and not break them. but it was farther than i thought, and at last i had to give it up; i was so tired i couldn't drag my feet another step; and besides, they were sore and hurt me very much. i couldn't get back home; it was too far and turning cold; but i found some tigers and nestled in among them and was most adorably comfortable, and their breath was sweet and pleasant, because they live on strawberries. i had never seen a tiger before, but i knew them in a minute by the stripes. if i could have one of those skins, it would make a lovely gown. today i am getting better ideas about distances. i was so eager to get hold of every pretty thing that i giddily grabbed for it, sometimes when it was too far off, and sometimes when it was but six inches away but seemed a foot--alas, with thorns between! i learned a lesson; also i made an axiom, all out of my own head--my very first one; the scratched experiment shuns the thorn. i think it is a very good one for one so young. i followed the other experiment around, yesterday afternoon, at a distance, to see what it might be for, if i could. but i was not able to make [it] out. i think it is a man. i had never seen a man, but it looked like one, and i feel sure that that is what it is. i realize that i feel more curiosity about it than about any of the other reptiles. if it is a reptile, and i suppose it is; for it has frowzy hair and blue eyes, and looks like a reptile. it has no hips; it tapers like a carrot; when it stands, it spreads itself apart like a derrick; so i think it is a reptile, though it may be architecture. i was afraid of it at first, and started to run every time it turned around, for i thought it was going to chase me; but by and by i found it was only trying to get away, so after that i was not timid any more, but tracked it along, several hours, about twenty yards behind, which made it nervous and unhappy. at last it was a good deal worried, and climbed a tree. i waited a good while, then gave it up and went home. today the same thing over. i've got it up the tree again. sunday.--it is up there yet. resting, apparently. but that is a subterfuge: sunday isn't the day of rest; saturday is appointed for that. it looks to me like a creature that is more interested in resting than in anything else. it would tire me to rest so much. it tires me just to sit around and watch the tree. i do wonder what it is for; i never see it do anything. they returned the moon last night, and i was so happy! i think it is very honest of them. it slid down and fell off again, but i was not distressed; there is no need to worry when one has that kind of neighbors; they will fetch it back. i wish i could do something to show my appreciation. i would like to send them some stars, for we have more than we can use. i mean i, not we, for i can see that the reptile cares nothing for such things. it has low tastes, and is not kind. when i went there yesterday evening in the gloaming it had crept down and was trying to catch the little speckled fishes that play in the pool, and i had to clod it to make it go up the tree again and let them alone. i wonder if that is what it is for? hasn't it any heart? hasn't it any compassion for those little creature? can it be that it was designed and manufactured for such ungentle work? it has the look of it. one of the clods took it back of the ear, and it used language. it gave me a thrill, for it was the first time i had ever heard speech, except my own. i did not understand the words, but they seemed expressive. when i found it could talk i felt a new interest in it, for i love to talk; i talk, all day, and in my sleep, too, and i am very interesting, but if i had another to talk to i could be twice as interesting, and would never stop, if desired. if this reptile is a man, it isn't an it, is it? that wouldn't be grammatical, would it? i think it would be he. i think so. in that case one would parse it thus: nominative, he; dative, him; possessive, his'n. well, i will consider it a man and call it he until it turns out to be something else. this will be handier than having so many uncertainties. next week sunday.--all the week i tagged around after him and tried to get acquainted. i had to do the talking, because he was shy, but i didn't mind it. he seemed pleased to have me around, and i used the sociable "we" a good deal, because it seemed to flatter him to be included. wednesday.--we are getting along very well indeed, now, and getting better and better acquainted. he does not try to avoid me any more, which is a good sign, and shows that he likes to have me with him. that pleases me, and i study to be useful to him in every way i can, so as to increase his regard. during the last day or two i have taken all the work of naming things off his hands, and this has been a great relief to him, for he has no gift in that line, and is evidently very grateful. he can't think of a rational name to save him, but i do not let him see that i am aware of his defect. whenever a new creature comes along i name it before he has time to expose himself by an awkward silence. in this way i have saved him many embarrassments. i have no defect like this. the minute i set eyes on an animal i know what it is. i don't have to reflect a moment; the right name comes out instantly, just as if it were an inspiration, as no doubt it is, for i am sure it wasn't in me half a minute before. i seem to know just by the shape of the creature and the way it acts what animal it is. when the dodo came along he thought it was a wildcat--i saw it in his eye. but i saved him. and i was careful not to do it in a way that could hurt his pride. i just spoke up in a quite natural way of pleasing surprise, and not as if i was dreaming of conveying information, and said, "well, i do declare, if there isn't the dodo!" i explained--without seeming to be explaining--how i know it for a dodo, and although i thought maybe he was a little piqued that i knew the creature when he didn't, it was quite evident that he admired me. that was very agreeable, and i thought of it more than once with gratification before i slept. how little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it! thursday.--my first sorrow. yesterday he avoided me and seemed to wish i would not talk to him. i could not believe it, and thought there was some mistake, for i loved to be with him, and loved to hear him talk, and so how could it be that he could feel unkind toward me when i had not done anything? but at last it seemed true, so i went away and sat lonely in the place where i first saw him the morning that we were made and i did not know what he was and was indifferent about him; but now it was a mournful place, and every little thing spoke of him, and my heart was very sore. i did not know why very clearly, for it was a new feeling; i had not experienced it before, and it was all a mystery, and i could not make it out. but when night came i could not bear the lonesomeness, and went to the new shelter which he has built, to ask him what i had done that was wrong and how i could mend it and get back his kindness again; but he put me out in the rain, and it was my first sorrow. eve's diary by mark twain illustrated by lester ralph translated from the original part . sunday.--it is pleasant again, now, and i am happy; but those were heavy days; i do not think of them when i can help it. i tried to get him some of those apples, but i cannot learn to throw straight. i failed, but i think the good intention pleased him. they are forbidden, and he says i shall come to harm; but so i come to harm through pleasing him, why shall i care for that harm? monday.--this morning i told him my name, hoping it would interest him. but he did not care for it. it is strange. if he should tell me his name, i would care. i think it would be pleasanter in my ears than any other sound. he talks very little. perhaps it is because he is not bright, and is sensitive about it and wishes to conceal it. it is such a pity that he should feel so, for brightness is nothing; it is in the heart that the values lie. i wish i could make him understand that a loving good heart is riches, and riches enough, and that without it intellect is poverty. although he talks so little, he has quite a considerable vocabulary. this morning he used a surprisingly good word. he evidently recognized, himself, that it was a good one, for he worked in in twice afterward, casually. it was good casual art, still it showed that he possesses a certain quality of perception. without a doubt that seed can be made to grow, if cultivated. where did he get that word? i do not think i have ever used it. no, he took no interest in my name. i tried to hide my disappointment, but i suppose i did not succeed. i went away and sat on the moss-bank with my feet in the water. it is where i go when i hunger for companionship, some one to look at, some one to talk to. it is not enough--that lovely white body painted there in the pool--but it is something, and something is better than utter loneliness. it talks when i talk; it is sad when i am sad; it comforts me with its sympathy; it says, "do not be downhearted, you poor friendless girl; i will be your friend." it is a good friend to me, and my only one; it is my sister. that first time that she forsook me! ah, i shall never forget that --never, never. my heart was lead in my body! i said, "she was all i had, and now she is gone!" in my despair i said, "break, my heart; i cannot bear my life any more!" and hid my face in my hands, and there was no solace for me. and when i took them away, after a little, there she was again, white and shining and beautiful, and i sprang into her arms! that was perfect happiness; i had known happiness before, but it was not like this, which was ecstasy. i never doubted her afterward. sometimes she stayed away--maybe an hour, maybe almost the whole day, but i waited and did not doubt; i said, "she is busy, or she is gone on a journey, but she will come." and it was so: she always did. at night she would not come if it was dark, for she was a timid little thing; but if there was a moon she would come. i am not afraid of the dark, but she is younger than i am; she was born after i was. many and many are the visits i have paid her; she is my comfort and my refuge when my life is hard--and it is mainly that. tuesday.--all the morning i was at work improving the estate; and i purposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get lonely and come. but he did not. at noon i stopped for the day and took my recreation by flitting all about with the bees and the butterflies and reveling in the flowers, those beautiful creatures that catch the smile of god out of the sky and preserve it! i gathered them, and made them into wreaths and garlands and clothed myself in them while i ate my luncheon--apples, of course; then i sat in the shade and wished and waited. but he did not come. but no matter. nothing would have come of it, for he does not care for flowers. he called them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that. he does not care for me, he does not care for flowers, he does not care for the painted sky at eventide--is there anything he does care for, except building shacks to coop himself up in from the good clean rain, and thumping the melons, and sampling the grapes, and fingering the fruit on the trees, to see how those properties are coming along? i laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in it with another one, in order to carry out a scheme that i had, and soon i got an awful fright. a thin, transparent bluish film rose out of the hole, and i dropped everything and ran! i thought it was a spirit, and i was so frightened! but i looked back, and it was not coming; so i leaned against a rock and rested and panted, and let my limbs go on trembling until they got steady again; then i crept warily back, alert, watching, and ready to fly if there was occasion; and when i was come near, i parted the branches of a rose-bush and peeped through--wishing the man was about, i was looking so cunning and pretty--but the sprite was gone. i went there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole. i put my finger in, to feel it, and said ouch! and took it out again. it was a cruel pain. i put my finger in my mouth; and by standing first on one foot and then the other, and grunting, i presently eased my misery; then i was full of interest, and began to examine. i was curious to know what the pink dust was. suddenly the name of it occurred to me, though i had never heard of it before. it was fire! i was as certain of it as a person could be of anything in the world. so without hesitation i named it that--fire. i had created something that didn't exist before; i had added a new thing to the world's uncountable properties; i realized this, and was proud of my achievement, and was going to run and find him and tell him about it, thinking to raise myself in his esteem--but i reflected, and did not do it. no--he would not care for it. he would ask what it was good for, and what could i answer? for if it was not good for something, but only beautiful, merely beautiful-- so i sighed, and did not go. for it wasn't good for anything; it could not build a shack, it could not improve melons, it could not hurry a fruit crop; it was useless, it was a foolishness and a vanity; he would despise it and say cutting words. but to me it was not despicable; i said, "oh, you fire, i love you, you dainty pink creature, for you are beautiful--and that is enough!" and was going to gather it to my breast. but refrained. then i made another maxim out of my head, though it was so nearly like the first one that i was afraid it was only a plagiarism: "the burnt experiment shuns the fire." i wrought again; and when i had made a good deal of fire-dust i emptied it into a handful of dry brown grass, intending to carry it home and keep it always and play with it; but the wind struck it and it sprayed up and spat out at me fiercely, and i dropped it and ran. when i looked back the blue spirit was towering up and stretching and rolling away like a cloud, and instantly i thought of the name of it--smoke!--though, upon my word, i had never heard of smoke before. soon brilliant yellow and red flares shot up through the smoke, and i named them in an instant--flames--and i was right, too, though these were the very first flames that had ever been in the world. they climbed the trees, then flashed splendidly in and out of the vast and increasing volume of tumbling smoke, and i had to clap my hands and laugh and dance in my rapture, it was so new and strange and so wonderful and so beautiful! he came running, and stopped and gazed, and said not a word for many minutes. then he asked what it was. ah, it was too bad that he should ask such a direct question. i had to answer it, of course, and i did. i said it was fire. if it annoyed him that i should know and he must ask; that was not my fault; i had no desire to annoy him. after a pause he asked: "how did it come?" another direct question, and it also had to have a direct answer. "i made it." the fire was traveling farther and farther off. he went to the edge of the burned place and stood looking down, and said: "what are these?" "fire-coals." he picked up one to examine it, but changed his mind and put it down again. then he went away. nothing interests him. but i was interested. there were ashes, gray and soft and delicate and pretty--i knew what they were at once. and the embers; i knew the embers, too. i found my apples, and raked them out, and was glad; for i am very young and my appetite is active. but i was disappointed; they were all burst open and spoiled. spoiled apparently; but it was not so; they were better than raw ones. fire is beautiful; some day it will be useful, i think. friday.--i saw him again, for a moment, last monday at nightfall, but only for a moment. i was hoping he would praise me for trying to improve the estate, for i had meant well and had worked hard. but he was not pleased, and turned away and left me. he was also displeased on another account: i tried once more to persuade him to stop going over the falls. that was because the fire had revealed to me a new passion --quite new, and distinctly different from love, grief, and those others which i had already discovered--fear. and it is horrible!--i wish i had never discovered it; it gives me dark moments, it spoils my happiness, it makes me shiver and tremble and shudder. but i could not persuade him, for he has not discovered fear yet, and so he could not understand me. transcriber's note: inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. obvious typographical errors have been corrected. italic text is denoted by _underscores_. the annals of ann [illustration: ann] the annals of ann _by_ kate trimble sharber with four illustrations by paul j. meylan a. l. burt company publishers new york copyright the bobbs-merrill company the annals of ann chapter i my cousin eunice is a grown young lady and she keeps a diary, which put the notion into my head of keeping one too. there are two kinds of people that keep diaries, married ones and single ones. the single ones fill theirs full of poetry; the married ones tell how much it costs to keep house. not being extra good in grammar and spelling, i thought i'd copy a few pages out of cousin eunice's diary this morning as a pattern to keep mine by, but i was disappointed. nearly every page i turned to in hers was filled full of poetry, which stuff never did make good sense to me, besides the trouble it puts you to by having to start every line with a fresh capital. cousin eunice says nearly all famous people keep a diary for folks to read after they're dead. i always did admire famous people, especially lord byron and columbus. and i've often thought i should like to be a famous person myself when i get grown. i don't care so much about graduating in white mull, trimmed in lace, as some girls do, for the really famous never graduate. they get expelled from college for writing little books saying there ain't any devil. but i should _love_ to be a beautiful opera singer, with a jasmine flower at my throat, and a fresh duke standing at the side door of the theater every night, begging me to marry him. or i'd like to rescue a ship full of drowning people, then swim back to shore and calmly squeeze the salt water out of my bathing suit, so the papers would all be full of it the next morning. things don't turn out the way you expect them to, though, and i needn't count too much on these things. i might catch cold in my voice, or cramps in the sea and never get famous; but i'm going to keep this diary anyhow, and just hand it down to my grandchildren, for nearly _every_ lady can count on _them_, whether she's famous or infamous. maybe some rainy day, a hundred years from now, a little girl will find this book in the attic, all covered with dust, and will sit down and read it, while the rain sounds soft and pattery on the outside, and her mother calls and calls without getting an answer. this is not at all the right way to do, but what can they expect of you when your attic is such a very delicious place? ours is high enough not to bump your head, even if you are as tall as my friend, rufe clayborne, and where a part of the window-pane is broken out an apple-tree sends in a perky little branch. just before easter every year i spend nearly all my time up here at this window, for the apple blossoms seem to have so many things to say to me; lovely things, that i can _feel_, but can not hear, and if i could write them down this would be the most beautiful book in the world. and great sheets of rain come sometimes; you can see them coming from the hills back of mr. clayborne's house, but the apple blossoms don't mind the wetting. when i wrote "mr. clayborne" just then it reminded me of cousin eunice's diary. that was _one_ sensible word which was on every page. sometimes it was mixed up close along with the poetry, but i always knew who she meant, for he is my best friend and the grandest young man i've ever seen out of a book. his other name is rufe, and he's an editor when he's in the city. but before he got to be an editor he was born across the creek from our farm, and we've always been great friends. his father and mine are also friends, always quarreling about whose bird-dogs and hotbeds are the best; and our mothers talk a heap about "original sin" and chow-chow pickle. maybe my grandchildren would like to know a few little things about me at the time i started keeping this diary for their sakes, so i'll stop now and tell them as quickly as i can, for i never did think just my own self was so interesting. if they have any imagination they can tell pretty well what kind of a person i was anyhow from the grand portrait i'm going to have painted for them in the gown i wear when i'm presented at court. well, i was born in the year--but if i tell that you will know exactly how old i am, that is if you can count things better than i can. anyhow, when i read a thing i'd rather they didn't tell just how old the heroine is. then you can have her any age you like best. maybe if i were to tell exactly how many birthdays i've had you would always be saying, like mother and mammy lou, "you're a mighty big girl to be doing such silly things." or like rufe says sometimes, "ann, you're entirely too young to be interested in such subjects as that." so you will have to be satisfied when i tell you that i'm at the "gawky age." and a person is never surprised at anything that a girl at the "gawky age" does. i am little enough still to love puppies and big enough to love washington irving. you might think these don't mix well, but they do. on rainy mornings i like to take a puppy under one arm and _the alhambra_ under the other, with eight or ten apples in my lap, and climb up in the loft to enjoy the greatest pleasure of my life. i sling _the alhambra_ up on the hay first, then ease the puppy up and take the hem of my skirt between my teeth so the apples won't spill out while i go up after them. but i never even look at hay when there's a pile of cottonseed to wallow in. as to my ways, i'm sorry to say that i'm what mother calls a "peculiar child." mammy says i'm "the curiousest mixtry she ever seen." that's because i ask "why?" very often and then lots of times don't exactly believe that things are that way when they're told to me. one day at sunday-school, when i was about four, the teacher was telling about jonah. mother often told me tales, some that i called "make-believe," and others that i called "_so_ tales." when the teacher got through i spoke up and asked her if that was a "so tale." she said yes, it was, but i horrified every other child in the class by speaking up again and saying, "well, me don't believe it!" old as i am now, i don't see how jonah's constitution could have stood it, but i've got sense enough to believe many a thing that i can't see nor smell nor feel. an old man out in the mountains that had never been anywhere might say he didn't believe in electricity, but that wouldn't keep your electric light bill from being more than you thought it ought to be at the end of the month. speaking of bills reminds me of father. father is not a rich man, but his folks used to be before the war. that's the way with so many people around here, they have more ancestry than anything else. still, we have perfectly lovely smelling old leather books in our library, and when cotton goes high we go up to the city and take a suite of rooms with a bath. i am telling you all this, my grandchildren, to let you know that you have blue blood in your veins, but you mustn't let yours get too blue. father says it takes a dash of red blood mixed with blue, like turpentine with paint, to make it go. still, i hope the old place will be just as beautiful when my grandchildren get old enough to appreciate it as it is now, and not be sold and turned into a sanitarium, or a girls' school. the walls of the house are a soft grayish white, like a dear old grandmother's hair; and the mycravella roses in the far corner of the yard put _such_ notions into your head! there are rows of cedar trees down the walk, planted before andrew jackson's time; and at night there are the stars. i love stars, especially venus; but there are a lot of others that i don't know the names of. inside, the house is cool and shady; and you can always find a place to lie down and read. cousin eunice says so many people spoil their houses by selecting carpets and wall-paper that look like they want to fight. but ours is not like that. some corners in our library look like _ladies' own journal_ pictures. cousin eunice doesn't belong to our house, but i wish she did, for she's as beautiful as a magazine cover. and i think we have the nicest home in the world. besides being old and big and far back in the yard, there's always the smell of apples up-stairs. and i'm sure mother is the nicest lady in the world. she wants everybody to have a good time, and no matter whether you're a man, a young lady, or a little girl, she lets you scatter your pipes, love-letters and doll-rags from the front gate to the backest chicken-coop without ever fussing. mother admires company greatly. she doesn't have to perspire over them herself, though, for she has mammy lou to do all the cooking and dilsey to make up the beds. so she invited cousin eunice to spend the summer with us and asked bertha, a cousin on the other side, to come at the same time, for she said girls _love_ to be together. we soon found out, though, that some girls do and some don't. cousin eunice said i might always express my frank opinion of people and things in my diary, so i take pleasure in starting in on bertha. bertha, she is a _cat_! even rufe called her one the night she got here. not a straight-out cat, exactly, but he called her a kitten! you see, when bertha was down here on a little visit last year she and rufe had up a kind of summer engagement. a summer engagement is where the girl wears the man's fraternity pin instead of a ring. and when she came again this time it didn't take them two hours to get summer engaged again, it being moonlight on the front porch and bertha looking real soft and purry. then the very next week cousin eunice came! and poor rufe! we all felt _so_ sorry for him, for, from the _first_ minute he looked at her he was in love; and it's a terrible thing to be in love and engaged at the same time, when one is with _one_ girl and the other to another! and it was so plain that the eyes of the _potatoes_ could see it! but bertha hadn't an idea of giving up anybody as good-looking as rufe to another somebody as good-looking as cousin eunice, which mother said was a shame, and _she_ never did such a thing when _she_ was a girl; but mammy lou said it was no more than rufe deserved for not being more careful. but anyway, cousin eunice and bertha hadn't been together two days before they hated each other so they wouldn't use the same powder rag! they just couldn't bear the sight of each other because they could both bear the sight of rufe so well. this was a disappointment to me, for i had hoped they would go into each other's rooms at night and brush their hair, half undressed, and have as good a time as the pictures of ladies in underwear catalogues always seem to be having. but they are not at all friendly. they have never even asked each other what make of corsets they wear, nor who operated on them for appendicitis. bertha talks a great deal about rufe and how devoted he was to her last summer, but cousin eunice won't talk at all when bertha's around. she sits still and looks dumb and superior as a trained nurse does when you are trying to find out what it is that the patient has got. cousin eunice has a right to act superior, though, for while other girls are spending their time embroidering chafing-dish aprons she is studying books written by a man with a name like a sneeze. let me get one of the books to see how it is spelled. n-i-e-t-z-s-c-h-e! there! i got it down at last! and cousin eunice doesn't have just a plain parlor at home to receive her beaux in; she has a studio. a studio is a room full of things that catch dust. and the desire of her life is to write a little brown-backed book that people will fill full of pencil marks and always carry around with them in their suit-cases. she doesn't neglect her outside looks, though, just because her mind is so full of great thoughts. no indeed! her fountain pen jostles against her looking-glass in her hand-bag, and her note-book gets dusted over with pink powder. now, bertha is entirely different! no matter how the sun is shining outside she spends all her mornings up in her room shining her finger-nails; and she wears _pounds_ and _pounds_ of hair on the back of her head. father says the less a girl has on the inside the more she will stick on the outside of her head, and lots of men can't tell the difference. bertha certainly isn't at a loss for lovers. she gets a great many letters from a "commercial traveler." a "commercial traveler" is a man who writes to his girl on different hotel paper every day. these letters are a great comfort to her spirit when rufe acts so loving around cousin eunice; and she always has one sticking in her belt when rufe is near by, with the name of the hotel showing. every night just before or just after supper i always go out to the kitchen and tell mammy lou all the news i've seen or heard that day. she laughs when i tell her about how bertha is trying to hold on to rufe. "'tain't a speck o' use," she said to-night so emphatically that i was afraid the omelette would fall. "why, a camel can dance a virginny reel in the eye of a needle quicker than a gal can sick a man back to lovin' her after he's done took a notion to change the picture he wears in his watch!" mammy told the truth, i'm sure, for bertha has worn all her prettiest dresses and done her hair two new ways, trying to get him back; but he is still "coldly polite," which i think is the meanest way on earth to treat a person. not that bertha doesn't deserve it, for she knew they were just joking about that summer engagement, but she still wears the fraternity pin, which of course causes cousin eunice to be "coldly polite" to rufe; and altogether we don't really need a refrigerator in the house this summer. mammy lou and i had been trying to think up a plan to thaw out the atmosphere, but this morning a way was provided, and i greatly enjoyed being "an humble instrument," as brother sheffield says. everything was draggy this morning. bertha was down in the parlor singing "popular songs" very loud as i came down the steps with my diary in my hand. i _despise_ popular songs! as i went past the kitchen door on my way to the big pear tree which i meant to climb and write in my book i saw that mammy lou was having the time of her life telling cousin eunice all about when rufe was a baby. she had called her in there to get some fresh buttermilk, and cousin eunice was drinking glass after glass of it with such a rapt look on her face i knew she didn't realize that she couldn't get on her tight clothes till mid-afternoon. "of _course_ he's a extry fine young man!" mammy said, dipping for another glassful. "there never was nary finer baby--an' wasn't i _right there_ when mr. rufe was born?" "sure enough!" cousin eunice said, looking entranced. this wasn't much more entertaining to me than bertha's singing, for i had heard it all so many times before, so i went out to the pear tree and climbed up, but i couldn't think of even one word that would be of interest to my grandchildren. so i just wrote my name over and over again on the fly-pages. i wonder what makes them call them "fly-pages?" then i closed my book and climbed down again. i started back to the house by the side way, and met rufe coming up the walk toward the front door. "hello, rufe," i said, running to meet him and walking with him to the front steps. "i'm so glad to see you. everything is so draggy this morning. won't you sit on the steps and talk to me a while? or are you in a hurry?" "i'm always in a hurry when i'm going to your house," he answered with a look in the direction of cousin eunice's window. "and my visits always seem as short as a wedding journey when the bridegroom's salary is small." he dusted off the step, though, and sat down; and i told him that cousin eunice was drinking buttermilk in her kimono and wouldn't be in a mood to dress for another hour. then i told him what a hard time i'd had trying to think up something interesting to write in my diary. he said, looking again toward cousin eunice's window, that there was only _one_ thing in the world to write about! but he supposed i was too young to know anything about that. i spoke up promptly and told him a girl never _got_ too young to know about love. "love!" he said, trying to look surprised. "who mentioned love?" just then i heard the flutteration of a silk petticoat on the porch behind the vines, but rufe was gazing so hard at the blue hills on the far side of town that he didn't hear it. so, without saying anything to him, i leaned over far enough to look under the banisters, and saw the bottom of bertha's skirt and a skein of blue silk thread lying on the floor. so i knew she was sitting there working on that everlasting chafing-dish apron. then satan put an idea into my head. i think it was satan. "rufe," i said, talking very loud and quick, so bertha would just _have_ to hear me, "what's the difference between a kitten and a cat?" rufe at last got his eyes unfixed from the blue hills and just stared at me foolishly for a second. "am i the parent of a child that i should have to answer fool questions?" he said. "but the night she came you called bertha a _kitten_!" i reminded him, and he looked worse surprised. "and since i've heard her called a _cat_! how long does it take a kitten to grow into a cat?" "oh, i see! well, i'm better versed in feline ways now than i was that night; so i might state that sometimes you discover that a kitten is a cat! there isn't any difference!" we heard a clattering noise behind the vines just then, which i knew was bertha dropping her embroidery scissors. rufe jumped, for he had no idea anybody was hearing our conversation; and i know he wouldn't have said what he did about cats except he _thought_ i was too little to understand such figures of speech. then he got up to go in and see who it was. and i decided to disappear around the corner of the house. i didn't altogether disappear before i heard her say indeed he _had_ meant to call her a cat; and he said indeed he hadn't, but she hadn't been "square" with him, and they talked and talked until i got uneasy that cousin eunice would be coming through the hall and hear them. so i hurried on back to head her off. but satan, or whoever it was, put me up to a good job in that, for the next time i saw rufe he was wearing his fraternity pin and a happy smile. and bertha had red spots on her face, even as late as dinner-time, like consumption that lovely heroines die of. i've been too disappointed lately to write in my diary. somehow, i think like rufe, that there's only one thing worth writing about, and there's been very little in that line going on around here lately. poor rufe is having a harder time now than he had when bertha was on his hands, for cousin eunice has taken it into her head to show him that she doesn't have to accept him the minute he gets untangled from a summer flirtation. those were her very words. she and i go for long walks with him every morning, down through the ravine; and they read poetry that sounds so good you feel like somebody's scratching your back. and she wears her best-fitting shirtwaists. one good thing about cousin eunice is that her clothes never look like she'd sat up late the night before to make them. and when she's expecting him at night her eyes shine like they had been greased; and i can tell from the way she breathes quick when she hears the gate open that she loves him. yes, she adores the sound of his rubber heels on the front porch; but she won't give in to him. she's punishing him for the bertha part of it. mother says she's very foolish, for men will be men, especially on nights in june; but mammy lou says she's exactly right; and i reckon mammy knows best, for she's been married a heap more times than mother ever has. "the longer you keep a man feelin' like he's on a red-hot stove the better he loves you," mammy lou told cousin eunice to-night, as she was powdering her face for the last time before going down-stairs and trying to keep us from seeing that she was listening for a footstep on the gravel walk. "an' a husban's got to be treated jus' like a lover! a good, heavy poker's a fine thing to make a husban' know 'is place--an' lawk! a lazy husban's like a greasy churn--you have to give him a thorough scaldin' to do any good!" this morning at the breakfast table, after father had helped the plates to chicken, saving two gizzards for me, he said: "times have changed since i was a young man!" as this wasn't exactly the first time we had heard such a remark none of us paid any attention to it until we saw mother trying to make him hush. then we knew he must be starting to say something funny about cousin eunice and rufe, for mother always stops him on this subject whenever she can, because she doesn't want bertha's feelings hurt. but bertha never seems to mind. she's decided to marry the commercial traveler, i'm almost sure, although her people say he's not "steady." steady means staying still, so who ever heard of a traveling man who was steady? "times have changed, especially about courting," father kept on, pretending that he didn't see mother shaking her head at him. when father gets that twinkle in his eye he can't see anything else. "now in _my_ young days when a girl and a fellow looked good to each other they usually got engaged at once. but _now_--jumping jerusalem! no matter how deeply in love they are they waste days and days trying to get a 'complete understanding' of each other's nature. they talk about their opinion of everything under the sun, from woman's suffrage to belshazzar's feast." "lord byron wrote a piece in the fifth reader about belshazzar's feast," i started to remark, but i remembered in time to hush, for i've never been able to mention lord byron's name to my family in any peace since they found that i keep a vase of flowers in front of his picture all the time. they call him my _beau_--the beautiful creature! father didn't notice my remark, however. he was too busy with his own. "and instead of exchanging locks of hair, as they used to when mary and i were young, they give each other limp-backed books that have 'helped to shape their career,' and beg that they will mark the passages that impress _them_!" "uncle dan, you've been eavesdropping!" cousin eunice said, looking up from her hot biscuit and honey long enough to smile at him, but she didn't quit eating. it has got out of style to stop eating when you're in love, for a man admires a healthy-looking girl. i know a young man who had been going to see a girl for a long time and never did propose. she was a pretty girl, too, slender and wild-rosy-looking. well, she took a trip to germany one summer and drank so much of _something_ fattening over there that the wild-rose look changed to american beauty; and when she came home in the fall the young man was so delighted with her looks that he turned in and married her before christmas! cousin eunice knows these people too, and she does all she can to keep her digestion good, even to fresh milk and raw eggs. i hope _i_ can get married without the raw eggs part of it. and she tramps all over the woods for the sake of her appetite in stylish-looking tan boots. as we left the dining-room i noticed that she had on her walking-boots and a short skirt, so i thought rufe would be along pretty soon for us to go down to the ravine and read poetry. they always take me along because i soon get enough of the poetry and go off to wade in the branch, leaving them on their favorite big gray rock. sure enough, rufe wasn't long about coming, and i saw that his limp-backed book was labeled "keats" this morning. cousin eunice didn't have a book. she carried a parasol. a parasol is used to jab holes in the sand when you're being made love to. i don't know why i should have felt so, but just as soon as they got started to reading this morning i had a curious feeling, like you have when the lights burn low on the stage and the orchestra begins _the flower song_. the way they looked at each other made under my scalp tingle. now, if i ever have a granddaughter that doesn't have this feeling in the presence of _great_ things i shall disinherit her and leave my diamonds to a society for tuberculosis or pure food or fresh air, or some of those charitable things. [illustration: jabbing holes in the sand with her parasol _page _] before long they branched off from keats to shelley, and rufe didn't need a book with him. just after he had finished a little verse beginning, "i can not give what men call love," i had sense enough to get up and go away from them. although i have always been crazy to see a proposal, there was something in the atmosphere around that old gray rock that made me feel as if i were treading on sacred ground. (i hate to use expressions like this, that everybody else uses, but i can't think of anything else and it's getting too late to sit here by myself and try.) anyhow it's the feeling you have when you go into a cathedral with stained glass windows. so i went away from them, but not very far away, just a little distance, to where i have a lovely pile of moss collected on the north side of a big tree. and the smotheration around my heart kept up. it seemed to me the _longest_ time before anything happened, for cousin eunice was jabbing holes in the sand with her parasol like she was being paid to do it by the hour. finally, without any ado, he put his hands on hers and made her stop. "sweetheart," i heard him say, so low that i could hardly hear, for _the flower song_ was buzzing through my head so loud. then he seemed to remember me for he looked around, and, seeing that i was _clear_ gone, he said it again, "sweetheart." she looked up at him when he said it, and looked and _looked_! maybe she never had realized before just how big and broad-shouldered and brown-eyed rufe really is! neither one of them said anything, but he put both arms around her; and when i saw that they were going to kiss i shut my eyes right tight and stopped up my ears and buried my face in the pile of moss. even then i never felt so much like a yellow dog in my life! chapter ii you hear a heap of talking these days about "the divine mission of woman," especially from long-haired preachers that don't believe in ladies voting; and another heap of talk about the "rights" of women from the ladies themselves. there was so much of it going on last winter when i was at rufe's that i told some of it to mammy lou when i came home. she says it's every speck a question of dish-washing when you sift it down to the bottom. the women are tired of their job and the men are too proud to do it unless the window shades are pulled down. i don't blame the men for being proud. they have something to be proud of, for they can do exactly as they please, from wearing out the seats of their trousers when they're little to being president when they're big. when i was right little i used to think that the heathen over the sea that threw the girl babies to the crocodiles were doing it in hopes of killing out the girl breed, so the little new babies would have to be boys. a heathen is anybody that lives on the other side of the map from us. another good thing about a man is he can say, "damn that telephone!" rufe says it whenever he's busy and it bothers him, but cousin eunice can't. all she can do is to have sick headache when she gets worn out. i know one tired lady whose husband is a busy doctor and whose baby is a busy baby, and lots of times the lady has to stop up her ears to say her prayers. and she hardly ever has time to powder her face unless company is coming, but, sick or well, she has to answer that telephone! she says it is a disheartening thing to have to take her hands out of the biscuit dough when the cook's brother has died and go to the telephone in a big hurry where folks tell her every symptom of everything they have, from abscess on the brain to ingrowing toe-nails. and she never gets the baby well lathered in his bath of a morning but what some of her lady friends call her up and she has to sit and talk for politeness' sake till the baby almost drowns and gets soap in his eyes. she tries to believe in new thought though, and some days she "goes into the silence." this means wrapping the telephone up in a counterpane and stuffing up the door-bell until it can make only a hoarse, choking noise. then she spanks the baby and puts him to bed, and that house is like the palace of the sleeping beauty. yes, women certainly seem to have a hard time in this life. even when they marry rich and live in a hotel and never have any babies they seem to be worse tired than the ones that warm bottles of milk and peel potatoes. some of them that cousin eunice knows are called "bridge maniacs," and they shrug their shoulders and say "what's the use?" if you suggest anything to them. i have been home from cousin eunice's now for two weeks, for the stylish, private school i went to up there lets out soon. mammy lou says i'm the worst person to break out in spots she ever saw, and one of my "spots" last summer was keeping this diary, which i did for a while very hard and fast. now a whole year has passed and it is summer again and i am so lonesome that i believe i'll write a little every day and tell some of the things we did at rufe's last winter. if any of you grandchildren who read are afflicted with that trouble of doing things by fits and starts you may know who you inherited it from. i'm not really to blame so much for neglecting you, my diary, for all the time i needed you most last winter you were lost. this is a terrible habit that all my things have--getting lost. my garters do it especially and i have to tear great holes in my stockings by pinning them up and then forgetting to stand stiff-kneed. rufe told mother last fall that i was so precocious, which i looked up in the dictionary and admired him very much for, that i ought to be where i could have good teachers. so after he and cousin eunice had been married long enough to be able to bear the sight of a third party at the breakfast table they wrote for me to come and i went. i was kinder disappointed to see them looking like every-day folks again, for the last time i had seen them they were looking as they had never looked before and never will look again, for rufe says he'll be hanged if anybody can get him to appear in that wedding suit any more. but oh, that wedding! and oh, that wedding march played on a thundering pipe-organ that makes cold chills run up and down your back thinking what if it was happening to you! when the time comes for "i will" you nearly smother, you're so afraid they might change their minds at the last minute and embarrass you half to death right there before all those people. they didn't change their minds then, though, nor since then either, i honestly believe. they married safe and sound, and cousin eunice's favorite book now is _ , tried recipes_. and keats is lots of times covered with dust. i got this far last night when mammy lou passed by my window on her way to her house from the kitchen and stopped long enough to make me go to bed. she says it takes a sight of sleep and a "passel o' victuals" for a girl of my age, and i don't have enough of either. "i'se shore goin' 'er tell mis' mary how you set up uv a night," she said, very fiercely, but she couldn't shake her finger at me for it took both hands to hold the big pan she had under her apron. "an' as fer eatin'! why, a red bug eats more! an' such truck! candy and apples and fried chicken and fried saratoga chips! _fries_ nuvver was no good for nobody at the gawky age, nohow. it takes _boils_ to fatten them!" i promised i'd go on to bed and eat nothing but "boils" to please her if she wouldn't tell father and mother how late i sit up, so she promised. she never would tell anyhow. i believe the next thing i wanted to mention about was the theaters they used to take me to on friday night when there wasn't any lessons. i just love the theater. i believe if i don't decide to be a trained nurse, although i am sure that is what i was cut out for, i may be an actress. when they used to tell me pitiful tales at sunday-school about the heathen i was sure i wanted to be a missionary to japan. mother used to take me to a tea store with her every time we went into the city to buy things we couldn't get at home and the walls were covered with pictures of japan. i never will forget how blue the sky was nor how white the clouds, and it seemed the loveliest country in the world to me, except home. and i would look at mother and wonder how she would feel if i told her that some day i was going to leave her and father and sail away to that beautiful land where the poor, ignorant people didn't know how to wear corsets nor eat hog meat. of course they needed somebody to tell them what they were missing and i was eager to be that one! that was a long time ago! i know more about japan now! i know more about america too! doctor gordon said one night last winter that if some of the missionaries were to go all over this country and tell folks to open their windows and stop murdering their babies with candy and bananas they would do more good than trying to teach the japanese so much. he said he didn't know which was the more heathenish, to throw children in the river and let them have a quick death or stuff them on fried meat and pickles and let them die by slow torture. the mothers are hard to teach, he says, because they don't more than leave the doctor's office with a poor little pale baby than they meet an old woman who tells them not to let the child be doctored to death, to "feed 'im." they will tell the mother "didn't _i_ have eleven? and everything _i_ et, _they_ et!" he told us so many stories of murdered babies that i got to feeling like i'd prefer being a nurse in a day home. i love babies! and doctor gordon has the loveliest eyes!--but i haven't got to him yet. speaking of the theater, i got to see many notorious people on the stage this winter. rufe said i would get a great variety of ideas from the best plays. i did. i got a great variety of ideals too. one time he would be tall, fair and brave, with a scotch name, like marmaduke cameron, or bruce macpherson. then the very next time i'd go he'd change his looks and disposition. i loved some of the operas, too, especially _il trovatore_. i wish the singers were slender, though. it hurts your feelings to have the "voice that rang from that donjon tower" belonging to a great fat man with no head to speak of, and what he has consisting mainly of jaws. of all the songs on record (not phonographic record) next to _dixie_ and _la paloma_ i believe i love _ah, i have sighed to rest me!_ the words to this are not so loving, but the tune is so pitiful. i wish my name was dolores lovelock, or anita messala, and i could get shut up in a tower. i have a girl friend in the city and every time we write to each other we sign the name we're wishing most was ours at that very minute. her last letter was signed "undine valentine," but i don't think that's half as pretty as mercedes ficediola. it wouldn't hardly be worth while for me to change my name now, because i change my mind so often. i'm a great hand to start a thing and then branch off and start something entirely different, such as learning how to make the table walk, and pyrography. cousin eunice said one day when she looked around at the things i had in my room that it reminded her of pompeii when they dug it up--so many things started that never would be finished. one of the things we enjoyed most at cousin eunice's was walking out to a lovely old cemetery not very far from her house. it is so old and so beautiful that you're sure all the people in the graves must have gone to heaven long ago. along in april, when the iris and lilies-of-the-valley are in bloom and the birds and trees and sky all seem to be so happy, you look around at those peaceful graves and you don't believe in hell one bit. you think god is a heap better than folks give him credit for being. but i hope this will never come to brother sheffield's ears, for he thinks you're certainly going there if you don't believe in a hell worse than the standard oil company on fire. while i'm on this kind of subject i want to tell something that rufe said last winter, but i'm afraid to, for if mother ever saw it she would get brother sheffield to hold a special meeting for rufe. i might risk it and then lock my diary up tight. rufe said one time when i remarked that i liked st. john better than st. paul: "no wonder! st. john's _liver_ was in good working order!" cousin eunice and rufe are still very earnest and study deep things, even if they don't read keats so much. they know a jolly crowd of people that call themselves "bohemians." lots of nights some of them would come to cousin eunice's and we would cook things in the chafing-dish and "discuss the deeper problems of life." they are not real bohemians though, for, from what they said, i learned that a real bohemian is a person that is very clever, but nobody knows it. he "follows his career," eating out of paper sacks and tin cans and sleeping on an article that is an oriental couch in the daytime. then finally some rich person finds him and invites him to dinner, and this is called "discovering a genius." when our friends would come we would talk about the "brotherhood of man" and the north pole and such things as that. i listen to everything i can hear about the north pole for i never have got over the idea that santa claus lives there. and the "brotherhood of man" means we're all as much alike as biscuits in a pan, the only difference being in the place where we're put; and we ought to act accordingly. some of the young ones talk a great deal about how the children of the nation ought to be brought up, and they tell about what their family life is going to be like, though rufe says most of them haven't got salary enough to support a cockroach. i think the "brotherhood of man" business is a good thing to teach children, for i wasn't taught it and i shall never forget my feelings when i first learned that christ was a jew! i thought it couldn't be so, and if it was so i could never be happy again. so the bohemians are going to teach their children that the jew is our brother and that he hath eyes and if you prick him he will bleed. these are their own words. i'm sure the jews are lovely people since i've seen ben-hur on the stage and the picture of dis-disraeli. that's all i know about him and i'm not sure how to spell that. i'll skin my children if i ever catch them saying "sheenie" in my presence. and we make limericks! we don't make them in the chafing-dish though, as i thought when i first went there. a limerick is a very different thing from what you'd think if you didn't know. it's a verse of poetry that's very clever in every line. among the bohemians i liked best were a married couple and ann lisbeth. besides having the same name as mine, ann lisbeth is a beautiful foreign girl who was living across the ocean when she was born. her last name is something that _disraeli_ is not a circumstance to, and i'd never spell it, so i won't waste time trying. she's going to get rid of that name pretty soon and i don't blame her, although cousin eunice says it is a noble one across the ocean. _still_ i don't blame her, for the man is a young doctor, doctor gordon that i've already mentioned, and perfectly _precious_. next to a prince i believe a young doctor is the most thrilling thing in the world! ann lisbeth lived near cousin eunice and they were great friends. she and her mother were very poor because they got exiled from their home for trying to get ann lisbeth's father out of prison where the king had put him. oh, the people across the ocean are so much more romantic than we are in this country! now, father wouldn't ever get put in prison in a lifetime! ann lisbeth has to work for a living. she does embroidery--exquisite embroidery, and lace work that looks like charlotte russe. she is the kind of looking girl that you'd expect to have a dressing-table covered with silver things and eat marshmallows and ice-cream all the time. she is what cousin eunice calls a "lotus-eater." this like to have worried me to death at first, for i misunderstood it and imagined it was something like eating roaches. i wasn't going to blame ann lisbeth for it even if it _was_ like roaches, for i thought maybe it was the style in her country across the ocean. what is _one_ nation's style would turn another's stomach; and everybody likes what he was raised on, even chinese rats and limburger cheese. it was very romantic the way ann lisbeth met doctor gordon. she had gone down to the florist's one slippery day to spend her last quarter for white hyacinths to cheer her mother up when she had the good fortune to slip down and break her arm. doctor gordon happened to be passing at the time in his automobile and he carried her to the hospital and fixed the arm. he said white hyacinths were his favorite flower, too, so he sends them to her and her mother every day. poor doctor gordon! he's having a hard time to make a living like every other young doctor. he says sometimes he has a whole month of blue mondays come right together. and he says every time he happens to wake up with a headache he also has a blowout in his best tire and gets a notice from the bank that he's overdrawn the same day. i liked him extremely well myself for a while, and he seemed to like me. he called me his little sweetheart, but i soon saw that a little sweetheart has to take a big back seat when there's a grown one around. mother and i have been laughing all day about a little affair that happened here last winter while i was away at school. after christmas mother and father went back to stay at rufe's with me a few days, for they said the place was so lonesome when i left they couldn't stand it. of course they met doctor gordon and ann lisbeth, for we were always at each other's house, either to learn a mount mellick stitch or to play a piece from a new opera. mother liked ann lisbeth's sweet ways so much that she said she just must come down and make her a visit before she _thought_ of getting married. about the time for the first jonquils to bloom, early in february, mother wrote that they reminded her so much of me and made her so lonesome, that she wished ann lisbeth would come on then. so she packed her suit-case and went. everybody knows how the people in a little place will look at a stranger that comes in, because they're so tired of looking at each other. so they stared at her from the station clear up to the house. now, city people never get any enjoyment out of staring unless they see somebody in trouble, such as an unfortunate young man with his shoulder to the wheel, trying to repair a puncture, by the side of a muddy road. then they stare, and giggle too. there were several young men at the station that day, and, as ann lisbeth went down there not breathing to a soul that she was engaged, they came near losing their minds over her beautiful skin and foreign accent. the one of them that seemed to be most impressed was a bore--no, he wasn't just an every-day kind of bore that asks you if this is your first visit to that place and tells you afterward that he never has been so impressed in his life on short acquaintance. i've heard cousin eunice talk about them, but this man wasn't like that sort of bore. he was a perfect _auger_. many a time when he has dropped in to see father of an evening and i would have to put my book down for politeness' sake, i've sat there and pinched my face, the side that was turned away from him, till it was black and blue, to keep awake. pinching your arm or leg wouldn't have done any good with this man--you had to pinch up close to your brain. all the time ann lisbeth was there he showed so plainly that he was coming to see _her_ that mother and father would go out and leave them alone, though father said he felt so sorry for her that he promised always to do something to run him off by ten o'clock. every man knows how to do these things, i believe, such as taking off his shoes loud and telling mother to wind the clock, in a stagey voice, and making a great racket around the front door. and when the young man would hear these signs he would leave. right in the midst of ann lisbeth's visit one day she got a telegram from doctor gordon saying that he was coming down that evening and leave on the midnight train. this is a sure sign a man cares. he couldn't stand it any longer. well this mr. w. (i'll call him that for fear his grandchildren might feel hard toward mine if it ever got to their ears that i had spelt his name right out) had said he was coming over that night to bring some new records for the talking machine, to try them; but, when ann lisbeth told mother about doctor gordon coming, mother telephoned him, mr. w., i mean, not to come till the next night when father would be at home, as he wanted to hear the records. sure enough father did have some business out in the country that afternoon and didn't get home until about ten o'clock that night. he heard voices as he passed the parlor door, and thinking of course it was mr. w., decided that he would run him off right away so poor ann lisbeth could get some sleep. mother was already asleep and there was no way for him to know who it really was in the parlor, so he took his shoes off and slammed them down in vain, and rattled out the ashes, and wound the clock, and coughed and sneezed. by this time he was awfully sleepy, for it was a cold night and he had had a long drive, so he went to bed and to sleep. along about twelve o'clock father woke up, and seeing a light still in the parlor, tried to get mother roused up long enough to ask her what else she supposed he might use besides _dynamite_ to run that fellow off. mother was still so sleepy that she didn't say anything, so father got out of bed and opened his bedroom door. there were voices talking very easy in the parlor, so father, thinking that surely ann lisbeth would be ready to commit suicide by this time, decided he would walk to the front door and open and shut it real loud, knowing _that_ would run him off, without waiting to slip on his trousers. now, father is long and lank, and wears old-timey bob-tail night-shirts, winter and summer; and all the rooms of our house open _square_ into that one big hall--and there are no curtains to hide behind! just as father reached the front door and began tampering with the lock, out walked the happy pair from the parlor and they must have had a mighty tumble off of mount olympus or pegasus, or whatever that place is called. they jumped back as quickly as they could, but of course they couldn't get back quickly enough to suit all parties concerned. father finally got the door open and, to keep from having to pass the parlor door again, he ran _clear_ around that big, rambling house, bare-footed, and with the february moon shining down on him and the february wind whistling through his little bob-tail night-shirt. the noise of so many doors opening and shutting made mother wake up in a hurry, and, being used to father's ways of leaping, then looking afterward, she realized what had happened. poor father came around to the side porch and scratched on the bedroom door for mother to let him in. by this time she was so near dead from laughing that she could hardly speak, but managed to use her voice a little, just to pay him back for doing such an idiotic thing, she said. she opened the bedroom door a little, so doctor gordon and ann lisbeth could hear, then called out in a loud, distressed voice: "oh, dan! _have_ you come home in _that condition_ again?" everybody that knows father knows that he never drank a drop of anything stronger than soothing-syrup in his life; and when he had met doctor gordon in the city they hadn't been able to get off the subject of prohibition, they both were so temperate. it was a terrible thing to be called "in that condition" before _him_! but mother let him in, and doctor gordon caught his train back to the city where he sent father at least _two_ dozen funny post-cards on the subject of "that condition." chapter iii i always did admire surprises, my diary, so when mother came in from the station one day not long ago and said there was a surprise for me i thought sure it must be a dessert for dinner, or a package come by express, as it isn't christmas for anything to be in the toe of my stocking. but mother shook her head and smiled at all of these. she said it was a heap better, and it is. a curious thing has happened in this family. it's happened a little to father, for he's kept awake by it; a good deal to mother, for she has to tell how to tend to it; an awful lot to dilsey, for she has to walk it and feed it and get it to sleep; but it has happened most of all to bertha, for it's to _her_ that the stork (or the doctor, or out of the rose bush--they tell you so many different tales you never know which to believe) brought it. just about that time bertha happened not to be feeling very well, so mother wrote for her to come down to our house where the air would be good for her, and then she would have dilsey to tend to it. you'd never guess what it is, my diary, so i'll tell you. it's a baby! a live one with open and shut eyes, and can cry; you don't have to pull a string to make it, either. this makes it better than even the finest doll, and, as i'm above dolls anyhow, a baby is more suitable to one of my age. the only bad part about it is that you can't lock it up in the wardrobe when you get through playing with it. sometimes i have wished it was the kind you had to pull a string to make cry, and then i'd cut the string off so we would have a few peaceful nights, but apt as not this wouldn't be healthy for it, for i guess the stork (or the doctor, or out of the rose bush) knew best how to fix it. mr. parkes is the baby's father, and also bertha's husband. he is one of the nicest men you ever saw, pleasant all the time, which people say is because he's a drummer which sells things. he carries valises full of lovely crackers and little cakes with icing on the top, and calls it his "line." i've heard rufe and cousin eunice talk about "lines falling in pleasant places," and i think it must mean something like this, for our house has been a pleasant place since saturday night when he came to spend sunday with us and bertha. some days he sells as much as five hundred dollars worth of cake to _one_ man, though i don't see what keeps him from _dying_ that bought them of stomach ache, for i've had it myself since he's been here considerable. he and father talk a heap about mr. parkes' "house" in the city. he writes to the house every day and it writes back to him, and he is always saying what he'll do "when he hears from the house," just like it was folks. he wears an elk's head on the lapel of his coat for an ornament and another on his watch chain, and even has a pair of purple socks with white elks on them, and laughs a good deal, which has been a benefit to bertha's disposition since she married him. if the baby wakes up and cries for her bottle as late as _eleven_ o'clock at night, which would give most men room to say things, he's just as jolly as if it was broad daylight, and says so loud you can hear him in the next room: "tonsound her little skin! her is her daddy's own kid--_her_ knows that eleven o'clock calls for a bottle, only daddy wants _his_ cold, and her wants _hers_ warmed!" and out to the kitchen he goes and warms it like a gentleman. i believe mr. parkes would be a gentleman even if he had _twins_. of course there never is any good happens to your family without something bad happening along with it. a misfortune was sent to us one morning when the train came. it was aunt laura, mother's sister, and bertha's and my aunt. it is a habit of hers to come to our house every summer, but this time she came before we were looking for her, having got mad at the relatives where she was. so she has changed her will and is going to leave all her money to bertha's baby, and she told mother that she came right on down as soon as she decided on this to see if the baby was a nice, well-behaved child, as it didn't run in the family for the children to be any too well-behaved; and she looked at me when she said the last. bertha was in a flutter when she heard it, but mother just laughed and said the baby was equally as well-behaved as most eight-weeks-old children. aunt laura has spit-curls, but a great deal of money, having been a school teacher ever since she was born, and never spending her money buying her little nieces candy and pretty dresses. she admires church and preachers more than anything, but i don't, and when the money was willed to _me_ one time i lost my chance by saying at the table when brother sheffield was there eating chicken and said he liked the gizzard, right quick, before i thought of manners, "father, don't give it to him--_he_ ain't little!" the money has been willed to every member of the family, for she gets mad at one and unwills it away from them onto another, until we've all had a trial. but the poetry books say it's a black cloud that don't blow somebody a silver lining, and i guess the silver lining to aunt laura is that she's in love with brother sheffield, which will give me a good many new thoughts to write about; for before when i was writing about couples it was always the man that was trying to marry the lady, but now it's the other way, which you can always count on when you see spit-curls. even this is better to write about than just a baby, though, for they mostly do the same thing day after day; but you can never tell what a _loving_ person will do to thrill your diary. it was till plumb breakfast time this morning before aunt laura made known to us what new thing she's got up to talk about all the time. father calls it a "fad." he said the minute he saw her come he was willing to bet on anything, from the latest breakfast food to an aunty saloon league, but mother told him it was sinful to bet about such things, for last summer it was foreign missions. it is just as well that he didn't bet, for he would have lost, it being the heart disease which she has very bad. she said she didn't tell us right at first because she knew we didn't care anything about hearing it, but she thought we better be prepared in case a spell came on her suddenly, for she had felt worse symptoms lately than ever before. bertha had acted awful good all day and not let the baby cry nor slobber on aunt laura for the sake of the will. i guess i've been worse this last week than ever before, for it is the first time i've been ashamed to tell what i've done in my diary. bertha knows if aunt laura could get brother sheffield to marry her she would unwill the money from the baby; so she thinks up things to tell me to do to keep them from being together, and i've been doing them. one time i hid her purple sunday bonnet, then her curls to keep her from going to prayer-meeting, but i'm glad to say that i have never taken the dimes which bertha said she would give me for doing them. i hate aunt laura enough to do mean things to her myself, which is a better principle than to do them just for dimes. this is sunday again and i have to go to church. somehow, during the summer, sunday smells like black silk, for mother and all the ladies that can afford it wear it to church to let the others see how well off they are. when i was _right_ little and got tee-ninsy cards at sunday-school i imagined heaven looked like those cards, all lilies-of-the-valley and little pink lambs, but since i've grown older my views have changed. preachers always think you can't go to heaven unless you do just like they do, and i couldn't be like a preacher to save my life, except about chicken. aunt laura had to look all over the place for her black silk waist this morning and then not find it, so she got into a bad spell and couldn't go to church. after the sermon was over and we were trying to forget it by standing around and telling the other ladies how much fruit we had put up this past week, brother sheffield came up and asked mother if aunt laura was sick, not being out to services. mother said she was, but she hoped to find her all right when we got home, as she never was sick very long, and i knew she would be well because it was ice-cream for dinner. he said then he'd be over to see her this afternoon as he hadn't seen her in so long. well, it was awfully hot all the afternoon, and, as he wouldn't be over till late so as to be invited to supper, aunt laura decided to take off her front hair and have a nap after dinner. now, up to this time i have been afraid to mention even in my diary about bertha's bad habit. i really like bertha better than i did before she was married, and i knew if aunt laura was to catch on to it she would change from the baby right away, for brother sheffield calls it "the trade-mark of jezebel," which is a bible lady, though the preachers always throw her up to anybody they don't like. so bertha keeps this locked away good in the little left-handed drawer of her bureau, and don't anybody but me know it's there. it was getting late when brother sheffield drove up to the gate. he is an old man and his knees are so poor that they look like they would punch through his trousers legs if he was to get down on them to ask a lady to marry him, as they do in books. in fact, i have stayed around the parlor and watched considerable, thinking how mortified i'd feel if they were to punch through, but he hasn't ever got down on them yet. his name is gideon, which makes it worse for him, too. cousin eunice said ann lisbeth's name is a very old one in the country across the ocean where she used to live, but i know there ain't an older name on earth than gideon. aunt laura ought to have been named the feminine of it, instead of that beautiful name that has so much lovely poetry written about it. anyhow, i was surprised that she wasn't dressed up in a clean waist and down on the front porch to meet him, but i went up-stairs right quick to tell her he was there. she was still asleep and woke up as mad and red as folks always do that go to sleep in the summer. i told her he was already on the porch. "well, help me get dressed, won't you, instead of standing there staring at me as if you never saw anybody with their front hair off and their upper plate out before? run to the well and bring me some fresh water, and, say, come back by your mother's room and bring me her box of powder and puff. i spilt all of mine looking in the drawer this morning for that pestiferous waist. hurry!" i ran to the well and got the water, but coming back by mother's room i saw that brother sheffield was facing the door and would have seen me, which wouldn't have been nice to bring out a box and puff before a man, much less a preacher, so i didn't get the powder. i told aunt laura to get bertha's, when she commenced fussing, for i had passed her room and saw that she had dressed in a big hurry and left the bureau unlocked, the room being very hot and dark, the baby being asleep, on account of the flies. she hushed then and said for me to go down and tell him that she would be out in a few minutes, which i did. i left him on the porch fanning while i went out to a little place i have under the porch where it is nice and quiet and they can't find you reading fairy tales when they want you for something; but _you_ can hear _them_ talking. pretty soon aunt laura came out, and in her dressed-up voice commenced telling him how sorry she was that she kept him waiting. but before she had more than got it said he asked her excited-like what was the matter with her. it seemed like when he got excited she did too, so she grabbed her stomach (not that i saw her, but i know she always does it here lately when she gets mad or scared) and said: "oh, my heart! it must be the heart disease!" he interrupted her again, a heap too quick and sharp for a preacher: "your heart _nothing_! go and look at your _face_!" that was more than i could stand, so out from under the porch i slid, just in time to see aunt laura, with her face as red as the indians they have in sideshows, turn and run into the hall where she could look at herself in the hat-rack looking-glass. she gave one tremendous yell which woke the baby and made the rest of the family come flying in from where they were. it wasn't a minute before me and brother sheffield were in the hall with her and mother and father running in off of the back porch, and dilsey with the baby in her arms leaning over the banisters to see what was the matter. "it's my death stroke," aunt laura said, just like she knew what she was talking about. "the doctor's books say it comes on this way," she kept on, while the preacher fanned her and we were all flying around doing things for her, and me standing still wondering how on earth come her face so fiery red. "thank heaven, i die in the conviction of having lived a good life, _and_ willed all my money to the only member of my family that has ever treated me with any respect." this did look kinder like the truth, for the baby was the only member of the family which was crying over this sad occasion; but she was very loud and hard. "i've been visited by providence with a curious family," poor aunt laura said, looking very mad toward father and mother, "but they will soon have cause to regret all their strange ways with me. if there was _one_ person in this world that _did_ care for me, to _that_ one should my will be changed, for there is little consolation in leaving your property to a baby." brother sheffield here spoke up and said as aunt laura "so fully realized her hopeless condition he thought they better have some conversation together as to her spiritual welfare. he desired a few moments alone with her." "yes," said aunt laura right quick, "_private_ conversation. my soul's safety is not to be discussed in the presence of my enemies!" so out we all got, me along with the rest of them, which was a great disappointment, for i could have learned a good deal if there had been any way of staying in there. they talked a long time and we could hear a few remarks now and then, being as we couldn't think of anything to say ourselves, and it was very still on the porch. once or twice we heard her say very decided-like that indeed she _wasn't_ mistaken, for every book she had read on the subject said it was exactly that kind of a symptom. and then he would talk some, and one time he seemed to doubt her word so that she fairly yelled out, the way she does when he ain't around: "can you doubt the hideous mark of death that has this hour appeared upon my face? isn't it proof that my flesh is being prepared for the worms?" which _did_ sound pitiful and scary, too, it being kinder dark on the porch. this seemed to do the work, for in a few minutes she called us in and told us that brother sheffield had asked her to marry him, and although she had never before considered him in the light of a lover, still she was going to do it if the lord let her live an hour, while father could ride over for a preacher and she could change her will. brother sheffield was crying like he does when he is calling mourners, and his voice would hardly talk, but he managed to say: "yes, she has done me the honor to accept me; she, a woman of intellect and _wealth_, and me, only a poor, humble worker----" he couldn't get any further, but i had heard it so many times before that i knew it was "humble worker of the vineyard," though father says he is more of a _hungry_ eater of the _barnyard_. when aunt laura mentioned about being married in an hour brother sheffield seemed to take a second thought, and spoke up kinder weak and said he didn't know whether it was exactly right to be married on sunday or not. when aunt laura saw him begin to weaken it brought on such a hard spell that she laid back on the sofa with her eyes shut, like she was sure enough dead. this really scared mother, and she told mammy lou, who had her head poked in at the back door, to run for some water. mammy brought the bucket in off the back porch and commenced sousing it over aunt laura by the handsful, which didn't bring her to; but a strange thing happened, which, if it wasn't me that saw it, anybody would think it was a story, but i cross my heart that the water that dribbled down off her face on to her clean waist was _pink_! "jumping jerusalem!" father said, "the heart disease is washing off!" this made aunt laura open her eyes, and by that time mammy lou had got a towel and was wiping her face off all over, which seemed to make it look natural again. not one of us knew what to think of such a strange disease till all of a sudden i remembered bertha's bad habit! and then i knew it was all off with aunt laura and the marrying. it wasn't very long till they all caught on to what it was on her face; and the worst part of it was that brother sheffield said he believed she did it _a-purpose_. he rose up very proud, and looking kinder relieved and said he could never marry a woman who would "defile herself with the trade-mark of jezebel." when he commenced throwing up jezebel to aunt laura she threw up esau to him, which sold himself for a "mess of pottage," though this never did sound lady-like to me, even coming from the pulpit. so esau went out and drove straight home, and jezebel went up-stairs and packed her trunk to go home early in the morning, never having been so insulted by relatives before in her life. so the marrying is off and the baby is disinherited, which will be a relief to it when it gets big enough to understand. but the worst part is that aunt laura blames the whole thing on me, for she says i had her ruination in mind when i sicked her on to that little left-handed drawer. of course it ain't so, but it proves that people ought to raise the blind and be sure it's _whitening_ they're spreading on, even if the baby is asleep. chapter iv you remember, my diary, a good many pages back i mentioned in here a pair of bohemians that were married to each other and were friends of ours and would come to rufe's every week and we would all do funny things? well, i couldn't write about them then, for i didn't have any space for married people, wanting to save it purely for folks that loved each other. but now it does seem like providence that they've come down here to spend the summer in the country, for there's not a single loving soul left to write about, aunt laura being gone and brother sheffield never very loving when she was here, except chicken. their name is mrs. marie and augustus young. father says that adam or the legislature knew a thing or two when it named them _young_. he is a professor and owns a chair in a college that must either have gold nails in it or sit extra good, for rufe says it is worth five thousand dollars a year. mrs. young sings vocal. i wish she didn't, especially in a parlor. if anybody is singing or reciting a speech on a platform and flowers and electric lights it thrills you and you really enjoy it; but if they do it in a close room, especially if it trills high or has to kneel down and get red in the face, it makes you so ashamed for the one that's doing it, and for yourself, too, that you look straight at the carpet. even then the blood rushes to your head. they have built a house with such a wide porch running all around it that it reminds you of a little, tiny boy with a great big hat pulled down over his eyes, which is called a bungalow. they said they had brought a "complete outfit for light housekeeping" along with them, but when mother saw it she laughed considerable on the outside of the bungalow, for it was fifty-three books, mostly ending in "ology," a hammock and some chairs that lean away back, a guitar apiece, a great many little glass cases that you stick bugs and butterflies in if you can catch them, a picture of the apostle hosea, with his head all wrapped up like an old lady with the neuralgia, which they both said they could not live without, and a punching-bag, which they punched a great deal in the city, not having any baby to amuse themselves with, which was a good thing for the baby i reckon. so mother sent them over a great many things and professor young said she was the most sensible woman he ever saw, including a biscuit board and a sifter. they have been here a few days now and are delighted with the country air and the green scenery, and, although it does seem proud to say it, _me_. they thought very highly of me at cousin eunice's and said i was the most "interesting revelation of artless juvenile expression" they ever saw, which i wrote down on paper and when i came home taught it to mammy lou to give in at the experience meeting. one morning early, while mammy was beating the biscuit for breakfast, and i was up in the pear tree right by the kitchen door i nearly fell out with surprise when i saw professor young coming around the house with a pretty shirt open at the neck that he admires and two _great big_ dominecker roosters up in his arms which were both squawking very loud. mammy lou came to the door to see what all the noise was about, and he said she was the very person he wanted to see. "auntie," he commenced, trying to get into his pocket and wipe his face with his handkerchief, which was greatly perspiring, but he couldn't do it for the roosters, "my wife and i are in a quandary. we are both ignorant of the preferred method of inflicting a painless yet instantaneous death upon a fowl." mammy's eyes began to shine, for she loves big words like she loves watermelons, and without a sign of manners she never even tried to answer his question, but looked up at me in the tree and says: "baby, kin you rickollect all that to write it down?" professor young then looked up into the tree too and says: "why, mistress ann, how entirely characteristic!" and then he wanted to know what book i was reading and i told him, _john halifax, gentleman_, which i have had for my favorite book since i was eleven years old; and the roosters continued to squawk. i got down then and asked professor young if he wouldn't come into the house, but he said no and asked his question to mammy over again. she looked at me and to save her manners i told her right quick what the meaning of it was, me understanding it on account of being precocious and also at rufe's last winter, where they use strange words. "_thar now!_ is _that_ all it's about?" she asked awfully disappointed, for she thought from the words "painless death" it must be something about preaching. then in a minute, when she saw that he was still waiting, she turned around to him and said: "whar is the chicken _at_ that you want killed?" he held the roosters away from him and, looking at them as proud as a little boy looks at a bucket of minnows, he said: "these are they!" this tickled mammy so, and me too, though i remembered my manners, that she began to laugh, which shook considerable under her apron, and said: "well, gentle_men_! whut do you want to kill _them_ for?" "for breakfast," he said; and, noticing her laughing, his face got to looking so pitiful all in a minute that it made me just wish that cinderella's fairy godmother would come along and turn those roosters into nice little pullets all fried and laying on parsley. "why, mr. professor," mammy told him, "them roosters is so old that they will soon die a natural death if you leave them alone; and they're so big that you might fry 'em frum now till breakfast time on jedgment day, and then they wouldn't be fitten!" when she told him this he did manage to get out his handkerchief, i thought maybe to cry on, he looked so disappointed, but it was just to perspire on. "i--er, observed that they were unduly large," the poor man told her, "but i--er, thought maybe the larger a country thing was the better!" i thought of horse-flies and ticks, but was too mannerly to mention them, especially so near breakfast time. just then mother and father came out of the back door, and when they heard the tale of the roosters they both invited him to come right in and have breakfast with us, and said they would tie their legs together so they could flop around the back yard, but couldn't get away, and i could run over and bring mrs. young. last night when i got home i was too tired to write or anything else, for it was the night of the glorious fourth! professor young and mrs. young both kept remarking all day how lovely it was to be able to spend the fourth of july in a cool ravine instead of in the horrid city where there were so many smells of gunpowder and little boys. they said they must have me go along for the woods wouldn't really be woodsy without me, as i was the genius loci. i didn't know at first what that was, but i know now that it makes you tired and perspiry to be the genius loci of eight miles of woods on the fourth of july. rufe and cousin eunice couldn't think of half as many peculiar things to do when they were courting as the youngs. we ate a number of stuffed eggs which kinder made up for the tiredness, me being very fond of them, but professor young is crazy about mrs. young's singing voice and every time we'd come to an extra pretty place he would say: "marie, my love, sing something just here," so we'd have to stand still on our legs, it often being too snaky to sit down, while she sang. one time she thought up part of a song without a speck of tune to it, and it was in a language across the ocean. all i could make out was "parsifal," and every once in a while she would stop a minute in the song and say a word that sounded like "itch," though i don't suppose it was, being in a song. every time she would say itch he would scratch, for the poor man was covered with ticks. but the most trying thing was the bugs and butterflies, which being "naturalists" they caught. we had to run all over the ground and sides of the hills for them, and empty our dinner out on a nice, shady rock, so we could use the lunch box to put them in. when we got back we found it all covered with ants, but we were so hungry we thought we'd brushed them all off, though in the cake we found we _hadn't_. if a person hasn't ever eaten an ant, my diary, there ain't any use in trying to make them understand what they taste like, so i won't dwell on that. professor young said though he was willing to eat them for the sake of his beloved science, though i don't see how it helped science any. toward evening we got to a fine place in the branch to wade and mrs. young said, oh, let's do it; it would remind us of our childhood days. so we soon had our feet bare, with our thoughts on our childhood days, and never once stopping to remember that we didn't have a thing to wipe them on. nobody said so much as towel until we got out, and then it was too late, so we were very much pained and annoyed every step of the way home on account of our gritty feet. another morning early we decided to go out and see the sun rise, like thoreau. (they tell me how to spell all the odd words.) we went up to the tiptop of a high hill, and when the sun was just high enough to make you squint your eyes mr. young remarked that he realized his life was "replete with glorious possibilities," and he said in such moments he felt that he could "encompass his heart's desire." he said he fain would be a novelist. now, this is the only subject they ever fall out about, for he's always wanting to be something that he is not. last winter when he met doctor gordon at rufe's he decided he wanted to be a doctor, for he said they could always make a living, no matter where they were, while a poor college professor had to stay wherever he had a chair to sit in. so he went to a store where you buy rubber arms and legs and things and bought a long black bag like doctor gordon's, full of shiny, scary-looking scissors and knives which cost seventy-five dollars, to lay away till fall when the doctor's school opened up again. in two weeks mrs. young had got the store man to take the things back for half price because professor young had decided he wanted to study banjo playing instead of doctoring and had bought a banjo trimmed with silver. she knew whenever he said he wanted to _be_ anything it would cost as much as two new dresses, and then have to be exchanged for something else, so she asked him if he would have to buy anything to begin this novel-writing business with. he proudly told her no, for his "mother nature had endowed him with a complete equipment," and he thumped his forehead between his eyes and his straw hat. then she told him to go on. he said it would be a good time to get material from the study of the "primitive creatures" around here in the country. i hoped these "primitive creatures" were not the kind of insects you would have to empty the lunch box for, nor be careful not to pull off their hind legs while you were catching them, not knowing just what they were. i was scared good when he said he thought the girl that milked mrs. hedges' cows would be a good one to begin on. he said if marie didn't mind he would go over to the farthest pasture where he could see her then and _draw her out to see what was in her_! this sounded terrible to me, knowing that he used some sickly smelling stuff on the bugs that killed them before they had time to say a word, and i thought maybe because emma belle was a poor servant girl he was going to do her the same way. he had always seemed such a kind-hearted man to me, and i saw him and emma belle standing at the fence talking and he was not trying to hold anything to her nose, still i didn't feel easy till he got back. mrs. young asked him what he had learned, and if his novel would be along "socialistic lines" or a "romance in a simple bucolic setting." that "bucolic" reminded me of bertha's little innocent baby, and i wished i was at home nursing it even if it did cry, rather than be out sun-rising with such a peculiar man. he said it would be a "pastoral," and that the girl's eyes were exactly like his first sweetheart's, which was remarkable. mrs. young spoke up right quick and said there wasn't anything remarkable in _that_, because all common, country girls looked alike and they all had about as much expression as a squash. we haven't been out early acting like thoreau any more, for mrs. young said it was the most foolish of all the foolish things augustus had made her do, and he could continue to associate with milkmaids by himself if he wanted to, which he has. this morning she came over to our house early to ask mother if you singed a picked chicken over a blaze or what, and if she didn't think thoreau was an idiot. mother said yes, you did, if it had pin feathers on it, and she didn't know much about thoreau, but she preferred men that paid taxes and ate off of white tablecloths. mrs. young said she thought all men that read bugology and admired pictures like hosea were a little idiotic and she wished she had married a man like father. mother said well, she better not be too sure, for they all have their faults. after a good long time professor young came in, not finding marie at the bungalow, looking awful hot and cross. the sight of him seemed to make mrs. young feel worse than ever and she told him she had just come over to consult mother about her journey home to-morrow, although she hadn't mentioned it to us before. she went on to say that _he_ might spend the rest of the summer, or the rest of his life if he wanted to, boarding over at mrs. hedges' where he could see emma belle morning, noon and night, instead of only in the morning. he said why, he was utterly surprised for she hadn't mentioned such a thing to him before, but she told him he hadn't spent enough time with _her_ lately even to know whether or not she still retained the power of speech. he said right quick, oh, he never doubted _that_! she said, well, _she_ was going and he needn't argue with _her_. he said he wasn't going to argue, he was only too glad to leave such a blasted place, for he wanted material for his novel, but the farmer's girl he had talked with the _first_ morning, and the _plow-boys_ he had been associating with ever since were all such fools he couldn't get any material from them. the minute he said that she seemed to feel better and change her mind. she said augustus ought to be ashamed to talk that way about poor ignorant things which never had any opportunities! he said he wanted to go back to the city anyway where there was a bath-tub, but she told him he was very foolish to think about leaving such a cool, "arcadian" spot; their friends would all laugh at them for coming back so soon. she said she had merely mentioned going back for _his_ pleasure, for all the world knew how she _loved_ the country. he finally said he loved it too, so they would stay, but he would be forced to give up novel-writing because the country people around here are all fools. i've heard professor young talk about sitting in a college chair being a hard life, and doctor gordon says doctoring is a hard life, and rufe says that editing is a hard life, but, my diary, between you and me, from the looks of things this morning, i kinder believe that marrying is a hard life, too. chapter v did you ever think what a dear old thing anybody's black mammy is, my diary, especially when she's done all the cooking (and raised you) for twenty-five years? mammy lou has belonged to us just like father and mother ever since we've been at housekeeping, and my heart almost breaks to-night when i think of the fire in our stove that won't burn and the dasher in our churn that is still. ever since i've been keeping a diary i've been awfully glad to hear about anybody being in love, and took great pleasure in watching them and writing it all out, for i could _always_ imagine it was _me_ that was the lady. but i would rather never keep a diary another day than to have such a thing happen to mammy lou. when mother heard about it she said not to be an old fool, but mammy lou said, "either marse shakespeare or marse solomon said a old fool was the biggest fool and she wasn't going to make him out no lie. so marry that yankee nigger she was!" bill williams first came here to teach school, being very proud and educated. then he got to be dilsey's beau and they expected to marry. when he first commenced going to see dilsey mammy lou would cook the nicest kind of things for her to take to picnics, hoping to help her catch him in a motherly way. but when he started to promising to give dilsey a rocking-chair and take her to "george washington" if she would marry him, mammy lou changed about. she had always wanted to see a large city _herself_, and she thought it wasn't any use of letting dilsey get all the best things in life, even if she was her child. pretty soon she commenced wearing red ribbon around her neck and having her hair wrapped fresh once a week. then she told him she was the good cook that cooked all the picnic things, and ironed all of dilsey's clean dresses; also that she had seventy-five dollars saved up that she would be willing to spend on a grand bridal trip the next time she got married. mammy lou is a smart old thing, and so she talked to him until he said, well, he would just as soon marry her as dilsey, if she would stop cooking for us, and cook for _him_ and iron _his_ shirts all the time. she promised him she would do this, like people always do when they're trying to marry a person, although it looks very different afterward. none of mammy's other husbands had been so proud. _they_ would not only let her cook, but would come around every meal time, in the friendliest kind of way, and help her draw a bucket of water. this is why the whole family's heart is breaking and we feel so hungry to-night. she's quit, and the wedding is to-morrow. this morning early she came up to the house to ask mother if it would be excusable to take off her widow's bonnet, not being divorced from uncle mose but four months; also how she had better carry her money to keep bill from getting "a holt" of it. she said she wouldn't trust any white yankee with a half a dollar that she ever saw, much less a coffee-colored one. mother was so mad at her, and so troubled about the sad biscuits and the watery gravy at breakfast that she said she hoped he would steal every cent of the seventy-five dollars before the ceremony was over, and maybe _that_ would bring her to her senses. "and me not to get to go to george washington!" mammy said in a hurt-like voice. "why, mis' mary!" "where is this george washington?" mother took time to ask, thinking mammy would know she was just poking fun at her, but she didn't. "law! ain't it surprising how little my white folks do know! why, it's the place where the president and his wife lives. mr. williams is mighty well acquainted with the president and says he's shore i could git a job cooking for the fambly if i was 'round lookin' for jobs. but i ain't to cook for nobody but _him_ from now on." mother didn't encourage her to talk about her love and matrimony any, so she took me by the hand and we went out and sat down on the kitchen doorstep and had a long conversation. she seemed mighty sad at the notion of leaving us, but was so delighted at the idea of marrying a young man (as anybody naturally _would be_) that she couldn't think of giving that up. pretty soon in our conversation she commenced telling me about the things that happened many years ago, when i was a little child, like they say folks do when they're going on a long journey or die. she began from the time i was born, and said i was such a brown little thing that i looked like i had tobacco-juice running through me instead of blood. and i made use of a bottle until i was four years old. because i was the only one of mother's and father's children that lived and was born to them like isaac (_i_ don't know of any special way that isaac was born, but two of mammy's husbands have been preachers, so _she_ knows what she's talking about) they let me keep the bottle to humor me. it had a long rubber thing to it so i would find it more convenient. mammy said the old muley cow was just laid aside for my benefit, they thought so much of me, and when i got big enough to walk i'd go with her into the cow-lot every hour in the day and drag my bottle behind me to be milked into. i enjoyed being milked into my mouth, too, if my bottle was too dirty to hold it just then. mammy said i always admired the sunshine so much that i would sit out in it on hot days till my milk bottle would clabber, which was one cause of my brownness. when i found out i couldn't draw anything up through the rubber, being all clabbered, i'd begin to cry and run with my bottle to mammy. and she would quiet me by digging out all the clabber with a little twig and feed it to the chickens. they got to knowing the sound of me and my bottle rattling over the gravels so well that they'd all come a running like they do when they hear you scrape the plates. this, of course, was very touching to us both and we nearly cried when she talked about going off to washington where the people are too stylish to keep a muley cow. they won't even keep a baby in the families there, but the ladies keep little dogs and get divorces. mother wouldn't go to the wedding, for dinner and supper were worse than breakfast. the rest of the family all went except dilsey, who didn't much like the way her mother had treated her about bill. professor and mrs. young went, being still down there and a great pleasure to us all. they were delighted, being raised up north, and wanted to take pictures of everything. whenever we would pass a cabin door with a nigger and his guitar sitting in it and picking on it they would stop and say that it was so "picturesque." and the real old uncles with white hair and the mammies with their heads tied up they said reminded them of "aunty bellum days." everything went off as nice as could be expected under the circumstances until the preacher said, "salute your bride." then, when bill started to kiss her, mammy lou laid her hand against the side of his head so hard you could have heard the pop up to the big house and said she would show him how to be impudent to a woman of sixty, even if he was a yankee and educated. everybody passed it off as a joke, but the slap didn't seem to set very well with bill, being nineteen years old and not used to such. we left right after the ceremony and mammy lou and the others walked on down to her house to wait for the twelve o'clock train that they were going to leave on. although i always enjoy going to places with the youngs on account of the curious words and the camera they use, and although it was the sixth marriage of my old nurse, which you don't get a chance to see _every_ day, still when i think of breakfast, i must say it was the saddest wedding i ever witnessed. this morning when i first woke up and heard that regular old tune, _play on your harp, little david_, coming so natural and lifelike from the kitchen i thought surely it must be a dream, mammy being hundreds of miles away in washington. the song kept on, though, just like it has done every morning for twenty-five years, mother says: "_shad_-rach, _me_-shach, _abed_-ne-_go_, the _lord_ has _washed_ me _white_ as _snow_," so i got up. it never does take me a minute to wash my face of a morning, and this morning it took even less time. i hopped into my clothes and flew down-stairs. it wasn't any dream! there was mammy, not looking like she was married nor anything, and a good, cheerful fire in the stove, and the bacon smelling like you were nearly starved. i didn't ask any questions, but just said, "mammy," and she said, "baby," and there i was hugging her fit to turn over the churn. i asked her if mother knew that she come back and she said no, she had been easy and not made any noise, so as to surprise us all. i reckon mother and father are so used to having shadrach, meshach and abednego wake them up of a morning that they thought it was a dream, too. pretty soon they heard us talking though and came in. mother came first, for it is the gentleman's place to let the lady go first into the kitchen, especially when they think that breakfast is to be got. mother said, "what are you doing here?" and mammy lou said, "getting breakfast, mis' mary," which was about as straightforward as they could have been with each other. mother asked her if she wasn't still married, and she said no, for she had "had occasion to give that uppish yankee nigger a good whippin' las' night." and then she went on to say that she told dilsey _she_ could have him if she still wanted him, and said she hoped dilsey would take him for she would just _admire_ to be mother-in-law to that nigger. just then father came in, hearing the last remark about "that nigger," and asked mammy lou what the trouble was between her and her new husband. mammy was breaking eggs into the big yellow bowl which she was going to scramble for breakfast, and as she commenced telling us about her marrying troubles she began to beat them very hard, which seemed to ease her. it is a great help to people to think of their enemies when they are beating things, for it makes them beat all the harder and don't really hurt the enemies. mammy said when they got home from the wedding she started to change her white dress and veil and put on her good cashmere dress to ride on the train in. just about that time mr. williams spoke up and said he was sleepy and wanted to get a good night's rest so he was going to bed, but he wanted mammy to have him a nice rare steak for his breakfast. mammy then asked him if he had been born a fool or just turned that way since he had married so far above his station. he said he would mighty soon find out who the _fool_ was in that family--and she better have good beaten biscuits to go with the steak. when he said this mammy gave him another sample of her strength like she did in the church and told him to get out of there and change his clothes to go to george washington. then he gave a big ha! ha! laugh in her face, right before dilsey and the neighbors and said why, didn't she know that george washington had been dead and buried behind the church door for a hundred years? he kept on laughing and said the "ignorance of country niggers is really amusable." mammy said she hated to do it with her veil on, being a new veil and she hadn't used it but twice, but she couldn't wait to take it off, him grinning like a picture-taking man at his funny joke. all his teeth were showing, and, as mammy had always admired them for being so big and white, she decided she would keep a handful to remember him by; so she gave him one good lick in the mouth with her wedding slipper, which was large and easy to come off. this broke a good half of his front tooth, she said, besides drawing a lot of blood to relieve her feelings. while he was busy wiping away the blood and trying to open his eyes enough to see candle-light again, mammy sat down by him, and, before he knew it, she had dragged him across her lap and was paddling him like he was her own dear son instead of her husband. then she called dilsey and told her she might feel safe about marrying him now, if she still wanted him, for he had better sense than to try to fool with any member of _that_ family again. mammy lou said of course _she_ couldn't stay married to a man she could paddle. she was too much of a lady. but dilsey turned up her nose and said she wouldn't have any second-hand nigger, much less a whipped one. father spoke up then and said she couldn't give bill to dilsey without getting a divorce from him first. mammy lou said, well, marse sheriff might arrest her and marse judge might fine her, but she would see them all in the place that was prepared for them before she would waste twenty-five dollars for just _that_ little speck of marrying! father went on out to feed the chickens and mother went to wake up bertha (but not the baby) for breakfast, and mammy lou scraped the eggs into the dish i had brought her. "divorce _nothin'_," i heard her remark as she soused the hot skillet into water that sizzled, "i done bought a hundred dollars' worth o' divorces _already_, and if the lawyers wasn't all scribes and pharisees they'd let _that_ run me the rest o' my days." chapter vi "yuletide in the southland" is what professor young calls it, but you would never know from the sound how nice it really is. it means that the youngs have come down to the bungalow to spend christmas and have brought his brother, julius, to spend it too. now, i admire mr. julius young, both his name and his ways. he noticed me the minute he got off the train and said i would have to be his sweetheart. although i have learned, from being so deceived by doctor gordon's remarks like that, you mustn't depend on what they say, still you can't help but like a person when they say it to you. he is not a college professor like his brother, but he makes his living drawing pictures. now, the bad part about making your living out of poetry or art is that so _often_ you don't do it. this is the way with julius. he draws fully as good as other artists, but he never has been able to get people to notice it. professor young says his work lacks "the divine spark," and so the poor young man has to heat his coffee over the gas-jet, like they always have to do in pitiful magazine stories. so much poetry and art have made him real thin, with strange flannel shirts, and he looks half like a writing person and half like a hero which was raised out west. he doesn't act as peculiar as he looks, though, laughing as jolly as mr. parkes if anything funny happens. and he knows so much about horses, having traveled considerable, that father thinks he is very clever. father says you can excuse an artist with horse sense better than you can just a plain artist. rufe and cousin eunice are down in the country too, partly at our house and partly at rufe's folks'. this makes a nice reunion for them, being as marcella, rufe's sister, is home for the first time in three christmases, having been off studying how to play on the piano. ever since during the chestnuts getting ripe marcella has been good friends with me, for she loves the outdoors, and there wasn't anybody but me that had the time to spare to go with her through the woods. she felt sorry for me, too, not getting to go back to school in the city this fall, and so she has taught me a lot. mother and father said they just couldn't spare me, being the only one that lived, and born to them in their old age. it looks like if my brothers and sisters had known how inconvenient it was for me to be the only child they would have tried a little harder to live. marcella is not pretty in a blonde-headed way, like ann lisbeth and bertha, but her hair and eyes are as dark as chocolate candy when you've grated a whole half a cake in it, and her skin looks like cream does when it's nearly ready to churn. she wouldn't go with me and rufe and cousin eunice to meet the youngs at the train, being ashamed on julius' account, i reckon, both being single. but _we_ went and professor and mrs. young said they were too happy for anything to be back in the country again for a regular old-fashioned christmas. they said they were going to do everything just like it used to be in old england, which professor young had brought a book along to read about. they said this book would "infuse a genuine yule spirit," but if they had scraped as many cake pans and seeded as many raisins as i have they would have more of that spirit now than they could hold without a dose of cordial. well, this morning we collected on the other side of the creek to go after holly to decorate the bungalow with, me, the youngs, and rufe and cousin eunice. julius said a good many compliments about the nature you could see all over the hills, but rufe said shucks, if he had _plowed_ over that nature as often as _he_ had it wouldn't look so pretty. cousin eunice said let's go straight up through the woods and maybe we would meet marcella coming back from a poor person's house where she had been to carry sick folks' things to. this plan must have been made up between them, for, sure enough, when we got to the tip-top of the hill we found marcella sitting under some cedar trees resting, and leaning back against one, just like it was done for a purpose. she had on her red hat and her little red jacket, which set off her pale looks considerable, and if she _did_ do it for the sake of julius she knew the right way to get on the good side of an artist, for he commenced acting impressed from the start. if a person is trying to be romantic it is a better plan to meet a man under a cedar tree with a tired expression than it is to sprain your ankle so they will have to carry you home in their arms, like they do in books. i don't know _why_ authors sprain so many of their characters' ankles, and then let them make love smelling of liniment. mother says in olden times people married each other because the ladies were pretty and could make good cakes and the young men were able to take care of them, but nowadays they marry because they "feel" the same way about things. this is called congenial, and an _overly_ congenial person is an "affinity." cousin eunice and rufe felt the same way about keats and married. doctor gordon and ann lisbeth both loved white hyacinths and married, and this morning i heard marcella and julius say they felt the same way about music. marcella was playing on the piano in our parlor and we were all listening when julius remarked: "oh, isn't it rare to find a woman who can properly interpret beethoven?" father was in the room and spoke up. "yes," he said, "and rarer still, in these days, to find one who can properly interpret the _bake-oven_." marcella thinks the world and all of beethoven and wagner and other persons whose names are not spelt the way you would think. [illustration: for the sake of julius _page _] later, when there wasn't anybody present but just those two, i heard julius ask marcella if she would "sit" to him. i thought at first he must be proposing, for the folks around here say that widow hollis is "setting up to" anybody when she's trying to marry. but marcella said right away that she would be delighted, which i knew couldn't mean marrying, for when a young lady gets proposed to she never even _lets on_ how glad she is, much less says _delighted_ right out in plain words. he said her face was the purest greek he ever saw, which didn't make her mad, although it would me, for a greek is a smiling, oily-looking person which runs a candy kitchen. when he mentioned her face looking like a greek's face she acted so pleased that he went on to tell her he had never been so impressed with anybody's looks in his life as he was with hers that first day under the cedar tree. he said oh, if he had such a model he could do _anything_, for he was sure she had soul as well as beauty. the idea of him telling her she had a soul--as if anybody but foreign heathens didn't have! she said she thought it would be a noble life to be a model and inspiration to a man of lofty ideals--like dan t. gabriel rosetty's wife was, only sometimes the _woman_ was starved. if i'd been marcella i'd been ashamed to mention such a thing as not getting enough to eat, but it seemed to please julius, for he got over closer and commenced making a sketch of her on the back of an envelope. this morning early mrs. and professor young came over to ask father where they could find a yule log and a peacock. they said in the "eternal fitness of things" they must have a log to burn all christmas night and a peafowl to serve with "brilliant plumage" at the dinner table. mrs. young went around to the kitchen to ask mammy lou if she knew how to prepare the peacock the way they wanted it and brought to the table in its feathers with the tail spread. mammy wasn't a speck more polite than she was last summer about the roosters. "no, _ma'am_," she told her, "mis' mary won't let even so much as a pin feather come on her table, much less a whole crittur covered with 'em. looks like _that_ would turn a nigger's stomach, let alone white folks; but there ain't no 'countin' for the taste o' _yankees_." professor young tried to explain that he was cooked without the feathers which was put on afterward and an old english custom, but that wouldn't pacify mammy. "well, all i can say for the old english is that they must have stomachs on 'em like _buzzards_," mammy told them. the yule log was easier and so they got that, but it isn't to be lit till to-morrow night with ceremony. julius and marcella had a long walk through the woods after sarsaparilla vines this afternoon, and talked a good deal about how they would like a house furnished if they were going to furnish one. they never got as far as the kitchen and smokehouse, but they both agreed that they would love better than anything in the world to have a dark green library with dull brass jardinieres. (i had a _terrible_ time with that word.) julius then spoke up and said _any_ kind of a library that had her in it would be artistic enough for _him_, which i thought was saying a great deal, for artists make out like they can't live without their "atmosphere," meaning battered-up tea-kettles and dirty curtains from persia. marcella must have thought he meant something by it, too, for she turned as red as when you have a breaking out. i helped mother and mammy considerable this morning by tasting all the things to see if they were just right, for we are going to have a big dinner to-morrow and invite them all. to-night we all went over to the bungalow to hear professor young read about how they used to do christmas things in england before the pilgrim fathers. it sounded awful nice about the waifs singing, "god rest you, merry gentlemen," on the outside of your window, and the servants at dinner bringing in the boar's head, singing too. professor young said he thought these old customs ought to be revived, especially in the south, where we had old-timey houses and old family servants. father laughed and said, well, we _might_ get mammy lou to bring in the turkey to-morrow to the tune of "there _wuz_ er moanin' lady, she _lived_ in er moanin' lan'," which was all the tune she knew besides shadrach, meshach and abednego, one being about as christmasy as the other. after a while mrs. young started up the chafing-dish and called julius from over in the corner where he and marcella were talking very easy, to help her with the coffee. she hadn't more than said coffee when professor young picked up his book again. "why, marie, my love," he interrupted her, "coffee is not at all a drink in keeping with the season. to preserve the unities we ought to have a wassail bowl." then he read us how easy it was to make up the wassail. all you have to do is to take wine, or ale, and sugar and nutmeg, mixed with ginger and spice, then have apples and toast and roasted crabs floating around in it. you must mix it up in an old silver bowl that has been in your family a hundred years with the coat of arms on it. a coat of arms is two peculiar animals standing on their hind legs pawing at each other. mrs. young said she was as anxious to preserve the unities as augustus, but how could she when there wasn't any wine or ale or ginger or crabs, to say nothing of the silver bowl with the coat of arms marked on it. rufe said not to worry, for we might find it hard, along toward midnight and day, to preserve much unity between wassail and welsh rabbit, if we ate them together, so the wassail bowl was dropped. all during my diary there hasn't been a thing as thrilling to happen as what happened to-day, christmas day, to julius and marcella. getting your arm broken and carried to the hospital by your future husband wasn't anything to compare with this. everybody was happy at the dinner table, me especially, for besides all the books i wanted i got a pyrography set and a pearl ring. i don't think any girl is complete without a pearl ring. the company all praised mammy's cooking and julius remarked that after such a dinner as that it would be pretty tough on a fellow to go back to town the next day and live on coffee heated over the gas-jet and crackers. we laughed considerable over the gas-jet, all but marcella, who didn't look funny. just as we got the plum pudding burning and julius had said he wished he could paint a picture of it dilsey came into the dining-room with a telegram addressed to mr. julius young. this excited mammy lou, who admires him very much, so she nearly spilt all the sauce, saying, "thar! i jes' _know_ it's some of yo' folks dead!" julius laughed and told her he reckoned not, as all the folks he had on earth were right there at the table, and he looked at marcella when he said it in preference to his own brother! much to all of our disappointment julius never even opened his telegram and read it, although we didn't say anything about it. he put it in his pocket and went on eating pudding like it wasn't any more to be proud of than just a plain mail letter. after dinner father took them all out in the garden to look at some new hotbeds he was having made and julius and marcella went into the parlor. i stayed in the hall by the door, not being wanted in the parlor and not admiring hotbeds much. they didn't sit down, but went over and stood by the piano and all of a sudden marcella said nervous-like: "why don't you read your telegram? it might contain good news." "it _is_ good news, i feel sure," he told her, "and i wanted you to be the first one to know it--that's the reason i didn't mention it at the table." she said well hurry up and tell her, so he did. he said the day he saw her leaning against the cedar tree he thought she was so beautiful that he went straight back to the bungalow and made a picture of her like she was then and sent it to a large magazine up north which had promised to give five thousand dollars to the person which sent them the best picture by christmas, and he believed the telegram was to say that his was it. marcella told him well, he had a high opinion of his work to take it for granted that it had won such a prize as _that_. "not at all," he said, catching her hand in his, "for it was a picture of _you_." this sounded so loving that i wasn't prepared for what came next. i heard them tear open the telegram and marcella said, "_good-ness_;" and he said, "well, i'll be--i wasn't looking for this!" and it made me so interested that before i knew it i was in the parlor, though so easy and it nearly dark that i don't think they saw me. as near as i could make out the telegram told julius they thought his picture was so good they were not only going to give him the prize like they promised, but wanted to engage him to draw for them all the next year and how much salary would he do it for. "why, you can have your green library and brass jardinieres _now_," marcella said, still holding hands and her voice like it was about to cry. he just looked at her and looked a long time without saying a word. finally he put both hands on her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. "i can have nothing without you," he said in the most devoted voice i ever heard. "it is your beauty that has made my picture succeed. if i amount to anything you will have to come with me--will you?" "you want me for your model?" she asked very quivery and making out like she didn't know what he was driving at, but she put her hands up on his shoulders too, which was enough to give her away. "true, i can not draw without you for my model," he said so grand and sweet that it made you feel very strange listening to it, "but i can not _live_ without you for my wife." this won her. it was enough to win _anybody_, coming from an artist, and good looking at that. chapter vii being in love with marcella weighed so on julius' mind that he couldn't stay in new york but one week where the magazine is that he draws for, so he came back and has been here ever since, loving and drawing and sending them the jobs by mail. right away they set the wedding for the eleventh of april, which seems like it _never_ will come, me being in a big hurry for it. poor julius gets more and more delighted every day, talking a heap about what a happy home they're going to have, not realizing that chopin and dish-pan don't go together. he stays around and advises marcella about her clothes and such-like all day long. he says she reminds him of a narcissus, being tall and creamy-skinned, so he wants all her dresses to be either white or light green, the color of right young lettuce. but she knows when really to take his advice and when just to make like she's taking it, the way most ladies do with men. "why, it would take a little pink milksop like bertha parkes to wear such colors as _those_," she said behind his back one day. but i don't think marcella better be calling bertha a _milksop_ just because she has to handle baby-bottles all the time, for a person never can tell what might happen to them. one of the nicest things about the wedding is the bridesmaids. they consist of girls born partly here in the country, partly in the cities marcella has visited and made friends with. the one i like best is miss cicely reeves, though most people around here call her cis, being very small, with fluffy hair and cute ways and dimples. she has a good many lovers of different kinds, but don't seem to like one above another. she is a great hand to act romantic, such as falling in love with a man in a streetcar, or expecting her future husband to be a certain size and comb his hair a certain way and things like that. this often keeps young ladies from getting married a long time, for mother says you oughtn't to be too choice about size and hair, but i can't help being on that order myself. i do hope i can marry a man on a jet-black charger named sir reginald de beverley who owns _acres_ and _acres_ of english landed gentry. miss cis had that experience with the _name_ of julius' best man. it happened that we were all sitting on the front step one day when julius pulled a letter out of his pocket and told marcella that he had just heard from malcolm macdonald, and that he was going to be his best man. "_who?_" asked miss cis right quick, looking up from the sprig of bridal wreath she was pulling the flowers off of. julius told her the name over again and then told her that he was a very old friend of his and was a fine civil engineer. i used to think a civil engineer was a _polite_ man who ran the trains, but i know now he is a man that gets in the middle of the street with a string and a three-legged thing and measures the road. "is he married?" miss cis asked a heap quicker than she had asked who. "no, and not likely to be," julius answered, still looking over the letter absent-mindedly. "the name sounds good," miss cis commenced, her eyes sparkling. "i never heard anything scotchier. something tells me he must be my ideal." "then 'something' must be telling you a lie," julius said laughing, "for he couldn't be any woman's ideal. he is very _real_. an old bachelor, thirty-seven years, stern and precise; and he considers every woman on earth as a frivolous and _un_necessary evil." "the kind of man i adore," miss cis said joyfully, though anybody that knew her well could tell she was fooling. "my life will be a blank until he comes!" "it would be a blankety-blank if you had to live with him, for you are the kind of woman to torment such a man to death." "all the more reason for his falling in love with me, as i have fallen in love with his name, and if he doesn't i shall consider him a very _un_civil engineer." which was just her way of talking. this happened fully two months ago, but they have talked about it off and on ever since. and now he is coming to stay with julius till the wedding, to cheer him up i suppose. sure enough he did come to-day, although lots of times i imagine that i never will get to see a person i have heard spoken of so often and in such high tones--and sometimes i wish i hadn't. but it wasn't that way with mr. macdonald. nobody on earth could have been disappointed in _him_ for he is one of the tallest gentlemen i ever saw with trousers so smoothly creased that they look like somebody had ironed them after he put them on. he takes his own time about saying things, being very careful about saying "of whom" and "by which" like the grammar tells you to. julius brought him over to marcella's this afternoon so he could be making friends with her and the bridesmaids that were collected there. remembering how they had been teasing miss cis about him i kept my eye on her from the minute he walked through the door. i was greatly disappointed though, for she never _seemed_ to notice him. i guess she took a better look at him than i imagined though, for the minute they were gone she jumped clear across the room to where marcella was standing and grabbed her and danced up and down. "isn't he _beautiful_!" she said all out of breath. "i'm just crazy about him! did you ever see such gibsony feet and legs in your _life_?" which mortified her mother, it being impolite to mention feet and legs in her days. julius is romantic, too, for a man, and says he doesn't want any flowers used in connection with his wedding except the sweet, early spring ones that favor marcella so much. we have a yard full of them and so mother told them this morning that they better come over and gather them, knowing that young folks enjoy picking flowers together and they will stay fresh for several days if you put a little salt in the water. it was the most beautiful morning you ever saw, with birds and peach blossoms and the smell of plowed ground all making curious feelings inside of you. marcella, being a musician, noticed the birds, and julius, being an artist, noticed the peach blossoms, but mr. macdonald, being just a man, noticed miss cis. she would walk along without noticing him and take a seat in the farthest corner away from him, but anyhow she seemed to do the work, which taught me a lesson; that if you're trying to get a man to notice you it is the best plan not to notice them except when they ain't looking. they sat down on the porch and rested a while after they came while the narcissuses (narcissi _they_ called them, which sounds stuck up to me) smelled very sweet from the yard. julius remarked he wished they had made rufe come along with them so he could have said poetry out of keats, as it was just the kind of day to make you feel keatsy; and pretty soon he and marcella got on to their favorite subject, "the ruby yacht," which they say is a piece of poetry from persia. they talked and talked, which made me very sleepy and pretty soon i noticed that mr. macdonald was getting sleepy too. he leaned over to miss cis and said, kinder whispery: "i don't understand poetry, do you?" "no, i don't," she answered back, with a smile on her face which i knew she meant to be "congenial." i knew this was a story, for she talks about "the ruby yacht" as much as anybody when he ain't around, but i didn't blame her for telling one in a case like this. "i never could discover what the deuced ruby yacht was about, in the first place," he said. "it looks like, from the name," i said speaking up, "that it would be about a red ship," but before i could get any further they began to laugh and tell my remark to julius and marcella, which was mortifying. this broke up the poetry talk and they began gathering the flowers, miss cis and mr. macdonald picking in pairs, by which i knew they were getting affinityfied. after they had picked till their backs were tired mammy lou came out on the porch bringing a waiter with some of her best white cake and a bottle of her year-before-last-before-that's wine setting on it and her finest ruffled cap, very proud. she was curious to see the young man "miss cis was settin' up to, to see whether the match was a fittin' one or not." she took a good look at him, then called miss cis into the hall to speak her opinion. "he'll _do_," i heard her saying, while miss cis was telling her to "s-s-sh, mr. macdonald would hear her." "he'll _do_," mammy kept on, not paying any attention to what was told her, like she always don't. "he must be all right, for bein' a frien' o' mr. juliuses would pass 'im.' but, honey, he _is_ tolerable _po_-faced, which ain't no good sign in marryin'. if thar's anybody better experienced in that business than _me_ and king solomon i'd like to see the whites o' ther eyes; an' i tell you every time, if you want to get a good-natured, wood-cuttin', baby-tendin' husban' choose one that's _fat in the face_!" a good many wedding presents commenced to coming in this morning, which was a sign that the invitations got to the people all right. you often hear of things being worth their weight in silver, but there's _one_ thing you can count on it's being true about and that is wedding invitations. you never saw such delighted people as julius and marcella. they were laid out on tables in the parlor and greatly admired. "they're _ours_, dearest," he said, squeezing her hand right before everybody, "yours and mine! our lares and penates." this greatly impressed me and i looked it up in the back of the dictionary when i got home, which is a very useful place to find strange words. it said: "lares et penates, household gods," which didn't make sense, so i knew the dictionary man must have made a mistake and meant to say household _goods_. "gentle-_men_!" said mammy lou when i told the words to her, "if he thinks up such names as _them_ for his fu'niture what _will_ he do when he gets to his chil'en?" this remark seemed to put an idea into her head, for lovie, mammy's other daughter besides dilsey, has got a pair of two little twins that have been going around for the last five years in need of a name just because mammy lou and ike, their father, can't ever agree on one--a name nor anything else. "them's the very names for the little angels," mammy said, washing the dinner dishes deep in thought, "for the twins bein' boys and girls and the names bein' able to accommodate therselves to ary sect proves that they're the _very thing_." she studied over it for a good while, i guess on account of ike, although mammy is usually what she calls very plain-spoken with him. a plain-spoken person is one that says nasty things to your face and expects you not to get mad. when they say them behind your back they're "diplomatic." but finally she started off to name them, and, having had so much trouble already with ike, i saw her slip her heavy-soled slippers into her pocket before she started. she stayed away a long, long time, but when she got back she held her head so high and acted so stuck-up that i just knew she had got to use both the names and the slippers. "did you name 'em?" i asked her, going to the kitchen to get some tea-cakes, supper being very late. "_did i?_" she answered back, cutting out the biscuits with a haughty look, "you just oughter a _saw_ me namin' 'em!" "which did you name which?" i asked. "i named the precious boy penates, because i most know these common niggers roun' here'll shorten it to 'peanuts' which would be hurtin' to a little girl's feelin's." "well," i said, continuing to show a friendly interest, "ain't you glad they're named at last, so's if they die you could have a tombstone for them?" "glad!" she answered, putting the biscuits in the pan (but her mind still on the twins), and sticking holes in the top of them with a fork, "glad ain't no name for it! why, i ain't had as much enjoyment out o' nothin' as i had out o' this namin' sence the night i married bill williams!" it's a very thrilling and exciting thing to be a bride and if you can't be a bride you can still manage to get a good many thrills out of just a bridesmaid. all of marcella's have talked about how nervous and timid they are going to be--when the men are around--and some say they nearly faint when a great crowd stares at them, others say they bet folks will think they've got st. vituses' dance from trembling so; anyhow, they're all very modest. but miss cis, i believe, ain't putting on, for all she claims toward modestness is that her knees get so weak that they nearly let her drop when she acts a bridesmaid, which is the way a good many persons feel. the maids have laughed a good deal over her knees among themselves, never dreaming that the men would catch on to them, but they did in the following manner: miss cis stayed all night at marcella's last night to tell secrets for the last time, for after a lady is married you can't be too careful about telling her your secrets; and early this morning i ran over and saw her dressed in a pretty blue kimono, which set off her good looks greatly, down by the woodpile which they keep in the side yard. there is a hedge of honeysuckle which runs between the garden and the yard and she appeared to be searching on the ground for something close to this hedge. i went up to where she was, admiring her company, and she smiled when she saw me. "ann," she said, very pleasantly, "can you help me find two nice, little, smooth, thin boards?" i complimented her on her kimono and said yes'm to the board question, then asked her what she wanted with them. "my knees," she answered laughing, "they're so idiotic that when i get excited they threaten to let me drop. if i could strap two nice little boards to them, at the back, you know, it would prop them up and be _such_ a help!" "you couldn't walk very good," i told her, but she said oh, yes she could; and to prove it she commenced whistling the wedding march and walking stiff-kneed away from the woodpile to the tune of it. she looked so funny that i started to laugh, when just then i heard another laugh on the other side of the honeysuckle vines. i found a place where i could peep through and saw it was julius and mr. macdonald who had come out to view mr. clayborne's hotbeds, and greatly complimenting them, julius knowing that it's a fine thing to stay on the good side of your father-in-law in case you lose your job. i knew they heard what miss cis had said, for they were laughing very hard, which caused mr. macdonald to look real young, being as his eyes can twinkle. i knew it would be mortifying for her to see that they had heard her, so i hollered and told her that i heard marcella calling her from the up-stairs window, so she ran right on in without coming back to the woodpile. i started to go on after her, but just as i got to the kitchen door i remembered that i had left my pretty white sunbonnet that mammy lou had freshly ironed for me on the woodpile and ran back to get it. julius and mr. macdonald were right where they were, only looking in the other direction and talking very seriously, so i stayed a minute out of friendly interest. "although so bright and amusing she is never silly," i heard mr. macdonald's long, slow voice saying. "she is a very lovely, fascinating little woman." so i took a seat on the woodpile. "you'd better fall in love with her," julius said, cutting the briers off of a long switch he held in his hand, and talking careless like, as if he wasn't paying much attention. "your advice comes too late," mr. macdonald said, his voice so solemn that julius looked up in surprise. "what!" julius remarked. "yes," mr. macdonald said, sounding very devoted, "i did that very thing the first moment i looked at her dear, sweet face." julius stared at him a minute, then laughed a tickled laugh; and i moved my seat right up to the hedge so i could get a good look at them--it was the next best thing to a proposal. "that's the funniest thing i ever heard of," julius said after he had quit laughing. "it's devilish funny to _you_," poor mr. macdonald said, looking like he didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. "but--what am i to do?" "do?" said julius very businesslike, like folks talk when they're telling you to follow _their_ example. "what do men in your situation usually do? why, propose to her!" "but _she'd_ never marry _me_," he said looking right pitiful, for he spoke as humble as if he wasn't any taller than me, and him over six feet tall. "it would be the most absurd thing in the world for a man like me to propose to a woman like her!" "no, you're wrong," julius told him, still half laughing, "the _most_ absurd thing would be that she would accept you!" i'm awfully tired to-night and it would cramp my hand nearly to death to write all about the wedding--how julius looked happy up to the last, and how marcella cried just enough to appear ladylike on her lace handkerchief; and how the family relatives cried a little too. weddings are all alike, but proposals are all different, and i think i'd better use more space on them in my diary, so my grandchildren won't get sleepy over the sameness. but it would be a waste of handwriting to tell how miss cis tormented poor mr. macdonald all day, making him chase around after her trying to get in a private, loving word; and me just crazy to see whether she really was going to accept him or not, although i _might_ have known! he followed her up though, looking so brave and determined that he reminded me of "the boy stood on the burning deck." she worried him so that all through the ceremony he looked so pale and troubled that you'd have thought it was _him_ getting married. finally, just before it was time for the train that he was going back to town on to blow she changed about and commenced acting sweet. [illustration: he followed her up though _page _] all this was nice enough to watch, but is cramping to write about, and anyhow, the main thing with me was to see whether she was going to accept him or not. i stayed close to their heels all day, but he didn't get a chance to propose until just after dark, down by the front gate, with nobody around except me and a calecanthus bush and--well, you just ought to have _seen_ her accepting him! chapter viii ever since my last birthday there has a great change come over me for i have not kept my diary. mother took me to one side that morning and said it was time for me to act like i was growing up now. she said many a girl as big as me could pick a chicken and i couldn't do a thing but write a diary; and would even run and stop up my ears every time mammy lou started to wring one's head off. she said all the ladies of the neighborhood nearly worried her to death advising her to teach me how to work and saying it was simply ridiculous for a great big girl like me to lie flat on her stomach reading a book all day in the grass. this shows how i am misunderstood by my family, and i told mother so, but she said for goodness' sake not to get _that_ idea into my head, for girls that were always complaining about being "misunderstood" were the kind that got divorces from their husbands afterward. i know this won't be the way with me, though, for i expect to live on good terms with sir reginald, always wearing pink satin and spangles even around the castle; and never getting mussy-looking when i give the children a bath in hopes of retaining his affections, like they tell you to in ladies' magazines. but i didn't mention sir reginald to mother, or she would have misunderstood me worse than ever. goodness! i reckon the neighbors would have a fit if they could see me of a night when i dress up and step out on the porch roof, making like i'm juliet in shakespeare. i wear a lace thing over my head and let a pair of cousin eunice's last year's bedroom slippers represent romeo with fur around the top. they are the kind he wore the night they took me to see him and are all i can find in the house that looks at all like him. nobody gets to see me doing this, though, for i lock the door. somehow i think it would be a nicer world if you could always lock the door on your advising friends. last summer rufe said i was so clever for my age (_he_ said) that i ought to be in the city (i like this kind of advice) at a good school; so father and mother decided to move to the city and take mammy lou and spend the winter and all the other winters until i could get educated and live in a flat. so we went, me writing much sorry poetry about leaving my old home. the older i get the more i think of poetry and i reckon by the time i'm engaged i'll be crazy about it! our leaving was very sad, poor little lares and penates crying so hard at the depot where they went to tell mammy lou good-by that a drummer who was traveling with a kind heart gave them a quarter apiece to hush. i never admired the name of flat from the first and when we started to rent one i admired it less than ever. it consists of a very large house, divided up, and no place to kill a chicken. there is also no place to warm your feet, nor to pop corn. in fact, there are more places where you _can't_ do things than where you can. rufe took us to every one in town nearly, and mammy paid particular attention to how the kitchens were fixed and asked what became of the potato peelings with no pigs to eat them up. finally, after everything had been explained to her, she spoke up in the midst of a lady's flat with tears in her eyes and said: "mis' mary, le's go back to the country whar slop is called _slop_; up here it's '_gawbage_!'" father and mother were both delighted that going back had been mentioned without either one of _them_ saying it first, for both of their feet were sore from looking for flats; and they like to have fallen over each other in agreeing with mammy. "god never intended for _human beings_ to live in flats," father said, after the elevator had put us down on dry land once more, drawing a deep breath. "nor in cities either," rufe agreed, with a far-away look in his eyes, like he might be thinking of the chestnut hunts and black haws of his boyhood. that night they said well, they had found out they couldn't live in the city, and they weren't going to be separated from me, and i _had_ to be educated; so rufe then told them that a governess was the next best thing. this sounded so much like a young girl in a book that at first i was delighted. a governess is a very clean person that always expects you to be the same. only in books they are usually drab-colored young ladies without any nice clothes or parents, but the son of the family falls in love with them, much to their surprise, and they lose their job. then the son gets sent away to india with his regiment, where he hopes he can meet sweet death through a bullet hole. this is the way they are in books. mine, though, is not anything like that, being very pretty and pink, and with a regular father and mother like other folks have. but there is a great mystery connected with her. don't anybody but me know about it, and i don't know _all_ about it. from the very first she seemed to have something on her mind; this is very unusual for a young girl, so i tried to find out what the cause of it was. one day at the dinner table when she had been here about two weeks father remarked that i was learning faster from her than i ever had, and he hoped that she would stay here with us until i was finished being educated and not be wanting to get married, like most young ladies. miss wilburn, instead of laughing as one would expect, turned red in the face (her first name is louise) and said something that sounded like "oh no!" mammy, who was in the room at the time, spoke up as she usually does and said well, there must be something wrong with her if she didn't want to marry, as all right-minded women married once and extra smart ones married as often as there was any occasion to! instead of smiling miss wilburn looked more painful than ever; so mammy, who thinks enough of her to _even_ do up her shirtwaists, changed the subject. that night when i went into the kitchen to talk to mammy during the cooking her mind was still on the subject of miss wilburn and marrying. "honey," she said to me, flipping over the cakes with great conviction, "i've been thinking it over and the long and short of it is that pore child's been _fooled_! i know them _symptoms_! she's been fooled and she's grievin' over it. though thar ain't no use for a woman to grieve over nary _one_ man so long's she under forty and got good front teeth!" i said oh, i hoped not. i hated to think about the lover of my governess proving false! i told mammy maybe he had just died or something else he couldn't help. but she interrupted me. "died nothin'! that ain't no excuse, for thar's allus time to marry no matter what you're fixin' to do. thar ain't nothin' no excuse for not marryin' in this world," she kept on, "be it male or female. you needn't be settin' thar swingin' your legs and arguin' with _me_ about the holy estate!" the very first minute i thought there was anything of a loving nature connected with miss wilburn i got out my diary to write it down, as you see. she had told mother anyhow to let me keep it as it would "stimulate my mental faculties" and they would never be able to make a chicken-picking person out of me. i'm going to keep it right here in the drawer and jot down everything i see, although i am _convinced_ that the lover is dead. julius and marcella are down here now for the first time since they were married. we see them a great deal, for they love to go walking through the woods with miss wilburn and me; but i can't waste my diary writing about them _now_. i just happened to think what a pity it was that i didn't try to find out the mystery about miss wilburn from rufe and cousin eunice when we was up there last summer, for they knew her real well before we got her. in fact, for the first few days she and i didn't have any congenial things to talk about except them and tiny waterloo. waterloo's little name by rights is rufus clayborne, junior, and he occurred at a time when i wasn't keeping my diary; but my grandchildren would have known about him anyhow, he being their little fifth cousin. he is very different from bertha's baby, for he is a boy. i thought when i first saw him that if there was anything sweeter in this world than a girl baby it is a boy one! rufe and cousin eunice have lately been kinder new thought persons, which think if you have "poise" enough there can't anything on earth conquer you. rufe bragged particularly about nothing being able to conquer _him_ or get him in a bad temper, he had so much poise. but when little rufus was just three nights old and he had walked him the other _two_ and he was still squalling he threw up his job. "poise be hanged!" cousin eunice told us he said, "i've met _my_ waterloo!" and they've called him that ever since. when we were up there in the summer waterloo was giving his father considerable trouble about the editorials. an editorial is a smart remark opposite the society column; and rufe couldn't think up smart things while he was squalling. "oh, for a desert island!" he said one night when he was awful busy and couldn't get anything done. "oh, for a mammoth haystack where i might thrust my head to drown the noise--i've read that jean jacques rousseau used to do so! listen, i've made a rhyme!" "'tis not rhymes but dimes we need most just now; so go on with your work," cousin eunice said, gathering waterloo together to take him up-stairs. "merely removing the location of the noise will lessen it but slightly," rufe called to her as she got to the door. "seriously, do you know of a hayloft in the neighborhood where i might go?" "you might go next door to the williams' garage and thrust your head into their can of gasolene--_that's_ the latter-day equivalent for hay!" cousin eunice answered kinder-mad, for _she_ admires waterloo, no matter how he acts. so miss wilburn and i talked over all we knew about the little fellow; and i thought what a mistake i'd made in not asking cousin eunice what miss wilburn's lover's name was and where he is buried and a few other things like that. but then i couldn't, because i didn't know that there was a lover. still, mammy lou can talk till her hair turns straight and she won't get me to believe that he's anything else but dead. everything seems to point to it, from the fact of her not getting any letters from young men and looking lonesome at times and not wearing any diamond engagement ring. i'm sure he gave her one, but maybe his wicked kinfolks made her give it back to them after the funeral. or maybe she buried it in his grave. i don't know why miss wilburn never talks about him for one of our neighbors talks all the time about her husband which was killed in the war. i used to be delighted to hear her commence telling about him. he was killed at the battle of shiloh and was the tallest and handsomest man in the army. she takes a great deal of pleasure in talking about him, and when there are summer boarders at her house he grows to be nearly seven feet tall and so handsome that it hurts your eyes to look at him. her second husband is stone deaf and can't hear it thunder, which makes it nicer for them, for while it amuses her to talk about her first husband's good looks it ain't hurting to the second one's feelings. the autumn leaves are just lovely now and make you want to write a book, or at least a piece of poetry. it's right hard on you, though, not to have anything to write about but a girl without a beau. it's kinder like eating sweet potatoes without butter. i decided this morning that i better make the most of what i have got as a subject, so i started to writing one called _the maiden widow_. i've heard of a book by that name, but i don't reckon they'll have me arrested for writing just a short poem by the same name. we have some nature study every morning in the woods, which is one of the best things about having a governess. she lets me do just as i like, so i took my tablet and while she was writing some history questions i composed on my poem. it is very discouraging work, though, to write about widows, for there's nothing on earth that will rhyme with them. i got one line, "the maiden widow, she wept, she did, oh!" which was sorry enough sounding, but i didn't know whether or not it was exactly fair to have two words rhyming with just one. after a while i thought maybe a regular poet could do a better job by it than even i could, so i decided to ask marcella to ask julius to write me a few lines as a copy to go by, for anybody that can draw such lovely pictures ought to be able to write poetry. marcella came over this afternoon and i took her up-stairs very secretly to ask her about it. she said why, what on earth made me think that miss wilburn was grieving over a dead lover, and i told her that _everything_ made me think it. after studying about it for a little while she said well, it might be that i was right, for the girl did seem to have something preying on her mind. but she said such subjects were not suitable for children of my age to be writing about and that i ought to write about violets and sparrows. i said then would she please find out from julius whether or not there was a rhyme for widow, for i might want to write a poem on them when i got grown, but she said, "ann, you are incorrigible," which i keep forgetting to look up in the dictionary, although it looks like i would, for it has been said to me so many times. a thing happened this morning which made me understand what shakespeare must have meant when he said "much ado about nothing." it reminded me of the time cousin eunice rushed to the telephone and called rufe up and said, "oh, dearest, the baby's got a tooth!" this was harmless enough in itself, but it is when things are misunderstood that the trouble comes in. rufe misunderstood and thought she said, "the baby's got the croup," which is very dangerous. so he didn't stop to hear another word, but dropped the telephone and grabbed his hat. it was night, for rufe's paper is a morning one that works its men at night, and didn't wait for a car, but jumped into a carriage, which costs like smoke. he drove by doctor gordon's house and told the driver to run in and tell doctor gordon to come right on and drive to his house with him, as his baby was very sick, although doctor gordon has an automobile of his own. he and ann lisbeth happened to have a few friends in to play cards with them that night, but when she heard the news about the baby she told the company that cousin eunice was one of the best friends she had in the world and she would have to go on over and see if she could help any. so the card party was broken up and they all drove as hard as they could tear over to rufe's house, where they found cousin eunice tickled to death over the tooth and washing waterloo's little mouth out with boric acid water, which is the proper thing. this is what i call much ado about nothing, and i'm sure shakespeare would if he was living to-day. what happened this morning was equally as exciting and a long story, so i'm going to stop and sharpen my pencil, for i despise to write exciting things with a pencil that won't half write. i reckon some people might lay the blame on me for what happened, but it ain't so at all, if people hadn't just misunderstood me. anyhow, it may make me "curb my imagination," as julius says, for that is what they blamed it all on. when we started out for our nature study this morning father said if we could stand the sight of human nature a little would we go down town right after train time and get the mail? we said yes and marcella, who was with us, said she would be glad to go in that direction, for julius was there and we could meet him and he would walk home with us. she still likes to see him every few minutes in the day. there are usually several very handsome drummers and insurance men and things like that standing around the post-office which have just got off of the train at this hour, but this morning there wasn't anybody but one strange man and he was talking to julius like he knew him. when we passed by julius spoke to us and i noticed that the strange man looked at miss wilburn and looked surprised. all in a minute i thought maybe he was the lover which had just returned from some foreign shore, instead of being dead, and would run up with open hands and say, "louise," and she would say, "marmaduke," and all would be well. i learned afterward, though, that his name is mr. white and he lives in the city and has come down here on business and knew julius. after we had passed he remarked that he was surprised to see miss wilburn down here as he didn't know she was away from home. julius asked him if he knew miss wilburn and he said no, but he knew paul creighton, the fellow she was going to marry, mighty well. julius, instead of not saying anything as a person ought, spoke up and said why he understood that miss wilburn's sweetheart was dead. the strange man said why he was utterly shocked for he had seen creighton on the streets only a few days before, but he _had_ looked kinder pale and worried then. he said it made him feel weak in the knees to hear such a thing, and julius commenced saying something about it must be a mistake then, but mr. white said no, he guessed it was so, for mr. creighton had looked awful pale and thin, like he might be going into consumption. julius said well he was certain his wife had told him something about miss wilburn having a dead lover, but he hadn't paid much attention to what she was saying, like most married men; but it surely couldn't be so. by that time mr. white was moving down the street to where we were and was asking julius to introduce him to miss wilburn, so he could find out the particulars about poor old creighton. i _will_ give julius credit for trying to stop him, but he is one of the kind of persons that never knows when to say a thing and when not to, mr. white, i mean. and before julius could get him side-tracked they had caught up with us and there wasn't anything else to do but introduce him. miss wilburn smiled very joyfully when she heard his name, and in a minute he had got her off to one side and i heard him saying something about how horrified he was to hear the news about poor creighton. in just an instant miss wilburn was the one that looked horrified and said why _what_? this seemed to bring mr. white to his right mind a little and instead of going ahead and telling it he turned around to julius and said: "why our friend, young, here, was telling me that----" "i _told_ you that it must be a mistake," julius spoke up, looking awfully uncomfortable, "but i remember my wife saying that--oh, say, marcella, explain--will you?" "why, julius young," marcella commenced in a married-lady tone, "you promised me that you wouldn't say a word about it; anyway we only suspected----" "will _nobody_ tell me what has happened to paul?" miss wilburn said in a low, strangled voice, like she couldn't get her breath good. "ain't anything happened to him that _we_ know of," i told her, for julius and the rest of them looked like they were speechless. "we thought _you_ knew it!" "knew _what_? oh, for the love of heaven, tell me!" she said, poor thing! and i felt awful sorry for us all, but for miss wilburn and me in particular. i just couldn't tell her we thought he was _plumb_ dead, so i told her we thought he must be very sick or something. "he may be," she answered, not looking any happier. "i haven't heard from him since i've been here! oh, it serves me right for acting such an idiot as to run off down here and forbid his writing to me! he may be desperately ill! how did you hear it?" "ain't anybody heard it _yet_!" i told her, feeling so angry at marcella and julius and mr. white for telling such a thing and so ashamed of myself for making it up that i couldn't think very well. i kept wishing in my mind that it was the first day of april so i could say "april fool," or an earthquake would happen or _anything_ else to pass it off; but didn't anything happen, so i had to stand there with all of them looking at me and tell miss wilburn how mammy lou said _she_ believed she had been fooled because she looked so sad at the mention of marrying, but _i_ believed the gentleman was dead. well, it took every one of us every step of the way home to explain it to her and to each other, each one of us talking as hard as we could; and julius remarked what he'd do the next time he heard any such "sewing-society tales" under his breath. just as we got in sight of the house poor miss wilburn was so worn out with grief and anxiety that she sat down on the big stump and laughed and cried as hard as she could. mother saw her from the window and she and mammy ran down to where we were to see what it was all about. she patted miss wilburn on the back and on the head and said, "poor dear," while mammy said she would run right back to the house and brew her some strong tea, which was splendid when a body was distressed about a man. "there, dear, talk to us about him," mother said, after the whole story was told, "tell us about him, for talking will do you good. you've been unnaturally quiet about him since you've been here!" "i was trying to find out whether or not i really loved him," miss wilburn said, after julius and marcella had left us and we were going on up the walk. "it was silly of me, for all the time i've been so lonesome for him that i felt as if i should scream if anybody suggested men or marrying to me!" "yes, you pore lamb," mammy said, walking on fast to make the tea, "you loves him, you shore do. i knows them symptoms!" chapter ix i think if the person which remarked, "it is not always may," had said april he would have come nearer hitting it, for i think it is the most beautiful time of all. there's something in the very feelings at this time of the year that makes you want to write pretty things, whether you know what you want to say or not. so i have got out my diary and dusted it off, it being laid away in the drawer ever since last fall, when i told about me getting miss wilburn's affairs so mixed up because there hasn't been anything happening. one time not long ago i did get out my diary, for i got very excited over the news that a _widow_ was here, and i sharpened seventeen pencils so as to be ready for her. but she had the misfortune to marry, before i could get introduced to her, a man from her same city which had got on the train and followed her down here. she was a lovely, high-heeled, fluffy-petticoated kind of a widow and i could have written _chapters_ out of her i know; because all the time she was down here the ladies' sewing circle met three times a week and talked so that father said he heard they had to pass around potash tablets instead of refreshments for the sake of their sore throats. mammy lou made fun of me when i told her how disappointed i was over not getting to meet such a pretty lady and write her experiences. "looks like you'd a knew better than to expect a widow to waste time a-cou'tin'," she told me with that proud look coming over her face that always does when she begins to brag on herself. "_they_ don't cou't; they marries! thar ain't nobody able to dispute with _me_ over the ways o' widows, for ain't i done been _six_ of them _myself_?" this ain't exactly so, it's just five, for she never has got that divorce from bill williams yet; and she says now that she's going to spend the money that the divorce would cost in beautifying herself so she can marry again. she says she wants to buy her a stylish set of bangs and a pair of kid gloves to go with them, then she is going to let the next man make her a present of the divorce for a bridal gift. "and you needn't be settin' it down in that little dairy book o' yourn, neither, for your gran'chillen to be makin' spo't o' _me_ about after i'm done dead an' gone." i told her it was diary, not dairy, but she wouldn't listen to me. "go 'long with that stuck-up talk," she told me, "ain't i been knowin' about dairies all my life? an' i never even heered tell of a _di_-ry till i learned to my sorrow of that pesky little book that's always gettin' lost and me havin' to find it." and i couldn't blame her very much for this, me being a great hand myself to get words mixed up in my childhood, especially such words as epistle and apostle. i always thought that ignorant people said "epistle" and smart ones "apostle." but as i was saying, a sweetheart is the proper thing to get in the spring if you _can_ get one; but if you're too little for such a thing a kindred spirit is the next best thing a girl can have. a kindred spirit is a girl you lay awake till twelve o'clock of a night telling secrets to. of course _men_ never tell secrets, but they often need a kindred spirit, that is, a close friend, especially when they get so sick they think they're about to die they want the friend to run quick to their private office and burn up some letters in their desk that it wouldn't be healthy for them to let their wife know about, even if they were dead. so it is a convenient thing to have, male or female. the first night i laid awake with mine i told her all about stuffing my insteps to make them look aristocratic and kissing lord byron's picture good night every night, which i _never_ would have done in the daylight. at night things just seem to tell _themselves_, although you are very sorry for it the next day. men mostly propose at night; i guess one excuse is that the girls form such beautiful optical illusions under a pink lamp shade. well, i told her all i knew and she told me the story of her life, which is as follows: her name is jean everett, her mother's name is mrs. everett and her young lady aunt is named miss merle arnold on her mother's side. they are down here to spend the summer and are boarding close to our house. there is another boarder in the house for the summer which is named mr. st. john, and jean says if they had named him angel instead of just saint it wouldn't be any too good for him. and, if i do say it myself, he is as beautiful as a mermaid. mammy lou says he's got a "consumpted look," but to other people it is the height of poetry. jean is so full of poetical thoughts herself that her stomach is very much upset and nothing but chocolate candy will agree with her. she has promised the next time she stays all night with me she will tell me the one great secret of her life (as if i hadn't guessed it the minute she called mr. st. john's name.) she hasn't got much appetite and the smell of honeysuckle fills her with strange longings. she says she either wants to write a great book or live in a marble palace or marry a duke, she can't tell exactly which. but the poor girl is cruelly misunderstood by her family, because her mother is giving her rhubarb to break it out on her. jean came over early this morning and said she just had to talk to somebody about how spiritual mr. st. john looked last night with his fair hair and white vest on. "he looked just like a _lily_, ann," she said, with almost tears in her eyes, and me remembering doctor gordon didn't laugh at her. then, before i could comfort her, she had dropped down by the iris bed and was telling me the one great secret of her life, without waiting to stay all night and tell it in the moonlight. "_love_ him," she said, gathering up a handful of the purple irises, "love _him_? i'd _cook_ for that man." i didn't hardly know what to say in answer to this secret, which wasn't much of a secret to me; but she didn't wait for me to say anything for she went on telling me what big pearl buttons the white vest had on it and how mr. st. john said "i-ther and ni-ther," and how broken her heart was. she said she was the most sinful girl on earth, for she believed mr. st. john was about to get struck on her aunt merle, and here she was winning him away from her! i asked her if he had ever said anything about loving her and she said why, no; no well-behaved girl would let a man say such a thing to her until they had been acquainted at least a month, and they hadn't been knowing each other but twenty-two days. i then asked her if he had made any sign that he would like to say things to her when the month was out, but she said that was just where the trouble came in. she _knew_ she could win his love if she once got a _chance_ at him; but no matter how early she got up of a morning to go and sit with him on the porch before breakfast, which was a habit of his, he would just ask her how far along she was in geography and if she didn't think algebra was easier than arithmetic, and such insulting questions as that. then he would pace up and down the floor until her aunt merle came out of the front door, acting like a _caged bridegroom_! she said, oh, it would put her in her grave if she didn't get her mind off of it for a little while! then she asked me if we were going to have strawberries for dinner and said she would run over and ask her mother if she could stay. this morning jean asked me if i remembered what hamlet in shakespeare said about _words_. i told her i had just got as far as _the merchant of venice_ and was getting ready to start on hamlet when miss wilburn left. she said well, he remarked "words, words, words," but he didn't know what he was talking about. she said he meant that there wasn't anything in mere words, but he was badly fooled, for there was a heap in them. i told her yes, there was something in words, for i had read of a beautiful irish poet once that just couldn't think of a word that he wanted to finish up a song with. he studied over it for about three months, when all of a sudden one day his carriage upset and bumped his head so hard that he thought of it. jean said that was a _beautiful_ story and she would be willing to have her head bumped once for _every_ word, if she could just write poetry that would touch one cold heart that she knew of. i said well, how on earth did all this talk about words come up, and she told me that all her future happiness depended upon the meaning of just one word. then she went on to tell me that this morning she had seen her aunt merle on the porch talking to mr. st. john; so she slipped around to the end of the porch like i showed her how to do when there was anything interesting going on; and she had heard him tell miss merle that she mustn't "condemn the precipitation, but rather consider how he _could_ do otherwise." then he had made use of a word that she never heard of before in her life. it was _pro-pin-qui-ty_; and miss merle's face had turned as red as tomatoes when he said it. she said if it was a love word she was ready to commit suicide of a broken heart, but if it was a _hateful_ word and they were quarreling, then there was great hopes for her. we looked it up, but the dictionary man didn't explain it hardly a bit. finally i told jean as it was spelled so much like _in-i-qui-ty_ maybe they meant the same thing, and she went home feeling much easier in her mind. i'm in such a writable mood to-night that i don't know what to begin on, and i reckon i'll know less about where to stop. mammy lou started us at it, for her mind never runs on a thing except loving and marrying. she asked me early this morning if we wasn't going to try our fortunes to-day by looking down into a well at noon, this being may day. me, being of an affectionate nature, of course liked the idea, so i ran right over to tell jean, who was simply carried away. she said it would be such a relief to her to see the face of her beloved reflected in the well; but i told her that to see _any_ face would mean that she was going to get a husband, which a girl ought to be thankful for, and not get her heart set on any particular one. while we were planning about it miss merle came in and asked what it was. when we told her she smiled and asked if she was too old and grown-up to join in the game, but i told her no indeed, she didn't act at all like a grown person. i really think miss merle is very fascinating. even her name, merle, sounds soft and sweet to me, like a right fresh marshmallow. now, naturally anybody would be excited to think that they were going to see their husband's face at twelve o'clock in the bottom of a well, and it seemed to us that the time never would come. there is a very old well down in our pasture close by the fence which ain't covered over, and a lot of lilac bushes right around it in bloom, so you couldn't well pick a prettier spot for your future husband's face. mammy lou said we better all wear white sunbonnets, because they become you so, and miss merle looked awful pretty in hers, with her dark, curly hair. i don't know how the news that we were going to do such a thing ever got spread, for we didn't tell hardly a soul--just mother and mammy and mrs. everett and the lady they board with and her married daughter, which all promised that they wouldn't ever tell, but somebody else found out about it, as you shall see. we collected at the pasture gate at exactly a quarter to twelve and the minute the first whistle blew we raced to the well, for we were all anxious to see our husband if he was there. they said for me to go first as it was my well, but i said no, they must go first, because they were company, but miss merle said for me to look first, then she and jean would look at the same time, as their husbands wouldn't mind reflecting together, being that they were kin. my heart was beating so that i was about to smother, but i pulled my bonnet down low over my eyes to shut out any view except what was in the well, like mammy told us to do, and leaned 'way over and looked. now, up to this time, my diary, whenever i have mentioned sir reginald i was kinder half joking, and never really thought he would come to pass, as so many things in this life don't; but now i believe it's _so_. while i couldn't make out his face very well and don't know whether his eyes are blue or brown, and his nose roman or not, still there was something glittering and shining in that well which i firmly believe was meant to be sir reginald de beverley and his _coat of mail_! they were punching me and saying, "ann, do you see anything?" till i couldn't tell whether he smiled at me or not; but i remembered my manners even on such a critical occasion, so i got up and let them look. they commenced pulling down their bonnets like i did and leaned over the well. i was on the other side, facing the lilac bushes--and in less time than it takes me to write it, me being in a hurry and my pencil short, there was something happening that made me feel like i was in a fairy tale. i saw those lilac bushes move and the next thing i knew there was mr. st. john. not in a white vest, it's true, but looking beautiful enough, even in the daylight. he motioned to me not either to speak or move, though i couldn't have done either one, being almost paralyzed between seeing him and sir reginald at the same time. he tipped up right easy and leaned over the well, opposite to miss merle. when jean saw his image in the well she gave one overjoyed scream and leaned farther over to see more. "oh, it's mr. st. john," she called out to her aunt merle, her voice sounding very deep and hollow, but joyful. "it's _mr._ st. john! _he's_ going to be my future husband!" he and miss merle were about to kill themselves laughing, for miss merle had seen him from the first; but when jean looked up and saw him he looked at her so sweet that you felt like you could forgive him anything he was to do, even the "i-ther and ni-ther." "i'd like to accommodate you, jean," he said, laughing and catching her hand with an affectionate look, although he is usually very timid and dignified, "but the fact is--may i tell, merle?" and the way _he_ said "merle" sounded like a whole _box_ of marshmallows. miss merle smiled at him and then he told jean if she would every _bit_ as soon have it that way, he would be her uncle instead of her future husband. i was so afraid that she would faint or die right there in the pasture that i told them i heard mother calling me and ran as hard as i could tear. she came over this afternoon to tell me all about it and was feeling strong enough to eat a small basket of wild goose plums. "oh, it was a terrible shock at first," she said, stopping long enough to spit out a seed, "but the _minute_ he said _uncle_ my love changed. why, ann, an uncle is an _old_ person, almost like a grandpa! anyway, they've promised that i shall be in the wedding, dressed in a pair of beautiful white silk stockings." chapter x it ain't any easy matter to keep a diary with a baby in the house, especially if he's at the _watchable_ age, although he's such a darling one that you don't begrudge him the trouble he makes. before you more than get a sentence set down you have to drop everything and run and jerk the palm-leaf fan out of his hands, which he takes great pleasure in ramming the handle of down his throat. then he eats great handsful of the virginia creeper leaves if you leave him on the porch for a minute by himself. and at times he won't be satisfied with anything on earth unless you turn up the mattress and let him beat on the bed-springs, which i consider a smart idea and think cousin eunice ought to write out and send to a magazine under the head of "hints for tired mothers." but i say it again, there don't any of us begrudge him these many little ways, although it's hard to be literary with them; for when he smiles and "pat-a-cakes" and says "ah! ah!" you don't care if you never write another line. mother made cousin eunice turn over the raising of him to her the very day she got here, for everybody knows, my diary, how a lady that's ever raised a baby feels toward a lady that's just owned one a few months. "no _flannel_ on this precious child!" mother almost screamed the minute we got him off the train and started to drive home. "why, it's positively flying in the face of providence to leave his band off this early!" and mother looked at cousin eunice like she had done it a-purpose. "oh, aunt mary, please don't," poor cousin eunice said like she was about to cry. "for the last eleven months there has been scarcely a thing discussed in my presence but _belly-bands_!" (there weren't any men around.) "it seems if a woman ever has one baby her thoughts never travel away from flannel bands afterward!" "but pneumonia! cholera infantum! teething!" mother kept on, hugging waterloo close. "that's what _twenty-three_ of my neighbors tell me," cousin eunice answered, "then nineteen others say it's cruel to keep him all swathed up in this hot weather, while eleven said to leave it off until his second summer, and fifteen said for me to----" "what does doctor gordon say?" mother asked, to change the subject off of the neighbors. "he said, '_damn those old women!_'" cousin eunice told her, which made her jump, although it looks like she has lived with father long enough not to. right after dinner they started up the talk again. should waterloo be banded or disbanded? they hadn't talked long when mammy lou came into the room holding something under her apron. she looked kinder mad and dignified at mother and cousin eunice because they hadn't asked her for _her_ say-so about bands. "if it's entirely respectable for me to speak before i'm spoke to," she commenced, her voice very proud and haughty, "i'd like for you all to pay _me_ some mind. there's _two_ subject's i'm well qualified to speak about and one is babies. ain't i done raised a bushel basket full o' little niggers, let alone that one beautiful little white angel that's the peartest and sweetest of any in the state?" which made me feel very much embarrassed with modestness. "we all know that you made a good job of ann," cousin eunice said very pleasantly just to pacify her. "what would you suggest about little rufus?" "_these!_" mammy lou said, drawing her hand out from her apron like a man on the stage dressed in velvet does his sword and we saw a string of speckled beans. "job's tears," mammy told the company. "ther ain't no need to worry about bands when you've got _these_! ther nuvver has been a child that cut teeth hard from adam on down if his ma put a string of these aroun' his neck----" cousin eunice was beginning to say something nice when father spoke up and asked mammy who it was that put them around adam's neck, which made her mad. "poke all the fun you want to," she said, "but the time _will_ come that you-all 'ull be thankful to me for savin' these for mr. rufe's baby, or i'm a blue-gum nigger!" lots of times i take waterloo over to make jean a visit, which is easy on everybody, for the folks over there love babies so that they relieve me of his weight the minute i get there and leave me and jean free to do whatever we want to. she is teaching me what she calls "artistic handwriting" now, using an actress' signature for a copy. it consists of some very large letters and some very small ones, like the charts in an eye-doctor's office that he uses to see if you're old enough to wear spectacles. cousin eunice has time now with so many folks to help tend to waterloo to slip off every morning and go to a quiet place down in the yard with her paper and pencil and compose on a book she's trying to write. before she was ever married she wanted to write a book, and if you once get _that_ idea into your head even marrying won't knock it out. cousin eunice says i'm such a kindred spirit that i don't bother her when i go along too, but she has a dreadful time at her own house trying to write. she don't more than get her soul full of beautiful thoughts about tall, pale men and long-stemmed roses and other things like that before a neighbor drops in and talks for three hours about the lady around the corner's husband staying out so late at night and what her servants use to scrub the kitchen sink. i told her i knew one lady that hated so for folks to drop in that she unscrewed the front doorbell, so she couldn't hear them ring, but she got paid back for it next day by missing the visit of a rich relation. rufe and cousin eunice may live to be thankful for the string of job's tears, but i reckon to-night miss merle and mr. st. john wish that job never shed a tear in the shape of a bean, for they were what a grown person would call "the indirect cause" of a quarrel between them. it's queer that such a little thing as waterloo should be picked out by fate to break up a loving couple, but he did; although i ain't saying that it was _altogether_ his fault. this afternoon i took him over to jean's and we were having a lovely time out on their front porch, enjoying stories of her former sweethearts and a bottle of stuffed olives. she told me about one she had last winter that she was deeply attached to. she would see him at a big library in the city where she loves to read every afternoon. she saw him there one time and got to admiring him so much that she would go up there every afternoon at the time she knew he would be there and get a book and sit opposite him, making like she was reading, but really feasting her eyes on his lovely hair and scholarly looking finger-nails. "i never got acquainted with him, so never learned his name," she told me, jabbing her hat-pin deep down into the olive bottle, like little jack horner, "but he was always reading about 'the origin of the aryan family,' so i'm sure he was a young mr. aryan." i told her i certainly had heard the aryan family spoken of, i couldn't remember where, but she said oh, yes, she knew it was a swell family and that i must have read about it in the pink sheet of the sunday paper. then she said she had a souvenir of him, and, as i'm crazy about souvenirs, i begged her to go and get it, hoping very much that it was a miniature on ivory set in diamonds. "what is it?" i kept asking her, as she was trying to get her legs untangled out of her petticoats to get up and go after it; we were sitting flat down on the floor, which sometimes tangles your heels dreadfully. finally she got up, tearing a piece of trimming out, which she did up in a little ball and threw away, so her mother would lay it on the washerwoman when she saw the tear. "_ashes_;" she told me, kinder whispery, after she had reached the front door, for she was afraid somebody would hear; but it gave me a terrible feeling and i wondered how she got them away from his relations and whether she had to go to the graveyard in the middle of the night to do it or not. i comforted myself with the thought that they would be in a prettily ornamented urn, even if they were ashes, for i had read about urns in roman history; but shucks! when she got back it wasn't a thing but a pink chewing-gum wrapper full of cigar ashes that he had thrown away one day right in front of her as they were going up the steps to the library. before i had time to tell her how disappointed i was there came a picture-taking man up the front walk and asked us to let him take waterloo's picture for some post-cards. if you were pleased you could buy them and if you weren't you didn't have to. but he knew of course there wouldn't any lady be hardhearted enough not to buy a picture of her own baby. nothing could have delighted us more, unless the man had said take _our_ pictures; and jean remarked that waterloo ought to be fixed up funny to correspond with the string of beads around his neck. she ran and got a pair of overalls that belonged to the lady she boards with's little boy and we stuffed waterloo in. he looked too cute for anything and we was just settling him down good for the picture when jean spoke up again and said oh, wasn't it a pity that he didn't have any hair on his head, as hair showed up so well in a picture. i told her it was aristocratic not to have hair when you're a baby, on your head. she said shucks! how could anything connected with a baby be aristocratic? this made me mad and i told her maybe she didn't know what it was to be aristocratic. she said she did, too; it was aristocratic to have a wide front porch to your house and to eat sweetbreads when you were dining in a hotel. i was thinking up something else to say when the picture-taking man said hurry up. there is a great deal more to this, but it is so late that i'm going to leave the rest for to-morrow night. anyhow maybe my grandchildren will be more interested to go on and read, for magazine writers always chop their stories off at the most particular spot, when they are going to be continued, just where you are holding your breath, so as to make you buy the next number of the magazine. well, in just a minute after we were talking about the hair jean said she knew the _very_ thing! her aunt merle was up on the far back porch drying her hair that she had just finished washing, and had left her rat lying on her bureau. she had seen it there when she went to get the ashes of mr. aryan. she said it was a lovely rat, which cost five dollars, all covered with long brown hair; and she said it was just the thing to set off waterloo's bald head fine. so she ran and got it and we fixed it on. he looked exactly like a south sea islander which you see in the side show of an exposition by paying twenty-five cents extra. (an exposition is a large place which makes your feet nearly kill you.) but the picture-man said he looked mighty cute and snapped him in several splendid positions. now, if mr. st. john had just stayed where he belonged this would be the end of the story and i could go on to bed to-night, without having to sit up by myself writing till the clocks strike eleven, which is a lonesome hour when everybody else is in bed. but mr. st. john didn't stay away; and, as all the bad things that happen are laid on fate, i reckon she was the one that put it into his head to walk up those front steps and on to that porch before we noticed him, for we were trying our best to get waterloo back into citizen's clothes. he stopped to see what it was we were scrambling over, and when he saw that it was alive he threw up his nice white hands and remarked "heavens!" which is the elegant thing to say when you're surprised, although father always says, "jumping jerusalem!" "what is the thing?" he asked, after he had looked again. jean told him why it was just the lady over at our house's little baby dressed up. then he asked what that horrible woolly growth on his head was, which tickled jean mightily. then, just for the fun of seeing what he _would_ say when he was very much surprised, she jerked it off and held it up, like the executioner did mary, queen of scot's head, which gives me a crinkly pain up and down my back even to read about. the rat was just pinned together and set up on waterloo's little noggin, so jean jerked it off and explained to mr. st. john that it was her aunt merle's rat. _i_ always knew it wasn't any good idea to talk about such things before a man that was a person's lover; but i thought jean had had more experience in such things than i had and it wasn't my place to interrupt her. i am sure mr. st. john felt like saying "jumping jerusalem" when jean told him that the woolly growth was the rat of his beloved. if i was writing a novel i'd say that he "recoiled with horror," that is, he jumped back quickly, like he didn't want it to bite him, and sat down. "_imagine!_" he kept saying to himself like he was dazed; "imagine a man _touching_ the thing! _kissing_ the thing!" i thought, of course, he was talking about waterloo, and was ready to speak up and say, "i thank you, mr. st. john, my little cousin is not to be called a '_thing_,'" but jean spoke first. "what would you want to kiss _this_ for?" she asked him. "'tain't any harm to kiss in the _mouth_ after you're engaged, is it?" we might have been standing there asking him such questions as that till daylight this morning for all the answers we got out of him, but while he sat looking at us and we were trying to squirm waterloo's little fat legs out of the overalls and him kicking and crying, miss merle walked out on the porch. she saw mr. st. john first, as you would naturally expect an engaged girl to do, and started toward him, but just then she saw us and stopped. "why, what on earth are you children doing with my rat down here?" she asked, not looking a bit ashamed. we told her what we had been doing with it and she just laughed and said well, it was too hot to wear the thing on such a day anyway, although she had looked for it high and low. all the time we were talking mr. st. john looked at her in the most amazed way, like he expected to see her appear looking like a mexican dog, but was greatly surprised to see her with such a nice lot of home-made hair. if he had had any sense he would admire her all the more for not telling a story about that rat; for i've seen a thousand young ladies in my life that wouldn't have owned up to it for a hundred dollars, but would have made their little niece out a story and then boxed her ears in private. i hope when i get grown i won't be a _liarable_ young lady, although it does seem like they're twice as quick to get married as an honest one. he didn't act with good sense, though, for they soon got to talking and we could hear what they said (although we were out of sight) for they were high-toned remarks. he said he _hated_ shams, and she said well, that wasn't any sham for every blowsy-headed girl wears them nowadays and everybody knows it, even the poets and novel-writers that always make their heroines so fuzzy-headed. then she called him a prig and he said something back at her and she gave him back the ring, which was a brave thing to do, it being a grand diamond one with mizpath marked in it. of course the next thing that happens after an engagement is broken is for it to get mended again. all day we have hung around miss merle to see just when she gets the ring back again, but up to a late hour to-night, as the newspapers say about the election returns, there was nothing doing. oh, it does seem a pity that they would let the news go down to their children or be put on their tombstones that their lives were blighted on account of a rat! i've neglected you, my diary, for the last few days because my mind has been on other things. it rained all the next day after i wrote last and i couldn't go over to jean's, which put me out greatly. i finally thought about sending a note by lares and penates and paid them in chicken livers, me being so uneasy in my mind that i didn't have any appetite for them, and knowing that they loved them enough to fight over them any time. i told jean in the note to fix some kind of signal like paul revere to let me know the minute the ring got back to miss merle, for i was deeply worried, me and waterloo and jean being to blame for it. then, too, it is dangerous for an engagement ring to stay returned too long for it might get given to another girl. jean was delighted with my note and said she would certainly hang a lantern in the garret only she never could undo the chimney of a lantern to light it, and never saw a lady person that could; but it was a romantic idea. so she thought hanging a white towel in the window that faces our house for a signal would do very well, and i could know by that if it kept on raining and i couldn't get over there. well, i was so interested that i hardly moved from that side of the house all day, until it got so dark that i couldn't see the house, much less a towel. so i went sorrowfully to bed. the next morning i was delighted to see that i was going to get rewarded for my watching, for _long_ before breakfast i discovered a white thing, and it was waving from mr. st. john's window, which made it all the surer in my mind. although it was cakes and maple syrup i didn't waste much time over breakfast, but grabbed my hat and started for jean's. miss merle was on the front porch and i noticed mr. st. john just inside the hall, looking like he would like to come out, but was waiting for her to give him lief. she looked up at me quick. "why, ann," she said, "what are you in such a big hurry about?" i've often noticed, my diary, that when people are in a hurry and can't think of anything else to tell they tell the _truth_, although they don't intend to. it was that way with me. "oh, i'm _so_ glad you and mr. st. john have made up!" i told her, fanning hard with my hat, for i was all out of breath. she looked very strange and asked me, "what?" and so i told her over again. just then mr. st. john came out and asked who was that talking about him behind his back. he looked pitiful, although he tried to look pleasant, too. jean heard me talking and came running down the stairs just in time to hear me telling it over again to miss merle. "why, there ain't a _sign_ of a towel hanging out the window," she told me, looking very much surprised and me greatly mortified. "you must have dreamed it!" miss merle asked her then what she was talking about and it was their turn to look surprised when she told them. i told them i had felt awfully bad about the rat, because me and waterloo was partly responsible, and they kinder smiled. but i couldn't let them think that i had _made_ up the towel story, so i told them if they would come around on the side that faces our house i'd show them. mr. st. john and miss merle looked at each other very peculiar and he said: "it's a shame to disappoint the children!" which she didn't make any answer to, but she looked _tolerable_ agreeable. then i begged them to come on around to mr. st. john's window and i could show them i wasn't any story. "my window!" he said, looking surprised; then his face turned red. "why, it must have been my er--_shirt_ i hung there last night to dry after i was out in that shower!" we couldn't help from laughing, all of us; but he laughs like the corners of his mouth ain't used to it. that is one bad thing about a dignified man--they're always afraid to let their mouth muscles stretch. miss merle caught me and jean by the hand with a smile and said let's go and see what that signal looked like that brought ann over in such a hurry. "a shirt is a highly proper thing to discuss--since thomas hood," she said as we started down the steps. "pray don't," he said, the corners of his mouth wrinkling again, but his face just covered with red. "i'll be the happiest man on earth, merle, if you'll just forgive me for my asininity; but--_do_ come back!---- for it's an _undershirt_!" chapter xi "come on in, the egg-nog's fine," rufe called out to us as we came up the walk to the side gate this morning, a beautiful christmas morning, after a long tramp down through the wood lot and up the ravine. "come on out, the ozone's finer," cousin eunice sang back at him; then stopped still, leaned against the gate-post and looked up at the mistletoe hanging in the trees all about. "you can get ozone three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, egg-nog but one!" he hollered again, but i saw him set his glass down and start to swing waterloo up on his shoulder. no matter how long they have been married you can always find rufe wanting to be where cousin eunice is, and vice versa. long ago anybody reading in my diary would have seen that mother is the kind of woman who loves to mother anything that needs it, from a little chicken with the gapes to a college professor out in a storm without his rubbers; and the latest notion she has taken up is to see that miss martha claxton, one of the teachers in a girls' school that has been opened up near here, shall not get homesick during the week-ends. we all like her, mammy lou even saving the top of the churning every friday to make cottage cheese for her; and cousin eunice said she knew she was a kindred spirit as soon as she said she could eat a bottle of olives at one sitting and _loved_ baby stuart's picture. so we invited her to go walking with us this morning and cousin eunice told her all about her courting in the ravine. _i_ also knew about her _peculiarity_, which cousin eunice didn't; but i didn't like to mention it, for miss claxton had smashed her eye-glasses all to pieces yesterday and was wearing an embroidered waist and a string of coral, so instead of looking intellectual, as she usually does, she looked just like other girls. but the men of our family all laugh at her behind her back and call her "the knocker," because she carries a hammer with her on all her rambles instead of a poetry book, and knocks the very jiblets out of little rocks to see if they've got any fossils on their insides. in other words, she is a geologist. a person ought not to blame her though until she has had time to explain to them that her father was professor of it and had a chair in a college when she was born. so he taught her all about rocky subjects when she was little, and she's crazy about it. still, i would rather be with a person that is crazy about geology than one that isn't crazy at all. i hate _medium_ people. but, as i have said, we are all very fond of her, although she has never done anything since i've known her that would be worth writing about in this book, not having any lover; so it has been lying on the shelf all covered with dust ever since jean left. sometimes i think i'll never find another jean! to get back to my subject, though, this morning _was_ lovely--cool enough to keep your hair in curl (if you were a grown lady) and warm enough to make your cheeks pink. cousin eunice said she _couldn't_ go back into the house while the sunshine was so golden, so we leaned our elbows on the fence and miss claxton examined a handful of pebbles she had picked up on our walk. pretty soon rufe came out with waterloo on his shoulder and in his hands a horse that can walk on wheels and a mule that can wag his head, ears, legs and tail and say, "queek, queek," all at the same time. "oh, rufe, isn't it lovely?" cousin eunice said, looking away toward the hills and sighing that half-sad sigh that rises in you when you see something beautiful and can't eat it nor drink it nor _squeeze_ it. "isn't what lovely, your complexion?" he answered, just to tease her, for rufe loves the outdoors as much as any of us, and if waterloo takes after his mother and father both, he will never sleep in anything more civilized than a wigwam. "don't joke," she said. "it's too beautiful--and too fleeting! just think, in another week we'll be back, dwelling with the rest of the fools amid the tall buildings!" "it is everything you say," he answered soberly, looking in the direction she pointed, and he seemed to have that happy, hurting feeling that comes to you when you look at lord byron's picture, or smell lilies-of-the-valley. "don't you feel light on a morning like this?" cousin eunice said again, still looking at the hills. "couldn't you do anything?" "anything!" he echoed. "even push my paper to the hundred thousand mark--or carry a message to garcia." "especially the message to garcia! now _couldn't_ you?" she said with a bright smile. "i could do that myself, without even mussing up my white linen blouse!" miss claxton looked up at them with a puzzled look, and rufe and cousin eunice unhitched hands. "miss claxton," rufe began with a half-teasing twinkle in his eyes (i had heard father telling him a while ago about miss claxton being a knocker), "this little affair about the message to garcia happened a bit this side of the eocene age, so maybe you haven't bothered your head about it. i might explain that----" "nobody asked you to, sir," she said, with such a rainbow of a smile at him that i was surprised. if she could smile like that at a married man what would she do at a single one? "i know a lot more things than i look to--with my glasses on! that carrying the message to garcia was a brave thing to do, even aside from the risks. it is heroic to do the thing at hand. i'm trying to learn that lesson myself. i'm being a schoolmarm and wearing glasses to look like one, instead of following my natural bent in the scientific field," she wound up, still smiling. "what's your ambition?" cousin eunice said, looking at her wonderingly. "knowing what's to be known about primitive man," miss claxton answered. "he's the only man i ever cared a copper cent about!" "mine's writing a book that will make me famous overnight, i don't want to wait to awake some morning and find myself so," cousin eunice said, stooping over to set waterloo's horse up on his wheels, for he would come unfixed every time waterloo would yank him over a gravel; and all the time we were talking he kept up a chorus of "fick horte! fick horte!" rufe said his ambition was never to see an editor's paste-pot again, and he was turning to me to ask what mine is when the conversation was interrupted. i was glad that it was, for i should hate to tell them just what mine is. somehow it is mostly about sir reginald de beverley, and i'm old enough now to know that he may not be an english lord after all and dress in a coat of mail. he may be just a plain young doctor or lawyer, and we'll have to live in a cottage (only excuse me from a flat, i wouldn't live in a flat with lord byron) and maybe we'll just have chicken on sunday. but as long as he has brown eyes and broad shoulders and lovely teeth i shall manage to do with crackers and peanut butter through the week. a woman will do _anything_ for the man she loves. but i didn't have to tell them all this, for just then we heard the gate click and saw our friend, mr. gayle, coming up the walk. "there comes old zephyr," rufe said with a laugh. "it was the biggest lie on earth to name him gayle. even breeze would have been an exaggeration." "he's awfully smart," i told rufe, for i hate to have my friends laughed at. "i know you and julius joke about him on account of his gentle ways and broad-brimmed hats! father says it's better to have something _under_ your hat than to have so much style in its looks!" "well, he has something under his hat," cousin eunice said, "and hat enough to cover twice as much. but i think those old-timey things are becoming to him!" "what is the subject about which he knows so much?" miss claxton asked, following him with her eyes until dilsey let him in at the front door. "heaven," rufe answered her, "and hell. he writes deep psychological stuff for the magazines and they pay him ten cents a word for it. he must spend his dimes building model tenements, for he certainly doesn't buy new hats with them." "what does he say about heaven and the other place?" miss claxton asked, much to our surprise, for we had thought she didn't care about anything but earth. "he says they're both in your own heart. the heaven side comes up when you've done a decent job at your work--and loved your office boy as your own nephew!" "and----" miss claxton kept on. "and the hell part comes into the limelight when you've done anything mean, such as----" "spanking your waterloo when the telephone bell makes you nervous--_not_ when he's bad," cousin eunice said, gathering waterloo up in her arms and loving him. "him's a precious angel, and mudder's a nasty lady to him lots of times." "aunt mary is sending him out here to find us," rufe said, as we saw mr. gayle coming out of the dining-room door. "i hope she's filled him so full of egg-nog that we can have some fun out of him!" he had on a sunday-looking suit of black clothes and a soft black tie in honor of the day, and was really nice-looking as he came up toward us. and miss claxton threw away the last one of her pebbles, no matter what they had on their insides, and commenced wiping her hands vigorously with her handkerchief. "thank goodness!" i thought as i watched her. "i shall go straight up-stairs and wipe the dust off my diary with my petticoat!" i reckon rufe and cousin eunice both thought that mr. gayle and miss claxton had met before, for they didn't offer to introduce them, but i knew they hadn't, so i was the one that had to do it. i had forgotten how _the ladies' own journal_ said it ought to be done, and i was kinder scared anyway; and when i get scared i always make an idiot of myself. so i just grabbed her right hand and his right hand and put them together and said, "mr. gayle, do shake hands with miss claxton!" well, they shook hands, but the others all laughed at me. cousin eunice said she was sorry she didn't know they hadn't met before, or she would have introduced them. but mr. gayle smiled at me to keep me from feeling bad. "never mind," he said, "i'm sure ann's introduction is as good as anybody's. what she lacks in form she more than makes up for in sincerity." i thought it was nice of him to say that, but i was so embarrassed that i got away from them as soon as i could. i went out to the kitchen to see if mammy lou was ready to stuff the turkey. lares and penates were on the floor playing with two little automobiles that julius had brought them. mammy lou was fixing to cut up the liver in the gravy. "please don't," i began to beg her, "i'll go halves with lares and penates if you'll give it to me!" "you don't deserve nothin'," she said, trying to look at me and not laugh. "i seen you out thar by the side gate, aggin' 'em on! reckon you're in your glory, now that you've got a pair of 'em to spy on and write it all out in that pesky little book!" "oh, they ain't a pair!" i told her, slicing up the liver into three equal halves. "they soon will be if they listen to you!" "never in this world! she says she never has cared for anybody but a person she calls 'primitive man!'" "dar now! i bet he fooled her!" she said with great pleasure, for next to a funeral she likes a fooling, and she is always excited when she forgets and says "dar now." "if he has," she kept on, "she'd better do the nex' best thing and marry mr. gayle. he's got as good raisin' as ary man i ever seen, although he's a little pore. but they's _some_ things i don't like about fat husban's--they can't scratch they own back!" i was glad to keep her mind on marrying, for i thought i'd get a chance at the gizzard too, but she watched it like she watches her trunk-key when her son-in-law's around. i told her to go to the window and see what they were doing now, and she did it, poor old soul! when she came back the gizzard was gone, but she was so tickled that she didn't notice it. "they've done paired off and gone down by the big tree to knock mistletoe out'n the top," she told me, her face shining with grease and happiness. "i knowed 'twould be a match! needn't nuvver tell no nigger of my experience that folks is too smart to fall in love! ever'body's got a little _grain_ o' sense, no matter how deep it's covered with book-learnin'." "oh, they don't have to be smart at all," i told her, talking very fast to divert her mind from the gravy. "father says if the back of a girl's neck is pretty she can get married if she hasn't sense enough to count the coppers in the contribution box." "an' he tol' the truth," she said, stopping still with her hands on her hips like she was fixing for a long sermon. "an' furthermore, if she's rich she don't need to have neither. but marryin' for riches is like puttin' up preserves--it looks to be a heap bigger pile beforehan' than afterwards. an' many a man marries a rich girl expectin' a automobile when he don't git nothin' but a baby buggy!" mr. gayle has been coming over so early every morning since that first morning that he met miss claxton, and staying so late that i haven't had much time to write. i've been too busy watching. i've often heard doctor gordon say that diseases have a "period of incubation," but i believe that love is one disease that doesn't incubate. it just comes, like light does when you switch on the electricity. this morning mr. gayle came so early that rufe went into the sitting-room and began to poke fun at him, as usual. "hello, old man," he said, shaking hands with him. "i'm surely glad to see that it's _you_. thought of course when the door-bell rang so soon after breakfast that it was an enlarged picture agent!" "no, i'm far from being an enlarged anything," the poor man said, wiping off the perspiration from his forehead, for he must have walked very fast. "in fact, i'm feeling rather 'ensmalled,' as our friend, ann, might say. i have never before so realized my utter unworthiness!" "bosh," rufe said, slapping him on the shoulder in a friendly way. "why, man, you're on to your job as well as anybody i ever saw. why, your last article in _the journal for the cognoscenti_ made me give up every idea of the old-fashioned heaven i'd hoped for--a place where a gas bill is never presented, and alarm clocks and society editors enter not!" "mr. clayborne would have been worth his weight in platinum as court jester to some melancholy monarch in the middle ages," miss claxton said, looking up from her crochet work which mother is teaching her and cousin eunice to do, because it has come back into style, to smile at mr. gayle. "i'm not what ann calls 'smart'!" he said in answer to her, "but i remember enough history to know that the other name for jester is fool. i shan't stay where people call me such names!" so he got up and went out, which gave cousin eunice and waterloo and me an excuse to go too. so we left the lovers alone. "well, he's what i call a damn fool," rufe said in a whisper as soon as the door was closed so they couldn't hear. "coming over here every few minutes in the day, 'totin' a long face,' as mammy says, and hasn't got the nerve to say boo to a goose!" "saying boo to a goose wouldn't help his suit any," cousin eunice said; "besides, well-regulated young people don't get engaged in three days!" "what ill-regulated young people you and i must have been!" rufe said, then dodged waterloo's ball which she threw at him, saying what a _story_! it was nearly two weeks before they got engaged. "i advocate getting engaged in two hours when people are as much in love as those two we've just left. gayle hasn't red blood enough in him to stain a _chigoe's undershirt_!" hasn't anything happened worth writing about until to-day, but it has been happening so thick ever since morning that my backbone is fairly aching with thrills. and i'm _tired_! oh, mercy! but i'm going to stay awake to-night until i get it all written out even if i have to souse my head in cold water, or rouse up waterloo. right after breakfast this morning mr. gayle happened to see cousin eunice go into the parlor by herself to crochet some extra hard stitches, and so he went in after her and said he would like to have a little talk with her if she didn't mind. dilsey had left the window up when she finished dusting, which i was very glad to see, for i was in my old place on the porch. he told her he supposed he was the confoundedest ass on earth, but she said oh no, she was sure he wasn't so bad as that! then he plunged right into the subject and said he was madly in love and didn't know how to tell it. would she please help him out? "oh, don't mind that," she answered kindly. "all earnest lovers are awkward. the byronic ones are liars!" he said he knew she would understand and help him with her valued advice!---- but, just _what_ was he to say? and _when_ was he to say it? she told him she thought it would be a psychological moment to-night, the last night of the year, and they would all be going their different ways on the morrow. it would be very romantic to propose then, say on the stroke of twelve, or just whenever he could get himself keyed up to it. he said oh, she was the kindest woman in the world. she had taken such a load off his heart! he thought it would be a fine idea to propose just on the stroke of midnight--somehow he imagined the clock striking would give him courage! oh, he felt so much better for having told somebody! i felt that it would be a weight off my heart if i could tell somebody too, and just then i spied rufe holding waterloo up to see the turkeys down by the big chicken coop. i didn't waste a second. "oh, rufe, you'll be surprised!" i said, all out of breath, and he turned around and looked thrilled. "mr. gayle is _red-bloodier_ than you think!" then i told him all about it. "now aren't you sorry you called him a d---- fool?" i wasn't really minding about the cuss word, for rufe isn't the kind of a man that says things when he's mad. he's as apt to say 'damn' when he's eating ice-cream as at any other time. rufe was delighted to hear that it was going to happen while they were still here to see it; and we went right back to the house and planned to sit up with cousin eunice and see them after they came out of the parlor on the glad new year. julius and marcella were coming over to sit up with us anyhow to watch it in, so it wouldn't be hard to do. well, mother put enough fruit cake and what goes with it out on the dining-table to keep us busy as long as we could eat, but along toward ten o'clock we got _so_ sleepy (being just married people and me) that julius said let's run the clock up two hours. marcella said no, that would cause too much striking at the same time, but she said if _something_ didn't happen to hurry them up and put us out of our misery we would all be under the table in another five minutes. we were all so sleepy that everything we said sounded silly, so when a bright idea struck me it took some time to get it into their heads. "rufe's typewriter!" i said, jumping up and down in my joy, so it waked them up some just to look at me. "the bell on it can go exactly like a clock if you slide the top thing backwards and forwards right fast. i've done it a million times to amuse waterloo!" they said they knew i'd make a mess of it if i tried such a thing, but i told them if they took that view of what a person could do they never would be encouraged to try to do things. i knew i _could_ do it! marcella said then for rufe to place the typewriter close up to the parlor door, and they would all go out on the front porch to keep the lovers from hearing them laugh. so out they all filed. well, it was an exciting moment of my life when i was sliding that thing backwards and forwards and thinking all sorts of heroic thoughts, but i gritted my teeth and didn't look up until i had got the twelve strokes struck. then i went out on the front porch right easy and sat down by the others. julius tucked his big coat around me and we all sat there a little while, laughing and shivering and shaking until i felt that i'd never had such a good time in my life! then somebody whispered let's go in--and _then_ the unexpected happened. we heard a sound in the parlor close back of us and the _first_ thing we knew there was mr. gayle raising the window that opens on to the porch, and he and miss claxton came over and looked out into the night. they couldn't see us if we sat still, close up against the wall; and it seemed that none of us could budge to save our lives! it was a lovely moonlight night, clear and cold, that always reminds me of the night washington irving reached bracebridge hall (i just love it), and so he put his arm around her, mr. gayle i mean, not washington irving, and his voice was so clear and firm and happy that we all knew he had been accepted. "bid good morrow to the new year, my love," he said and kissed her on the lips a long, _long_ time. "there has been created for me this night not only a new year, but a new _heaven_ and----" "and a new _earth_," she finished up softly, and they closed the window down. "i hope she won't take her little hammer and knock on her new earth to see if it has petrified wiggle tails in it," rufe said, after we had filed back into the house and moved the typewriter away from the door. but his voice was solemn when he said it, and we all felt like _puppy dogs_ for being out there. and nobody said another word about staying up to see how they looked when they came out of the parlor. the next day everybody made like they were very much surprised at the way it had turned out except mammy lou. she looked as happy when miss claxton told us the news as if she had got herself engaged again. "you were right after all, mammy," cousin eunice told her. "in spite of all miss claxton's scientific knowledge she has preferred a _man_ to a career!" "an' shows her good sense, too," mammy answered, her old brown face running over with smiles, like molasses in the sunshine. "a man's a man, i can tell you; and a career's _a mighty pore thing to warm your feet against_ on a cold night!" chapter xii april is here! jean and april together! no wonder i haven't any sense! "and the rain it raineth every day," but for just a little while at a time, and the mud smells so good afterward that you don't care. the warm air comes blowing through my window so early every morning and puts such sad, happy thoughts into my head that i have to get up and wake jean. then we dress and go out into the side yard, where i try to find a calecanthus in bloom that is really sweet enough to go in front of lord byron's picture. and i try to make jean listen while i tell her all my sad, happy thoughts, that's what i invited her down here for, but she hardly ever listens. "isn't everything lovely?" i asked her this morning, after we had tiptoed through the house and out to the side porch. "and doesn't april just remind you of a right young girl, about seventeen years old, with hair made out of sunshine, and cheeks made of peach-blossoms; and eyes made out of that patch of blue sky over mrs. west's big barn?" that patch of sky over mrs. west's barn takes up a heap of my time on summer afternoons when i lie close to the windows and read. it is so deep and far-off looking that i get to dreaming about italy, and i call it the place where "tasso's spirit soars and sings." i learned this long ago out of the fifth reader, and i don't know what else tasso did besides soaring and singing. but jean wasn't listening to me. she had reached out and gathered a bunch of snowballs and was shaking the night before's rain off them. "oh, ann," she said, "don't they remind you of willow plumes? and don't you wish we were old enough to wear _them_ on our hats instead of sissy bows? you can get engaged in a minute if you have a willow plume on your hat!" this seemed to remind her of something, for she spoke again the next minute. "say, i've never told you about cassius, have i?" i told her no, although i knew a little about him myself, even if he wasn't in that easy shakespeare that lamb wrote for kids. and she seemed to be lost in thought, so i got lost too. it never is hard for me to. i thought: "mercy, how i have grown!" when i first commenced keeping this diary i just despised poetry, and never cared about keeping my hair tied out of my eyes, nor my hands clean. you know that age! but i soon got over that, for when you get a little bigger being in love causes you to admire poetry and also to beautify yourself. jean and i tried very sour buttermilk (the sourer the better) to make our complexion lovely, with tansy mixed in, until it got so sour that mother said, "whew! there must be a rat dead in the walls!" so we had to pour it out. in looking over my past life it seems to me that i've been in love with somebody or other ever since that night so long ago, when mammy lou washed me and dressed me up in my tiny hemstitched clothes. and with such lovely heroes, too! when i was awfully little i used to be crazy about the prince that the mermaid rescued while hans christian andersen stood on the beach and watched them. then i loved ben hur from his pictures when i was ten, john halifax when i was eleven, lord byron when i was twelve--i loved him then, do now, and ever shall, world without end, amen! it is so much easier to love _good-looking_ people than good ones! and, oh, every handsome young moor, who ever dwelt in "the moonlit halls of the alhambra!" washington irving will have a heap to answer for in the making of me. and i used to dream about "bonny prince charlie," although miss wilburn never _could_ hammer it into my head which one of the stuarts he was. and _actors_! well, i would try to make a list and write it on the fly-pages, only it might be a bad example to my grandchildren; then, too, there are so very few fly-pages. but i started out to tell how much i've changed since i began this book, for now i not only adore poetry, i write it! fully a quart jar full i've written since i found the first buttercup this spring. an ode to venus, an ode to venice, and a world of just plain odes. mammy lou washed out a preserves jar and put it on my desk for me to stick them in. it saves trouble for her. jean soon woke up out of her brown study and commenced telling about cassius. "i used to meet him on sunshiny mornings going to school," she said. "he was about nineteen and so pale and thin and sad-looking that i named him 'cassius.' he walked with a crutch. one morning when the wind blew his hat off i saw that his head was very scholarly looking, so from that hour i began thinking of him every second of the time. that is one of the worst features about being in love, you can't get your mind off of the person, and if you _do_ it's on to somebody else. now, just last week i burnt up a great batch of turkish candy i was trying to make on account of a person's eyes. they look at you like they're kissing you!" and she fell again into a study, not a brown one this time, just a sort of light tan. "whose? cassius's?" i interrupted, shaking her to bring her to. "pshaw! no! i had almost forgotten about cassius! i've never seen anything on earth to equal this other person's eyes! but, anyway, going back to finish up with cassius, i thought _of course_, from his walking with a crutch, that he must have had a bad spinal trouble when he was a child and used to have to sit still and be a scholar, instead of chasing cats and breaking out people's window-panes like healthy boys. i pictured out how lonely he must feel and how he must long for a companion whose mind was equal to his; and it certainly made a changed girl of me! i burnt out gallons and gallons of electricity every night studying deep things to discuss with him when i should get to know him well." "how did you know what kind of things he admired?" i asked, for some men like mathematics and some dickens and you can't tell the difference by passing them on the street. "well, it did make a heap of extra trouble to me," she answered, sighing as tiredly as if she had been trying on coat suits all day. "as i didn't know which was his favorite subject i had to study the encyclopedia so as to be sure to hit it." "gee whiz!" i couldn't help saying. "oh, that ain't all! i wrote down a list of strange words to say to him so that he could tell at a glance that i was brilliant. they were terrific words too, from aortic and actinic in the a's to genuflections in the g's. that's as far as i got." mammy lou called us to breakfast just then, but i could eat only four soft-boiled guinea eggs, wondering what on earth cassius had said in reply when jean said genuflections to him. "pshaw! the rest isn't worth telling," she said with a weary look, as i pulled her down on the steps right after breakfast and begged her to go on about cassius. "it ended with a disappointment--like everything else that has a man connected with it! you're a lucky girl to be in love with lord byron so long, for dead men break no hearts!" "well, tell it!" i begged. "oh, it's too disgusting for words, and was a real blow to a person of my nature! the idiot didn't have spinal trouble at all, i learned it from a lady who knew his mother. he had only sprained his knee, just a plain, every-day knee, with playing basket-ball at school, which was all the good school ever did him, the lady said. my life has certainly been full of disillusions!" "but, you've learned what genuflections means," i reminded her, for i think people ought to be thankful for everything they learn by experience, whether it's from an automobile or an auction house. pretty soon after this we heard the sound of horses' feet (when i saw who it was riding them i just couldn't say _hoofs_), so jean and i ran to the front door. we were very glad when we saw who it was, for if it hadn't been for this couple we should have had little to talk about down here in the country except telling each other our dreams and what's good to take off freckles. it was miss irene campbell riding past our house, with mr. gerald fairfax, her twin flame, in swell tan leggins that come to his knee. miss irene comes down here sometimes to spend the summer with her grandmother, mrs. west. she used to know mr. fairfax so well when they were little that there were always several planks off of the fence so they could visit together without going all the way around to the gate. but he grew up and went one direction and she went another and they didn't see each other again until late last summer; but they saw each other then, oh, so often! and they found that they must be twin flames from the way their "temperaments accord." i had heard doctor gordon say that i was of a nervous temperament and was wondering whether or not this was the kind you could have a twin flame with; but father says the temperament that mr. fairfax and miss irene have is what makes affinities throw skillets at each other after they've been married two weeks. but these two are not going to marry, for their friendship is of the _spirit_. they talk about incarnations and "karma," which sounds like the name of a salve to me. sometimes he seems to like her looks as much as her soul, and says she's a typical maid of andalusia. i learned about andalusia out of washington irving too, so i know he thinks she's pretty. she has some splendid traits of character, mother says, which means i reckon that she doesn't fix her hair idiotically just because other women do, nor use enough violet sachet to out-smell an automobile. miss irene is very sad, both on account of her liver and her lover. mrs. west says the books she reads are enough to give anybody liver complaint, but she has had a disappointment lately that is enough to give her appendicitis. his name is doctor bynum and he's as handsome as apollo and a bacteriologist, which is worse than a prohibitionist, for while the last-named won't let you drink whisky in peace, the other won't let you drink water in peace. still, miss irene says he has the most honest brown eyes and the warmest, most comfortable-feeling hands she ever saw and she was beginning to love him in spite of their souls being on different planes. "he doesn't care for _one line_ in literature," she told mother, who is very fond of her and would like to see her settled in life. "i've tried him on everything from marcus aurelius to gray's _elegy_. when i got to this last he said, 'good lord! eliminate it! it's my business to keep folks _out_ of the churchyard instead of droning ditties after they're in it!' now, do you call that anything short of savage?" "i call it sensible," mother told her. "but i hate sensible people--with _no_ nonsense." "oh, nonsense is necessary to the digestion," mother answered quickly, "we all know _that_. but a little sense, now and then, it takes to pay the market men." "which, being interpreted, means that you're like grandmother. you hope i'll marry doctor bynum, but you greatly fear that it will be gerald fairfax!" "all i have to say is that 'the raven' is not a good fowl to roast for dinner," mother answered, with a twinkle in her eye, for jean had come home from mrs. west's the day before and said that mr. fairfax had been reading _the raven_ so real you were afraid it would fly down and peck your eyes out. "oh, gerald and i don't believe in flesh foods!" she said loftily, then added quickly, "but i'm not going to marry _him_. neither am i going to marry a man who calls my reincarnation theory 'bug-house talk.' i came away down here the very day after he said that, without telling him good-by or anything. and i'm just disappointed to death that he has not followed me long ago. i thought sure he would!" "you don't deserve that he should ever think of you again," mother told her, looking as severe as she does when she tells me i'll never get married on earth unless i learn to be more tidy. "i confess the 'conflicting doubts and opinions' _do_ give me indigestion. doctor bynum has the most good-looking face i ever saw. and he's just lovely when he isn't perfectly hateful, and--mercy me! i think i'll get mammy lou to give me a spoonful of soda in a glass of warm water. i have an awful heaviness around my heart!" this talk took place two or three days ago and we hadn't seen her again until this morning when she came riding past our house. they waved at us as they got even with our gate and turned off the main road to the little path that leads to the prettiest part of the woods. "jean, what would you do if mr. fairfax looked at you the way he looks at her?" i asked, as we sat down and fixed ourselves to watch them out of sight. "i'd marry him quicker than you could hiccough!" she answered, gazing after them with a yearning look. "what would you do?" "i don't know," i told her, and i don't. "some people seem to be happy even after they're married, but i think it would be nice to be like dante and beatrice, with no gas bills nor in-laws to bother you." "shoo! well, i bet she marries him in spite of all that talk about the spirit. a spirit is all right to marry if he smells like good cigars and is _on the spot_!" "yes, i'm afraid doctor bynum has lost his chance; for a girl will love the nearest man--when the lilies-of-the-valley are in bloom." "but i heard mrs. west say the other day that mr. fairfax would make a mighty bad husband, in spite of the good looks and deep voice. he'd always forget when the oatmeal was out." "yes," i answered, "i heard her tell mother the other day that she would leave all she had to somebody else if she did marry him, for she believed in every married couple there ought to be at least one that had sense enough to keep the fences mended up." "why, that old lady's mind is as narrow as a ready-made nightgown," jean exclaimed in surprise. "why, affinities marry in every page of the pink sunday papers!" "but really who _does_ make the living?" i asked, for i had heard mother say that that kind of folks never worked. "the lawyer that divo'ces 'em makes the livin'," mammy lou said then, popping her black head out through mother's white curtains. "an' them two, if they marries, will fu'nish him with sev'al square meals! i've knowed 'em both sence they secon' summer," she said, a brown finger pointing in the direction they had gone, and a smile coming over her face, for second summers are to old women what war times are to old men, only more so. "i said it then and i say it now, he's too pore! across the chist! he thinks too much, which ain't no 'count. it leads to _devilment_! folks ain't got no business thinkin'--they ought to go to sleep when they're through work!" "but his sympathy----" i started, for that's what miss irene is always talking about, but mammy interrupted me. "sympathy nothin'! how much sympathy do you reckon he'd have on a freezin' mornin' with wet kin'lin' and the stovepipe done fell down? she better look out for a easy-goin' man that ain't carin' 'bout nothin' 'cept how to keep the barn full o' corn and good shoes for seven or eight chil'en!" mammy lou mostly knows what's she talking about, but somehow i hate to think of miss irene with seven children. she reminds me so much of a flower. when i stop to think of it, all the girls i've written about remind me of flowers. cousin eunice is like a lovely iris, and ann lisbeth is like a marechal niel rose. miss cis reeves used to look like a bright, happy little pansy, but that was before the twins were born. now her collar to her shirtwaist always hikes up in the back and shows the skin underneath and her hat (whenever she gets a chance to put on a hat) is over one ear, and lots of times she looks like she wishes nobody in her family ever had been born, especially the twin that cries the loudest. when i told miss irene that she reminded me of a flower, she said well, it must be the jasmine flower, or something else like a funeral, for she was as desolate as everybody was in _ben bolt_. (i always wondered why they didn't bury "sweet alice" with the rest of her family instead of in a corner obscure and alone.) i told her then just to pacify her that maybe she would feel better after she got married one way or another and stopped reading books named _the call of_----all sorts of things, and thinking that she had to answer all the calls. cousin eunice says her only troubles in matrimony were stomach and eye teeth and frozen water-pipes. she never gets disgusted with life except on nights when rufe goes to the lodge to see the third degree administered. she can even write a few articles now if she gives waterloo a pan of water and a wash-rag to play with, but she says many of her brightest thoughts never were fountain-penned because he happened to squall in the midst of them. for the last few days mr. fairfax has been riding around the country looking for a little cabin where he can be by himself and fish and read schopenhauer. i imagine from what they've read before me that he must be the man who wrote the post-cards you send to newly engaged couples saying, "cheer up! the worst is yet to come!" mr. fairfax says the blue smoke will curl up from his cabin chimney at sunset and form a "symphony in color" against the green tree-tops; and he can lead the "untrammeled life." he is begging miss irene to go and lead it with him, i'm sure; and she's half a mind to do it, but can't bear the _thoughts_ of it when she remembers doctor bynum's eyes and hands. altogether the poor girl looks as uncertain as if she was walking on a pavement covered with banana peelings. i think the blue-smoke-cabin idea is very romantic, but when i mentioned it to mammy lou she got mad and jerked the skillet off the stove so suddenly that the grease popped out and burnt her finger. "blue smoke! blue _blazes_!" she said, walloping her dish-rag around and around in it. "i hope that pretty critter ain't goin' to be took in by no such talk as that! blue smoke curlin'! well, _she'll_ be the one to make the fire that curls it!" it's a good thing that father gave me a fountain pen on my last birthday, for i should hate to write what happened last night with a dull pencil. mrs. west had invited jean and me to spend the night at her house, for miss irene was feeling worse and worse and needed something light to cheer her up. well, it was just long enough after supper for us to be wishing that we hadn't eaten so many strawberries when mr. fairfax came up the walk looking as grand and gloomy as edgar allan poe, right after he had written a poem to his mother-in-law. he said let's take a walk in the moonlight for the air was _madding_. i always thought before it was _maddening_, and should be applied only to nuisances, like your next-door neighbor's children, or the piano in the flat above you; but i saw from the dictionary and the way he acted later on that he was right, both about the word and the way he applied it. not far down the road from mrs. west's front gate is a very old-timey school-house, so dilapidated that jean says she knows it's the one where the little girl said to the little boy, forty years ago: "i'm sorry that i spelt the word, i hate to go above you; because," the brown eyes lower fell; "because, you see, i love you!" jean didn't mean a bit of harm when she quoted it, but the sound of that last line made them look as shivery as if they had malaria. we soon found a nice place and sat down on a log that looked less like snakes than the others, and when we saw that there wasn't quite room enough for us all jean and i had the politeness to go away out of hearing and find another log, over closer to the road. even then we could hear, for the night was so still and we were so busy with our thoughts. i began thinking: what if _i_ should have such a hard time to find a lover that is sympathetic and systematic at the same time? suppose sir reginald de beverley isn't sympathetic about lord byron! suppose he likes his parliamentary speeches better than his poetry, like one husband of a lady that i know does! but my mind was diverted just then by hearing words coming from the direction of miss irene and mr. fairfax so much like the little girl said to the little boy forty years ago that i was astonished. i had been told that a girl could always keep a man from proposing when she wanted to! but he was saying that she _should_ come with him and lead the untrammeled life, and she was looking pleased and frightened and was telling him to hush, but was letting him go on; and they were both standing up and holding hands in the moonlight. "i'm not at all sure it's the untrammeled life i'm looking for," she said in little catchy breaths; "but i'm so wretched! and you're the only one who cares! i suppose i may as well--oh, i wish i had somebody here to keep me from acting an idiot!" now, if shakespeare or "the duchess" had written this story they would have pretended that doctor bynum came around the curve in the road at that very minute and taking off his hat said: "nay, you shall be my wife!" but it was only mrs. west coming down the road, carrying a heavy crocheted shawl to keep miss irene from catching her death of cold! but listen! the minute we got back to the house the telephone bell rang and it was a long-distance call for miss irene. she knew in a _second_ from the city it was from that doctor bynum was at the other end of the line. she looked at that telephone like a person in the fourth story of a house afire looks at the hook-and-ladder man. mr. fairfax said well, he must be going; and we all got out on the porch while she and doctor bynum made up their quarrel at the rate of two dollars for the first three minutes and seventy-five cents a minute extra. (i know because father sometimes talks to that city about cotton.) and he's coming down sunday. and jean and i are holding our breath. we're having the very last fire of the season to-night! a big, booming, beautiful one that makes you think winter wasn't such a bad time after all! a cold spell has come, and oh, it is so cold! it makes you wonder how it had the heart to come now and cause the flowers to feel so out of place. but it has also caused us to have another fire and i love a fire. i even like to make them, and lots of times i tell dilsey to let me build the fire in my room myself. i sit down on the hearth and sit and _sit_, building that fire. then i get to looking into it and thinking. thinking is a mighty bad habit, like mammy lou says. i can't do this any more though--for to-night we're having the last fire of the season. to-morrow spring cleaning will be gone through with and the chimneys all newspapered up. no matter how cold it gets after _that_ you can't expect to have a fire after you've _sprung cleaned_! i never _am_ going to spring clean at my house. the dust and soapsuds are not the worst part of house cleaning, though they are bad enough, goodness knows! what i hate worst to see is the battered old bureaus and shabby old quilts that you've kept a secret from the public for years pulled out from their corners by the hair of their heads and knocked around in the back yard without any pity for their poor old bones! i never see a moving van going through the city streets loaded with pitiful old furniture without thinking "that used to be _somebody's_ lares and penates!" by-the-way, mammy lou is crazy for dovie to have some more twins so she can name them "scylla and chrybdis." she hasn't much hopes though, for she says lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place. father says it wouldn't be lightning, it would be _thunder_ to have two more little pickaninnies always standing around under his feet and have to explain to everybody that came along how they got their curious names. mammy lou heard miss irene say "scylla and chrybdis;" miss irene doesn't say it any more though. doctor bynum didn't wait for the train to bring him down here that sunday, but whizzed through the country in his automobile saturday night. then he "venied, vidied, vicied" in such a hurry that everybody in town knew it before nap time sunday afternoon. mr. fairfax has gone away on a long trip. jean said if he had had any sense he would have seen that miss irene campbell wasn't the only girl in the world, but he didn't see it and he's gone. next week jean is going home and when i think of how lonesome i'll be something nearly pops inside of me. they have been writing and writing for me to go home with jean and stay until rufe and cousin eunice and waterloo get ready to come down this summer, but mother says i may not go unless jean and i both promise to reform. we're not to eat any more stuffed olives nor write any more poetry--and, _think_ of it! i'm to stop writing in _my diary_! mother says i'll never have any practical sense if i don't begin now to learn things. i tell her, "am i to blame if i love a fountain pen better than a darning needle?" the lord made me so. and i _hate_ sewing. it's as hard for me to sew as it is to keep from writing. yet if i go home with jean i must quit writing. must give up my diary. must not write one line of poetry, no matter how much my head is buzzing with it! why, if poets couldn't _write_ their poetry they'd burst a blood vessel! i can't even take you with me to jean's house and read over what i have written in happier days, you poor little forsaken diary! chapter xiii it seems to me that the writing habit is kinder like poison oak; it's sure to break out on you in the spring, and you can never get it entirely out of your system. i've tried my best to keep from writing, and when you have done your best and failed, why i don't believe even robert bruce's spider could have done any more. i promised mother i would stop writing in my diary and i have--for such a long time that every one of the hems in my dresses has had to be let out since i wrote last. but now i just must break my promise, and i reckon if you are going to break a promise at all you might as well break it all to pieces. so i'll just dive in and tell all that happened since i wrote last. you remember that fluffy-skirted widow that i told you about being down here, my diary, and i sharpened seventeen pencils for--a long time ago? well, she said that _she_ believed every minute of this life was made for enjoyment. she told it to a young man that told it to father that told it to mother and i happened to hear. she said you ought to do the things you enjoy most, as long as they didn't bother anybody else, and if you did things you had to repent of afterward, why, even then, you ought to cut out your sackcloth by a becoming pattern! everybody in town heard that she said it, and brother sheffield said it was a _heathenish_ thing to say! he preached his jezebel sermon the very next sunday, although it wasn't due until nearer easter bonnet time. maybe he wasn't to blame so much, though, for the presiding elder was due that sunday and found out at the last minute he couldn't get there in time for the morning service; so brother sheffield had to preach the first sermon he could get his hands on, i reckon. the presiding elder (i _wonder_ if you ought to begin him with a capital letter? i never wrote "presiding elder" before in my life and maybe never will again, so it's no use getting up to go and look for it in the dictionary) well, he got in late that afternoon and spent the night at our house where he kept the supper table in a roar telling funny tales about the ignorance and tacky ways of the country brethren he had stayed with the night before. he was an awfully popular presiding elder with his members. but what i started out to say when i commenced writing to-night was that surely mother wouldn't be so cruel as not to want my grandchildren to know a few little last things about all the friends i've written of in here, and also a few little last things about me. i always like to read a book that winds up that way. for instance, you will enjoy hearing that miss irene is spending every minute of her time just about now running baby blue ribbon in her underclothes. and miss merle has long ago quit running it in hers! miss irene has stopped being a "pseudo-poe in petticoats," as father one time called her, but not to her face. doctor bynum told her that he thought one bright magazine story that would make a "t.b." patient sit up in bed and laugh was worth all the graveyard gloom that poe ever wrote. and before i get clear away from the subject of miss merle i must tell you that mr. st. john is still the most bashful, though married, man i ever heard of. i never shall forget the time he wouldn't let us see his undershirt--when it was hanging in an up-stairs window, too. but jean wrote me not long ago that when the census man came around to see how many folks lived there and how many times each one had been married and if they kept a cow, etc., mr. st. john happened to be the one to go to the door and answer the man's questions. now, it does seem that if he and miss merle have been married long enough for her to leave off the ribbon he might leave off the blushes; but they were all standing around looking at him, which of course made it worse. so when the census man said, "how many children is your wife the mother of?" instead of speaking out boldly, "none!" jean said his face turned every color in the curriculum and he stammered, "not any--that _i_ know of!" and then he looked around at them as if to see whether or not _they_ knew of any lying around loose about the house. i haven't seen jean since she was down here, but we write eighteen pages a week. i didn't get to go on my visit to her house as i expected, for we went to florida instead. we all went, that is, us three, and waterloo and his family besides ann lisbeth and doctor gordon. doctor gordon was the one that started it. he caught pneumonia one dreary day in the early spring when he was already sick in bed, but got up and went out to the hospital to operate for appendicitis. ann lisbeth almost went into catalepsy, trying to keep him from going, but it was a very expensive appendix, he said, so he got up and went out and bottled it. the changing from his warm room to the cold air gave him pneumonia, although the doctors say it is caused by a germ. i'll never believe this, not even if i marry one! well, he finally got over his spell by "lysis" instead of "crisis," but i hope this will never come to mammy lou's ears, or she will fairly long for more twins in the dovie family. when doctor gordon got able to be out a little all the other doctors told him that he had better go to a warm climate for a month or two, for it was still so cold, so he and ann lisbeth persuaded rufe and cousin eunice to go too, and they all wrote for us to hurry up and get ready so we could go with them. mother said she'd just _love_ to go, but she didn't see how we possibly could, for none of us had any clothes and she had always heard that florida was fairly alive with rich yankees! mammy lou spoke up then and said, well, she was sure ann looked exactly like a rich yankee, and she was the only one that folks was going to look at anyhow! so mother took heart and we went. father had to have a new overcoat, for the weather has been colder this spring than ever the oldest inhabitant can tell about, and as they wrote us to get ready in such a hurry, on account of poor doctor gordon's cough, he didn't have time to have one made at his regular place, so he bought one ready-made, a light tan one, the poor dear! and it had two long "heimer" names from chicago printed on the label at the collar. we got ready in such a rush that none of us had time to rip this label out, though i lived to regret it many a time! it was too hot to wear it when we got down there, but father had got scared up about catching pneumonia, so he insisted on carrying it around on his arm all the time, inside out; and there was not one millionaire, not one tennis champion, nor famous authoress we met, but what i saw the eyes of fixed, at one time or another, on those "heimer" names! that's one delightful thing about florida--you get to see so many people that you never would see at home. and everybody mixes like candidates! for instance, you may have a mosquito on you one minute that you will see on a russian anarchist the next. the mosquitoes down there are so big that you can easily recognize their features. and apt as not you'll go in bathing every day with a person _so famous_ when he's at home that he is never invited to dine with anybody that hasn't got monogram china and _pâté de foie gras_. i've noticed that the things people tell about after they come home from a trip depend a good deal on the disposition they carry with them on it. it's the way with florida. if you're an optimist you'll come back and tell about the palms, roses and sunsets. if you're a pessimist you'll mention snakes, hotel bills and buzzards. the honest truth is there's quite enough of them all to go around. you're impressed with the country from the first morning that you get into it and raise up (half way) in your berth and look out the car window. at first there seems to be a mighty lot of just flat scenery, with tall trees that have all their branches at the tiptop. these trees remind you of pictures of the holy land that you used to see in the big bible your mother and father would give you on sunday afternoons to keep you quiet while they could take a nap. you begin to think that what you're seeing is too beautiful to be true, though, from the first minute you look out on a blue bay that is deep green in places, and has purple streaks in it. but when you row over to an island all covered with palms and find a strip of beach that has bushels and bushels of tiny shells, that the mermaids used to make necklaces out of--why, nothing on earth but your _feet_ hurting so bad makes you believe it is not a dream! florida has all the things in it that you see when you shut your eyes and smell a jasmine flower! the climate is fine for the lungs, but very bad on the alimenary canal and curling-iron hair! we stopped at all the points of interest as we went on down. a point of interest is a place that the post-cards tell lies about. still i do think florida cards come nearer telling the truth than those of most places, for the country is very nearly as many colors as they make it out to be. cousin eunice said she thought sending post-cards was the _one_ melancholy pleasure of traveling, and so i bought a quarter's worth at every place. traveling _is_ a melancholy pleasure when you have a baby that you won't let drink a drop of water unless it has had the germs all stewed in it. waterloo is getting to be such a big boy now, too; but he still talks like a telegram--just the most important words of what he wants to say, with all the others left out. he's crazy about foot-ball, chewing-gum and billy-goats. and you just ought to hear him chew gum! among the points of interest we saw was the oldest house in america. it is a _very_ interesting place. it has a marble bust of lord byron in it! i don't remember another thing, i believe, except that! oh yes, i do, too! i do remember a startling thing i heard about a very old bed in that house. i heard the guide telling that this was the bed that william the conqueror and maria theresa slept on! i hate to hear folks get their history mixed, so i had just opened my mouth to say "why, they were not _married_," when i spied the bust of his lordship in the next room. after that i didn't care how many tales they made up on william and maria! poor little waterloo didn't much fancy the oldest house, but when we drove up to "the fountain of youth," and he saw the clear, sparkling "drink" that helped ponce get rid of his double chin and crow's-feet he commenced to howl for some. doctor gordon had told us before we got there that we mustn't dare drink any of it unless there was a signed certificate that there wasn't any "coli" in it. we looked all around, but as we didn't see any sign, rufe thought maybe he'd better not give him any. there didn't _look_ to be any "coli," either, but still rufe didn't like the idea of his drinking it. when waterloo saw that they didn't intend to give him any he commenced to kick and squall and get so red in the face with his dancing up and down that rufe finally screamed back to the carriage that doctor gordon was in and asked him if he thought one little glass would hurt waterloo. cousin eunice screamed back at the same time and said for doctor gordon to give his _honest_ opinion, for she wouldn't have the little angel catch anything so far away from home for the whole of the east coast. doctor gordon, who had been made nervous by his spell, screamed back to them for heaven's sake let the little imp drink till he _busted_--only he hoped it wouldn't make him stay as _young_ as he was then! so rufe motioned for the lady that hands you the water, with a north-of-the-mason-and-dixon accent, to hush talking about her friend, ponce de leon, long enough to give the glass an extra scrubbing and hand waterloo some water, which she did. this didn't do as much good, though, as we had hoped for. rufe was in such a hurry to get away from "the fountain of youth" that his hand trembled some and he spilt the first glassful down waterloo's little front. this made the darling so mad, and i don't blame him either, that he slapped the second glassful out of rufe's hand. he washed teddy bear's face with the third, and threw the fourth in cousin eunice's white linen lap, when she tried to soothe him. rufe ran his hand down into his pocket before he told the driver to drive on, for he knew that milk was fifteen cents a quart in florida, and water was almost priceless. the lady told him that she would have to collect fifty cents for the water that waterloo had wasted, and that washing out the glass was twenty-five cents extra. rufe handed her a twenty-dollar bill, but she couldn't change it. so he called back to doctor gordon to ask him if he could. "_change!_" said doctor gordon, looking surprised that rufe should have asked him such an embarrassing question. "why, i haven't a _thing_ left but my watch-fob and thermometer-case and wouldn't have had them if i hadn't worn them in a chamois bag around my neck!" so rufe told the lady he would mail her a check for the amount with interest. later on we saw ostrich farms and the biggest cigar factory in the world. i _think_ they said it was the biggest. anyway, if there's a bigger one i don't care about smelling it! it's long past time for the lights to go out, mine especially, for they never want me to sit up until i get really interested in anything; but i believe i will throw a black sateen petticoat up over the transom, which i have found out you can do very well if you have two nails up there to hang it on, and tell one more little thing that happened on that trip. i say "little thing," but it seemed a monstrous big thing to me at the time. when we were about half-way through georgia on our way home, some of us commenced having chills. doctor gordon had his first, but he didn't say anything about it to ann lisbeth until he got to shaking so that she saw something was the matter. then mother and cousin eunice had one apiece. doctor gordon said it wasn't anything to be alarmed about, for it was just a little malaria cropping out, but i felt so sorry for them that i told ann lisbeth if she would go with me i would go up to the baggage car and see if we could get out some heavy underclothes from our trunk. we had to stagger through a long string of sleepers, for we were in the backest one, but we were rewarded when we finally did get to the baggage car. there was a merry-eyed express messenger in there who said he would be _glad_ to pull and haul those fifteen or twenty trunks that were on top of ours! may the gods reward him, for it was an awful job! and so we got out enough clothes for our cold and destitute families. now, you may have noticed before this, my diary, that i am a forgetful person. i can remember the last words of charles ii, or anything like that, but i forget what i did yesterday. i had entirely forgotten about stuffing oranges in with all our clothes when i helped mother pack our trunks! and we were in such a hurry in the express car that we didn't stop to shake the clothes out as we fished them up from the trays; it wouldn't have been polite to, anyway, in front of that good-looking express messenger, and we didn't have room enough. so we had just lifted things out as we came to them and eased them up in our arms as we started on back on our walk to our sleeper. but the oranges hadn't forgotten about being there! i reckon they wanted to see what all that disturbance was about for, i cross my heart, _just_ as i got opposite the swellest-looking man in that whole string of sleepers, a man with silk socks and golf sticks, a long sleeve of mother's knit corset-cover dropped down against the seat in front of him and four oranges rolled out! they rolled slowly, one by one, and dropped to the floor with muffled thuds. then they rolled some more and didn't stop until they reached his feet. that's how i knew he had on silk socks. chapter xiv i'm as lonesome as _marianna in the moated grange_ to-night! isn't that the lonesomest poem on earth? everything about it is unsanitary, too, from the rusty flower-pots to the blue fly "buzzing in the pane." no wonder it got on marianna's nerves, in her condition, too! but she had one thing to be thankful for--she didn't know how many germs that fly had on its feet! i'm lonesome for jean--or somebody! thank goodness it is nearly time for waterloo to come! cousin eunice said in a letter that we had from her to-day she was trying to raise waterloo right, but he was a trial to her feelings! now, poor cousin eunice has read herbert spencer for the sake of waterloo's future education ever since he has been born, and she has never let him out of her sight with a nurse for fear she would feed him chewed-up chestnuts and teach him about the devil. i reckon you spell him with a capital letter, if you don't waste them on presiding elders. but waterloo doesn't always show how carefully he's been brought up. he is of nervous temperament and told a woman who was sewing on the machine right loud the other day: "hus', hus'! god's sake, make noise _easy_!" this is disheartening after all the trouble she has taken with his morals and diet and things like that! she never lets him eat the "deadly" things that doctor gordon is always talking about, but she _does_ keep a little pure sugar candy on hand all the time to be used only as a last resort. when she can't make him do any other way on earth she uses the candy. speaking of deadly things reminds me of doctor bynum's friends, the germs. he has told miss irene so many stories about their unpleasant ways that she got to not believing in kissing, but he said pshaw! it looked like we all had to die of germs anyhow, and so he'd rather die of that kind than any other! cousin eunice's letters always tell us so many interesting things about all our friends in the city. she and ann lisbeth still live close neighbors, but they have both bought beautiful places out on one of the pikes and each one is claiming to be more countrified than the other. one day ann lisbeth ran over and told cousin eunice that doctor gordon had heard an owl in their yard the night before, but cousin eunice told her that wasn't anything! she and rufe had had a _bat_ in their bedroom! doctor gordon has two automobiles now. he had them the last time i was in the city and i got to find out exactly what "limousine" means. i had an idea before that it meant _dark green_, because--oh, well, i needn't tell the reason; it was silly enough to think such a thing without making excuses for it. but you know so many swell cars _are_ painted dark green, and so many swell cars are limousines! ann lisbeth is a great help to doctor gordon in his practice, he says. she always remembers the different babies' names and looks up subjects for him in his surgical books that would knock the knee-cap off of jean's little word, "genuflections." no matter how fine a doctor a lady's husband is she is never permitted to mention it to her friends, for this is called "unethical." but if she's expecting company of an afternoon she can happen to have a bottle with a queer thing inside setting on the mantelpiece and when the company asks what on earth that thing is she can say, "for goodness' sake! my husband must have forgotten that! why that's senator himuck's appendix!" ann lisbeth seems to get sweeter every year and you would never know she has a foreign accent now except on sunday night when the cook's away and the gas stove doesn't do right. another good piece of news cousin eunice wrote to-day was that the youngs are going to try it again at the bungalow this summer. professor young has to go somewhere to rest up from his studies. for nearly eighteen months now he's been sitting up late at night and spending the whole of saturdays, even taking his coffee out to the laboratory in a thermos bottle, studying pharmacy. he is delighted with the progress he has made, for he says he has not only learned how to make a perfectly splendid cold cream for his wife's complexion, but has discovered just which bad-smelling stuff put with another bad-smelling stuff is best to develop his films. he says his knowledge of pharmacy has saved him a lot of money in this way. speaking of curious couples reminds me of the gayles. they're not half as queer now as they were before they married though. at present they are neither in heaven, nor on earth, exactly, but they are cruising on the mediterranean. they send me post-cards from every place and i stick them in my album with great pride. another family that we're always glad to hear from is the macdonalds. poor little fluffy-haired miss cis! i reckon the very last of her dimples will soon be changed into wrinkles, for there's _another_ one since the twins! nobody can say that miss cis is not bearing up bravely, though. she does all she can to present a stylish, straight-front appearance when she goes out, which isn't often. but at home they are all perfectly happy together, mr. macdonald getting down on the floor to play bear, and if he _does_ look more like a devil's horse while he's doing it, with his long arms and legs, the twins don't know the difference. marrying has helped julius' looks more than anybody i ever saw. his cheeks have filled out until he's as handsome as a floor-walker. and they're so contented that marcella says actually when she finds a pin pointing toward her she doesn't know what to wish for. you may have caught on to it before now, my diary, that the reason i'm telling you this very last news of all our friends is because i'm going to stop writing _sure enough_ to-night! i'm ashamed to keep breaking my promise to mother. the only ones i've left out, i believe, are aunt laura and bertha. i wish i had forgotten them for i don't like to say anything hateful in my diary. aunt laura has joined some kind of new thoughters and has grown quantities of new brown hair on the strength of it. and she dresses in champagne silk all the time. as for bertha--she _lives_ to keep up with the "best people," meaning by this that she runs up to the hairdresser's every other day to see if she can learn how many "society men" have thrown their wives down the steps or poured boiling coffee over them since she last heard. i'm sorry i thought of bertha so near the last, for i don't want to leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, my diary. so i'll branch off and mention something sweet right away. that blessed waterloo! he's the sweetest thing i know anything about! just about this time i reckon he's begging his "daddy-boy" to sing feep alsie, ben bolt, for that's been his precious little sleepy song ever since he's been born. when i think of those three and how happy they are, and how satisfied they are just to be together, i know that rufe told me the truth that day, a long, long time ago! there is only one subject worth writing about--or one object worth living for! may every one of you grandchildren find just such an object, and be as happy as they are while living for it! it does seem that i ought to be able to think of something beautiful to wind up my diary with! everything about me is beautiful! the honeysuckle is smelling like the very soul of spring and love just outside my window--and there's a bust of lord byron on my mantelpiece close by. such a tiny bust--the curly head just fits into the palm of my hand--when i get grown i'm going to have one big enough to burn candles before! not that i shall burn candles before it--for, to tell the truth, i'd much rather be burning my fingers cooking oatmeal for some big, brown-eyed "daddy-boy" and tiny, brown-eyed waterloo! mammy lou came to my window just as i wrote this last and stuck her head in. "name o' deuteronomy!" she said in a loud whisper when she saw this book open before me. 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"one has to thank god, and not to boast," says my gracious mother; "it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves." i have black hair and eyes, a fair complexion and rosy cheeks. i should like to be a little taller, but they frighten me by saying i shall not grow any more. i am descended from the not only noble, but very old and illustrious family of korwin krasinski. god forbid i should ever tarnish the glorious name i am fortunate enough to bear! on the contrary i should like much to add to its fame, and i am often sorry i am not a man, as i should then have more opportunities. the count, my honored father, and the countess, are so sensible of the grandeur of the korwin krasinski family, and they so often speak of it,--not only they, but our courtiers and our guests as well,--and it is thought by all to be such a great reproach not to know precisely about our ancestors, that we all have our heads full of that kind of information. i can recite the genealogy of the krasinskis and the history of each of them as perfectly as my morning prayer, and i think that i should have more difficulty in telling the names of our polish kings in chronological order than in telling those of my ancestors. the pictures of the most illustrious are in our hall,[ ] but it would take too long to write about each of them. the first of whom we know anything was warcislaus korwin, from the old roman family of corvinus, who, in the eleventh century, came from hungary to poland and was appointed the hetman (general-in-chief) of the army of king boleslaus ii. [ ] they are still in count adam krasinski's palace in warsaw. having espoused a noble lady of the name of pobog, korwin united his crest--a raven holding a ring--to that of the pobogs--a hand grasping a sabre--and such is still our cognizance. his grandson was the first to take the name krasinski, that is, _of krasin_, from an estate bestowed upon him by the king as a reward for his bravery; and from that time forward many hetmans, castellans, woivodes,[ ] bishops, etc., made the krasinski name famous in polish history. [ ] governors of provinces. one of them, alexander, in this very same maleszow castle where i am now quietly writing, resisted so bravely a great tartar army, in one of its plundering excursions from asia, that the chief was obliged to retreat; but before leaving, he sent to the valorous castellan, as a token of his admiration, the most precious thing he possessed,--namely, a clock, of very simple construction, it is true, but a great wonder at that time. this curious relic, this gift from an enemy,--and he a tartar, more accustomed to take than to give,--is still preserved with great care in our family; i have seen it but twice in my life, my honored father keeping it so carefully, and i am sure he would not exchange it for ten paris clocks with all their chimes. this valiant ancestor of mine was killed in a war with russia, and left no son. his nephew john built in warsaw a magnificent palace in the italian style, which is said to be more beautiful than the king's castle; but i have not seen it, as i have never been in our capital. john's brother, alexander, the castellan of sandomir, was my own grandfather. his son, stanislaus, the staroste[ ] of nova wies and uscie, is my honored and beloved father; he married angela humiecka, the daughter of the famous woivode of podole, my honored and beloved mother. but, to my great sorrow, this line of the krasinski family will become extinct with the count, my father, as he has four daughters, but no son: basia (a pet name for barbara) is the eldest; i am the second; then comes kasia (katherine); and marynia (mary) is the youngest. [ ] honorary judge. the courtiers tell me often i am the handsomest, but i am sure i do not see it; we all have the bearing becoming young ladies of high station, daughters of a staroste; we are straight as poplars, with complexions white as snow and cheeks pink as roses; our waists, especially when madame ties us fast in our stays, can be, as they say, "clasped with one hand." in the parlor before guests we know how to make our courtesy, low or _dégagé_, according to their importance; we have been taught to sit quiet on the very edge of a stool, with our eyes cast down and our hands folded, so that one might think we were not able to count three or were too prim even to walk out of the room easily. but people would think differently if they saw us on a summer morning, when we are allowed to go to the woods in morning gowns and without stays, puffs, coiffures, or high-heeled shoes: oh! how we climb the steep hillsides, and run and shout and sing, till our poor madame is quite out of breath from running and calling after us. as yet i and my two younger sisters have seldom left home: konskie, the home of our aunt, the woivodine[ ] malachowska, whom we visit twice a year; piotrowice, where my honored father, after his return from italy, built a beautiful chapel, like the one in loretto; lisow, where stands our parish church,--these bound all our experiences in travelling. but basia, as the eldest, has already seen a good part of this world: she has been twice to opole, visiting our aunt, the princess lubomirska, woivodine of lublin, whom my father loves and venerates as a mother rather than as an elder sister. basia has spent also one year in the convent of the ladies of the visitation at warsaw, and so, of course, she knows more than any of us: her courtesies are the lowest, and her manners the most stately. [ ] wife of a woivode. my honored parents are thinking now of sending me also somewhere to finish my education; i am expecting every day to see the carriage drive up to the door, and then my gracious mother will tell me to sit beside her, and she will take me either to warsaw or to cracow. i am perfectly happy at home, but basia liked the convent very much, so i hope that i shall; and then i shall improve in the french language, which is now indispensable for a lady; also in music and in dancing, and besides that i shall see a great town, our capital. as i have not seen many castles besides maleszow, i cannot judge whether it is pretty or not. i only know that i like it very much. some people think that our castle, with its four stories and its four bastions, surrounded with a moat full of water crossed by a drawbridge, and situated amidst forests in a rocky country, looks rather gloomy, but i do not think so at all. i am so happy here that i should like to sing and dance all day long. i hear my honored parents complaining sometimes that they are not quite comfortable here. it is true that, although on each floor there are besides the parlor, six large rooms and four smaller ones in the bastions, we cannot all be accommodated on the same floor, as we are a very numerous family. the dining-rooms are on the first, the dancing hall on the second, and we girls have to occupy the third floor. my honored parents are no longer young, and it fatigues them to go up and down every day, but for me these stairs are just my delight! often, when i have not yet all my puffs on, i grasp the stair-rail and i am down in one second without my foot once touching the steps. oh! it is such fun! it is true our many guests may sometimes be crowded a little in their sleeping rooms, but nevertheless, they visit us often, and i do not know that we could amuse ourselves better in a more spacious palace. i think the maleszow castle, if three times as large, could not be more magnificent; it is so gay and lively that the neighbors often call it little paris. we are especially gay when winter comes; then the captain of our dragoons does not lift up the drawbridge until night, so many people are continually driving in and out, and our court-band has enough to do playing every day for us to dance. but i ought not to forget to speak about the retinue of our castle, which, in accordance with the rank of my honored parents, is very numerous and stately. there are two classes of courtiers,--the honorary and the salaried ones, all alike nobles, with the sword at their side. the first are about twenty in number; their duties are to wait in the morning for the count's entrance, to be ready for any service he may require, to accompany him when visiting or riding, to defend him in case of need, to give him their voice at the diet, and to play cards and amuse him and his guests. this last duty is best performed by our matenko (mathias), the fool or court jester, as the other courtiers call him; but he does not at all deserve that sobriquet, as his judgment is very correct and his repartees are very witty. of all the courtiers he is the most privileged, being allowed to speak whenever he chooses and to tell the truth frankly. to the honorary members of our court belong also six girls of good family, who live on the same floor with us under the superintendence of our madame, and also two dwarfs. one of the latter is about forty, but of the size of a four-year-old child; he is dressed as a turk. the other, still smaller and very graceful and pretty, is eighteen years old, and they dress him as a cossack. sometimes, for sport, my honored mother orders him to be put on the dinner table, and he walks about among the bottles and the plates as easily as if he were in a garden. the honorary courtiers receive no pay, almost all of them being the sons and daughters of rather wealthy parents, who send them to our castle for training in courtly etiquette. the men receive, nevertheless, provision for two horses, and two florins[ ] weekly for their valets. these servants are dressed, some as cossacks, some as hungarians, and stand behind their masters' chairs at meals. there is no special dinner table for them, but they must be satisfied with what their masters leave on their plates, and you should see how they follow with a covetous eye each morsel on its way from the plate to the master's mouth! i do not dare to look at them, partly from fear of laughing, and partly out of pity. [ ] the polish florin is worth twenty cents. the salaried courtiers are much more numerous. they do not come to our table, except the chaplain, the physician and the secretary. the marshal and the butler walk around the table watching if anything is wanted; they pour the wine into the glasses, often replenishing for the guests, but only on feast days keeping the glass full for the courtiers. the commissary, the treasurer, the equerry, the gentleman usher, the masters of the wardrobe, all dine at the marshal's table. to tell the truth, those who sit at our table have more honor than profit, for they do not always have the same kind of food that we have, although it comes from the same dish. for instance, when the meats are brought in, there will be on the dish game or domestic fowl on the top, and plain roast beef, or roast pork, underneath. each course is brought on two enormous dishes, and it seems almost impossible such heaps could disappear; yet the last man served gets often but scanty bits of food, and whether there are four courses, as on week days, or seven, as on sundays, or twelve, as on festivals, i do not remember having seen anything left on our table. the salaried courtiers receive quite high pay, from three hundred to a thousand florins annually, also provender for two horses each, and the livery for their valets; but then the count expects them all to present themselves well dressed. when he is especially pleased with one of them he rewards him generously, and every year on the count's birthday, rich presents in dresses and money are distributed. but this is not our whole retinue; there are also the chamberlains,--young boys from fifteen to twenty years of age, of noble families, who perform a kind of novitiate in our service. their duties are to be always in attendance, to accompany our carriage on horseback, and to be ready for all kinds of errands; thus if my honored parents have letters to be carried in haste, or presents or invitations to be sent, they always send the chamberlains. one of them, michael chronowski, will finish his novitiate on epiphany, and then will come the ceremony of liberation, which i shall describe in its place. as for other people belonging to our retinue, it would be difficult to enumerate them; i am sure i do not know how many there are of musicians, cooks, linkboys, cossacks, hostlers, valets, chamberlains, and boy and girl servants. i know only there are five different dinner tables, and two stewards are busy from morning till night, giving out the provisions for the meals. very often, especially when fresh supplies are brought in, my honored mother is herself present in the storeroom; she also keeps the keys of the medicine closet, where spices, dainties, and sweet liquors are kept. every morning the marshal brings to her the dinner and supper menu, which she, with the advice of my honored father, either changes or approves. the arrangement of our day's occupation is as follows: we rise at six o'clock in summer, at seven in winter. all four of us sleep in the same room with madame, and each has an iron bedstead with curtains around it. basia, as the eldest, has two pillows and a silk coverlet; we, the younger, have but one pillow and a woollen blanket. having said a french prayer with madame, we begin our lessons at once. at first the chaplain taught us the catechism, and with our tutor we learned how to read and write in polish; but now he teaches only my two younger sisters, for basia and i study with madame only. we learn vocabularies, dialogues, and anecdotes by heart from a text-book. at eight we go downstairs to wish our honored parents good-morning and to have breakfast. then we go to the chapel, where, after the mass, the chaplain reads latin prayers, which we all repeat after him aloud. returning to our room, we learn german vocabularies, we write letters and exercises, and madame dictates to us the verses of a french poet, malesherbes. we have a spinet and are taught to play upon it by a german teacher, who directs our orchestra; for this service he receives three hundred florins annually. we all study music and basia plays not badly at all. when our lessons are over we put on wrappers and the coiffeur comes to dress our hair, beginning with the eldest. this is a long and often painful operation, especially when he is inventing some new coiffure. as my hair is the thickest and the longest (it drags on the floor when i am sitting before the dressing-table), it is on my head that he generally makes his experiments. it is true that he does make very beautiful and wonderful coiffures; for instance, the one i have to-day, is so pretty, having a _laisser aller_ effect: all my hair is lifted up very high; half of it is arranged in puffs on the top of the head, and the other half falls in loose curls on the neck and the shoulders; there must have been at least a half-pound of powder used in it. our dressing takes two or three hours, during which madame reads to us a new french book, the "magasin des enfants" by madame beaumont. at noon, at the angelus bell, we go down to dinner, and then, our honored parents allow us to remain with them for the rest of the day. we sit generally two hours at table; after that if the weather is favorable we take a walk; if not, we always have some needle-work on hand for our church in piotrowice. we sit at our embroidery frames as long as we can see, and when the lights are brought in, we make netting or do some such light work. there are always many wax tapers burning in silver candelabra, and although they are rather yellow, being home-made from our own wax, they give a very bright light. supper is at seven, and afterwards the evening is given to amusement. sometimes we play cards, "marriage" or "drujbart," and it is such fun to see the faces matenko makes, according as he gets a seven or a trump! once a week a chamberlain goes to warsaw to bring the newspapers and letters, and then the chaplain reads aloud the "gazette" and the "courier." at times my honored father reads the old chronicles to us; sometimes they are very dull, and sometimes very interesting. during the carnival, there is seldom any reading, but there are games, music, and dances. i cannot imagine how they can amuse themselves better at the court in warsaw; how can it be anywhere gayer than in our maleszow? still, i should like so much, if only out of curiosity, to have just a taste of that court life. but what do i hear? there is the noon bell! i must say the angelus in haste, see if my coiffure is in order, and run downstairs, leaving for to-morrow all that i intended to write to-day. _tuesday_, january . yesterday, i wrote about myself and my home; to-day i want to write about my country. i should not be a worthy pole if i were not interested in what happens in my own land. people in our house talk much about poland, and i have always listened attentively, but much more so since i resolved to write this journal. our present king is augustus iii., elector of saxony, son and successor of augustus ii. on the seventeenth of this month, it will be twenty-five years since the bishop of cracow crowned him king of poland and lithuania.[ ] it is said that he was rather indifferent to the polish crown, when by his father's death the chance was opened to him; but he was persuaded to become a candidate by his wife, marie josephine, daughter of the german emperor maximilian. this royal lady was very much beloved by the poles: she had a very good influence over the king, her husband, and never meddled with any court intrigues; she was charitable, beneficent, pious, a good wife and a good mother, and fully deserved to be called a model of feminine virtues. she died in dresden two years ago, and i remember well the great sorrow caused by the news of her death. in all the churches there were grand funeral services, also in our piotrowice, and all the poor people cried and lamented, having lost in her a real mother. she had fourteen children, of whom eleven are living: four sons and seven daughters. [ ] at the end of the fourteenth century these two countries were united by the marriage of hedvig, queen of poland, with the prince of lithuania jagellon. the king is said to be of a kindly but rather weak character, and he has the greatest confidence in his minister brühl, who in reality is the ruler both of poland and saxony. it is said affairs are going all wrong in saxony, and not much better in our country. i have often heard people say: "we need a frederic the great, with a strong head and an iron will;" and as our king is old, they are all looking forward and planning already for his successor. there are two prominent candidates for the throne: one is stanislaus poniatowski, who was educated in france, spent four years in russia as the envoy of poland, and there became the favorite of the empress catherine ii. the other candidate is duke charles, twenty-six years old, the most beloved of the sons of our present king. people say he has a real gift for attracting all hearts to him; he is very handsome, very stately in figure, and very courteous in manner; and having spent almost his whole life in poland, he knows our language perfectly. i have heard so much of his good qualities that my best wishes are for him, although poniatowski is my countryman. this day will be a memorable one for duke charles. a few weeks ago he was elected duke of courland, which is a tributary of poland, and to-day occurs the "investiture," that is, the giving possession. the king is so happy about the good fortune of his beloved son, that he is said to look ten years younger. what festivals there will be in warsaw! how i should like to be there now, and to see the grand doings, but especially to see the royal prince. we shall, at least, drink his health here and cry, "long life to duke charles!" january . yesterday, just when we were drinking to the health of the duke of courland, and our band was doing its best, and our company of dragoons were firing salutes,--at that very moment the chamberlain, who had been sent to warsaw, returned with the news that on account of the indisposition of the duke, the ceremonies of the investiture had to be postponed. "bad omen," said matenko; "as the mitre slips, so the crown will slip." i felt like crying, but there was no time for that, as many guests were present; among others, the woivode of craclaw, swidinski, with his nephew father albert, a jesuit, whom my honored parents like and respect greatly. basia is his special favorite; he brought her a rosary and a prayer book,--"la journée du chrétien,"--and he spoke several times to her at supper. but then, basia is the eldest; no wonder everybody pays most attention to her. _friday_, january . the woivode and father albert are still here, and to-day the two sons of the former are expected. i am very anxious to know them, as they have both been educated in france, at luneville, at the court of stanislaus leszczynski.[ ] this nobleman, although his country has proved faithless to him, tries to be useful to it, and he has always some young poles at his court, where they receive the best education. the sons of our first families court this great honor, and there is not a better recommendation for a young man than to say of him: "he has been brought up in the court of luneville." he is sure then to be refined, to speak french well, and to dance the minuet gracefully; therefore all gentlemen brought up at that court are great favorites of the ladies. oh! how curious i am to see these two! [ ] stanislaus leszczynski, surnamed the "most virtuous of men," king of poland before augustus ii., was dethroned by the saxon party. he had lorraine allotted to him, and is still remembered there as the "good king stanislaus." his daughter maria was married to louis xv. of france. _saturday_, january . they arrived yesterday, but i cannot say they are quite as i expected, especially the elder, the staroste of radom. i thought i should see a fine young cavalier, like the prince cheri, so beautifully depicted by madame de beaumont, but the staroste is not at all like him; first, he is not very young,--he is about thirty; then he is rather stout, and therefore, perhaps, he is not fond of dancing. as to his parisian accent, i cannot judge about that, as he did not say one french word, but mixes his polish and latin quite as the old gentlemen do. his brother, who is a colonel in the king's army, pleased me a little more; he has, at least, a fine uniform. to-day, the ceremony of liberation of the chamberlain chronowski will take place. besides that, as it is customary on epiphany, they are baking an enormous cake with an almond in it, and whoever gets the almond will be the twelfth night king or queen. oh! if it only came to me! a crown would be put on my head and i should have all the ordering of the dances; then what dancing there would be! still, i think, there will be enough in any case, for many guests are expected. our old butler, peter, was muttering to himself this morning that around the church in piotrowice there are said to be ever so many coaches and curricles. poor man! he is expecting more work, so he grumbles; but i feel my heart jumping, and my feet are dancing already. how often in this world the same thing brings trouble to one and joy to another! _sunday_, january . well, yes, they did come, and many of them are still here. old peter has two wrinkles more on his forehead, but we amused ourselves royally. basia, not i, was the queen, but it was just as well. when at the end of the dinner the cake was cut, basia glancing at her piece became red as a pink, and madame, sitting next to her, announced: "mademoiselle basia has the almond!" then all the people cried, "long live the queen!" and matenko added, smiling: "the almond is here, the husband is near." would it not be nice to have a wedding in our house! decidedly i do not like the staroste; he is so grave! yesterday he danced the polonaise only. he never looks at us girls, nor speaks a word to one of us; he converses with my honored parents only, or plays cards, or reads the "gazette;" so, really, i cannot find him very entertaining. but i am forgetting to speak about michael chronowski's liberation. soon after dinner we went to the banquet hall with our guests, and all sat around in a large circle, my honored father in the middle, on a higher chair. the folding doors were thrown open, and the marshal with other courtiers led in the young man, dressed no more in livery, but in a rich polish costume. he knelt down before the count, who gave him a light blow on the cheek in token that he has been novitiate boy here, then a sword was fastened to his side and his health was drunk in a cup of wine. the count made him a present of a purse filled with gold, and of two horses which were already waiting in the courtyard for their new master. invited to remain here as a guest till the end of the carnival, chronowski accepted the invitation with gratitude, and having saluted my honored parents and kissed the hands of all the ladies, was admitted to our society and danced with us the whole evening. january . the prophecy of matenko proved true, for basia will be married before the carnival is over. last night the staroste swidinski asked my honored parents for her hand; they sent for her this morning, told her about it, and the betrothal will take place to-morrow. basia came back in tears to our room, telling us that she dreaded the marriage, and would always regret her old home, but that it was not possible to refuse such a match, as both our honored parents wished it, and told her she would be very happy. the staroste is, they say, a most honorable man, religious, and of a kind disposition; his family is also old and very wealthy. his father has allotted him a large estate, "sulgostow," with a beautiful palace, and the king has given him the appointment of staroste with the expectation of being soon named castellan. for a long time the woivode and father albert had been planning this marriage, and they came here for the purpose of effecting it. and so we shall have a wedding here, in maleszow castle, on the th of february, at the very end of the carnival. will there not be dancing! basia will become madame starostine; only, it is a pity we shall not be allowed to call her "basia" any more. i am very sorry to have written about the staroste as i did, but then it is not i that is to marry him, and if he pleases basia, that is enough. she says she has always been afraid of young men, she likes serious ones better; and our honored mother tells her that those make the best husbands. perhaps so, but as for me ... well, it is of no use to think about it at present. oh! but i must not forget: the investiture of duke charles will certainly take place in warsaw to-day. colonel swidinski, who knows him personally, has not words enough to tell how charming he is. i wonder if i shall ever see him. january . the betrothal took place yesterday. in the morning, when we came down, my honored mother gave basia a skein of tangled silk to wind.[ ] the poor girl, with flushing cheeks, began the task, not daring to look up from her work, for she knew that all eyes, especially those of the staroste, were fixed upon her; and besides, that mischievous matenko was teasing her without end, making all the people laugh. [ ] an old polish custom, by which a young girl was to prove whether she was patient enough to meet the trials of married life. after dinner, when she sat again before her winding-frame, the staroste came near and asked in a voice loud enough for all to hear: "may i believe that your ladyship's will is favorable to my desires?" "the will of my honored parents," answered basia, with a trembling voice, "has ever been a sacred law to me." and that was the whole of the conversation between the betrothed. when the courtiers had left the room and we were alone with our guests, the woivode and father albert arose, the former taking by the hand the staroste, and standing before my honored parents he thus addressed them: "for a long time my heart has been filled with the most sincere affection and profound veneration for the illustrious family of korwin krasinski; for a long time i have desired fervently that my modest name be united with your glorious one, and i cannot express the great satisfaction which i feel in knowing that your grace is willing to grant me this favor. you have a most honorable daughter, barbara; i have this son, michael, who is my comfort and my pride; are you willing to renew to-day your promise to join this young pair for their lifetime? here is the ring which i received on a like occasion from my honored parents, in order to give it to my wife, who is, alas! no more in this world, but who still lives in my heart. will you allow my son to offer it now to your daughter as a pledge of a closer tie?" saying this he laid a costly diamond ring on a little silver tray which father albert was holding. the latter also made a speech, but he used so many latin words that i could not make anything of it. my honored father rose and answered: "i repeat now what i told you yesterday, that i consent to the marriage of my daughter with the most honorable staroste; i give her to him with my sincere blessing, and i transfer to him all my rights as a father." "i do the same, and with my whole heart," added my honored mother. "here is a ring, the most precious jewel in my house; my father, the woivode of podole, received it after his victory over the turks, from the hands of our late king, augustus ii. this was my betrothal ring, and i give it now to my eldest daughter, with a mother's blessing, and with a prayer to the almighty that she may be as happy as i have been." she then placed on the tray a ring with a very large diamond, which, being raised, disclosed the miniature of the late king. "basia! come here, my girl," said my honored father. she rose and advanced, but was so confused and trembling that i wonder how she ever reached the spot. father albert blessed the rings, and gave the first one to the staroste, who, having kissed my sister's hand, placed the ring on her fourth finger; basia, in her turn, gave him the ring with the portrait, and had her hand kissed once more. then the staroste fell at the feet of my honored parents, thanking them, and calling god to witness that he would do all in his power to make their daughter happy; in the mean time the woivode kissed the trembling basia on the brow, while father albert and the colonel paid her many fine compliments. at the end my honored father took a large cup, filled it with old hungarian wine, and drank the young couple's health; and all the gentlemen did the same. the whole ceremony was so solemn and so touching that i could not keep back my tears. "do not weep, frances," said matenko, who still remained in the room and for once was serious, "do not weep; in less than one year it will be your ladyship's turn." in one year? ... no, that would be too soon, but in a few years, perhaps.... everybody in the house is now paying so much attention to basia! my honored parents kissed her on the cheek when she wished them good-night, and all the people are congratulating her and recommending themselves to her, as many wish that she would take them to her new court. my honored father brought out a bag containing a thousand ducats, which he gave my honored mother for the trousseau, and during several hours they discussed together its details. to-morrow mlle. zawistoska, a very respectable woman, who has been brought up in our castle and will be basia's lady's maid, is going with the commissary to warsaw to make the necessary purchases. in our store-house there are four big trunks with silver plate, one for each of us. the count ordered the one which is designed for basia to be opened; examined each piece himself, and those which need repairs or alteration are to be sent to warsaw. the letters to announce the approaching marriage are already being written, and the chamberlains will take them to all parts of poland, to all relatives and friends, inviting them to the wedding. but the most stately of our courtiers, the equerry, will go to warsaw with letters to the king, the royal princes, the primate, and the chief senators. in these missives the count gives notice of his daughter's intended marriage, but sends no invitations, as the presence of those persons will depend upon their own pleasure. oh! if one of them, for instance the duke of courland, should come here, what grandeur would be added to the wedding; but more probably they will send their envoys only, who, in that case, receive all the honors due to those they represent. the staroste gave handsome tokens of remembrance to each of us sisters. i received a costly brooch with turquoises; mary, a ruby cross; kasia, a venetian chain. also he offered presents to my honored parents, which they deigned to accept,--the count, a golden cup; the countess, a work-box, in which all the implements are of mother-of-pearl and gold. he did not forget even our madame, who found this morning a lace shawl on her bed; so she also highly praises our polish generosity. last night we had a grand supper. the music was beautiful, the dragoons fired salutes, and the captain gave to the guard for a watchword the names michael and barbara. this morning there was given a great hunting-party, for basia's good luck, and it was unusually successful; they brought home one boar, two deer, four hinds, and many hares. the boar was killed by the staroste himself, who laid his trophy at basia's feet. i have learned to-day what a brave man the staroste is. my honored father ordered for the hunters all the horses from the stables, and among others there was one, a great beauty, but very wild; even the equerry does not dare to ride him. the staroste said, however, that he would try him, and notwithstanding all the remonstrances, he sat upon him with ease and held him with such a clever and strong hand that, in spite of all the animal's prancing and jumping, he rode three times around the castle. it was beautiful to see. basia turned pale at first, but when she saw how he was able to manage the horse, and when loud bravos began to resound, then deep blushes covered her cheeks, especially when all eyes turned towards her. by this act the staroste quite gained my favor; one who is so brave and so strong, can be pardoned even if he does not like to dance the minuet. the count presented the horse to his future son-in-law, adding a rich equipment and a groom; he deserved it. to-morrow the woivode and the staroste are going away, in order to prepare the sulgostow house for its new mistress. _sunday_, january . during more than a week i have not opened my diary, for we are very busy. the afternoons and evenings are spent with our guests, and the mornings are given to work, as each sister wishes to make something with her own hands for basia's trousseau. i am embroidering a dishabille with flowers in lace-stitch, and i have to get up very early in the morning and work even by candle-light in order to be ready in season. mary is making a very pretty scarf; it will have an arabesque embroidered on fine muslin in dark silks and gold; kasia is knitting a cover for the dressing table; so all the lessons are put aside, and even madame de beaumont is forgotten. from the early morning, my honored mother is busy, unlocking the trunks, the drawers, and the cupboards,--taking out linen, silks, furs, carpets, rugs, curtains, etc. she has many things still remaining from her own trousseau, and many others bought later, as during all these years she has been gathering all kinds of beautiful things for our marriage outfits; really they are well worth seeing. sometimes she deigns to call me to assist her, and it is quite touching to see her anxiety to do right by each of us; she divides all these treasures in four portions, and sometimes she even asks my honored father and the chaplain to give their opinion whether the shares are quite of equal value. a tailor and a furrier have come from warsaw, and there is so much to be done that they will not have finished for a month. fortunately, almost all the linen is ready, our sewing-girls having worked upon it for these last two years, and now they are marking it with blue cotton. basia wonders what she will do with all the new dresses they are making for her; until now we had never more than four at the same time, two dark woollen ones for every day, and two white ones, one in cotton for sundays, another in batiste for great occasions. but my honored mother says that what is good enough for a young girl would not be proper for a married lady. basia has wound the tangled silk with such patience that, although green, it has not in the least changed its color; even matenko acknowledges that she is fit to be married. she is now knitting from that silk a purse for the staroste by my honored mother's direction. the equerry and the chamberlain are gone with the invitations. on the th of january the investiture of the royal prince took place at last. the night before, my uncle the prince lubomirski, woivode of lublin, who is also the marshal to the royal prince, gave a great ball; other festivals, dinners, and balls followed for more than a week. the new duke made a speech in the polish language, which pleased immensely; he is now treated quite as a crowned prince. in the "courier" there is a full account of the ceremonies. it is very interesting; i should like to copy it here, but i have not the time. january . the staroste arrived last night, and this morning basia found on her work-table two large silver baskets with oranges and bonbons, which she distributed among us and our court ladies. our work is progressing rapidly and my _négligé_ is half done. basia will be provided with feather-beds from her own household, for to each of us daughters has been allotted for many years a certain number of geese and swans. there is among the servants a poor, stupid girl who is not able to do anything but pluck the feathers, and each of us has a separate barrel for feathers and a bag for down. basia, out of her share, will have two feather-beds, eight big pillows filled with goose-down, and four small ones of swan's-down. the pillows will be made of red silk, and the cases of holland linen lawn embroidered. february . the staroste stayed nearly a week and departed yesterday; the next time he will not go away alone, but basia will go with him. it seems to me quite impossible that she will leave us and go alone with a man! basia's friendship and esteem for the staroste grows every day, although he never speaks with her; all his conversation is with my honored parents, and all his attentions are paid to them. they say it ought to be so in an honorable courtship, for is there a better way of gaining the heart of the daughter than by pleasing the parents? the wedding will be in three weeks; we shall have new dresses as well as the court ladies; all these will be basia's gift. many of the invited guests have already replied that they are coming, but the king and the royal princes will send only their envoys. it is doubtful, also, if my aunt, the princess woivodine of lublin will be able to come, but she is much pleased with basia's choice, and she wrote a beautiful letter with her blessing,--which made my honored father very happy. i am hurrying with my embroidery, but i must rise early and work by candle-light, for my honored mother is so gracious toward me that she often wants my help and service. before this, only basia, as the eldest, was so fortunate, but now, my honored parents want me to have some practice in order to take her place when the staroste takes her away. twice already i have had the key of the medicine closet intrusted to me, and i really think since then i have grown more serious. february . the preparations for the wedding are going on, and our visitors begin to arrive. almost all the guest-rooms are already occupied, and the farm-house, the parsonage, even the better peasant-cottages will be wanted for the later comers. the cooks and the confectioners are already preparing all kinds of delicacies and sweetmeats for the coming event. to-day the beds have been sent to sulgostow and two enormous chests with mattresses, pillows, carpets, curtains, etc. the bedsteads are of carved oak with blue covers, curtains, and canopies; on the four corners there will be bunches of blue and white ostrich-feathers. almost every moment basia has good reason for embracing the hands and the feet of our honored parents, they are so generous toward her. the count is writing with his own hand, in a large book, the contents of the trousseau, beginning with these words:-- "inventory of the wedding outfit which i, stanislaus korwin krasinski, staroste of nova wies, etc., etc., and angela, born humiecka, my honored wife, are giving to our eldest and beloved daughter barbara, promised in marriage to the honorable michael swidinski, staroste of radom; and imploring for this daughter of ours the favor of heaven, we bestow upon her our parental blessing, _in nomine patri et filii et spiritu sancto_. amen." i should like to copy here the whole inventory, but first, i have no time, and secondly, i expect to receive a trousseau like this sometime myself, and what is still better, such a blessing of my own. february . three days more and then the wedding. the staroste arrived yesterday; basia shook like a leaf when the chamberlain brought him into the parlor. to-day we are expecting the woivode, father albert, the colonel and the woivodine granowska, sister of the staroste, with her husband. basia is entering into a fine family,--all religious and worthy people. the trousseau is quite finished, and what has not already been sent to sulgostow is packed in trunks, of which mademoiselle zavistoska has the keys. besides this mademoiselle, basia will take with her two young girls, her goddaughters, well trained in all kinds of needle-work, and as companion, one of the six damsels who have been brought up with us. when i am married i shall take still more; i have already solemnly promised three girls that they shall go with me; one of them is the daughter of our peter. in his grateful joy, the old man bowed to my feet, and for the first time his forehead was free from wrinkles. _sunday_, february . the wedding will be to-morrow. our guests are numberless, and all the envoys are here. the king's envoy is the secretary borch; that of the duke of courland, his confidant the castellanic[ ] kochanowski, a very handsome and polite cavalier; the proverb is right: "as the master, so the valet." i cannot possibly describe all the others; they arrived, as if by appointment, at the same hour yesterday, and their entrance was quite imposing. before every one of them our dragoons presented arms, while the cannons were firing and the music playing. the greatest honors were shown to the king's envoy; the count, having been informed of the hour of his arrival, was waiting with head uncovered on the drawbridge, and all our guests, courtiers, and servants stood in a double row up to the entrance door. as soon as the secretary stepped on the bridge they all shouted "vivat!" and bowed low in salutation. [ ] son of a castellan. to-day, in the presence of the whole company, and before appointed witnesses, the marriage contract was written, but i do not know what it contains, as i have not understood a single word of it. i know only that the bride received many beautiful presents: from the staroste three strings of oriental pearls; from the woivode a rich diamond cross and an aigrette with diamond pendants; from the colonel an enamelled watch and chain; from father albert many relics; and from each relative a souvenir. basia can hardly believe that all these riches belong to her; until now, her only jewel, besides her betrothal ring, was a small ring with the picture of the holy virgin on it, and i am sure basia will not discard her old friend for all the costly jewels which she now receives. the maid has just brought my _négligé_, washed and pressed; it looks very nice. there are twenty-five different kinds of lace-stitch in it; i am sure it will be becoming to basia. _shrove tuesday_, february . all is over, and as matenko says, "with a hundred horses one could not catch mademoiselle barbara any more;" she is madame starostine. i have much to tell. yesterday, very early in the morning, we rode to our parish church in lisow, where the bride and the bridegroom went to confession and to communion. as it was cold the bride wore a white cloak of brocade silk, lined with white fox fur, and on her head a long lace veil. when we returned breakfast was served, and soon afterwards the dressing of the bride commenced; twelve noble ladies headed by my honored mother undertook that important task. the dress was of white satin, with watered silk stripes, a frill of brabant lace with silver ornaments at the bottom, and a long train; a rosemary bouquet fastened the front of the corsage. on her head the bride wore a rosemary wreath held in place by a gold circlet on which was engraved the date of the wedding and good wishes in rhyme. according to the old polish custom, my honored mother fastened in the wreath a ducat with the date of basia's birth-year, and a bit of bread for good luck; she also added to the above a lump of sugar in order to sweeten the married life, which they say has many difficulties. no jewels were allowed, for it is said that for each precious stone worn on the wedding day, one has to pay afterwards with a vial of tears. as it is, basia has wept enough, so that her eyes are red and swollen. a little in advance, the bridesmaids went downstairs; we were twelve, all dressed in white, and the eldest of us was not more than eighteen. the bridegroom with twelve groomsmen met us at the door of the parlor, and there we found all the guests assembled. an enormous tray was carried behind us, heaped with bouquets of rosemary and orange sprays, each tied with a white ribbon, which were destined for the young ladies and bachelors present at the wedding. to fasten on these bouquets, each bridesmaid had a certain number of gold and silver pins, and great care was to be used in distributing the different values according to the rank of each person. the elderly ladies have been teaching us for a long time about the method we should follow in order not to cause offence by giving the priority to persons of lesser rank, and we were sure we understood the lesson perfectly; but as soon as we were in the hall, everything was forgotten. at first, we began our task very gravely, then we went on with a smile, and finally we broke into laughter; many and many mistakes were committed, but all were pardoned, and our gaiety was so contagious that soon the married people and even the elderly ladies and venerable gentleman,--none of whom have any right to wear flowers on a wedding day,--all wanted a bouquet. the first heap disappeared; they brought a second tray full, and a third one; we had no more gold or silver pins, and had to use the ordinary ones, but they were received just as well. at the end everybody looked happy; all had their bouquets, and the room was like a garden. but no, i am mistaken, not everybody was happy,--matenko stood sad in a corner; although a bachelor he had received no flowers, and he looked as if he did not belong to the wedding party. i stepped up to him, and he said in a low, grieved voice: "i do not wonder that the other young ladies have not thought of me,--but miss frances, whom i have known as a baby, whom, for so many years, i have played with and amused, that she should forget me! well, i will not come to her wedding, even if she marries a king's son!" i knew that i blushed half pleased, but was still more vexed at my forgetfulness. i ran to the dressing-room, but there was not one bouquet left, for my honored mother, hearing how the flowers were being appropriated in the hall, took the remaining ones for the ladies who were dressing the bride and for herself. the greenhouses were too far off to send there, and i wanted, at any price, a bouquet for poor matenko. suddenly a happy thought came to my mind: i caught a piece of white ribbon and returning hastily to the parlor, took off my bouquet and gave half of it, with the golden pin, to matenko. he was so pleased! "franulka," he exclaimed, "you are as kind as you are handsome! i am sometimes a prophet; remember, young lady, what i have said to you.... i shall keep these flowers till your wedding day, and who knows with what title i shall address you when giving them back?" how strange! notwithstanding all the distractions of the day, his words are still ringing in my ears; and here i am writing about myself, when i ought to think only about basia. to return to the wedding: the folding doors were thrown open and basia entered timidly, surrounded by the elderly ladies. the bridegroom approached and took her by the hand, and the two knelt down before my honored parents, asking them for their blessing; then they went with the same request to us, to all the relatives, guests, and the whole household present, and there was not one person who did not bless them with his whole heart and with tears in his eyes. the chapel door opened. father albert put on a lace surplice, and standing before the altar, called upon us to draw near. the secretary borch as the king's representative, and the castellanic kochanowski, led the bride; mademoiselle malachowska and i, as first bridesmaids, were directed to lead the bridegroom. all the other people went behind us, two by two, in such deep silence that one could hear the rustle of the silk dresses, even the tinkling of the diamond aigrettes in the ladies' coiffures. the altar was glittering with lights; a carpet woven with golden threads covered the steps, and on the highest were two red velvet cushions with the coats of arms of the two families, embroidered in gold. the young pair knelt down; the bridesmaids were placed on the right side of the altar; the groomsmen on the left; i held a small gold tray with the wedding rings on it, my honored parents stood behind basia, the woivode behind the staroste. the castle band in the choir played "veni creator," after which father albert recited an allocution, almost the whole in latin, and then he began to read the words of the marriage vow. basia, although in tears, repeated distinctly enough: "i, barbara, take you, michael, for my wedded husband," etc., but the staroste pronounced the words much louder. after the rings were exchanged the married pair fell down at the feet of my honored parents and the woivode's, and were blessed again. then the marshal gave a sign; the band in the choir and the italian singers fetched from warsaw began a triumphal march, accompanied by the discharge of cannons outside, and when this was all over, and silence re-established, the count pronounced a fine and very moving exhortation, at the end of which basia fell again at his feet, sobbing; she tried to speak, but not a word could she utter. after mutual embracings, salutations, and congratulations, father albert sprinkled us with holy water, and presented a cross with relics to be kissed. but he made a mistake, giving it first to madame the castellan jordan before madame kochanowska, mother of the duke's envoy. fortunately, my honored mother noticed the error, and begged the latter lady to lead the bridegroom from the altar, and thus happily all unpleasantness was avoided. the bride was attended by the king's envoy, and again, two by two, we returned from the chapel. soon afterwards the dinner was announced. the tables in the banquet-hall were arranged so as to form the letter b; in the centre stood the result of the fortnight's invention and labor of our french confectioner,--an ell[ ]-high pyramid representing the temple of hymen, where, amidst all kind of ornaments, allegorical figures, and inscriptions, were the coats of arms of the two families. there were also many other devices on the table, in silver baskets, vases, epergnes, porcelain figures, etc.; it was so crowded that our little dwarf could not have easily walked on the table this time. it would not be possible to enumerate all the courses of the dinner, and as for the wine which was drunk, i wonder if the butler himself could give an account. besides other wines, they drank at that dinner a barrel of wine which was called "miss barbara's wine," which the count, according to the polish custom, brought from hungary in the year of basia's birth, and which had been kept for her wedding day. each of us has such a barrel. then they began the toasts: first for poland, then for the young pair, then for the king, the duke of courland, the royal princes, the primate, the master of the house, the ladies, etc., each accompanied with loud shoutings, hurrahs, breaking of the glasses, with the music of the band and the firing of cannons; altogether there was such a tumult that i think there will not be a greater one on doomsday. [ ] two feet. after dessert was served, and we thought it was time to leave the table, the count gave a sign to the marshal, who brought in a black leather box with brass ornaments, which i had never seen before. my honored father opened it and took out a golden cup embossed with precious stones and shaped like a raven; then rising, he announced with great solemnity that this cup was a souvenir from the time of the corvins of rome, and it had not been taken from its box since the day of his own wedding. the butler placed before him a bottle covered with mould, containing, as they said, wine a hundred years old. the count poured out the whole into the cup, and lifting it cried: "good luck to the young pair!" the hurrahs began anew, the music was louder than ever, the cannons fired, every man drank that toast in one draught, and after that we rose from the table. the daylight was gone already. the lady-guests went to change their dresses, but the bride and the bridesmaids remained in the same toilets. about eight o'clock the dances began. the bride opened the ball with the king's envoy, and during the whole evening danced in the first set. at first there were grave polonaises, minuets, and contra-dances, but by and by, the gaiety increasing, we had the mazourkas and the cracoviaks. the castellanic kochanowski dances the cracoviak like an angel; and according to the custom, when he was in the first set he sang impromptu verses, very witty and apropos. at midnight the music stopped and the "cap" ceremony began. a stool was placed in the middle of the room, the bride sat down, and the bridesmaids began to undo her hair, singing in plaintive voices the old song: "ah! we are losing you, basia." then my honored mother removed the rosemary wreath and the woivodine malachowska put in its place a big lace cap. it seemed basia was costumed for fun, and i should have laughed had not her eyes been overflowed with tears. the cap is very becoming to her, which they say is a sign that her husband will love her very much. i am sure he will; he could not help it, she is so good. when this ceremony was over the bride was ordered to dance the "drabant" with the king's envoy, in honor of the reigning family, who introduced that dance in our country; after that, the music played again a very solemn polonaise, and the bride danced it with all the gentlemen present, one after another, beginning with the woivode swidinski, and ending with my honored father, who, having once paced the ballroom with her, led her to the staroste and gave her to him, not only for that dance, but for her whole lifetime. this was the end of that night's entertainment for us girls; my honored mother ordered us to go to bed, and the elder ladies took the bride to the apartment reserved for the young couple. other married and elderly people followed them, and i was told there were still more speeches in giving away the bride, returning of thanks from the bridegroom, new toasts, and all, that lasted very late into the night. i slept wonderfully after all the excitement, and my feet are so rested that i am quite ready for to-night's ball. i danced mostly with the duke's envoy, the castellanic kochanowski, who returned from luneville one year ago, and since then has been with the duke. he speaks very highly of his master; judging from the confidant, the other must be really a wonder. i have not seen basia yet, or rather madame starostine, as my honored parents order us to call her. it seems so strange not to have her in our room. i have inherited her bed, her work-table, and all the rights of the eldest daughter. they will call me now "mademoiselle staroste," not simply "mademoiselle françoise," or "franulka," as they did until now. it is a very little compensation, but still.... we shall begin the dances very early to-night, as it is the last tuesday before lent, so we have to stop at midnight. _ash wednesday_, february . ash wednesday, what a pity! no more dancing till next carnival. our guests begin to depart: the king's envoy is gone, the young married couple are going the day after to-morrow, and we shall accompany them as far as their home, for the house-warming. the staroste invited no guests but his relations, as big parties are not proper in lent. i am very anxious to see the new home of my dearest sister; i cannot get accustomed to call her "madame starostine," but it would not be proper to speak to her otherwise, as even my honored parents always call her so. she grew very grave from her wedding day; the cap she is wearing and the robes with long trains make her look several years older; she is sad and speaks very little; i am sure she grieves to leave her home, and to go away with a man whom she knows so little. it must be awful! _saturday_, march . last night we returned from sulgostow. i had a lovely time, but it is a pity not to have madame starostine back with us. last friday, before we started, she went very early to our parish church in lisow, where she hung the half of a golden heart as a token that the half of her own heart will remain here. when she came back home she went around the whole castle, as if wishing to say good-bye to each corner, then she took her farewell of all the people in the household, and had a kind word for everybody. when we were finishing a hasty breakfast, we heard loud crackings of the whip, and a chamberlain entered announcing that everything was ready for the journey. the staroste looked at his wife, and whispered that it was time to set out. she fell then, sobbing, at the feet of my honored parents, thanking them for all their favors that she had received during the eighteen years of her life, asking their pardon for all the offences she might have committed, and telling them that she wished nothing more than to be henceforth as happy as she had been. for the first time in my life i saw the count crying; oh! how they blessed her! it did one's heart good to hear it, and there was not a person in the room whose eyes were dry. we went to the bridge, but the captain ordered it to be lifted, and refused to let the bride go away until the staroste gave him a ring as a token that he would bring her back again. the carriages of the staroste were splendid,--a closed carriage painted yellow, lined with red damask, with seats for two persons, a landau with four seats, a coach, and several curricles. the horses were beautiful, especially six white ones drawing the yellow carriage in which the young couple were seated by themselves; behind them came the carriages with the women, and we came last. madame staroste sobbed so loud that we could hear her. many courtiers and peasants followed the carriage, crying and blessing her. she gave them all the money she had with her, and the staroste threw silver pieces bountifully. at each halting-place where we stopped everything was prepared for our arrival: the floors were covered with rugs, the tables laid, and the waiters dressed in livery. on the following evening we reached sulgostow. the woivode and father albert started on ahead of us, in order to receive the bride in her new home. at the frontier of the property the peasants stopped the carriage of the young pair and offered bread and salt; one of the oldest men made a speech, followed by loud shouts of "long live!" and when we entered the gate a company of hussars, whom the staroste keeps in his court, fired salutes. before the entrance door, the woivode stood, with the whole court, and all of them gave the heartiest welcome to their new mistress. when we entered, the staroste brought his wife a big bundle of keys, placing thus the whole house under her direction. from the following morning madame starostine took the management, and it was really wonderful how everything seemed easy to her and went smoothly; but, as the eldest of us, she was accustomed for many years to assist my honored mother in her household duties. sulgostow looks quite different from maleszow. it is a palace, not a castle, but still it is very grand and gay; the retinue is numerous, the house well provided, and, what is best, all the people seem so very happy to have my sister there. for the first time in my life i tasted coffee in sulgostow. my honored parents do not like this fashionable beverage, which was introduced recently to poland; they say that it spoils the complexion, so it is never served in our house. but the people in sulgostow like it exceedingly, and the staroste begged permission for me to drink a small cup of it. it was rather melancholy to come back, although the castellanic kochanowski, who accompanied us on horseback, tried his best to entertain me. the young man has been invited to sulgostow, as a former comrade of the young swidinski at luneville, but he is much younger than they are. in society they call him a "charmer," and really he deserves the title; what then must be the duke, his master! i have had no time yet to look about me in maleszow, as we arrived late in the evening, and the first thing i did to-day was to begin to write, but i am sure it will seem very sad here for a time. march . i guessed right, it is desolate without my dearest sister; the castle seems void as if she had taken away all the life with her. my honored parents also miss her very much, for she, as the eldest daughter, was more with them, and she was so clever! i try my best to take her place, but i know neither how to fill the count's pipe as well as she did, nor to assort the colors for my honored mother's embroidery. and then she was so thoughtful, never forgetting anything,--just the reverse of me. we talk of her constantly. to-day a chamberlain will be sent to sulgostow with compliments and inquiries about my dear sister's health, and there was almost a fight among the young men, all of them wanted so much to go. the castellanic has departed, and for the last three days we have had no visitors but two begging friars from a neighboring convent. i have laughed but once. my honored mother had distributed all of basia's dresses among our waiting-ladies and maids, and last sunday, as by a tacit understanding, each of them appeared wearing a part of basia's former attire: one had a skirt, another a cape or a waist, etc. matenko looked around and sighed heavily. "what is the matter?" we asked. "i am grieved," he answered, "to see the property of the late miss barbara so scattered." we began to laugh, but were reproved by the count, who quoted the old proverb: "quiet at table as in church." something quite new and unexpected happened to me yesterday. when we came down at noon, i saw the castellanic kochanowski, who was standing with the count in a window's embrasure, talking so eagerly that he did not see us entering. i could not hear their conversation, but my ear caught the last words, spoken with some emphasis by my honored parent: "yes, sir, you will soon hear about the final resolution." having said this he whispered a word to my honored mother, who made a sign to the marshal and gave him a secret order. the dinner was served, the castellanic sat opposite to me, and then i observed how elegantly he was dressed,--a velvet coat all embroidered, a white satin waistcoat, lace frills at his shirt, lace ruffles, and a coiffure as fresh as from a bandbox. he never was so lively and brilliant, and he mixed such beautiful french with his polish, and looked really charming. the dinner was longer than usual; we waited a while for the roast, and when they brought it in, i saw my castellanic changing his color and growing pale. i looked at the dishes; i saw a goose with black gravy,[ ] and then i guessed all. [ ]it was a generally observed custom to serve a goose with dark gravy as a polite but positive answer that the proposal of marriage was not accepted. a pumpkin put in the carriage of the young man when he was leaving had the same meaning. until now the saying "he received a pumpkin," or "he was treated to a goose fricassee," is often used. i did not dare to lift my eyes; queer thoughts were whirling in my head. i remembered the lively cracoviaks and graceful minuets, the elegant seat on horseback, the fine french conversation, the beautiful compliments, and i felt a pang in my heart. i had not the courage to touch the dish; my honored parents refused it also, and but for the end of the table the dishes would have been untouched. matenko was the first to help himself, and looking at his plate said aloud: "well, it is rather a hard morsel, but still, it will be digested." i thought that was disagreeable of him. it seemed to me that we stayed ages at table. finally the count gave the sign to rise, and as we were saying our "benedicite" i saw the castellanic stealing away, and he did not appear again. when the courtiers had withdrawn, my honored parents called me from my work, and the count spoke thus: "mademoiselle, to-day the castellanic kochanowski asked for your hand. although his lineage is noble and ancient, and his fortune considerable, nevertheless we did not think it was a suitable match. first, the castellanic is very young; he has no position of his own, and is called only by the title of his deceased father; secondly, he did not set about the matter in the proper way. he asked no notable person to speak for him,--he came by himself, made his declaration at once, and wanted an immediate reply, which he received unreservedly. we do not doubt, frances, that you are of the same opinion." having said this, without waiting for my answer, he bade me return to my work. well, thinking it over, certainly i am of the same opinion as my honored parents, as well by duty as by my own conviction; but to be quite sincere, i do not find fault with the castellanic because he is young and spoke for himself, but because he is nothing by himself. a "castellanic"? that is not enough for me, and i do not think a castellan would be too much. in any case, i have not the slightest desire to be married yet, i am happy as i am; for several days after our return from sulgostow i felt rather sad, but now i feel merry again and life is before me. marriage puts an end to all expectations; a married woman knows who she is and who she shall be until her death, and i like so much to dream! when i sit at my embroidery frame, or at my netting, my thoughts are always travelling far and fast; all the things i have ever read come back to my mind; i share the fate of all the heroines of madame de beaumont, madame de la fayette, and mademoiselle de scudéry; and it seems to me that i am destined to adventures similar to theirs. basia often scolded me for these fancies, but her habits of thought were quite different from mine. she often told me that she never brooded over her future, and never thought of the husband to come, except at her prayers,--for it must be said that with the beginning of the sixteenth year, by the direction of our honored mother, we have to add to our every-day prayer the request for a "good husband." basia thought it was a very right thing to ask god that the one who is to take the place of our father and mother, and with whom we have to live till our death, should be good, but it never occurred to her to wonder what he would be, and where and when she should meet him. she always said: "there will be time enough to think of him when he comes." and she was right; she got such a good and sensible man. she wrote to my honored parents that, but for being homesick for maleszow, she would be the happiest woman in this world. one can see that she loves the staroste more and more, and that she is quite satisfied with her lot. who knows? perhaps i should also be happy in such a position. in any case, my honored parents were right in refusing the castellanic; i am very sorry that the poor fellow has been disappointed, but i hope that, as matenko says, he will digest the hard morsel. _sunday_, march . yesterday, when we were just going to supper, there arrived quite unexpected but very agreeable guests: my aunt the princess woivodine of lublin and her husband. they could not come to the wedding, for the woivode, being the duke of courland's marshal, was obliged to remain in warsaw; but as the duke is now away, they came here to offer their congratulations. the arrival of such eminent guests gave new life to our castle. the count is overjoyed; he loves and worships his sister. they have not been here for five years; in the mean time i have grown from a child to a young lady, and they were very much astonished at the change. really, they spoke so much about my comeliness that i felt quite shy and uncomfortable. the prince woivode said quite seriously that, if i appeared in warsaw, i should eclipse mademoiselle wessel, madame potocka, and the princess sapieha,--the three belles of warsaw. the princess said that i need only hold myself more erect, to be more dignified, and to have more worldly polish, and then i should be perfect. never in my life have i heard such compliments, and i was never aware that i was so handsome. i observed how my honored father's countenance brightened at hearing these praises, but as for my gracious mother, she called me this morning to her room and admonished me severely not to give credit to all these fine words, which she said were only court civility. i am sure they are making plans for me. i should like so much to know about it. i was so excited that i could not sleep well last night, dreaming most extraordinary things. it is true that i heard many curious and amusing things which the prince and his wife related. my honored parents wanted me to leave the room with my sisters as usual at nine, but the prince woivode pleaded for me to stay till the end of the evening; thus i heard all about warsaw, the court, the balls, and the festivals attending the investiture of the duke, and many praises of this prince, who i hope will one day be the king of poland. i felt happy; he is my hero, and i am sure he will be a great man. shall i ever meet him? _tuesday_, march . the prince woivode and his wife departed half an hour ago. they wanted to set out yesterday, but the count ordered the wheels to be taken from their carriages, and persuaded them that it was not safe to begin a journey on monday, which is known as an unlucky day. during the whole time they were very gracious to me, and advised my honored parents to send me to a boarding-school in warsaw, in order to finish my education. for some time a french lady, madame strumle, has conducted a school for young ladies in warsaw; before this they were educated in convents only. this school has a great reputation. the daughters of the first families are sent there to study and to be taught good manners, and the prince woivode thinks i should there acquire all the accomplishments which i lack. but my honored parents prefer the ladies of the visitation, and certainly a convent is the most proper place. well, i do not know how all this will end, but i feel uneasy and absent-minded; i do not understand what i am reading; my work is not so well done as before; i feel as if something extraordinary were going to happen. _sunday_, march . we are going to warsaw! we are going the day after to-morrow. i do not know yet where i shall be placed, but in any case i shall not come back soon, as my gracious mother ordered all my clothes to be packed, and two of her dresses were made over for me. my honored parents were unexpectedly called to warsaw on business about an inheritance from our cousin vincent krasinski, who died childless and left a great fortune. they take me with them and i feel so very happy! as we have to stop at sulgostow, i shall see my dearest sister. she has just returned from a very agreeable trip, having visited with the staroste all his relations, friends, and neighbors; she was welcomed and admired everywhere. now she will stay at home, and is very much pleased with that prospect. she is going to be a perfect house-keeper; the old woivode swidinski wrote about her with such enthusiasm and gratitude that both my honored parents cried with pleasure over the letter. such tears are a blessing! warsaw, _sunday_, april . i can hardly believe that i am in that celebrated school of madame strumle; i entered it yesterday. it was not very hard work to persuade my honored father to abandon the prospect of a convent for me, as he relies much on the princess woivodine's judgment, and i must say i am glad of it, as, in the secret of my heart, i did not care much for the convent. on our way to warsaw we stopped at sulgostow. madame starostine looks gay and happy, and how she welcomed us! she remembered everything my honored parents liked; all their favorite dishes and delicacies were prepared; everything appeared to be there for their own pleasure; and she seemed so happy to serve them in her own house! i heard my honored mother saying to the staroste that the marriage made basia better than ever. "no," he answered, "such she was from the beginning when i received her from your hands. god bless her!" one can see how dearly he loves her; and she respects him and obeys him as if he were her father. she manages her house perfectly, and knows how to receive guests, and what to say to everybody; she is quite an accomplished woman. my honored parents were not very willing to go away from sulgostow, but i must confess i was very anxious to get to warsaw, and i welcomed the letters which made us proceed on our journey. i was right to be anxious about my coming here, for here i shall become an accomplished woman. i want to be distinguished. therefore i will not lose one moment, and henceforth i will not think of the future or dream of it, but will study hard and learn all that i can. yesterday my honored mother took me to the cathedral, where i went to confession and communion, and prayed that the knowledge that i shall get here may do me good and honor. when i feel a little more at home here i will write about everything. now i am bewildered. i was accustomed to see around me well-known faces and rooms, but here i know nobody; everything seems strange. _friday_, april . i am getting acquainted with my new home. i like madame strumle very much. she is a very dignified lady, and very gracious to me. certainly it is not as grand and lively here as in maleszow, but still it is comfortable and even gay. some things seem to me strange, but amusing and quite new. for instance, there are no valets, not one man-servant in the house; dinner is brought and served by women! we are about twenty young girls, all from the best families and all very young. my honored parents, after having visited the school, were well satisfied that young girls could not be better cared for and instructed in a convent. madame carries the key of the entrance door in her own pocket; nobody can come in or go out without her knowledge, and but for the few old teachers, one could forget how the face of a man looks. no male cousins, not even brothers, are allowed to pay their visits. once the dancing teacher asked leave for the young potockis, who are at the jesuit college, to come here and practise the contra-dances with their sisters, but madame strumle would not hear of it. "those gentlemen," she said, "are the brothers of two of my pupils, but not of the others, so i cannot allow them to come." i have a teacher for the french language, another for german, others for dancing, drawing, artistic embroidery, and music. there is a beautiful harpsichord; not a spinet as in maleszow,--it has five and a half octaves. some of the young ladies can play polonaises, not only by ear but from a music-book. the teacher assures me that in less than six months i shall be able to do as well,--it is true that i had a little instruction in maleszow. i am now only drawing some small patterns for embroideries, but before the end of my education, i must learn enough to be able to paint with colors a dead tree, on one branch of which is a wreath of flowers with the initials of my honored parents, to whom i shall offer my work as a token of gratitude for the education i have received. the young princess sapieha, who has been here for one year, is just painting such a tree, and i feel quite jealous of her skill whenever i look at her work. what a fine effect mine will have when hung in our parlor hall! the dancing-master, besides the minuets and contra-dances, is showing us how to walk and to courtesy; until now i knew only one way of courtesying, but i hear there are several varieties,--one before the king; another before the royal princes, still another for other dignitaries or their wives. i asked to be taught first the courtesy for the duke: some day, perhaps, i shall salute my hero. my gracious mother came once to see me. they are having much trouble with the affairs of the inheritance. the lessons and studies take all my time from morning till night, but i do not complain, for i want to learn much. i must say that on the first days i felt a little bewildered; the incessant scoldings and admonitions, the iron cross which was put on my back to hold me erect, the machine in which we have to stand for an hour, in order to make our feet straight,--all this was not quite to my taste. after basia's departure, i grew to be quite a young lady; the proposal of the castellanic, the compliments and the whisperings of the prince woivode made my thoughts travel far away,--i began to think i was quite a personage; but here i am again treated like a child. madame strumle even ordered me to stop the prayer for obtaining a good husband, and to ask for good knowledge instead. really, one cannot think of anything else here. _sunday_, april . i have not opened my journal for two weeks, but the days are going on each so like the others that i have nothing to relate, and i am thinking now what i shall write down to-day. my honored parents will leave soon. the princess woivodine deigned to pay me a visit, and found that i stood straighter; madame is very kind, my comrades very agreeable; that is all i know. really, i hardly believe i am in warsaw, for i know much less about public affairs than i knew in maleszow, and i see none of the grand persons whom i sometimes met there. my eyes have not once beheld the king. the duke is away, and they do not expect him back soon. _sunday_, june . if i were to pass my whole life in school, my journal would soon be ended. there is nothing to write about; and it is a pity, for i may forget the polish language. i never use it but when writing my diary or letters to my honored parents or talking to my little maid; on all other occasions i use french. they say that i have made great progress in my studies, and the princess woivodine, who has not seen me for one month, finds that i have grown much and that i have now a very good carriage. really, i am the tallest of all the girls in the school, and my waistband does not measure quite an ell. now when the weather is so beautiful, the sky so blue and the trees green, i feel often a kind of sadness coming over me. i wish i were a bird! i would then spread my wings and fly away, far away from the cage. but there is no help for it; i must stay here on bednarska street, the ugliest in all warsaw, they say. but next year, if god grants me life, things will be different. _friday_, july . i see that when one is busy the days pass quickly, even in school. i could not believe my eyes when looking now in the calendar, in order to put the date in my journal, i found out that for seven weeks i had not opened my book. but this day will be forever memorable to me: i received this morning, for the first time in my life, a letter addressed directly to me. the dearest and kindest madame starostine gave me that surprise, and wrote my full name on the envelope. so now they know at the post-office that there is a "mlle. la comtesse françoise krasinska" in warsaw. i felt like dancing for joy when i received that letter, and i will keep it with its envelope as an eternal souvenir. madame starostine is in good health, very happy, and so gracious as to send me out of the income from the garden, which the staroste leaves to her own disposal, four golden ducats with which i may do just as i please. it is the first money i have ever owned, and it seems to me that i could buy all warsaw with it. i have been planning ever so many ways to spend it: first, i wished to give a golden ring as a keepsake to each of the young ladies, my school-mates, but madame told me that i had just money enough to buy four rings and no more. then i wanted to get for madame a mantle in blond lace, and again i was told that it would cost fifty ducats at least. finally i decided thus: i shall send one ducat to the cathedral, in order to have a mass said before the miraculous image of christ, with the desire that the affairs of my honored parents turn out according to their wishes, and also that madame starostine be always as happy as she is now. the second ducat i shall change into small coin and distribute among the house servants; and with the other two ducats i shall give a little banquet next sunday. there will be ices, cake, also coffee which we never taste here. madame has already given me permission to use my money in that way, but the young ladies know nothing about the surprise. may the lord grant his best benediction on madame starostine for the great pleasure she has given me. my education is progressing rapidly. i am playing several quadrilles and minuets from a book. in a few weeks i shall begin to paint the dead tree with the garland, and i am also embroidering, in cross-stitch, a hunter with his gun and a dog. i read much, and write from dictation, or copy whole pages from french books, and i begin to talk in french more easily than in polish. as for dancing, the teacher says that there is not in warsaw a better dancer than i; but perhaps he flatters me. sometimes i go to see the prince woivode and the princess, but only in the morning when they are alone. i always hear very agreeable things about myself, especially from the prince woivode, who wishes me out of school; but the princess and also my honored parents say that i must wait until winter. alas! it is only july. will that winter ever come? _tuesday_, december . winter has come and the moment for leaving school is near. what a different kind of life i shall soon begin! only god knows when i shall return to maleszow, for the prince woivode and the princess graciously urged my honored parents to let them keep me for the winter and bring me out in society. the permission was granted and so i shall stay in warsaw. i am rather sorry to leave madame strumle and the young ladies, but the joy of becoming acquainted with that world of which i have so often heard and dreamt, is still stronger than my regrets. i shall soon see the king and the royal princes, as i shall be presented at court; the duke of courland is expected soon. _saturday_, december . this day begins a new life for me. in the morning the princess woivodine came to take me away, and in her presence i said good-bye to madame strumle and my school-mates. i could not help crying, although i have been wishing so long for that moment. on our way we stopped at church, but i could not pray; my thoughts were too wandering. i am settled now. my relations live on the street called the "faubourg de cracovie." their palace is not very large, but extremely handsome and elegant; from the rear the view extends over a large garden to the river vistula. i am occupying a pretty room which must be especially agreeable in summer, because there is a balcony leading into a little garden; on one side are the apartments of the princess, on the other is my maid's room. a tailor has already been to take my measure and he seemed surprised at the smallness of my waist. he will make several dresses for me, but i do not know what they will be; the princess ordered them herself, and she inspires me with such awe, not to say fear, that i do not dare to ask her about anything. the prince woivode intimidates me less, although he is a man; he has gentle manners and seems to like me. i regret that he is not here at present; he went to meet the duke of courland at the frontier. to-morrow we are going to pay visits. the princess will introduce me to all the first families here. i feel a little afraid and nervous. _sunday_, december . i have three good things to write to-day. the duke of courland arrived yesterday; the prince woivode returned with him and greeted me as if i were his own daughter, and the visits are over. in some houses such as the primate's, the french and spanish envoys', and some others, the princess only left small cards with her name and title on them. among the visits i remember best was the one to the princess lubomirska, _née_ princess czartoryska, the sister-in-law of the woivode. she is the leading woman among the young set, and affects everything french. i observe that here the more fashionable the house, and the younger the hostess, the more one hears french; as the old men sprinkle their conversation with latin, so the young do with french. but in the salon of madame woivodine of russ, the conversation was only in polish. she is an elderly and very stately lady, and she pleased me immensely. i met there her only son, a fine cavalier, who paid me many agreeable compliments, and i think i enjoyed that visit most. i enjoyed also the visit at madame poniatowska's, the widow of the castellan of cracow. she is a very remarkable woman and talks with great eloquence. she was giving a reception on that day, in honor of her son stanislaus who had returned from st. petersburg, and of whom it is said secretly that he may become king of poland. i watched him intently, but i cannot say that he pleased me, although i acknowledge that he is handsome, and has grand manners, i should say royal. another good visit was at madame rzevuska's, where we found her husband, the woivode of podolie. i was very glad to see him, as i had often heard from my honored father about his adventures when a child; how he was brought up among peasant boys and tramped barefoot as they do, and thus grew tough and fearless. he is over fifty now, but looks young and vigorous. he is said to be also extremely learned. the prince woivode told me that he writes beautiful tragedies. we went also to madame bruhl's, the wife of the minister and special favorite of the king; although he is neither liked nor respected by anybody, she is received everywhere, and called upon, as she is a very refined lady. our next call was upon madame soltyk, the widow of the castellan of sandomir. she introduced us to her son stanislaus, a boy of nine years, but gallant as a young cavalier; the elderly ladies were not yet seated, when he brought a chair for me, paying me a compliment, and madame castellan said that he was always enraptured with pretty faces and black eyes. she also was very enthusiastic about my looks, and to tell the truth, everywhere they spoke about my beauty,--sometimes in a whisper, but i heard it as well. but then i never have been dressed so beautifully, even at basia's wedding. i had a dress of white brocade with wide flounces of gauze, a court train of turquoise blue, and pearls in my hair. i should have been quite satisfied with those visits, if i had met the duke of courland anywhere. i started from home with that hope, but i was disappointed. after his long absence he spends his days now with his father, and has not yet been seen out of the royal castle. it is quite natural; i myself have been so often homesick for my honored parents, especially when in school. but soon the carnival will begin; there will be balls and assemblies without end. the duke goes everywhere, and he likes dancing very much, the woivode says, so i am sure to meet him. _wednesday_, january , . my wishes have been fulfilled, how much fulfilled! not only have i seen the duke, but i talked with him; i not only talked with him but ... but will it not be too bold to write down that which i would not dare to whisper to anybody, what i do not dare to believe myself, what perhaps i only dreamed of? well! no, i did not dream, i am sure of that; i always know very well when i please any one. and then is there anything extraordinary, since god has made me handsome, and everybody acknowledges it, that the duke looked at me with the same eyes as other people? the same eyes?--was there not in his eyes something more than in others?... but everything ought to be set down in order. yesterday morning the princess woivodine had me called to her and spoke thus: "to-night, as on the last night in the year, there is generally a ridotto, which means a masked ball. all the best people, even the king and the royal princes go to it; and you, mademoiselle, will come with us, dressed as the 'goddess of the sun.'" i was delighted and i kissed the princess' hand. soon after dinner they began to dress me in a costume quite different from the usual, being without powder or hoops. the princess told me very earnestly that although such a dress was not decent at all, and that a woman would ruin her reputation if she wore it on any other occasion, still she hoped that by the expression of my face, and my demeanor, i would make up for the deficiency of my costume. obeying her instructions i tried to look very dignified, and i think i succeeded, for i heard people at the ball asking, "who is that queen in disguise?" now, when i think of it i feel uneasy; perhaps in that costume i was prettier than on other days.... in any case i certainly looked quite different. my hair, thoroughly cleansed from powder, fell in loose curls over my neck and shoulders; my dress of white gauze was clasped with a golden band at the waist; on my breast i wore a golden sun, and over my head a long, flowing veil, which enveloped me like a cloud. i did not recognize myself when after dressing i was allowed to look in a mirror. perhaps others would not recognize me as i am now.... the ballroom was almost full when we entered. i felt dizzy, seeing such a crowd of people, so diversely and handsomely dressed, with and without masks, in ordinary and extraordinary costumes. i did not know which way to turn my eyes, and what to look at first. suddenly a murmur arose in the crowd. some voices said, "the duke of courland," and surrounded by a group of handsome and richly dressed young men, there he was. i knew him at once, although his costume did not differ much from those of the others; but his stature, his large blue eyes, extremely soft, and his charming smile made him different from every body else. i gazed at him as long as he did not see me, but when our eyes once met i could not look at him any more, for i always met his glance. i saw him inquiring about me,--and of whom? of the prince woivode! i noticed the pleasant smile when he learned who i was, and he at once approached the princess, greeting her in a most charming voice. after the first compliments were over, the princess took my hand, and introduced me as her niece. i do not know at all how i bowed, but i fear it was not that special courtesy which the dancing-master taught me. neither do i know what the duke said to me; i only remember that he opened the ball with the princess, and danced the second polonaise with me. then when he talked, to my great surprise, i answered without any embarrassment. he inquired about my honored parents, about madame starostine, and her wedding. i wondered how he knew so well about everything, when i recollected that the castellanic kochanowski was his favorite. the good boy has not only "digested the goose with the black gravy," but he gave the duke the best report of us all. "he praised you much, but not half enough," said the duke. i heard many other nice things during that dance and the following ones, for the duke invited me for almost all the minuets and quadrilles, and talked to me all the time. when at midnight they fired the cannon as a sign of the beginning of the new year, he said to me, "i shall forever remember this night; it is not only a new year, it is the beginning of a new life for me." and how many clever comparisons about my costume! (only, it does not sound as well in any other language as in french.) "it was not the gold on my breast which was the sun, but rather my eyes; their glance lighted an eternal fire in the heart, etc., etc." finer compliments could not be found in the novels of mademoiselle de scudéry or madame lafayette. can all that be only sham, courtly civility? it is a pity i cannot ask anybody about it, but i am afraid of the princess, and i cannot ask the prince woivode; it would not be proper to talk about those things to a man. i feel too much left to myself; one week ago i was a school-girl among books and teachers, and to-day i am playing a part in the world of which i know nothing. but in about ten days basia is coming here; she is so wise she will enlighten me. i am so very happy thinking that she will come. i have not seen that dearest sister of mine for three quarters of the year, but i know that she is more and more happy, more and more beloved by her husband. when shall i see the duke again? will he recognize me in my every-day dress? _friday_, january . i have seen the duke, i have seen him twice, and i am laughing now at that childish anxiety i had, wondering if he would recognize me. why, i should always know him, no matter how well disguised he might be. i just finished writing my journal on new year's day, when the prince woivode came to my room. "françoise," he said, "you surpassed all our expectations; your demeanor at the ball yesterday was perfect, and it pleased generally, even the most notable persons. i have just returned from the castle, where we went with the senators and ministers to pay our new year's compliments to his majesty. his royal highness the duke of courland approached me, and declared that he had never seen anybody like you, and that if it were not for the etiquette of the court, which requires him to spend the new year's day with the king, he would come to pay you his respects in person." i felt my cheeks growing red when i heard these flattering words, but the prince seemed not to notice it, and went away leaving me with my thoughts. and so i shall meet the duke, not only at the balls, but in this very house! "he has never seen anybody like you." these words are still sounding in my ears, as if somebody were repeating them constantly. i was so gay at dinner that the princess had to reproach me several times. after dinner we went again to pay some visits, but we left the carriage only twice, as all the people were out for the same purpose. we met in the streets, the carriages stopped, sometimes several of them at one time, and cards were exchanged amid much laughing, noise, and confusion. in the evening it was still gayer when the pages and the torch-bearers were moving about with their lights and brilliant uniforms. there were even several accidents, but we fortunately arrived safe. we returned home quite late. i went to sleep at once, being very tired, but queer dreams flitted through my head. the following day at noon, when i sat with the princess in the drawing-room, beginning a new piece of work on the frame, the chamberlain announced: "his royal highness the duke of courland." the princess rose quickly, and hastened to meet him at the entrance. i, in the first moment wanted to run away, but my wish to see him was still stronger than my timidity, and i stayed. as soon as he entered he approached me and inquired about my health. i answered distinctly, although i felt very much embarrassed, and when he sat near my working-frame, i had sufficient command of myself to thread at once some very fine needles with rather coarse silk, in spite of my trembling hands. he praised my skill; stayed about half an hour, and although he talked most with the princess, still he found an opportunity to say many amiable things to me. i could thus ascertain that my different dress did not change me in his eyes. he departed saying that he hoped to see us the same evening at the ball. i heard then that the marquis d'argenson, the french ambassador, was giving a ball to which i was to go. what a reception it was! why, basia's wedding was nothing in comparison. and how highly educated are all these people in warsaw! whenever they open their mouths it is to compliment, but the duke's compliments surpass them all. he could not talk with me as much as at the _bal-masqué_, neither did i answer as boldly. but then i was no longer the goddess of the sun, and besides, it always happened that somebody was standing near us as if to listen to what we were saying. i do not like it; it is not nice, especially in well-bred people, to be inquisitive. the princess is in high spirits; she was the only elderly lady with whom the duke danced last night. the prince woivode is more gracious to me than ever, but he seems to avoid any questions from me or counselling me in any way. i look forward with growing impatience to my dear sister's coming. _sunday_, january . during the whole of yesterday, the duke, the balls, all my dreams, everything went from my mind; all my thoughts were with my sister, although i have not seen her yet. she arrived yesterday morning and was taken suddenly ill. the princess hastened at once to her house, but i was not allowed to go. i spent the whole day in the most dreadful anxiety, and sent to three churches to have masses said. at last, after midnight the princess returned with the news that basia was as well as could be expected, and that she had a little daughter. this morning i begged on my knees to be allowed to go there, but they said it would not be proper, and that i should have to wait several weeks. the staroste came here for one moment, very happy to be a father. the little girl is, they say, beautiful. if they would only let me see her! she will be named angela in honor of my gracious mother. this morning the duke sent his congratulations and best wishes for the little grand-niece. oh! i am longing to see my sister. _wednesday_, january . basia is still in bed, but the news from her and her little daughter is the best. i have seen the duke once only; he was away hunting with the king, but yesterday he appeared unexpectedly and stayed over an hour. how good he must be, and how he loves his father! he spoke about the late queen, his mother, with tears in his eyes. one can see also that he loves poland, and that he has a most noble and valiant heart. everything i ever heard of him is true; he is not praised even enough; one cannot well describe the charm of his voice, his sweet smile, and the look of his blue eyes, so deep and so soft! i do not wonder that the russian empress was charmed with him,--that he carried away the hearts of the courland people; and i shall not be surprised if after his father's death, poland calls him to the throne. and he likes me!... sometimes i think that it cannot be. still, yesterday his eyes told me that so plainly; and not only his eyes, but some of his words too, and the prince woivode also seems to think so. the princess made me feel a little sad when, at table, she said, with some meaning, it appeared to me, that "many women have already pleased the duke" and that the last one he sees always seems to him the most beautiful. but how childish i am! how should that trouble me? am i the only pretty woman in this world? in my eyes the three warsaw belles, mademoiselle wessel, the countess potocka, and the princess sapieha are without any comparison more handsome than i. and what is more, they know how to enhance their beauty, which is an art quite unknown to me. the duke says that that is my great charm, but it seems to me that my complexion is quite eclipsed by theirs. especially at the ball in the french embassy madame potocka was ravishing, and the duke danced with her twice. well, what right have i to be displeased with that? _sunday_, january . i ought to be quite pleased now! at the ball of the woivode of russ, last thursday, the duke danced only with me. on friday he called here again. yesterday he sent us by his aide-de-camp an invitation for a new italian opera, "semiramide," given in the court theatre, and there he devoted himself exclusively to me. there i was also presented to the king, who was very gracious and inquired about both my honored parents. still more, the staroste came here an hour ago announcing that the duke wished to stand godfather to the little angela, and desires me to be the godmother,--me, nobody else; he insisted upon that. the christening will be magnificent, in the royal collegiate church. there were to be more couples invited to assist, but out of respect to the duke the honor will be left solely to him; the others will only be witnesses of the ceremony. many of the most distinguished persons will be invited. the whole of warsaw will talk about the affair, and certainly the "courier" will describe it, and our two names will stand there together. what will madame strumle and the young ladies in the school say to that, and my honored parents, and all the people in maleszow, and the good matenko? i am sure he will say that it is because of his predictions. oh, that matenko! how often his words come to my mind. he is responsible for all my troubles; but for his hints no foolish notions would have entered my head. as it is, i do not feel two days alike: sometimes the happy thoughts crowd around me, life seems full of hope, and i hardly know that there is an earth under my feet; then suddenly everything seems to fade, and my heart feels heavy and so sad! for instance, to-day when i was so enraptured at the news of the christening, the princess mentioned,--i do not know why,--that the law of the church forbids the godparents to marry each other, and i shuddered. but what makes me feel really happy is that at last i shall see my dearest sister. after the christening we go to her house. _wednesday_, january . the ceremony took place yesterday and i have seen basia, who looks beautiful, although she has grown a little thin and pale. she is always as good as an angel, and as happy as a queen. the duke begged that the little girl be named after me, but basia was firm in her first purpose; and she was right, for this honor was due to our gracious mother. thus the little girl was christened "angela;" she is a dear little thing, and she cried during the whole ceremony, which is a good sign that she will live to be aged. it was the first time in my life that i stood as godmother; i did not know how to hold the baby, so the duke had to help me. it seemed so queer to stand with him before the altar surrounded by so many people, and to write down my name next to his in the large book. perhaps it was to this event that matenko's predictions referred. everybody is congratulating me on the great honor which befell me. the duke is still more attentive than before, and a little more familiar; he calls me "my beautiful partner," and the little girl is always "our little angela." he presented handsome gifts to madame starostine and to me, and threw handfuls of gold among the attendants and the poor in the church. i for my part could not do so much, but the little embroidered christening robe, my gift to angela, has cost me more than a few hours' work. but i forget to speak about an important affair. the topic of conversation in warsaw has for some time been a hunting party which the prince jerome radzivill, the hetman of the lithuania army, is preparing for the pleasure of the king and the duke. he is spending thousands in order to make a grand display, and has had the game brought from the forests of lithuania, over miles away. the fête will be to-morrow; the weather is fine and the sleighing excellent. the duke wished to drive his "partner," and it shall be so. the four warsaw belles--for i am counted now as the fourth--will go in one sleigh, and the duke will be our driver. all four will have costumes alike, but of different colors,--long velvet coats, tight at the waist, trimmed with sable, and small caps with fur to match. the countess potocka has selected blue, the princess sapieha dark green, mademoiselle wessel marroon, and i shall wear dark crimson. it is a pity basia will not see all this, but she is so happy with her little angela that she does not care for anything else. _friday_, january . i have never in my life seen anything so magnificent as this hunting party. we started at nine o'clock in the morning. one could not possibly count all the horses and sleighs which were assembled before the king's castle, but ours was the handsomest of all, and we followed first after the king. the duke, in a hunting costume of green velvet, looked superb! we had a long drive far beyond the church of the holy cross, to ujazdow. there, coming down the hill on which is built the city of warsaw, is a large field usually planted with wheat.[ ] this field was enclosed by a fence with a gate, ornamented with escutcheons, devices, and inscriptions. in the middle stood an iron kiosk into which the king and the duke entered. near the kiosk was a space covered with bear-skins for the most notable men, and further on, an amphitheatre with an iron railing for the ladies. the whole place looked like a forest, for except a space left around the kiosk, the ground was covered with big pine-trees planted for the occasion. in the background, one saw the hills covered with a throng of spectators. [ ]that place is now lazienki, with a park and a charming little palace built by the last polish king, stanislaus poniatowski, for his summer residence. as soon as we arrived and took our seats the trumpets and the horns gave the signal, and the hunters of the prince radzivill let the wild beasts loose from the enclosure. there were bears, deer, wild boars and wolves; the trained dogs chased them toward the kiosk, and one cannot describe the howling and the roaring of the wild animals, the barking of the dogs, the shrieking of the ladies, and all the noise which ensued. the king himself shot three wild boars; the duke killed much game, and fought a bear with the spear, a proof of great strength and skill. the skin of that bear was presented to me for a rug. the hunt lasted until four o'clock in the afternoon; we had a lunch served to us during that time. there were perhaps a hundred hunters and game-keepers of the prince radzivill, all dressed in red livery and armed with guns and pikes. this entertainment was given in honor of the anniversary of the coronation of the king; for the same purpose there will be a ball to-night given by the marshal of the crown, bielinski. _saturday_, january . the ball was splendid. the duke was very gay and happy, as on that day he received a diamond-star order from the king. i danced a great deal and my feet are aching; but i am sorry that i spoke of it, for now i shall have to stay at home and rest for ten days. the princess fears that the incessant dancing and late hours will injure my health; really, my cheeks have become rather pale. we received letters from maleszow. my honored mother deigned to write to me herself, recommending earnestly that i be prudent about my health and that i take the greatest care of my reputation, so as to give no cause for the slightest reproach for frivolity. she says that i ought not to believe all the compliments i may hear, that often a young girl is called a belle through some passing fancy, not because her beauty really deserves it; and that it sometimes spoils her whole life, for her head is turned, her expectations aim too high, and she may be forsaken and laughed at in the end. i am sure that will never be the case with me. my ambition may be ever so high, but nobody shall know about my disappointment if it comes. still i could not help crying when i read that letter; i carry it with me and often read it over. happy is the young girl who never leaves her parents' home! i often regret the old maleszow castle. _wednesday_, january . at last the ten days of my retirement are over. there were four balls during that time, and one of them a _bal-masqué_, where i was to appear in a scotch quadrille with the three other belles. but no entreaties of the duke or others could make the princess relent; when she has said anything she never changes her decision. i was sorry to miss the balls, but no one looking at me would have guessed it. it is true that the duke came here often, and praised my patience and courage so much that it was a great comfort. the hours spent in his company are delightful. he talks about saint petersburg, or vienna, where he also spent some time; he describes the good people in courland; and he always knows how to put in a word the meaning of which, i think, escapes all other ears but mine. how well he knows the bad affairs of our country! it is only through respect to his father that he does not dare to speak about them openly. what a good king he would make! the princess says that his extreme amiability has a particular aim,--to gain partisans for the future,--and that if he were elected king, he would perhaps not even look at us. i do not believe it. i can see plainly that the princess is not in favor of him; she would like rather to see a lubomirski on the throne. to-night there will be an entertainment at the ladies canonesses'; a very agreeable house and much frequented. this order was founded by the countess zamoyska, in imitation of the ladies' chapter house of remiremont in lorraine. it is said that it originated from the pity the countess felt for a young girl of a noble family, who was to be married in spite of her dislike and even despair. she was an orphan and had no inclination for the convent life, but her high birth forbade her accepting a situation, so she was obliged to marry, merely for a home. in order to give a shelter to other homeless polish girls, where they could lead a christian life and be free to marry according to their liking, the countess bought maryville, a large building once belonging to the jesuits, and had it altered into small apartments, with a common dining-room and large reception-parlors; she endowed it and also completed an adjoining chapel, erected by the queen mary kasimir, the wife of john sobieski, in memory of his victory over the turks near vienna in . there are eleven canonesses and the abbess. in order to be elected, the young girls must be fifteen years old, and prove their nobility for six generations on both parents' sides. they are addressed with the title of "madame." _ash wednesday_, february . thank god, the carnival is over! i see that one can grow tired even with entertainments. there have been so many during the last weeks that i felt in a continual whirl. i could do nothing, nor think of anything else but dresses, visits, assemblies, and other festivities. at first such a life seems amusing, but by and by one feels disheartened, and in my life i have never known such tedious hours as those i passed in the last fortnight. and yet so many people think that i am so very happy, and they envy me. how beautiful the countess potocka looked at the ball last night, dressed as a sultana! she was the queen of the ball, and danced the whole evening. i danced only the first polonaise; i hurt my foot and refused all the invitations. toward the end the duke came to ask me for a dance, but i did not care to dance then. thank god, the carnival is over! _saturday_, february . a few words in haste: i am going unexpectedly to sulgostow. there was nothing said about it yesterday when the staroste and basia came to take their leave, but this morning the prince woivode came to my room and said that my sister and her husband begged me to go with them; that i shall have a good rest there and probably see my honored parents, so i ought to go. i believe that all the prince's advice tends to my good, so i did not hesitate, but i am sorry the duke does not know anything about it. perhaps he will not mind it at all; perhaps he will not even notice it, as there are so many pretty women in warsaw; and the countess potocka, she does not go away. _sunday_, march . i returned two days ago. my diary was forgotten here in my desk, so i could not write in sulgostow. i was away a fortnight, but it seemed much longer. my honored parents are expected in sulgostow in a few days, but the prince woivode, who came for me, did not want to wait even a few hours; we were almost flying on the road, with fresh horses waiting at each station, and we reached warsaw in one day. the duke came the following morning; he looked pale, almost ill. he gave me to understand that it was my sudden departure, without saying good-bye, which made him feel so badly. he said almost bitterly that "a friend deserves better treatment." i am sorry now that i went away, and to be sincere, i was sorry for it more than once during that fortnight, but the prince woivode says that it was for the best. i must confess that often i do not understand him at all, but i obey him blindly, for i feel that he is interested in my future. the princess greeted me very graciously. in sulgostow i spent most of the time petting the little angela, and embroidering a cushion for the christ's chapel, in order to propitiate heaven in a certain direction, which i do not dare to name here. i worked assiduously; it seemed to me that every stitch made the fulfilment of my wishes nearer, and now my work is finished. they celebrated with great magnificence the anniversary of basia's wedding in sulgostow. how many changes in this one year! _thursday_, march . yesterday was one of the most pleasant days i can remember. the duke was as gay and charming as at the beginning of our acquaintance. he came here first in the morning, but only for a moment, as he was going to a hunt with the king; then in the evening, when we did not expect him at all, he ran in,--i think he walked, as no carriage was heard,--and he stayed a few hours. he is freer now to leave the castle, as his two brothers, albert and clement, are in warsaw, and they keep the king company. the duke clement is said to be very good and religious, and he is to enter the church. it is quite right that the king, having several sons, wishes to give one of them to the service of god, but it is as well that it was not the lot of the duke of courland. _tuesday_, march . although it is lent, i have a delightful time; the duke runs in as often as he can leave the castle. he says that he rests here from the etiquette of the court. but to-morrow will be the end of all the worldly pleasure. the princess has a few rooms kept for her in the convent of the holy sacrament, and every year, before easter, she secludes herself for eight days in order to be well prepared for confession. all the ladies do the same, and i naturally shall accompany the princess. during eight days we shall see only priests and nuns; we shall read only religious books, and work for the church or the poor. _holy thursday_, april . our retirement is over, easter confession is made, and i feel so free in my mind and so quiet in my heart! i had an excellent confessor, father bodue; he is all the fashion, as he is french, but even in spite of fashion i would always choose him for my director. he is a saint, and he is so wise! we had many and long conversations with him. he knew so well how to speak to my heart and make it humble and full of contrition, he was so convincing when speaking of the voidness of the things of the world and the dangers of it, that really there were moments when i wanted to leave everything and become a sister of charity in his hospital. i was just pacing my little cell thinking earnestly about it, when my maid entered and whispered that she saw one of the duke's hunters passing near the convent. my devout thoughts were thus scattered and i could not grasp them again. still, father bodue told me also that one can be saved as well in the world when living virtuously, and that such a life is still more meritorious, as it is more difficult. why, then, should i shrink from it? i really regret that this week is over, although we lived in perfect seclusion. to-day we shall see everybody, as we are going to the castle for the ceremonies of holy thursday. _friday_, april . easter is over. i cannot say that those days were unpleasant, but the quietude of thought and heart of one week ago, they are mine no more. moreover, my conscience has more than one thing to reproach me for, so soon after my most earnest resolves! for instance, that as early as holy thursday i was guilty of a dreadful piece of vanity! was such a thing ever heard of? it occurred thus: when i was to put on my mourning-dress, as is the custom in holy week, the princess entered my room followed by two maids carrying a magnificent gown of white satin with a long transparent veil, a wreath of white roses for my hair, and a bouquet for my corsage. i was amazed, but the princess explained that on holy thursday after mass, said in the chapel of the castle, the king and all the assemblage go to a large room where twelve poor men are sitting at table, and the king, in imitation of christ's humility, washes their feet and serves them at dinner. during this ceremony, one of the society young ladies is to make a collection for the poor. the king himself appoints the young lady; this time he named me, and promised to give the collected money to father bodue for his hospital, which is being built. i felt overcome with joy hearing this, but it was not because of the poor or father bodue; it was simply vanity. i saw myself, not in a heavy black and unbecoming dress, but clad in white, i alone among all the other women,--and thus the handsomest of all! it was wicked, but my conscience feels better now for having confessed it here. the collection was extremely successful; i had over five thousand ducats. the prince charles radzivill alone, saying "my love![ ] one has to give something to such a fair lady," tossed down five hundred gold pieces, so that the tray bent. [ ]the prince charles radzivill had the habit of beginning each sentence with the exclamation "my love!" and therefore he himself was generally called, "the prince my-love." he was the wealthiest magnate of lithuania. after the dismemberment of poland, when all his estates were confiscated, he emigrated to paris and there bought the whole street between his palace and the market, in order, as he said, that his polish cook might not lose his way. that street, near the louvre, has still the name of "rue radzivill." at first i felt rather timid, my knees were shaking at each low courtesy which i had to make before every person, but by and by i grew bolder, and on that day the lessons of my dancing-master proved to be really useful. the marshal of the court accompanied me telling the names of the persons we were approaching, and when the tray grew too heavy he emptied it into a bag carried by the king's page. my ears were filled with compliments. the duke told me that it was fortunate that i begged for money, not for hearts, as every man would have to give me his. "i would never ask for such a thing," i answered; "for who would value a heart begged for?" he seemed pleased with my answer,--i wonder how he could imagine that i should think otherwise. a woman to beg for a heart--even of the king himself,--why! it would be a shameful, base thing. to accept it, when it is offered to her, earnestly and honorably, that is another thing. but again my thoughts are wandering. to return to my narrative; the ceremony of the washing of the feet was very touching. i have still before my eyes the king as he was bending over the feet of the poor old men, and as he stood behind their stools at dinner. moreover, our augustus iii., although no longer young, is very handsome and stately, and everything he does is done in a proper manner. the duke charles is quite the likeness of his father. on good friday, we went, dressed in deep mourning, to visit the holy sepulchre. we were in seven churches, saying in each of them five paters and five aves in honor of the five wounds of christ; in the cathedral i knelt one hour before the holy sacrament. on saturday evening there was a grand "resurrection service" in the cathedral; the music by the court orchestra was admirable. the easter table in our house was sumptuous, and until yesterday the tables remained covered with all kinds of meat and pastry.[ ] who would have thought one year ago, when, on the third day after my arrival at the boarding-school, i was sitting at the poor easter table feeling very melancholy--who would have guessed then that one year later i would eat an easter egg with the duke of courland? [ ]the easter dinner, or the "consecrated meal," is still a special feature in poland, and an elaborate affair even among the poorer people. during several days meat and pastry are prepared, and on holy saturday the tables are set, with the symbolical lamb in the middle, and every dish garnished with sprays of boxwood. then a priest is summoned, who puts on a white surplice, and saying the appointed prayers he sprinkles the table with holy water. in the villages on easter morning the peasants bring baskets with eggs, bread, cheese, and perhaps a sausage, to church, and standing in two rows have them consecrated. at noon the dinner begins with hot bouillon served in cups; all the other dishes are cold. but first of all, the lady of the house, holding a plate of hard-boiled eggs cut in pieces, presents them to every one in turn, wishing a "glad alleluia." the table sometimes stays covered several days, hot dishes being added to succeeding dinners, and the pastry lasts sometimes several weeks, by some mystery remaining as fresh as on the first day. the children always have their own table, with miniature dishes ornamented with boxwood, a lamb in candy, colored eggs, etc. they would never forget to have them consecrated, and the little girls very earnestly play the hostess, partaking of the eggs with their own guests. in olden times, the polish houses tried to surpass each other in setting the most sumptuous easter tables. in an old manuscript is found the following description of a festival given by prince sapieha, in the sixteenth century. in the middle of huge tables stood a lamb of candies and marzipan, which were distributed "only to ladies, dignitaries, and church men." around it, representing the seasons of the year, stood four wild boars, each stuffed with hams, sausages, and turkeys. the prince's chef showed wonderful skill in roasting those boars whole. then came twelve deer, also roasted whole, and stuffed with a variety of game: hares, woodcocks, partridges, hazel-hens, etc.; these were for the twelve months of the year. around the table, numbering the weeks of the year, were fifty-two mazourkas, that is, large square cakes stuffed with all kinds of fruit, and three hundred and sixty-five babas, for the days of the year; each was one ell high and on their iced surfaces were various inscriptions, mottoes, proverbs, and witty verses, which the invited guests took pleasure in deciphering. in the way of beverages there were: first, four antique silver tankards with wine from "king batory's time" (that is, one hundred years old); then twelve silver pitchers of old tokai; then fifty-two silver barrels of spanish, italian, and cypress wines, and three hundred and sixty-five bottles of hungarian wine. for the household there were , quarts, as many as there are hours in one year, of home-made mead. the invited guests feasted during one whole week. as soon as the morning service was over they surrounded the tables, and the entertainment lasted till midnight; the prince's court band played lively airs, and the young people were never tired of dancing, nor the elderly ones of talking of "the good old times," sipping the hungarian malmsey, and drinking to the health of the prince. he seemed to have grown thin; it is perhaps because of the long fast. we also have not had any meat for forty days, and neither butter nor milk during the holy week; everything was cooked with oil, and on friday we fasted the whole day. i did not mind it at all, but for a man it must be different. yesterday i was looking anxiously at him: i thought he would not notice it, as he was talking with the prince woivode, but he thanked me afterwards for my solicitude. i felt quite ashamed; how careful a young girl ought to be, not only of her words, but even of her eyes! _wednesday_, april . we leave warsaw to-morrow. the prince woivode and his wife are going to their estate "opole," and they take me with them. my honored father wrote a letter to the princess saying that she may keep me as long as she is not tired of me. i hope that will never be; i endeavor to please her as well as i can, and i feel the greatest awe of her. if i ever live to be old i wish to have her dignity of demeanor; even the duke is afraid of her. i am glad that i am not yet going to maleszow. i have it in my head that i ought not to return there just as i was, and if i arrived now there would be no change. no change? oh! yes, there is a great change, but not the one i mean. yet, things cannot stay long as they are now, something must take place. will it be yes, or no? i shall not be surprised if it is yes, and in the other case--well, i will not bend my head, even if my heart break. it sounds like riddles, but if when i think of him i am afraid that some one may guess my thoughts, how could i write more plainly? as it is i have already said too much; it is better to stop and put my book under lock and key. opole, _wednesday_, april . we have been here for nearly a week; the place is pretty, but i do not feel very cheerful, and nothing seems to go right. the trees ought to become green, but they are as black as in mid-winter; it ought to grow warm, and it is still cold. i wanted to begin some embroidery, but i have not the necessary silks; i wished to play, but the harpsichord is most dreadfully out of tune, and they have to send to town for the organist. there is a large library, but the princess has the key of it, and i am afraid to ask her for it. the prince has bought some new french books, the works of voltaire, the most celebrated author in france; he paid, before my eyes, six golden ducats for a few volumes, and not very large ones; but the princess does not allow me to read them. what is still worse, there arrived, just fresh from paris, a novel which is all the rage, the "nouvelle héloïse," written by a certain m. rousseau. i took the book eagerly in my hand, but the author says in the introduction, "no mother will allow her daughter to read this book," and the princess most sternly forbade it to me. i had still another disappointment yesterday; the physicians in warsaw ordered the princess to ride horseback for her health; she laughed at them, saying that she would never do it, but the prince woivode believed their advice good, and he bought a beautiful mare, quite gentle, which was brought here. the princess very reluctantly consented to ride a little in the garden, but i, who am not afraid of horses, was just dying to learn how to ride, and i said so yesterday. i got a terrible scolding; the princess said that such an exercise would be quite indecent for a young lady, and i had to give up all my plans,--such beautiful plans, of riding and hunting with--well, with some one. there are many people coming here to pay their respects to the prince, who is the woivode of this province, but they are not very interesting. the one person whom i like to see is the prince martin lubomirski, the first cousin of the woivode, but much younger, and whom i have already met in warsaw. he owns the earldom of janow, which is not far from here, and he has invited us very eagerly to pay him a visit; i hope we shall go. the princess always finds something to censure in him, but i like him very much; he talks most agreeably, and is a great friend of the duke of courland. janow, _friday_, may . we have been here two days, and the prince martin announced from the very first that he would not let us go away soon. i do not think there can be found anywhere a host more generous, gay, and hospitable than the prince martin. the princess says that he sows his money broadcast as though he expected it to grow. he has now a new scheme on foot: they are cutting a road through a beautiful forest near the castle,--from my window i can see the magnificent trees fall under the axes of at least a hundred workmen,--and at the end of the road they are building a small palace, but in such haste that it seems to grow under one's eyes. there is a wager between the prince martin and the prince woivode that the building will be ready in four weeks, and i am sure the younger prince will be the winner. the whole forest is to be enclosed with a hedge and serve as a preserve. men have been sent to distant places to bring deer and bears, besides the game which is found around here. there is some mystery about all that hasty work; i wonder what it is! this place is beautiful indeed. the old and majestic castle stands upon a hill above the vistula, and commands a most admirable view over picturesque villages, forests, and the winding river. the halls and rooms are innumerable, the furniture rich and elegant, and the gallery of portraits is said to be the finest in the country. but my room seems to me the most charming of all; it is in a high tower, and it makes me feel like the heroine of a novel. from each of the three windows is a different view, each beautiful, but i sit most near the window looking towards the little palace, the progress of the work going on there interests me so very much. on the walls of my room is olympus painted in fresco. "venus lui manquait, mais il la possède maintenant," said prince martin, gallantly, when he brought me in. _sunday_, march . i rose before the sun, and i must have looked like a ghost when i glided through the large halls, on my way to the gallery of portraits. the prince martin, following the example of our ancestors, who kept with great care the pictures of their most illustrious members, and the memory of their great deeds, determined to gather all such souvenirs of the lubomirski family in one room. he brought from italy a skilful painter, also called in the help of a very learned man, who knew all about the polish history, and after long researches and debates the plan was carried out in ; as the inscription above the door testifies. the princess says it is a pity that all these portraits and pictures are not painted in oil on canvas instead of "in fresco," as they never can be removed, and it is more difficult to take care of them. in any case the gallery, as it is now, is superb. yesterday after dinner our host brought us in and explained the meaning of the large paintings, relating the facts and the anecdotes about them. it was so interesting that i decided to get up very early this morning, before the house was awake, and come here alone to look again at the pictures, and write about some of them. the first picture represents the three brothers lubomirski, young and handsome men, who in the presence of the king, and many lords and witnesses, are dividing the inheritance of their father. two scriveners are writing the deed upon a roll of parchment, and this document, dating from , was the first historical title-deed known in poland; it is still in existence, and the family are very proud of it. after that picture, comes a row of portraits of stately men and great warriors, which i must pass over. then i see a painting representing a chapel, where, before a miraculous image of the virgin, a baby is being weighed, and the other scale is covered with gold pieces. one prince lubomirski, being childless, made a vow that if a son were born to him he would offer to the church its weight in gold, and he kept his promise. farther on, i see a nun on her deathbed, with a halo round her head; sick people touch her garments and are healed; it was sophy lubomirska, who in the sixteenth century was renowned for her sanctity. on the other wall is represented an amusing scene: among young damsels at work stands a pretty little girl in a very uncomfortable position, as her foot is tied to the leg of the table. her aunt, who has punished her thus for some mischief, is sternly looking at her. but the naughty little christina has grown to be a young lady, and in the following picture we see her kneeling before the altar in her room, her beautiful eyes full of ecstasy; she has just pricked her finger with a golden needle, and gathering her blood on a pen, she writes down her determination always to lead a saintly life. she kept her word; married to felixe potocki, she was as famous for her virtues as for her beauty. all her accomplishments, her rare talent for music, her great skill in handiwork, were given to god's service. she adorned his churches, composed and sang verses to his glory, founded several convents, and her charitable deeds were innumerable. her own confessor wrote her life and called her a saint. next come the portraits of her two brothers. first, stanislaus, an eminent writer, surnamed the "polish solomon," is surrounded with books, and fame crowns him with a laurel wreath. the second, jerome, famous for his valor, is represented with the king sobieski, when after the victory near vienna they are examining the flag of mahomet, captured from the turks; in the distance the polish army can be seen occupying the turkish camps. then i stop at a large picture representing a very exciting adventure. in a forest covered with snow, a man is fighting with a bear, who seems to have the better of him, when from behind a woman in a hunting costume approaches, and holds two pistols to the animal's ears; in the background a horse is seen running away with a sleigh. the story runs thus: a princess lubomirska, who was very fond of horses, was returning one day from a hunting party, with only one servant, when an infuriated bear sprang upon them. the frightened horse threw over the little sleigh and ran away with it, and the two people were left to the fury of the beast. the faithful servant having only said, "your grace, remember my wife and children," threw himself forward to meet the bear, who was advancing on his hind legs, and give his mistress time to run away. but the courageous pole did not leave the brave man to perish; drawing two pistols from her belt, she stepped from behind and shot the bear on the spot. but i hear the prince martin talking to his dogs, which he loves and pets as if they were children; his greyhounds are famous in the whole country. it is time to stop and run back to my tower. _thursday_, may . we went to opole, and returned here again, urged by prince martin to see the villa finished; he won the wager. i asked him to-day why he wanted another house, and he answered smiling, "for your ladyship's sake." what does he mean? _saturday_, may . the duke is here! and, oh!--i can hardly believe it,--he loves me! he loves me so much that he could stay no longer without seeing me, and the two princes, to please him, thought to build the villa and to give hunting parties, in order to bring him near the object of his affection. it is fortunate that it was dark when he appeared yesterday. everybody would have seen how i blushed, and he himself might have read in my eyes more joy than i ought to have shown. how will all this end? until now i feigned not to understand the hidden meaning of his words. i tried most carefully to conceal my feelings toward him; shall i be able to do it any longer, especially here, where i shall see him so often,--live almost under the same roof? i cannot express the state that my heart and head are in. i see before me either a destiny so grand that i am afraid to think of it, or so dark and miserable that i shiver. what ought i to do? i would rather die than ask the princess; she said, not later than to-day, that the woman who would believe in the love of the duke would be simply mad, and that his wife would be most unhappy. the prince woivode visibly shuns any confidence. may . i am betrothed. is it really true? i, frances krasinska, i shall be duchess of courland, and perhaps one day something more! to-day we went to the little palace. the princess made a false step mounting the stairs, and was obliged to stay in the room with her companion, and we four went to the park. the prince martin stopped to show the woivode some preparations for the hunt, but the duke said he preferred to walk, and took my arm. he was silent for awhile, which seemed strange, as he generally talks a great deal. at last he asked me if i would never be willing to understand for whom and for what he had come here. i tried to answer, calmly, that i knew him to be a lover of hunting, and that there promised to be great sport. then he put aside all metaphors, and said plainly that he came for my sake, "and to find his whole life's happiness." i was stunned, it came so suddenly; but i composed myself and said: "monsieur le duc, are you forgetting who you are, and what you may be one day? you must look for a wife among the royal daughters." "you are my queen!" he exclaimed; "you, who first by your beauty have charmed my eyes, and afterwards by your modesty and virtues have won my heart. i am used to having women run to me as soon as i have spoken one word. but you, although you loved me perhaps more than any one of them, you shunned me; i could only guess what you were feeling. you are worthy of the first throne in the world. if i wish to be one day king of poland, it is in order to put a crown on that beautiful brow of yours." how can i believe that all that was not merely a dream! i stood silent; no words could pass my lips. then the two princes drew near us. "i take heaven and you for witnesses," said the duke, turning to them, "that i will never marry any other woman but the countess françoise krasinska. for reasons easily understood, i wish my decision kept secret until the time comes, and i am sure of your loyalty and discretion." the princes saluted; they said something about the great honor and their faithfulness; they whispered in my ear, "you are worthy of it," and withdrew. i stood as yet in a dream, but at last i had to answer to the affectionate words; i had even to confess that i loved him much, and had done so for a long time. should i not have made that avowal to my future husband? my husband! no, it cannot be true. but then, what means the exchanged ring on my finger? i had from basia a little golden snake-ring which she gave me at my last visit; the duke had observed it, and ordered a similar one with the words "for ever" engraved inside; he put it on my finger and took mine for himself. the trees and the birds were the only witnesses of that silent betrothal. but these rings were not consecrated; a father's hand had not given me away, nor a mother bestowed her blessing. oh! yes, now i believe that all is true, for i feel hot tears on my cheeks. _monday_, may . one week has passed, a week of such bliss! to-day for the first time, i was struck with the thought that my happiness might fly away. the dukes clement and albert arrived here on thursday; the hunt took place on friday and saturday, and they leave this afternoon; perhaps he also will have to go soon! how could i have so totally forgotten about it? perhaps i had not time to think of what would come next, the days are so full--not only with my heart's content, but also with the duties of the lady of the house; the princess is confined to her room, as her foot has grown worse, and i have had to take her place. or perhaps i did not want to think at all and spoil my happiness. now i can think of nothing else but that departure. what will it be when he has gone? with what thought shall i awake in the morning? for whom shall i want to dress? what shall i do with the whole day when he is not here! i looked out of the window toward the villa, and saw a white handkerchief waving from the balcony; it is the "good-morning" he sends me every day. how early he is,--it is not yet six o'clock! now i see a rider galloping along the road. it cannot be he! no, it is his favorite hunter who brings me flowers, a message every day from him. oh! no, my anxiety was premature; i have not heard yet that he was going away; we may have another happy week, and a third, and perhaps a fourth,--why did i fret? _wednesday_, may . my forebodings were right; he is going. a special courier came last night with the king's order that he return at once. i saw him this morning; i shall see him again in half an hour, when he will come to say good-bye, and then when shall we meet again? _sunday_, june . two weeks have passed. two couriers brought me short notes under the prince woivode's seal; but what is a letter, written words, for two people who have been accustomed to talk to each other for hours, who knew each other's thoughts without even using any words, only looking into each other's eyes. he left me his miniature, a fairly good likeness, but it has always the same expression; i have a better portrait of him in my heart. i do not answer his letters; it is hard, but i was positive when i told him that until we were married he would not receive a single written word from me. i think my hand would be paralyzed if i wrote a letter without the knowledge of my aunt and my honored parents, and i will keep my word, although god knows how much it costs. how long the days seemed when he was gone! i felt in a kind of lethargy, caring for nothing, without will or desire to do anything. i was aroused by a very sad occurrence: the princess' health grew worse, her foot swelled, and the doctor for whom they sent to warsaw declared her to be in a critical condition. i cannot express what i felt during the three days of uncertainty. notwithstanding all that the duke and the princes have said to quiet my conscience, i know very well that my silence about what has happened is an offence toward her. from the very beginning i planned and lived in hopes that the day would come when i should confess my involuntary fault to her, and to my honored parents, explaining how everything happened, how i could not help it, and i was sure i would be pardoned. but during those three days of danger my hopes might at any moment have been crushed, and then what would have become of me? how could i live without having her forgiveness? it came to my mind also that my honored parents are no longer young, and an unexpected illness may come to them, and i felt utterly desperate. the lord be praised and thanked! the princess is better, and we had good news from maleszow; both my honored parents are in excellent health. but it is time to return to the princess; she likes to have me near her, and now i feel most happy at her bedside when i can do something for her. opole, _thursday_, june . the princess felt so much better in health and strength that we returned here the day before yesterday. i left janow with regret; after all, the remembrance of the happy hours spent there is the strongest. in his last letter the duke frightened me, writing that he will be obliged to go to his dukedom of courland, and that he is puzzling his brain as to how he shall see me before he leaves. how long those months will be! but his sufferings are worse to me than my own. several guests arrived here from warsaw, and spoke about the change that everybody notices in him; he does not look well, he is sad, and avoids society. people find me also changed and looking pale. i would not care, but when i hear the princess explaining that it is on account of the trouble and care i took of her during her illness, then my conscience makes me feel miserable. _saturday_, july . one moment of bliss, and it is gone; he has been here, but only for one hour. he left warsaw last wednesday, as if to go to courland, but as soon as he was out of town, he left his equipage and turned south instead of going north; now he is travelling day and night to meet his court at the frontier. i saw him such a short time, that i cannot realize it was not all a dream. he came disguised as one of his hunters; nobody recognized him but the prince and myself, but nobody ought to have recognized him. he implored me with tears in his eyes to write to him, and it was perhaps fortunate that he could not stay longer, for it was hard to resist those tears. three months is the shortest time for his stay in courland; how many weeks, and days, and hours in three months! _thursday_, september . i have not opened my book for two months; they passed as everything passes in this world, but that they were sad it is needless to say. one month more to wait. in each letter the duke assures me he will be here in october. to-day i was so glad at seeing some dry leaves on the ground in the garden; i thought it might already be october. we shall go to warsaw ere long; the princess has forgotten that she was ever ill. i had great trouble lately,--a proposal of marriage, and a splendid match, as they say. the princess, who from the time of her illness is kinder to me than ever, arranged everything, acting in concert with my honored parents, and never a doubt arose in her mind that i might object. it was extremely painful to me to destroy her plans, to incur her just anger, to hear her reproaches, and especially her innuendoes concerning the duke. it was also very difficult to write to my honored parents, not knowing what excuses to make for my refusal. my honored mother deigned to answer me. "the parents who allow their daughter to leave their guidance," she writes, "cannot be very much surprised if she does not obey their wishes." could i ever have foreseen that what i called the height of happiness could have thrown me into such a depth of misery! warsaw, september . we have been in warsaw for several days. with what joy i approached the city! here i shall see him again; he is coming on october st, that is, in one week. if it was not for that hope, life here would be intolerable. those visits and receptions which seemed so amusing are now a trial. i think everybody is reading my secret in my eyes, and that all my acquaintances are laughing at me, especially the women. yesterday one of them made me so nervous with her inquiries and her false solicitude that my tears were quite near,--in the presence of at least fifty people. but the prince woivode took pity upon me and came to my rescue; he is always so good, only he does not believe in my sorrow and troubles, and calls them "childishness." _thursday_, october . he arrived and is well; i have seen him, but before much company, and when my heart was leaping to meet him i had to stand still and wait until he entered and saluted the prince woivode, and then to make the low courtesy as etiquette requires. no matter; as long as he is here and well, everything seems more cheerful, and all will be well. _tuesday_, october . my god! what a promise have i given one hour ago! the fourth of november, when will it be? it is the birthday of the duke, and as a gift he wants my hand. he said that he will doubt my affection if i refuse. the prince woivode also pleaded for him, and i said "yes," before i realized that i had no right to do it without the knowledge and permission of my honored parents. but i will not marry without their consent; i said that i must write to them, or otherwise i would rather enter a convent. at last the duke submitted and promised to add a postscript to my letter. here my pride received a shock; is it not the young man who ought to humbly ask the parents for their daughter's hand? yes, but not a royal prince. for the first time, i felt the difference in our rank,--that it is he who does me a favor in marrying me. but it is too late for any regrets; my word is given. _thursday_, october . a chamberlain of the prince woivode has gone to maleszow with the letters. the duke said that my letter was too humble, but i thought it was his postscript which was too royal. what will the answer be? my life is in suspense until then. i had the happy thought to ask if the curate of maleszow could not come to give the wedding blessing; it would at least be somebody from my home. the prince woivode promised to have him come, and he will also obtain the necessary papers. _wednesday_, october . my honored parents consent and give their blessing, but it is not such an affectionate blessing as they gave basia when she was to be married, and it is just, for i do not deserve it. the duke expected a separate letter for himself; as there was none, he felt a little offended and talked with the prince woivode about the pride of the polish seigneurs. no matter, it is a relief to think that they know everything; it is as if a stone were lifted from my heart. they promise to keep the secret until the duke releases them. one sees in their letter some surprise, even satisfaction at such an alliance, but there is also, especially in the words of my dear mother, a kind of affectionate reproach which pierces my heart. she writes, "if you are unhappy, you cannot ascribe your misfortune to us; if you find felicity in your decision, for which i shall never stop praying the lord, your parents will rejoice over you, but not as much as over their other children, as you have not allowed them to share in making your happiness." i cried so much over these words that they are almost illegible. the curate will come, and in six days i shall be a bride. i cannot believe it; there are no preparations for the wedding, everything around me is so quiet and every-day-like. one week before basia's wedding, what was there not in maleszow! if at least i could see the duke often, but sometimes two, and sometimes three days pass without my seeing him. he fears to awaken the suspicion of the king, and still more that of brühl; therefore he avoids me at receptions, and does not appear here as often. i feel so lonesome with nobody to confide in or ask for any advice. even my little maid is to be sent away, and a married woman, whom the prince woivode knows, but i have never seen, is to take her place. i do not even know how to dress for the wedding; i asked the prince, and he answered, "as every day." what a strange occurrence! i am making the grandest marriage in poland, and my shoemaker's daughter will be more dressed on her wedding day than i on mine. november . married! one hour ago, before the altar, before god, we swore to each other faith and love until death. what a terrible wedding! at five o'clock in the morning the prince woivode knocked at my door. i was quite dressed, we went out stealthily; at the gate the duke and prince martin were waiting for us. it was quite dark, the wind blew fiercely; we walked to the church, as a carriage would have made a noise. it was not far, but i should have fallen several times, if the duke had not supported me. at the door of the church the good curate met us. the church was dark and silent as a grave; at a side altar two candles were lighted; no living soul but the priest and the sacristan. our steps resounded on the flagstones as in a cavern. the ceremony did not last ten minutes, and then we hastened away as if pursued. the duke brought us to the gate, and the prince martin had to compel him to go away. i had my every-day dress on, not even white, only i hastily put a bit of rosemary in my hair. yesterday, remembering basia's wedding, i prepared for myself, with tears, a golden coin, a piece of bread, and a lump of sugar, but in my haste i forgot to take them this morning. now i am again in my room, alone. nobody is blessing or congratulating me, the whole house is asleep, and if it were not for the wedding ring, which i shall soon have to take off and hide, i could not believe that i have returned from my wedding, that i am a married woman, that i am his forever. sulgostow, december . i was not going to write in this book any more; i saw no use for it, as the friend i have won for my life had all my thoughts confided to him. but cruel destiny has separated us, and i open my book again to relate the sorrowful event. in the days of happiness, if they ever come, it will be agreeable perhaps to read over the accounts of the past misfortunes, although i do not think the most perfect bliss could ever wipe them out of my memory. six weeks have passed since the day of our wedding. nobody has guessed what happened. my new maid swore to the prince woivode on the crucifix that she would be silent on whatever she may know. our meetings and interviews, managed by the woivode, were kept perfectly secret. i was still mademoiselle la comtesse krasinska to everybody. the duke, in order to be ready for any sign from the prince woivode, pretended illness and did not leave the castle, but in the end he was obliged to appear in society, and paid a visit to the princess. it was the first time i saw him in public; i could not control my emotion, which was perceived by the princess. after his departure, she overwhelmed me with reproaches, scoldings, and warnings. sure of my innocence, i answered perhaps too boldly, and imprudently made her understand that it was not a mere flirtation between the duke and me. on the following day, the princess was very much agitated; the duke came again, and knowing he could not see me on that day in private, he had written a short note, which he discreetly slipped into my work-basket,--but not discreetly enough for the watchful eye of the princess. as soon as he was gone, she seized the basket, and when she read the inscription on the note, "pour ma bien aimée," her wrath burst forth in the most dreadful and offensive words. i heard myself called the shame, the blot on the krasinskis' name. i heard that i would send my father and mother to the grave. "but now," she added, "this low intrigue shall be ended. i have written to brühl, telling him that honesty and honor are more to me than my family ties, and i feel it to be my sacred duty to let him know that the duke is in love with you, and that he must do what he thinks best to stop this unlawful affection. so at this moment the king himself is perhaps informed of your mad scheme, and of your shame." "there is no shame," i answered, "i am his wife." as soon as i uttered these words i realized what i had done in revealing the secret, but it was too late. the princess was amazed. i fell at her feet and confessed everything; there was nothing else to be done. i implored her pardon, and begged her in the name of god to keep the secret to herself. she seemed surprised, but not soothed; she compelled me to rise from her feet, saying that it was not a proper position for a lady of my standing. she asked to be pardoned for having often treated me not according to my dignity, of which she was unaware; but she did not allow me to kiss her hand, and under the pretence that her house was not good enough for a duchess, perhaps the future queen of poland, she gave at once the orders for my departure. i controlled myself so that not one disagreeable word fell from my lips, and i shall always be thankful to the lord for it; the princess is my aunt, and i shall never forget the care she has bestowed upon me during so many months. i did not know at all where i was to go. fortunately some one happened to mention sulgostow. the marshal, who came to take the orders, heard it, and the news spread in the house that i was going to spend christmas with my sister. glad of the suggestion, i confirmed it. i wrote a letter to the duke, in care of the princess, in which i told him about the necessity of letting my sister know the truth, and in less than two hours, in a closed carriage with my maid, i was travelling fast, not knowing what was to become of me. i reached sulgostow in such a confused state of mind that when basia saw me and heard the disconnected sentences,--that the princess sent me away from her house, that i was innocent, that the duke was my husband,--she was so frightened that she wanted to call for help, and to send for the doctor; she was sure that i was insane. no news yet from warsaw! _saturday_, december . i received a letter from the duke (i think i shall never call him otherwise). he is in despair about my departure, angry with the princess, and much afraid of brühl discovering everything. i am leaving sulgostow; the happiness of my sister makes my lot still more miserable. i love her with my whole heart, and i pray god that she may always be as happy, but this comfortable home, the attention her husband's family pay to her, the many tokens of affection from our honored parents, the little angela who is so fond of her mother, and of whom her father is so proud,--all this stabs my heart when i compare her fate with mine. i will go to maleszow. when i shall hear the words of forgiveness from the lips of my honored parents, and they embrace me, i shall perhaps feel more tranquil. perhaps the year begun with them will be as happy as those that i spent under their roof, when a gay and careless girl. in maleszow castle, january , . i have been here for several days, but i am not any happier. my honored parents greeted me in such a strange manner. i wanted to throw myself at their feet, and i would have felt better for it, but they did not allow it. the count bowed low to me as if i were a stranger; even now he will not sit next me, and he gets up when i enter the room. this homage paid to my new title is grievous to my heart. at the first dinner he whispered in my ear, "i could under the pretence of testing, order a bottle of 'miss frances' wine.' i am sorry not to taste it at the first dinner, but the custom requires that the first cup be emptied by the father, and the second by the bridegroom; any other order is considered a bad omen. but will that happy moment ever come?" he added, so sadly that i was hardly able to restrain my tears. oh! that dinner was for me a real suffering; everybody seemed to be under some constraint; even matenko was not up to his standard. the count winked at him to make him tell some jokes, but they were not a success. he is a sharp fellow, matenko. yesterday he entered my room mysteriously, when i was alone, and kneeling on both knees, with an expression which was half droll and half melancholy, he drew from his vest a little bunch of dried leaves tied with a white ribbon and a golden pin in it. i could not at first make out what he meant when he said, "i am sometimes a prophet." then i recollected the bouquet from basia's wedding. i ran after matenko, who still on his knees was retreating toward the door, and put in his coat a diamond pin i had received from the duke. neither of us said a word, but both perhaps thought that if it was strange that his joking prophecy was fulfilled, how much more strange it was that its fulfilment failed to satisfy my expectations. when i think how i dreamed about my return to maleszow after my wedding! what royal presents and surprises there would be for everybody! even each of the peasant-women was to receive a new cap, the girls bright ribbons, and what entertainments and banquets were to be given to all! and here i return to my paternal home after nearly two years of absence, and bring no gifts to any one. when basia came home from the convent she had a little surprise for everybody, although she had no more money than i; but she had leisure of time and mind, and with her own hands she prepared the little trifles which were valued so much. how could i do it? here my beloved mother interrupted my writing. she came into my room carrying heavy bundles of costly silks, laces, and jewels, and laying them down on the chairs she said rather timidly: "i have brought here a part of the things which are destined for each of our daughters; i would have brought more, but nothing seems to me good enough. i have been talking to my honored husband; he will sell a few villages in order that when the happy moment comes, and the marriage is announced to the world, our second daughter may receive an outfit in accordance with her high rank." moved to tears, i wanted to embrace her knees, but she did not permit me, and was still making excuses for the "miserable presents," as she called them. oh no! i cannot stand all this. i will return to sulgostow. there are too many eyes fixed on me here, too many exclamations about how pale i look. my dear little sisters are asking continually, "why are you not married yet?" or, "when will you marry?" even the old servants ask me the same questions. yesterday the three girls whom i promised to take to my court, came to see me. old peter brought his daughter himself; it was so painful to send them away. how astonished they will be if they hear that am i married, but cannot take them, for my husband is a son of the king! sulgostow, january . i found no letter here from the duke. i am dreadfully anxious; perhaps he is ill, or the king is informed about everything, and does not let him write. if the prince woivode were in warsaw he would let me know, but he left a few days before me and probably has not yet returned. the farewell of my honored parents was more tender than their reception, but the best moments i spent were in lisow, where i went to visit our curate. i found him planting spruce-trees in his garden, and he allowed me to plant one in the cemetery near the church.[ ] i leave a sad souvenir behind me, but i am not gay myself. i heard kind and comforting words from the good father, and went away with more courage. if only i had news that the duke is quite well! [ ] this tree still shades the old building. (note in .) _tuesday_, january . new trials and new sufferings during these past days! will there be any kind of grief which i have not experienced? on saturday when we were going to dinner we heard the postilion's horn before the palace; the door opened and borch, the minister of the king, entered the hall. i knew at once the purpose of his coming, and i trembled like a leaf, but he pretended that he wanted to pay his respects to the staroste and madame starostine, at whose wedding he had the honor to be present. he played this part during the whole dinner, but when it was over he asked me for a moment of private conversation, and then told me at once that brühl and he were informed of all that had happened, but to them the marriage of the duke was a mere joke; that a wedding without the knowledge of the parents, and not blessed by the pastor of the parish, is void, and can be annulled without any difficulty. in the first moment i believed his words and felt doomed and helpless, but god had mercy upon me, and suddenly my mind was cleared. i considered whose representative was before me; i felt sure that the prince woivode would not have countenanced an illegal marriage; i was aware that upon my firmness in that moment depended the future of my whole life; and i replied as follows: "it is wrong of minister brühl, and it is wrong of you who speak for him, to want to deceive a woman who is not yet eighteen years old; but i am not so ignorant as you may imagine," i continued, while he was listening in blank amazement,--"i know that our marriage is valid; it was consecrated by the curate of my parish before two witnesses, and with the consent of my parents. yes, there is the divorce, but the signature of both parties is necessary for it, is it not so? and neither prayers nor threats will obtain mine or the duke's signature." borch was confounded. on the following day, however, he tried to secure my signature by offering me a large donation, and when that failed he wanted at least my promise that, if the duke gave his consent to the divorce, i should not withhold mine. i gave that promise in writing; i am sure of my husband's faith and love. * * * * * here ends the journal of françoise krasinska. continual sorrows and misfortunes took away her strength, and her wish to write about them any more. the most painful of her trials was the inconstancy of her husband, and the apprehension of the divorce with which she was threatened more than once. after the early death of her parents, the homeless young woman led a wandering life for several years, between her sister barbara's, her aunt's the princess lubomirska (who could not remain angry very long with her favorite niece), and convents in warsaw and in cracow. her fickle husband returned to her from time to time, but their marriage was still kept secret, under the pretence of sparing the old king the shock. furthermore, the visions of a brilliant future which the young girl once nourished vanished one after the other; as matenko had predicted, the mitre and the crown both slipped away. count biron became duke of courland, and after the death of augustus iii., stanislaus poniatowski was elected king of poland. the family of the late king moved to saxony. then the duke charles wrote a most tender letter to his wife, asking her forgiveness for the past, and imploring her to come to dresden, where, he wrote, he would publicly call her his wife, and he would devote his whole life to her happiness, in order to redeem the years of her beautiful youth spent in wandering and humiliation. although she had longed for this moment for years, she did not yield at once to her husband's request. her heart wished perhaps otherwise, but her self-respect commanded her to await at least a second invitation. she had not long to wait; letter followed letter, and every word breathed the most tender affection, and news came that under this suspense, the duke's health began to give way. convinced at last of the sincerity of his re-awakened attachment, the young duchess, surrounded by a numerous retinue sent from dresden to accompany her, left her native country; and from that time she lived in saxony, not in the splendor once dreamed of, but in a happy home. her husband now clung to her with all the passion of a young lover; her little daughter, marie christine, their only child, promised to be as beautiful as her mother, and numerous friends, among others the empress maria theresa, who was very fond of her, and bestowed upon her the estate of landscrown, surrounded the "handsome pole" with affection and admiration. but she never forgot poland and her relatives, nor lost the hope of living there once again. the numerous letters written to her sisters, her goddaughter angela, the princess lubomirska, and others, are still kept by the family and show her deep affection and solicitude for them and her country. she did not live to a great age, having died in ; and as if to prove his deep attachment, her husband survived her only a few months. their daughter, marie christine, married charles de carignan, duke of savoy, and had two children,--a daughter, elizabeth françoise, married to the archduke regnier, king of lombardy-venice, and second cousin of the present emperor of austria; and a son, charles albert, the father of victor emmanuel, and of the duke of genoa, the latter being the father of marguerite, the "pearl of savoy." thus both the king and queen of italy are the great-great-grandchildren of françoise krasinska. the end. transcriber's note: this etext was produced from weird tales august-september . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. the diary of philip westerly by paul compton _a strange, brief tale of the terrible fear inspired by a man's horrendous reflection in a mirror_ * * * * * it has been ten years since my uncle, philip westerly, disappeared. many theories have been advanced as to why and how he vanished so strangely and so completely. many have wondered why a man should vanish and leave nothing behind him but a smashed mirror. but none of these theories or wild imaginings are half so fantastic as the story i gathered from the diary which some whim prompted him to keep. but first a word about philip westerly. he was a wealthy man, and also a cruel, selfish man. his wealth was attributed to this same cruelty and selfishness. he also had many whims. one of them was keeping a diary. another was his love for mirrors. he was handsome in a cruel sort of way and almost effeminate in his liking to stand before them and admire himself. this eccentricity was borne out by the fact that covering one whole side of his room was a mirror of gigantic size--the same mirror that is linked with his disappearance. but read the excerpts from the diary of philip westerly. * * * * * aug. rd. _afternoon_: billings asked for an extension on that note today, but i saw no reason why i should grant him any such thing. when i told him this, he began cursing me in a frightful manner. he said i was cruel and that some day i would be called to account for the way i treated people. i laughed outright at this, but at the same time i felt a vague sense of uneasiness which even yet i have not dispelled. _night_: a remarkable thing has happened. i had gone to my room to dress for dinner and i was standing before the mirror tying my tie. i had begun the usual procedure that one follows, when i noticed that no such action was recorded in the mirror. true, there was my reflection in the glass, but it followed none of the movements that i made. it was immobile! i extended my hand to touch the reflection and encountered nothing but the polished surface of the mirror. then i noticed a truly remarkable thing. the reflection in the mirror wore no tie! i stepped back aghast. was this an illusion? had my mind and vision been affected by some malady that i was not aware of? impossible! then i regarded the reflection with a more careful scrutiny. there were a number of differences between it and myself. for one thing it wore a stubby growth of beard on its face. i was positive that i had visited the barber that very day and passed my hand across my chin to verify this. it encountered nothing but smooth skin. the lips of the man in the mirror drooped in a display of gnarled, yellow fangs, while my own bared nothing but two rows of gleaming, well-cared-for teeth. i was filled simultaneously with a feeling of disgust and fear, and looked for further discrepancies. i found them. the feet and hands were abnormally large, and the clothing of the thing was old, baggy, and covered with filth. i dared not stay longer. i tied the tie as best i could and descended hurriedly to dinner. aug. th. _morning_: i awoke feeling jaded and tired. my friend in the mirror is still with me. ordinarily the reflection of myself, in bed, is caught in the mirror, but not so this morning. instead, i saw that the dweller within had, like myself, been having a night's rest. i hope he slept better than i did, for my own night was a series of fitful, restless tossings. "good morning," i said, rising. when i moved, he moved. as i advanced toward the mirror he drew closer to me. i stopped and surveyed him. he resembled me only remotely--i hope. i smiled, and he responded with a wolfish twist of his mouth. i extended my hand as if i wanted to shake hands with him, but he drew back as if from fire. i can't understand the terror which he holds for me. i try not to show my fear in front of him, but i feel that, animal-like, he senses it. i refer to the reflection as "he," "him," or "it," for i cannot bring myself to admit that the thing in the mirror is my reflection. but i scarcely dare write what i do believe it to be. i have always been skeptical about such things as "soul," but when i look into the mirror--god help me! _night_: i am spending much time in my room now. i've spent most of the day here. this thing is beginning to hold a morbid fascination for me. i can't stay away for any length of time. i wish i could. my wife is beginning to worry about me. she says i look pale. she tells me i need a rest--a long rest. if i could only confide in her! in anyone! but i can't. i must fight and wait this out alone. aug. th. there has been little or no change in our relationship. he still remains aloof. today my wife came to my room to see how i was feeling. she stood in such a position that looking into the mirror was unavoidable. she stood before the mirror arranging her hair. she noticed nothing out of the ordinary, but he was still there. damn him! he was still there, and this time he snarled in triumph at me. one other remarkable thing. my wife hadn't seen the thing there in the mirror, but neither had i seen her reflection. it was the same with peter, my valet, and anna, the maid. anna would have dusted the mirror had i not stopped her. i must take no chances. a close scrutiny might reveal him to them, and they must not know--they must not know! * * * * * aug. th. three days. three days of hell! that's what it has been since i discovered that damned thing. how he tortures me! he has begun to mock me. when he thinks he has given an extraordinarily clever impersonation he shakes with laughter. i can't hear him laugh. but i see him. and that's worse. i can't stand it much longer! aug. th. we never know how much we can stand until we go through some ordeal such as i am now undergoing. but i feel that my nerve is near the breaking-point. i have locked the door of my room. anna leaves a tray outside my door. sometimes i eat the food she brings, but more often i don't. my wife begs me to let her in, but i tell her to go away. i'm afraid to tell her--i'm afraid to tell anyone. i know what they do with people who have "hallucinations". no, i can't tell. neither can i leave. god knows why, but i can't. aug. th. it was the day before yesterday that i mentioned his mocking me. today--i tremble at the thought--he is beginning to resemble me! this morning i looked in the mirror and discovered that he had discarded his rags and was now dressed in one of my suits. i ran to the wardrobe and discovered his clothes hanging where mine had been. i turned and faced him. he laughed and pointed toward my hands and feet. they were bloated beyond recognition. i dare not guess how far this change has gone. i can write no more today. aug. th. the change is complete. he looks more like me than i do myself. he has grown more cruel with the change. he taunts me with my ugliness. finally i could stand it no longer. i fled from the room. at last i found the thing i was looking for--a mirror. when i came face to face with what i now am i nearly collapsed. yes, he has taken my form. god pity me! i've taken his! i slunk back to the room in horror. back to his laughter and the hell that is now my existence. god knows what to-morrow will bring! aug. th. seven days since that devil has been in the mirror. i have prayed to god that it may be the last. it will! i know it will! he, in the mirror, senses it too. i see the look of apprehension in his eyes. damn him! it's my turn to snarl in triumph now. for when i lay down this pen, for the last time, perhaps, i shall leap through the mirror. and he exists only in the mirror. god help me! _i am laying down my pen!_ [illustration] * * * * * transcriber's note: inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. obvious typographical errors have been corrected. text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). at the age of eve [illustration: "i--i wondered who you were, too"] at the age of eve by kate trimble sharber author of the annals of ann with illustrations by paul meylan indianapolis the bobbs-merrill company publishers copyright the bobbs-merrill company press of braunworth & co. bookbinders and printers brooklyn, n. y. to ann's god-parents lillian byrn harrison and john trotwood moore contents chapter page i ann ii the new neighbors iii the bookworm turns iv a new game v prince charming vi neva's beau brummel vii alfred viii alfred collects a debt ix a shopping expedition x ann receives a caller xi a drawn battle xii shadows xiii thanksgiving day xiv sophie's story xv the douglas in his hall xvi the ides of march xvii may day at the age of eve at the age of eve chapter i ann in beginning this record i find that it is no easy matter to feel at home with a clean, blank journal. the possibilities of these spotless pages seem to oppress me, and i am weighted down with the idea that my opening sentences ought to sound brilliant and promising. with this thought i have started three or four entries on scraps of paper lying here about my desk, but i find that not one of them is the kind of thing which would make you bend over close and knit your brows, thinking you had picked up plato by mistake. no matter what lofty sentiments i have in my mind you can always hear the swish of petticoats through my paragraphs and i regret this, for all my life i have longed to write something that would sound like george eliot. in the world of books she is my idol--my lady idol, i mean, for of course the dearest idols of all are the poets, and they are always men. "george eliot is my lady idol and my man one, too," some one said to me once when i mentioned my preference, and this exactly expresses it. when you read what she has written you never stop to think whether it was written by a man or by a woman. even in these days the women who write anything worth reading do it so cleverly that you never for a moment suspect they clean out their fountain-pen with a hair-pin. how _do_ they manage it, i wonder, when one adjective too many would brand them as a female? yet if the sex does not show in the writing, the writing always shows in the sex. if the most masculine man on earth takes a notion to become a writer his friends all begin strange mutterings behind his back, and before long some one has whispered "sissy." ah, and if a woman by any chance decides to use her pen a while, so her tongue can rest, her associates are quick to pronounce that she has grown so _masculine_ since she started this writing business! verily the pen is mightier than the sword if it can influence sex in a manner that would turn a court physician green with envy. i should be willing to cut off my hair and call myself george, henry or even sam, if i thought it would help me to be a great writer, for, in my soul, i have always longed to write something so great and unfeminine that it would not harm a trappist monk. still, the setting forth of these wishes of mine does not help me to get started comfortably on this new record. do you notice that i call it a _record_, and not a diary? this is because i expect to write in it only occasionally--skim the cream of events, as it were, instead of boring you with the details of the daily milking. if it were january first, now, i could think up any number of inspiring new year sentiments to get started off with; sermons based on the three r's to be met with most often at this season--regrets, resolves and reforms. sometimes there is a fourth r which follows quickly on the heels of these--returns, to the old habits. here it is, though, midsummer; and i am sure it would seem to any one looking on that i have no visible means of support for any kind of journal, tucked away as i am in this little town where a girl has not inspiration enough to keep her shirt-waist pulled down in the back. so, with this remark about my shirt-waist, i put aside my longing to write something like george eliot and make a frank acknowledgment of my skirts. right glad i ought to be that i have them, too, for i believe that if data were plentiful on the subject we should find that the "mantle of charity" was originally a skirt. "just like a fool woman," people say leniently, and are willing to let it pass. i am a girl, then, as you will readily gather from the foregoing, simply by putting one and one together--the shirt-waist and the skirt. i live near a little country town, and am vastly dissatisfied with the cramped stage and meager audience, else why should i be keeping a journal? a journal is not nearly so much a book in which you tell what you do as one in which you tell what you would like to do. pray do not imagine from the above that i am longing for a crowded, noisy stage, with lights glittering over tinsel. no, i am not that kind of girl. i like a play of few actors, but where the things happening make _the veins of the neck_ stand out! in admitting that i do not love the village near which i live i know i run the risk of being considered ill-natured. it would be sweeter of me to make it out a cheery little cranford of a place, where the tea-kettle steams cozily and drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds. these things do happen, after a modern, american fashion; and the people who own the tea-kettles and the folds are the same as other people all over the world. i have no quarrel with them. still, i am forced to admit that time hangs so heavy on my hands i wash my hair every other day. have you ever noticed how often a woman, who has nothing better to do, will wash her hair? here, then, is a brief description of the village, with malice toward none, although at times it may sound malicious: the surrounding country is so beautiful that if you are coming into the town on the train you are ill-prepared for the hideous little railway station, which is the first shock you receive. the floor of this "depot" is dirtier than anything else on earth could be, save the post-office floor, and there is a rusty little stove in the middle of the room close to the box of sand, around which tobacco juice is being eternally spit, spat, or whatever is the correct form of that unlovely verb. close to the station are the livery stables, but we shall pass by as quickly as possible; and farther up the street is the racket store. sometimes this place has a very handsome clerk from the city; it is then a busy market. across the street from the hotel is the millinery establishment, and, if you are on good terms with the milliner, she invites you to come and sit at her front window some mornings just after the eleven-o'clock train has come, so you can get a good view of the interesting drummers. most of the local attractions in the way of young men are sturdy farmers, who, like june-bugs, appear for only a few months every summer. the others, dry goods clerks, bookkeepers and professional whittlers, usually line up on the back benches at church on sunday evenings and cause mild panics in the breasts of the unescorted girls present, whose hearts palpitate painfully during the benediction. but here i have set forth the doings of sunday evening before mentioning the events of the afternoon, which, while not exciting, are in a way more characteristic than those of any other time. if the day is fine the country roads blossom forth at irregular intervals with young couples out driving or walking, close to nature's heart, yet caring far less for her beauties than for the sight of each other, which, after all, _is_ nature. if there is any one in the town sick enough for his neighbors to be really concerned about him, on sunday afternoon the sick one's house is swarming with a crowd sufficient to furnish forth a funeral. this is not _called_ "profaning the sabbath," but it ought to be. on rainy days, or even on fine ones, the inhabitants who are too old to be a-lovering usually sit around and go to sleep in their chairs, with their mouths wide open. besides being ungraceful, this is an invitation to tonsilitis. dear me! i have misspelled that word again, for doctor osler says there are two l's in it, and i am sure there are--in the kind i had last christmas! somewhere in the early fall, about the time for green tomatoes to be made up into pickle, there is the excitement of seeing the new public school teachers file into town, and if you happen to be buying a hat at the millinery store any time within the next few weeks you can hear a complete description of each teacher. one paints her face until it's mottled, you are told; another has blond hair and brunette eyebrows, so she must have been on the stage; a third evidently has seen "better days," for she wears a diamond ring on her little finger! there is only _one_ more astonishing thing than the way the women of the village talk about these teachers, and that is the way the men marry them! again i find that i have anticipated and reached the autumn before i have finished with the summer, in the very hottest part of which, usually august, comes an "evangelist" to hold a protracted meeting. the sound of words always meant so much to me when i was a child, and when i first heard that word, evangelist, i pictured a great, radiant figure, with spreading white wings growing out from a somber suit of black clothes, and holding to his lips a long, graceful trumpet. naturally, this was some time ago, when i was quite young, and wanted to be good, so that when i died i could go to heaven, where my chief delight was going to be tending a garden full of silver bells and cockle-shells and pretty maids all in a row. oh, those silver bells! in point of beauty they had no rivals in my childish imagination, except cinderella's glass slippers and aaron's golden calf! a lovely heaven it was going to be, of light pastel shades, and a great way off from god! you see i was brought up in such an orthodox atmosphere that i imagined god was like the principal of a school i once attended, always looking out for offenders with a rod up his sleeve. it was a distinct disappointment to me when i found that an evangelist is like any ordinary preacher, except that he perspires more. sometimes he is sensational and preaches about lace yokes and dancing; and on sunday afternoon holds a meeting for men only, where he tells them what a terribly bad man _he_ used to be! again he is "burdened" with the souls of the whole congregation and preaches hell and damnation in a voice that sounds like pitchforks clanging against iron chains. now, city preachers seldom do anything like this. in the city pulpits, of recent years, hell is like smallpox; it is still _there_, but in a much milder form. during the revivals there are always one or more abusive sermons directed at the other churches of the town, and, of course, the episcopalians are ever in a class with "the turk and the comet." catholics are unmentionable. this usually causes much "hard feeling" among the good wives of the town, at an inconvenient time, too, for the season for swapping sweet peach pickle recipes is close at hand. the only people who can maintain a placid spirit during these revivals are those who stay away, and i usually try this plan, unless the evangelist happens to be young and good-looking. young and good-looking, ay, there's the rub! herein is my lack of material for an interesting journal, so long as i stay here at home. notwithstanding these barriers, cousin eunice, who was the instigator of my childhood's diary, has again suggested that i keep a book here by me to "tell off" to occasionally when i feel the need of a mental clearing-house. she says a journal has two points of advantage over the bosom friend a girl of my age usually has; one is, that you can shut it up when you want to go to sleep at night, and the other is that you can burn it when you grow ashamed of the secrets it contains, neither of which you can do to your bosom friend, no matter how badly you may wish to. the diary which i kept for several years while i was at the gawky age was intended to be secreted between two pieces of board in the attic and discovered by my grandchildren amid tumultuous applause, years hence. but i am far too grown-up for these grandchildren now. the knowledge of my years is ever with me, a sort of binding torment, like an armhole that is too tight, so i shall have to leave the little dears behind, with the fairies and the freckles that i have long since outgrown. they, or the thought of them, used to make me feel that i was on actual speaking terms with my other diary, but perhaps after a while, i may feel on the same terms with you, even without their presence. in the first place, as a reason for this book's being, i have always liked the notion of keeping a written account of my thoughts and feelings, especially of my feelings, for they are usually all jumbled up in my mind, like ribbons on a remnant counter, but after i have set them down in black and white where i can stand off and look at them they are no more complicated than sardines in a box. another reason is that in the diaries, correspondence and love-letters of interesting people (great people, i mean) which i have read, i have found there is a sort of interest which is lacking in their stiff-standing-collar and high-heeled-shoes productions. in this class i have read amiel and sam pepys, and the love-letters of sophie dorothea, poor dear! how her portrait must have lied! no woman with that much fat on her neck could really love! i adore amiel and am fond of pepys, although i wish he had left out about a ton of that venison pasty which his "she-cozen" was usually preparing for his entertainment. it always gets in your line of vision, somehow, whenever you are craning your neck to catch a glimpse of that naughty but nice charlie stuart! then there was a girl in _pendennis_ who kept a book of heart-outpourings and called it "mes larmes." and my lord byron's dear friend, lady blessington, called hers "my night book." well, mine is not going to be a night book, for that is not my favorite time for mental surveying. i am still a regular lizard in my love for the sunshine, and, if the prospect sounds alluring, i'll promise that much of this book shall be written in the clear light of day. a good part of my other diary was written up in the old pear tree by the orchard gate, but now i am grown up, so, of course-- "mes larmes" would be even worse for a title than the one i have just mentioned. some tears will, of course, be mixed in to make the rainbows of happiness shine through, but i fancy that mine will be principally a record of work and play. work that is play and play that is work, mother says, as i sit on the shady porch in the mornings working flowers on my shirt-waist front, and spend the afternoons playing tennis in the hot sun. work and play, then, for the present; later, maybe, smiles and sighs; while a long, long way in the future, perhaps on the last few pages, there _may_ be--shall i say it? no, i am not well enough acquainted with you yet. although i have kept back this one little thought from you in the above, i promise that in the narration of all things which have actually happened this journal is going to be unexpurgated! first, i love truth; and i think that a whole truth is nearly always better than a half. for instance, d----n in print always looked worse to me than damn. then, in the diaries and love-letters i have mentioned above, i have often found that at the very places where matters were getting _so_ interesting you straighten up somewhat and begin to breathe very softly, the narrative breaks suddenly into a row of beastly little dots--and you are left to imagine what you will! maybe the truth would not have been half so bad as your imaginings--maybe it would have been much worse. it all depends upon the condition of your circulation! for my part, i like a book to tell the whole truth about what it starts out to tell; yet this does not mean that every detail is to be described, even to setting forth whether the heroine wears hose-supporters or round garters. now, in case this journal _should_ be secreted in the attic and found years hence by a mixed audience which is inclined to take offense at my mention of garters, i shall say simply, "evil to him who evil thinketh." so i am going to have you for my confidential friend and adviser. i say adviser advisedly, for i know of nothing which preaches a better sermon sometimes than for a person to look over certain back pages of his diary; especially _her_ diary. when i am wicked enough to make your leaves curl up in horror, all you can do is to listen to my story and not look at me as if you thought i needed the prayers of the congregation. people who pray don't talk about it anyway! and, if by chance, my right hand should do something handsome that it is fairly itching to tell about we can recite it all to you, knowing that you will never let it come to the ears of my left hand. good i may occasionally be; wicked i shall certainly be, for are not we all born in iniquity? but i hope that in after years when i read over these pages i shall not discover that it takes a sextant, a compass and an alarm clock to find out where my heart is! chapter ii the new neighbors "you mus' be mighty clean, or mighty dirty, _one_," mammy lou called out to me this morning as she looked up from the kitchen door and espied me at the bath-room window with my robe wrapped around me toga-fashion. "oh, excuse _me_," she continued with exaggerated politeness after a moment in which i did not speak. "of course you ain't to be spoke to when you're breathin' like a heathen!" i finished the prescribed number of breaths laid down in the rules for yogi breathing, which i am trying just now because i am so tired of breathing the same old way, then looked down at mammy. "a girl who can take a cold bath every morning and bait a fish-hook can take care of herself in this life!" i answered. "you ought to be proud of my courage." "'tain't no christian notion for no girl to be wantin' to take care of herself," she began to argue, but rather than get into a debate and be routed, as she sometimes is, she suddenly assumed an air of excitement and cried: "listen! wasn't that the thing hollerin'?" "the thing" here referred to is the new inter-urban line which now runs past our house, much to the chagrin of mammy lou, who calls it the "interruption line," because it is "always drappin' somebody off here right in the midst o' dinner time, when there ain't nothin' lef' but backs and wings." this very disconcerting thing has happened so many times that mother found she would have to carry a full line of emergency tins in her pantry, all bearing on their labels the comforting assurance that they could be served hot in three minutes. these were ever small consolation to mammy lou, however, and she always serves them with as much humiliation as if the "yankee beans" and "het-over peas" were the proverbial dinner of herbs. this morning, though, the lid was shut fast on the tinned diet department and there was as much beautiful fried chicken sizzling drowsily on the back of the stove as northern people always give us southerners credit for having. the best white and gold china was on the table, and a tall vase of paul neron roses on the mantelpiece, hiding father's bottle of rheumatism cure. at mammy's suggestion that she heard the "thing" hollering i had thrown on my clothes without waiting to wipe all the water out of my ears, and had run down-stairs to see if mother needed me to pin her collar down in the back, for i knew she would be wanting to look her best this morning. we were all a little excited (things so seldom happen here) and i noticed that father was using his most rheumatic hand and arm every few minutes to take his watch out of his pocket; yet he forgot to frown. the claybornes were coming, waterloo, rufe and cousin eunice. we were feeling particularly anxious about the outcome of their visit, for mother and i had conspired together that a few political talks with rufe _had_ to cure father of his rheumatism. so we were watching every movement on his part with eager interest. you must not imagine that we are unsympathetic with father when he actually has an attack. we rub him and put hot things to his shoulder, and i have actually gone so far as to let him explain the _primary plan_ to me in words of one syllable that a child could understand, just to get his mind diverted. like most high-spirited men, when father does get down into the depths he tries to burrow clear on through to china. i wonder why this is? possibly it is on the same principle that effervescent drugs are kept in blue bottles. i do not blame him, certainly, for rheumatism is enough to get on anybody's nerves. the poor man has to try as many different positions to get any ease sometimes as a worn-out alarm clock that will run only on a certain side. so the summer has been a hard one for us all, father waxing so melancholy here lately that if he has a gum-boil he gives us directions for his cremation. it was during one of these outbursts of pessimism that father took it into his head to disfigure the landscape across the road from our house with a row of smart cottages, which were to rent for so much a month that they would prove a get-rich-quick scheme and so save us from the humiliation of being cared for by the masons in our old age, which was another one of the notions in the train of rheumatic gloom. fortunately the first cottage cost so much more than it was worth that the project for the rest was abandoned; and, after it was duly insured, mother and i were secretly burning candles to our patron saint for its incineration when it was rented to a family named sullivan. this sullivan family consists of a father who drinks, just a little, enough to keep him jolly all the time; a mother who is of such a despondent nature that you wish she would drink; a daughter who wears crimson silk gowns and jeweled combs to the post-office when she goes for her mail every morning, yet withal has more beaus than any other girl in the village, as is attested by the candy boxes piled piano-high in her parlor; and a maiden aunt, miss delia badger, who dyes her hair. now, this term, "maiden aunt," is usually employed to denote a condition of hopelessness, but you will understand from the dyed hair that, in this case, the condition is far from being hopeless--else why the dye? the pristine blackness of miss delia's crown of glory was beginning to wear off, and in the stress of moving had not been replaced as soon as it should have been, so, on the day that i made her acquaintance, her hair displayed an iridescent sheen, shading from light tan to deep purple. this made me so angry with father for having built the cottage that i ran past him without a word of sympathy when i reached home, although he was sitting on the front porch reading the paper and making horrible faces every time he had to move his arm. the next day, which was the second after their moving, when i turned in at our gate after my morning tramp, i found that the sullivans were presenting a much more homelike view from the front of their house, elaborate curtains showing at the parlor windows, and at the front door a white panel of lace, a most lifelike affair, representing andrew jackson mounted upon his fiery steed and lifting his high white hat to an imaginary, though evidently enthusiastic, throng. "_now_, i reckon you're satisfied," i exclaimed to father as i came into the house and found him cleaning his gun, one end of it resting on the piano, and a pile of greasy rags perilously close to my limp-backed copy of gray's _elegy_. he quickly moved the gun and rags, but seeing that this offense was not the cause of my wrath, he meekly inquired: "what?" mother came in at this juncture and i explained to them my indignation over the andrew jackson. "jumping jerusalem!" father said, thus admitting his horrified surprise, but after a moment he parried. "it may be napoleon, or frederick the great." "what difference would that make?" i demanded. "a warrior has no place on a door-panel. besides, it's 'old hickory.' i'd know that high white hat anywhere! wasn't i born and _raised_ in the shadow of it?" "dear me! but maybe you are mistaken," mother interposed gently. "it is quite a distance across the road--it may be a peculiar pattern of batten--" before she had finished i darted up the steps and scrambled around in the bureau drawer for my opera-glasses. "take these out to the porch and _look_," i begged, as i came down again and found the two still facing each other with a quizzical smile. she carried out my suggestion and presently came back, still smiling. "it's andrew," she reported, reaching out for my opera-bag and slipping the glasses into it; "it's andrew beyond a doubt; but, dearie, it _can't_ outlast two washings." this assurance comforted me somewhat every time i had to look at the military door-panel, but on cleaning days when the parlor curtains at the cottage were tucked up and i discerned the large, colored portrait of mr. roosevelt which smiled sunnily down from the space above the mantelpiece there was no such consoling reflection. about this time it was that i grew to know neva, the daughter of the house. her family called her "nevar," most nasally, after the manner of "ordinary" people in the south; but i soon found qualities in her that made me forgive the silk gowns and jeweled combs, aye, even the andrew jackson. in the first place i discovered that she entertained a most profound admiration for me, especially for my pronunciation and finger-nails. of these she at once set about a frank imitation which later extended to things more impersonal. once, after i had shown her my books and she had breathed a long, ecstatic sigh over the pictures in the library i found that the hero of san juan was falling into disfavor as a parlor ornament. neva had been especially impressed with a small oval portrait of my childhood's hero, lord byron, which mother had found once in a curio-shop in new orleans and brought home to me. "who is he?" she asked, her eyes fixed admiringly on the matchless face. i explained to her. "is he dead?" she inquired softly. "alas, yes!" "but it certainly is swell to have his picture here," she volunteered. "i reckon it's because he's dead that it is more quiet and elegant, somehow, than a president's picture. now mr. roosevelt looks so horrid and _lively_!" from this i gathered that the ex-president would sooner or later be deposed, but i was surprised to find that it had happened much sooner than i had expected, for the next time i visited the sullivan home i found mr. roosevelt's jolly face gone; and in its stead the gentle features of william mckinley looked down on the candy-boxes and pink-flowered cuspidors. that he was dead was evidenced by the black border running mournfully around the print; and neva called my attention to the fact as soon as i came into the room. "you see he looks quieter than roosevelt because he's dead," she elucidated, "although he isn't a poet! papa said he'd buy me a poet the next time he went up to the city--and oh, a green leather copy of gray's 'prodigy!'--like yours!" so, in trying to teach neva the difference between presidents and poets, i have been able to enliven some of the dull days; and she is such a sweet little thing at heart that, if she never gets the difference clear, my time is not ill-spent anyway. but ah, _this_ morning the claybornes were coming! and we were all out at the gate in a twinkling when we finally did hear the shrill whistle of the car! the first sight of waterloo's sparkling little face rewarded me for dressing while my ears were still wet. he had on a buster brown suit of white linen, with red anchors embroidered in their usual places, and a brave red badge setting forth his political inclinations. father's lame hand had already reached out for him. "hello, uncle dan!" he said cordially, paying no attention to the feminine portion of the crowd. "are you for it or 'ginst it?" "i'm 'ginst it, too," father answered, drawing from his pocket a similar badge. "that's right! now show me the mules!" he and father led the way up the walk, followed by the rest of us, with grapefruit, escorted by a hilarious lares and penates, bringing up the rear. grapefruit, be it known, is waterloo's nurse, or, more properly speaking, is a kind of jester to his majesty. her genuine name is gertrude, but she came to him when he was at such a tender age that he corrupted it to grapefruit, and rufe says that if he had named her fragrant pomegranate vine it would not be any too good for her. she is an ethereal little darky with wonderful powers of diversion. cousin eunice tells about how she found her out in the side yard playing with waterloo one may morning long ago, and how his soul so clave unto her soul that he refused to give her up. automobiles, red wagons, fire-engines, boxes of candy--all were suggested in vain. "i want my little grapefruit," he tearfully insisted, over and over again, until the attractive one modestly announced that she might be engaged to stay and amuse him by the week for "seventy-five or fifty cents, or i'll stay for nothing if you'll let me play on the piano." cousin eunice joyfully agreed to the highest figure asked, with the use of the piano thrown in, yea and the telephone, the type-writer, in short, everything in the house except her tooth-brush. so grapefruit stayed, and at this period of their lives is as necessary a part of the claybornes' traveling outfit as their collapsible drinking-cup. after breakfast was over we lingered in the dining-room a while, as is our custom when we have interesting guests; and we women rested our elbows on the table and talked, while the men lit their cigars and pounded the table-cloth until the spoons jumped out of the saucers, so vehement were their expressions about "that blackguard of a governor." we women talked about waterloo, of course. "he's at the loveliest age, right now, i think," mother said, as our three pairs of eyes wandered out in his direction to the long back porch, where grapefruit and lares were making him a pack-saddle, so they could "tote 'im" down to the lot. he was entirely too good to walk that first morning. "yes, i rather dislike the thought of his growing into a great, rough, short-haired boy," cousin eunice assented, looking at him fondly. "that terrible age when they always smell like their puppies! but, that's quite a while off. he is still a baby." "i find that they are always more or less babies," mother said, looking toward me, "--no matter what their age may be." "oh, this talk about ages reminds me of a book i brought for ann to read," cousin eunice said, rising from the table and starting toward the front hall where their bags had been hastily dropped that we might not delay mammy lou's hot breakfast. "stay here, all of you, and wait until i get it. it contains an interesting thought." "then it's that much ahead of most new books," rufe remarked, his attention having been attracted from his own line of talk by cousin eunice starting to leave the dining-room. "it isn't strictly new," she commented, returning in a few moments with the book in her hand. "it was written several years ago. it's nothing out of the ordinary in plot, and the thought which impressed some of us in the 'scribblers' club' was concerning the age of eve when she was created. the heroine of the story is named eve and is young and fair, so the hero, a gallant soldier, remarks to her one day as they are walking by the river bank at a stolen tryst, that he fancies the first mother was at his sweetheart's identical age when she was created. you see, it is quite a poetic fancy." "more poetic than true. soldiers don't talk that way," father said drily. "how old did the book say this eve was?" "the author was too wise to tell in plain figures," she answered, "but it was somewhere under the twenties--in the early flush of youth." "well, adam was the first man who ever had the chance of a wife made to order," father kept on. "surely he had more sense than to take a seventeen-year-old girl." "no, you're wrong," rufe disagreed. "i believe that adam was too much of a gentleman to look a gift wife in the mouth." "i'll get the concordance and see if there's any record of her age," mother said, bustling off toward her bedroom and returning in a moment with her well-worn book, but she was unable to find any definite facts about eve on the morning of that first surgical operation. "what difference does it make about the actual number of years?" rufe inquired, with an air of dismissing the subject. "the age of eve is that picturesque period which comes to a girl after her elbows are rounded out." my bared arms happened to be resting again on the table during this discussion, and, as rufe spoke, cousin eunice's eyes wandered in their direction. "then ann's at it," she concluded triumphantly, and they all stared at me curiously, as if the age of eve were showing on me like pock-marks! "ann doesn't seem nearly so old as she really is," mother began with a kind of uneasy look. "you see, she has never been to school very much, so her education--" "now, please don't begin about my education," i begged, for it is a mooted question in my family whether or not i have any, father and i maintaining that i have all that is necessary, mother wishing that it had been more carefully directed along the conventional lines. "if i should go to school until i'm as old as halley's comet i couldn't learn the things i don't like. and i know all the rest without going! don't people call me up for miles around to ask who wrote _prometheus bound_ and how to spell 'candidacy?'" "so you're satisfied with yourself?" rufe teased. "far from it," i denied, "but i am certainly satisfied with the amount of schooling _in schools_ i've had. ugh, i hate the thought of it!" "but how can you ever amount to anything without an education?" mother persisted. "never fear," i assured her easily. "i'll amount to my destiny, no matter whether i've ever seen inside a school or not. when i was a child i always imagined i was cut out to be somebody; and even now i occasionally have a notion that fate is watching me through her lorgnette!" "you and jean everett used to have such queer ideas about yourselves--with your notions of marrying dukes and living in castles, and all that kind of thing," cousin eunice said, after a moment of amused thought. "jean still has her notions," rufe broke in. "our city editor is out of his depth in love with her and i met her on the street the other day and tried to bespeak her pity for the poor fellow. she assured me that the man _she_ married would be so important the papers would all get out an extra every time his assassination was attempted!" "well, she'd better decide to take guilford then," i said warmly, for it is a source of great satisfaction to me that my old friend, jean (still my best friend), is half-engaged to guilford houghton, a grave young lawyer who is already making people take notice. he is a very quiet, dignified young man, so tall and thin and straight that he reminds me of a silk umbrella carefully rolled. for a long time jean seemed not to care much about him, but he kept paying his court as persistently as a fly in wet weather until she was finally won--half-way. he has very methodical ways, and calls to see her only on sunday and wednesday evenings, but she devotes so much time and care to her toilet for hours and hours preceding these visits that we call them her "days of purification." "guilford is not so showy, maybe," she said to me one time, in explanation of her fondness for him, which she tries hard to conceal, "but he's so _dependable_. that's worth a lot to a girl who has been engaged to four or five apollos, all of them about as reliable as drop-stitch stockings!" "for my part, i admire jean's ambition," father spoke up, although none of us suspected that he was listening to our rambling talk. "i'd rather see a girl with an ambition like that than one with none at all--one of these little empty-headed gigglers whose age of eve announces its arrival by all the i's in her name being changed into y's." waterloo came in at this point and demanded again that the mules be shown him, so father and rufe set out for the stables. "shall we walk around and look at things, too?" i asked cousin eunice as we filed out on to the back porch. it is a habit with us two to steal away for a quiet little talk the first few hours we are together and take stock of each other's happenings since we met last. "no," she answered, looking at me steadily. "the orchard and vineyard are more beautiful in the afternoon. we'll walk all over the place then. besides, i have a notion that you'll want to tell me things which will sound better in the afternoon sunshine." "not a thing," i denied, and wondered how a discussion of poetic fancies at the breakfast table could make her so sentimental. "then you are wasting some mighty valuable time," she replied. "most normal girls of your age are brimful of plans and ideas." she would have said secrets, as she intended to, but mammy lou hove in sight just then with a big pan of butter-beans for me to shell for dinner. rufe had stopped her at the kitchen door with the usual query, "well, mammy, you're not married again?" "naw, sir," she had admitted, with a self-conscious smile, "although i did have a _boa'der_ all the spring." waterloo protested against even this slight pause in their progress toward the stables, so with an amused smile rufe forbore to continue the conversation, but passed on and mammy lou ambled in our direction just in time to hear part of cousin eunice's remark to me. "law, miss eunice, you can't git nothin' out o' _her_," she said disgustedly, as she set the pan of beans down and began to fan herself with her apron. "she's plen'y old enough, the lord knows, to be takin' notice, _although_ mis' mary don't think so. i heerd you-all talkin' 'bout certain ages at the breakfas' table, but i can tell you _she_ ain't at it. she don't look at nary one of 'em twicet; an' when the shore-nuff age of eve has come to a girl she begins eyin' ever' man she meets to see if he's got a missin' rib that'll match with hern!" chapter iii the bookworm turns "'tis ill work trying to ride pegasus on a side-saddle," cousin eunice said this morning as she hurriedly threw aside her pencil and paper and ran to tell dilsey about not putting any starch in the legs of waterloo's rompers. "he's not a lady's horse anyhow," she continued as she came back and sat down on the grass again, "especially after a man, a baby and a gas stove have come into the lady's life." "gas stove?" i questioned, looking up from my book, a heavy old french book, it was, for mother's remark about my neglected education had made me feel a little uneasy after all. cousin eunice is not the kind of woman to fill her letters full of household matters, hence my surprised question. "a good cook, with me, is only a memory," she said with a sadly reminiscent air. "i have a girl whose name is pearl, but alas it is a lie! even the day i learned that my book had found a publisher i had to get up out of my trance and peel potatoes for luncheon." "surely not!" "yes. i peeled them, but they were never cooked, for when rufe came home and heard the news he hustled us all off to town and we had luncheon in beauregard's privatest dining-room. we ordered all the things that disagree with us most--by way of reckless indulgence." "how did you feel when you heard that news?" i asked with interest, for the book manuscript which cousin eunice had been working on since the days of her single blessedness had grown to be like a member of the family with us all, especially of late years, after a certain critic had pronounced it good. it suddenly grew so valuable after that that she kept it in a little brown leather bag all the time and would never leave the house without telling somebody where that bag was (in case of fire) and making them promise to play casabianca to those precious sheets until they should be rescued. "just dazed!" she answered simply. "pretty much as i felt when i found that rufe was going to be mine--only a great deal less so, you know." "i wonder if you are ever going to be really great?" i pursued, for since i have grown so old i share all her hopes and fears, just as if we were sisters. "with a trip around the world as a starter, and a quiet little castle on the italian coast as a next step. then you can sign checks for a thousand dollars and get your pictures taken for nothing." "well, not at the rate i'm going now," she replied with a rueful smile toward her book and pencil lying inert on the grass; yet she made no effort to resume her work. evidently the starch in waterloo's rompers had driven away romance. "but everything has its compensation," she continued after a moment. "if i never get my great trip around the world with a ten-days' stop-over in japan i can never write a book about that long-suffering country, so i shall still have something to be thankful for." "the public is the one to be thankful," i added. "that's true, too," she agreed. "it may have cause to be thankful if this second book of mine is never finished, but nevertheless you don't know what a fever of impatience i'm in to see it all smoothly laid out between two pieces of paste-board and ready for the express label to be put on." "yes, i believe i do know, though certainly not about a _book_. i am sure i know what fever of impatience means." but she was so absorbed in her own troubles that she did not notice this indirect acknowledgment of mine. "i had imagined that i could get my mind into a state of at least comparative tranquillity down here," she kept on. we were out in our favorite lair, a screened-off grassy spot in the side yard, where a double row of althea bushes furnishes a sense of security against intrusion, yet we were close enough to waterloo to hear him every time he bumped his head or skinned his knee. "this place is almost unearthly in its quiet beauty," she said after a moment, looking up through the green vista toward the house. the passion flowers were clambering up on the garden fence and running riot over the yellowing cornstalks. back of the kitchen the well-house lay asleep in the sun, the star-like blossoms of white clematis which covered the roof of the old building were still untouched by that feathery change which forecasts their coming blight. "it _is_ beautiful--and it certainly is quiet," i coincided with her emphatically. "sometimes at home when the telephone bell and the door-bell and the club meetings and the butcher boys and the laundry men have all made a throbbing pain come in my head i steal away up-stairs to my little den where i lock the door and lie down to try to ease that nervous pain. then i close my eyes and try to project my astral body down here into all this still, summer loveliness. i come up the gravel walk and on to the front porch--oh, those cedar porches! and i go through the shady hall to the back gallery where i find myself face to face with a great cold watermelon that has just been cut." "and the library is full of roses, and there is a tray of fragrant peaches that dilsey gathered early in the morning." "ah! i see that you feel its beauty just as much as if it were not an every-day affair to you," she said, looking at me with another one of those searching glances which she has treated me to several times lately. "no wonder you have grown to look like the place." "to look like it!" i encouraged her to go on, for a compliment is more food for my soul than all the white hyacinths in a florist's window. "surely you look like it," she continued. "you are as patrician looking as the house--and as vivid as the flowers in the yard." "dear me!" i exclaimed. "then i am _good-looking_?" "ann, don't be an idiot! if aunt mary had longed for a child as white as snow and as red as blood and as black as the ebony of her embroidery frame, she couldn't have produced anything more exotic than you." there was a moment of silence in which i thought of the vivid beauty of lady caroline lamb. of course i am not anything to compare with her! of _course_ not! but how these vivid beauties _care_--for some one--when the time comes! yes; when the time comes. but, dear me, it seems that it is never coming! "well, what good does it all do me?" i demanded at length, the long-pent-up storm of restlessness thundering to make itself heard. "granted that i look as well as you say, and that i live in an earthly paradise--can't you see that there is no--that it is _lonesome_?" "you are bored?" she asked sympathetically. "bored! i am stifling!" "yet the summer here is a joy--with oceans of morning-glories and miles of horseback riding!" "it is a joy, i admit, and a thousand times better than being a summer girl at a noisy watering-place." "what is a summer girl?" she asked with a smile, but i was not smiling. i was pessimistic. "a sleepy-headed female with trunks full of soiled clothes! that's what i always am when i get back from a trip." "of course the winters here are dull." she had picked up her tablet and was writing her initials over and over again on the back. "they are. dull gray," i agreed. "the days are a weary succession of that uninteresting color; but, dreary as they are, you want them to last. when the daylight is fading and night coming on, but while it is still too early to light the lamps--then is the worst time of all! there is no sound on earth save a few lonely little calf bleats from down in the lot, until the woodchop echoes begin--and they are lonelier still." "it's awful, i know!" "do you know what i do on such nights as this? i get out my opera-glasses and long gloves and a lace handkerchief, and lay them on my table as if i were about to dress for a beautiful opera. then i read _aux italiens_; think a while--and go to bed." "poor child!" "i used never to feel this way," i kept on. "always--until lately--i have loved winter. it has meant only great roaring fires and _barrels_ of apples. even the absorbing books which used always to accompany the apples and big fires are not absorbing any more." "of course not. a girl with as much _go_ in her as you have needs to lose herself entirely in something." "and that something will never be bound in three-quarters morocco," i replied, flinging away my book impatiently. "no, indeed! the bookworm has turned. the 'something' will be bound in an english tweed suit of clothes through the day's business hours, and--" "and a long gray overcoat, and a soft gray hat." she looked at me in surprise. "then you've seen him?" "i have seen--the type." she understood, but she still looked at me wonderingly. "alfred?" she ventured. "no. he is my friend, but if i were in love with alfred i'd have palpitations every time i passed the red cross on an ambulance. that's the way _i'm_ going to love." "i should think you could find an outlet for all the pent-up ambition you complain of, if you loved alfred," she insisted, although she imagined that she was not insisting. "i have never met a more ambitious man, nor one of such singleness of purpose. naturally success seems to gravitate toward him, as the crow flies." "and still it seems such a short while ago that doctor gordon took a liking to him, when he was a raw medical student," i said thoughtfully, my mind going back to the day i first saw alfred morgan, big, broad and bronzed, with his hair too long and his sleeves too short. there have been many days since then; days of a delightful comradeship when i was in the city. i would look after him with sisterly authority, bidding him wear his rubbers on rainy mornings, or give me his gloves to mend whenever i happened to be spending the day at the gordons' and we sat down for a quiet chat after luncheon. ann lisbeth and doctor gordon still live so close to the claybornes that we are like one big family when i am with them. alfred soon began to tell me that i was his best friend, but he never called me the "guiding star of his existence." he tried to teach me the bones of the face, instead, and explained the barbarism of corsets. when he was out in practice the first year, but still lived with the gordons, because doctor gordon would not let him go, i used to drive around with him to see his patients, sitting out in the runabout, which he had bought at half-price because it was a last year's model, and reading a magazine while he went in to make his calls. often these calls were made in crowded little factory settlements, where the whirr of the cotton-mills sounded through the long periods of waiting; and the houses were built so close on the street that i could hear the click of the lock as he unfastened his instrument case. "i admit that alfred's career generates thrills up and down the backbones of his admiring friends," i said after the pause which had been filled in by my busy thoughts. she was still writing her initials over the back of her tablet. "who knows this better than i? haven't i been a mother to the boy ever since that time i read surgical anatomy to him when he had tonsillitis? one of the most dramatic moments of my life was the night i stabbed--" i caught myself, but not in time, for cousin eunice had looked up from her book with a horrified stare. "_what?_" she demanded. "oh, it was only that detestable burke's automobile tire," i had to explain then, but i had kept the occurrence a secret hitherto, and i was not keen on telling it now. "it was during the year of alfred's internship and you remember that burke was always doing him an ill turn? one drippy night that fall when i was in doctor gordon's car in front of the hospital and they didn't see me, i overheard burke and another intern plotting to beat alfred out of a surgical case that was coming in on the train that night and belonged, by rights, to him. they had arranged to hurry on over to the station first, in burke's new car that his fond mamma had given him, but when they went back into the house to get their raincoats i was out of that machine like a nemesis and had stuck my hat-pin into the two tires on burke's car which were most in the shadow; so, when they started off, they had gone only about a block and were down in the mud swearing--when alfred dashed grandly by on the ambulance." "you little tiger!" "burke ought to have had the hat-pin stuck in _him_," i added savagely. "aren't we _still_ barbarians--at heart?" she demanded, throwing her tablet aside and straightening up so suddenly that i knew her thoughts had already strayed away from my recital. "now, that's the way i have always felt about appleton since he's been governor. lots of times when i have been helping rufe write those violent attacks against him i would almost choke with rage. i actually wanted to kill him." "you _helped_ rufe?" i asked with envy. "he admitted that you had sense enough to?" "some of the _meanest_ things the _times_ has ever printed about him were my thoughts," she said proudly. "but it has never printed a lie!" "ah, that must be something worth while," i commented admiringly, for my ideas concerning women and their possible achievements are strictly modern. "i should like to be the power behind the revolving-chair." i see already that the above paragraph contradicts itself, for being the power _behind_ things is as old as eve; but then, the prerogative of contradicting oneself belongs by rights to her daughters. "do you care for politics any more than you used to?" cousin eunice asked hopefully. "politics and mathematics were ever of equal interest to me," i was bound to acknowledge. "but i have been able to understand a little about the primary plan this summer--father's taught me. and i know that the 'machine gang' is _always_ the other fellows!" "well, that's a brilliant start," said a sarcastic male voice from the other side of the hedge, and rufe's amused face rose up to our confusion. without waiting for invitation he came through and sat down on the grass beside us. "well, she'd enjoy some of _our_ politicians, wouldn't she?" cousin eunice asked rufe as she moved over farther to give him more room, for the althea branches were wide and thick, and entangled themselves in our hair persistently. "whether she cares for politics or no, eh?" "oh, she'd lose her head over chalmers," rufe acquiesced as indifferently as the male relative of a girl always shows in discussing "possible" men. "lord byron is as a comic valentine compared with him in looks." "richard chalmers," i repeated. "i've seen his name in the paper often, but i don't know exactly what he is." "neither does any one else," rufe answered meaningly. "he's a rich young lawyer--inherited his money--and so shrewd that he's not going to join the appleton forces, no matter what pretentions they make to get him on their side." he spoke as if he were arguing the question. "of course he isn't," cousin eunice added stoutly. "but what _is_ he?" i asked, fearful lest they get into a discussion and forget to satisfy my curiosity, which was--strange to say--considerably aroused. "well, if he would declare himself definitely upon the liquor question," rufe explained concisely, "he would be about the most promising piece of gubernatorial timber that we have." chapter iv a new game "if we knew when walking thoughtless through some crowded, noisy way, that a pearl of wondrous whiteness, close beside our pathway lay; we would pause, where now we hasten, we would often look around, lest our careless feet should trample some rare jewel in the ground." it was like my extravagant nature to quote this verse of "speech day" poetry while engaged in such a commonplace pursuit, but then the age of eve is an extravagant age. i was in a tight little cell of a room back of the pantry, a hot enough place on an august morning; a little den where we store old magazines, last summer hats, pictures and bric-à-brac that we have outgrown, and piles of newspapers. it was the last named species of junk that was absorbing my earnest attention, to say naught of perspiration, on the day i have in mind, which is by no means a distant one. my forehead was wet and my hair was sticking to it in damp little slabs, but i was unaware of this until afterward, when my family called my attention to it, and inquired where i had been and what i had been doing. then i was in no mood to tell them. "it ought to be somewhere in the june lot," i mused, as i stretched my arm across a bundle of worn-out bedroom curtains and dragged a batch of dusty papers over into my lap. i have been very idle and lonely for the last few days, else i doubt if i should have been driven to such occupation as this. i knew it was foolish, even as i did it, but the claybornes have been away, staying with the elder claybornes a while, only returning this morning early, and cousin eunice has been so busy since then repairing the damage done waterloo's clothes that she has been uninteresting to me. the sullivans spent last week down in the country at a tiny town named bayville, where there is no sign of a bay; and i have missed the workings of neva sadly. it denoted the recent trend of my mind that, as i thought of neva, upon this occasion, i immediately remembered that her father is a strict anti-appleton man. anti-appleton! how much the term means to me now! a week ago i cared no more for its sound than i cared for the nouns of the fifth declension. i picked up the paper lying on top and began to fan with it a while before wading into the mazes of the stack. in the few papers which i had already looked over i found, _not_ the object of my search, it is true, but wood-cuts and cartoons of men whose names have been familiar to me for months in a vague, unreal sort of way, making a sound to my ears, but meaning nothing--like the ringing of the telephone bell in the next room when you are fast asleep. yet the telephone bell will finally awaken you if you are not dead--even _so_ it might, if it is a doctor's telephone--and with what a start do you come to your senses as you reproach yourself for not recognizing its important voice sooner! i have felt this way many times lately, since i have taken up the study of politics; and have found it vastly more interesting than geometry. the first mighty political name which ever forced itself upon my understanding was cleveland, and it is not surprising to me now that i was mixed up as to its significance and imagined that, instead of a surname, it was a title of nobility. it sounded like such a swelling note of praise to me, for i was only a few years old, and the torchlight procession on the night of his election filled me with a strange delight. since then i have always had a good memory for oft-repeated names, although i have frequently held as hazy impressions concerning them as i did of mr. cleveland's honored cognomen. the politicians of my native state have all gone by names that were as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals to my untutored ears until the last few days, when i have turned in and studied them as most girls study new embroidery stitches. this is, in part, what i have learned: appleton is our governor and is said to be everything that charles i. of england was beheaded for--"tyrant, traitor, murderer, and enemy to his country." i know this is true because the paper we take says so; and if you are going to doubt what your favorite newspaper says, why, then, do you take it? i believe in loyalty above everything, and i think if the paper which supports the other side of the question should, by mistake, be thrown into your yard, you ought to run and kick the horrid sheet over the fence into the gutter. that is, if you are a man. if you are a lady i advise you to use the tongs for the purpose, especially if there is any one passing by at the time. personally, i do not know mr. appleton, but i heard one fat, motherly woman, whose son held a job under him, say that he was such a kind-hearted governor because he set free so many poor prisoners! this remark impressed me, and i was beginning to think well of him, when here came that paper again (rufe's paper) saying that the governor was turning them loose at so much per, a murderer being a little higher in price than a "pistol-toter," who, in turn, is more expensive than a boot-legger, the last really being a kind of bargain-day leader, inasmuch as he is such a help to the administration! well, i dare say no governor is a hero to all the papers in his state! this is quite enough penmanship wasted on mr. appleton anyway; for he is as dead as philadelphia on sunday, and the public, with its handkerchief held to its nose, is only waiting until next election, when quicklime will be poured over the remains by the young and gallant richard chalmers. of course, you understand the cause of the political unrest? it is the whisky question, and everything in our state has been turned upside down by it; that is, everything except the whisky. it is turned upside down only when there is a glass under the bottle. mr. appleton favors this phase of the whisky agitation. next in importance after the governor is a man named blake, jim blake, whom nobody ever calls james, and who is so much like a big fat worm that i never pass him in the streets without wanting to mash him. he is like one of those soft, white worms, you know, which i am sure i have eaten dozens of on nights when i used to take a handful of chestnuts to bed with me. in the mountainous regions during his campaigns, they say, to make himself solid with the boys, jim blake uses bad english and good whisky; in the cities he uses good english and better whisky. all in all, he is the most popular man in the state--a fact which makes you wish you had anticipated carlyle's remark about the population of his country being mainly fools. major blake was a power in politics a few years back, then he went into obscurity for a while, on account of an ailing daughter, it was said, who had to live in the west if she would live at all. the story goes the rounds that at one time he gave up a senatorship for the sake of staying with this daughter; and, if this is true, i beg his pardon for calling him a worm! her name is berenice blake, which sounds so beautiful to me that i feel sure her mother must have been the one who named her. i suppose she improved somewhat in health from her outdoor life in the west, for her father came back after a while, and at this present time she makes frequent vibrations between her home and denver, every one of which causes prolonged paroxysms in the society columns. in his political affiliations jim blake is like--like--my kingdom for a simile! i might with truth say that he is like a chameleon, but i have already likened him to a worm, and i do not care about getting reptiles on the brain, especially this late at night. also i might say that he is like a lake of quicksilver, except that such a body would resemble a stagnant, green-scummed pool compared with the surface spring of his opinions--opinions which vary with the tinkle of silvery sounds. yet the fact is there, and as immovable as a window-sash in wet weather, that he is the most popular man in the state. and, while what i have repeated about him is truth, or as near truth as anything is supposed to be in politics, it is disloyal gossip coming from me _now_, for jim blake is at home at present, he is unpledged, and we are hoping high hopes that he will come out on our side. the spectacle is pretty much like a body of priests which might be standing by watching for the devil to shed horn, hoofs and tail and put on a clean collar, buttoned behind. with their zest for canonizing their leaders i wonder what the temperance workers _will_ do with a man as handsome as richard chalmers is said to be? how the "popular young ladies" of the towns will fall over one another in trying to present him with a great sheaf of roses at the close of his speech! i hate that bouquet-presenting worse than anything else done by the women who mix up with candidates! men hate it, too, and when i sounded rufe on the subject he just frowned and said: "oh, it's _awful_, but what are you going to do?" i suggested that he have the candidate say "please omit flowers," or "i will not look upon the roses while they are red," or words to that effect, at the close of his speech. but rufe shook his head sadly. "there are three things in this life that a woman is a fool about," he explained to me, "the surgeon who removes her appendix, the minister who saves her soul, and the politician who lets her 'take on' over him in public!" "but the candidate _hates_ the flowers and the praying at the polls and the general patting on the back like 'he's-mamma's-good-little-boy' that they inflict upon him, doesn't he?" "i should _think_ so," rufe admitted. i was studying over this phase of the next year's campaign when i attacked the pile of papers in my lap and was wondering if richard chalmers would hate the fuss they would inevitably make over him. june , , , i glanced through without finding anything of interest, and it was tiresome work. oh, why did i not realize at the time these papers were fresh and new that they held a "pearl of wondrous whiteness?" it would have saved all this trouble. but likely mammy lou had used the _very_ one to kindle the fire with. that would be worse than tramping the rare jewel in the ground! ah! was it prophetic that just as i was thinking over the words "rare jewel" the object of my search met my eyes? of course, you are not stupid, my journal, and you have long ago seen that i was looking diligently for all the news, but _mostly_ the picture of richard chalmers, the good-looking young david who might slay the monster goliath, if he would take his smooth pebble from a _brook_ and not from a brewery! well, it was the picture i found, and his name was in big letters beneath. i looked at the face first, then quickly at the name, but i put the two together with difficulty. "so richard chalmers is _you_!" i said aloud in my surprise. then i stared at the picture as steadfastly as ahmed al kamel must have looked at the portrait of the princess, the first woman's face he had ever seen. a feeling of superstition came stealing over me and daring me to say that this was only a happen-so. "so it's _you_," i repeated without moving my eyes from the picture, "and that must be why i felt such a curious interest in this political business." the stuffy heat of the tight little room, the piles of dusty old papers, the politics and rumors of politics were all forgotten in a twinkling as my memory bounded back and even took in the details of the landscape that dull day last november when i saw him first. alfred morgan had asked me to drive with him out one of the pikes where he had a call to make. i was at cousin eunice's and he had called me by telephone to ask me to go; cousin eunice and ann lisbeth were wrestling over an intricate shirt-waist pattern, but they both stopped long enough to insist that it was too cold for me to go so far out just for the fun of going. but i insisted equally as firmly upon going, so ann lisbeth made me wear her motor bonnet and long fur coat, which were very becoming. our route lay out one of the pikes which i like most, a beautiful driveway, with a lovely little jewish cemetery about three miles out. i found that it _was_ cold, and when we reached the cemetery i asked alfred to put me out so that i could walk around a bit and try to get warm--while he made his call just a short distance farther up the road. he could honk-honk for me if i had wandered out of sight by the time he came back. we frequently did that way. then it was that i first saw richard chalmers, coming out of the little red lodge house at the gates of the cemetery. he was dressed in gray, with a long gray overcoat and a soft gray hat; and his fairness made no break in the dull monochrome of the surroundings. the brilliant-hued lodge, with the oriental dome, made the only warm spot of color in my line of vision, but he was looking at me, too, and i am sure he saw other spots of color, for my face flushed somewhat as i recognized him as being the first man i had ever seen in my life whom i cared about looking at. he must be tall, for the coat he wore that day was quite long, but i do not remember taking in any details except his face. this was natural, for it appeared to me then as being a very good face to look at, even aside from the peculiar charm which afterward made me remember it so. cameo-like in its distinctness, with steel-gray eyes, it reminded me of the face i used to tell jean about years ago when we each had an ideal. "cold-blooded and lean as dante," my description had been in those bygone days, and richard chalmers' face strangely fitted it, though by no means so cold nor so lean as i had formerly thought necessary for perfect charm. it was only lean enough to be intellectual-looking, and, if the keen gray eyes were cold, they were also strong. his hair was short and of a very light-brown color; i remembered this distinctly, for he had taken off his hat as he bade good-by to whoever was inside the lodge, and he had stood a moment bareheaded as he saw me, and looked at me with a degree of well-bred surprise. there was nothing unusual in this, for, in driving out the country roads with alfred and doctor gordon, i have often observed that when two well-dressed people pass each other they usually look. each one is likely wondering what the other is doing so far from the madding crowd. i was wondering what he was doing, anglo-saxon that he so evidently was, coming from a hebrew cemetery; then he untied the hitch-rein of a horse that was restlessly twitching its head at a post near by, jumped into the light buggy and drove off. alfred and i passed him a little later on, for he had been driving slowly, evidently to the distaste of the horse. the creature was just the kind of animal you would expect a man of his appearance to drive--slim and satiny and fast. alfred slowed up as we were passing, for the horse had drawn quickly to one side of the road and was trembling with fright. the man in the buggy held a tight rein and spoke a soothing word to her, then turned and regarded us again. my heart bounded as our eyes met, and i wondered why he had driven back to town so slowly. the marked look of intellect which his face bore gave it an appearance of asceticism, which his handsome clothes and general make-up belied. he looked almost as unworldly as a monk--a monk fashionably dressed and driving a race-horse! we passed each other again the very next week, in the lobby of the city hall this time, where i had gone with ann lisbeth to pay the water-tax. he was talking with two men, and, as he recognized me, he drew both of these men slightly to one side that ann lisbeth and i might make our way to the elevator without being crowded. this time i had passed so close to him that i could see the tiny lines around his eyes, left there by the warring elements of his character, i imagined afterward, when i was trying to recall every feature with its own expression and thereby piece out, to my own satisfaction, a nature for my impressive unknown. "he may do bad things sometimes," i finally concluded triumphantly, "but he never enjoys doing them, because he has a conscience that will not let him." once again i saw him, some time afterward, at the entrance of a theater one crowded night when the most popular actress on the american stage was playing. an emotional little actress she is, whose feelings seem to be stationed largely in her finger-tips, for she uses them as if she were talking to deaf mutes with them. i criticized the play, pronounced the leading man a "plumber," made remarks about the extravagant finger-play and otherwise spoiled my pleasure to such an extent that i realized for the first time what a hold upon my imagination the face of this unknown had taken. he had passed quite close, but he had not seen me! after this i had thought about him very often, and, while he was not exactly only a "type" to me, as i had been careful to explain to cousin eunice, still, as the weeks slipped by and i had not seen him again, his face became a kind of pleasant picture that i might draw out sometimes and look at. a miniature, it must have been, for i carried it with me everywhere i went; and it always seemed to bring with it a sudden radiance, like a burst of sunshine at the close of a dreary day. a burst of sunshine at the close of a dreary day! the words were lingering pleasantly in my memory when i was called back to earth by the united voices of my family. "ann!" mother called. "_ann!_" "i've looked all over the place for her," i heard cousin eunice say, and the sound of hurrying feet toward the dining-room gave me a suggestion that it was time to eat again. i ducked through the pantry door and made my way up-stairs without being seen by any one. i bathed my face in cold water, which helped a little, then i came on back down-stairs and faced them. they all looked up at me. it was awful! "where you been at?" mammy lou inquired in a low but penetrating voice as i passed her at the dining-room door; and the question was repeated in other degrees of sound and grammatical precision. they were all looking at my damp forehead. "i tried to find you an hour ago," cousin eunice said, "i wanted to tell you the news." "and i wanted you to polish the silver on the sideboard," mother said in an injured voice. "ann, we looked evvywhere fer you," waterloo chimed in, with his mouth so full that cousin eunice's attention was attracted to it and she made him unload the portions of nourishment that were visible externally. "me and grapefruit found a little _tarrypin_. aunt mary said you wasn't scared of 'em!" "well, i'm glad it was nothing more important than a 'tarrypin' that needed my ministrations," i began, thankful for a topic so entirely earthly, but there was a hue and cry. "important!" cousin eunice exclaimed. "there are three mighty politicians coming here to dinner to-night!" "and the silver needs polishing," mother supplemented. "rufe was talking with them over the telephone this morning," father explained. "they are in bayville at a temperance rally and will have to come here to-night to catch a car back to the city. mother and i thought it would be a shame to let them go to the hotel for dinner--they're such friends of rufe's." "now, you needn't lay it on rufe," mother said, smiling at him. "you know that if an englishman dearly loves a lord, an american dearly loves a lion. it's _you_ who want to hear them roar." "richard chalmers is the only lion, so don't look so startled, ann," rufe said, as he began passing me things to eat; but i was not hungry. "the other two likely eat with their knives," cousin eunice added soothingly, as she still used her endeavors toward having waterloo feed himself like an anthropoid being. "oh, ann doesn't worry over company," mother said, as she glanced at me again. "she's been asleep. that's what makes her look--startled." chapter v prince charming i had not been asleep, but i had been in a dream; a dream from which i had awakened to a state of greater unreality. after the meal was over and the family had all left the dining-room i was still in a dream as i rolled my sleeves up high and began giving hasty dabs with the metal polish to the ancient silver on the sideboard. how delightful it is to have heirloom silver! i failed even to grow cross over the long, hot search for flannel cloths and the gritty feeling which this distasteful task always leaves around my finger-tips. still in a dream, i stood at the back kitchen door and watched dilsey decapitate the plumpest fowls the poultry yard boasted. i saw lares and penates flying up and down the cellar steps, and to the garden, orchard and vineyard--all at the same time. later on in the afternoon i was still dazed when i saw the ominous black signs of a thunder-storm coming up darkly from the southwest; and i heard father out in the hall using strong language at the telephone when he learned that the liveryman had sent bob hall, the town idiot, to bayville to bring the lions back. now bob hall is a kind-hearted, narrow-eyed lad, whose mind has never been right because his mother drove twenty miles to a circus just before he was born, so the villagers explained; but, be that as it may, bob has never been able to learn much beyond when to say "whoa" and "git up," but the joy of his life lies in saying these, so that the liverymen of the town are glad to have him hang around the stables and help with the horses at feeding and watering-time. because the regular driver was a little drunker than usual to-day bob had been sent to bayville on that delicate commission! "he's just as likely as not to dump 'em out in a mud-hole," father said wrathfully, as he hung up the receiver when mother implored him to leave off swearing over the telephone during an electrical storm. "he'll make some kind of mess of it--you see if he doesn't." i shuddered as i pictured that elegant gray overcoat all disfigured with mud; then i shuddered again at being such an idiot as to imagine he would have on an overcoat in august. and i wondered how he would look without it, and decided that he would look grand, of course! about five o'clock the storm burst in good earnest, the rain coming down in heavy sheets at first and later settling into a lively drizzle that promised to be good for all night. with the rain came a noticeable effort on the part of father's rheumatism to attract attention to itself; and mammy lou began clapping her hand over her right side in an alarming manner. ever since an attack of gall-stones which she suffered over a year ago, and through which she was safely steered by alfred morgan--which, of course, placed him upon an alfred-the-great pinnacle in the affections of the whole family--we have all turned in and helped mammy lou with her work. especially when company is coming we agitate our minds over the actual meat and bread part of the entertainment, which i abominate, for personally i am domesticated only so far as frothy desserts and embroidered napkins go; and i am now able to understand the decline of hospitality in the south. why, since mammy's spell i have actually learned how to "do up" my best blouses, which is a joy so long as i am working on the front, where the embroidery stands out in satisfying bas-relief, but i am ready to weep and long for father's vocabulary by the time i reach the gathers of the sleeves. i should certainly let these go unironed if mammy did not always come to the rescue with a few deft strokes of the gothic-shaped end of the iron. i must say, though, that she accepts our help with an exalted indifference, for, since that awful pain in her side, things temporal have been of small moment with her. she has turned to the comforts, or discomforts, of a deeply calvinistic religion, and is so keen-scented after sin that when i darn stockings on sunday morning i have to lock my door and pull down the window-shades. the only symptom of remaining worldliness which i have noted since her belated conversion, besides her overwhelming desire to get me married off to alfred (my only rival in her affections) was exhibited early this last spring, when her above-mentioned "boarder" was a new-comer in our neighborhood and father had engaged his services to "break up" the garden. sam, the homesick stranger, made strong appeal to mammy's hospitality, quite aside, as we thought, from the natural susceptibility of her affections. the man was big and _yellow_, mammy's favorite color in husbands, and i scented danger one night soon after he came when i happened to see her place before him on the table in the kitchen a mighty dish of "greens" flanked on all sides with poached eggs. he was busily plying her with questions, between mouthfuls, and when he asked her point-blank "what aged 'oman she was" she threw her head so coquettishly to one side that she splashed half a plateful of "pot liquor" on the floor, as she responded airily: "oh, i don't rickollect exactly! i'm forty-five, or fifty-five, or sixty-five--somewhere in the _fives_!" we held our breath for the next few weeks, expecting at any moment to hear that mammy had decided to out-henry henry eighth, but her religion was too fresh and too enjoyable for her to resign it and marry the seventh time, which she realized would be a bad example for her progeny. still, there was sam, in dangerous propinquity, three times a day; and he was broad-shouldered and _enchantingly_ yellow! she withstood, as long as it was in her poor, affectionate heart to withstand; then she compromised and took him as a boarder! after searching about for a means of easing her conscience for this concession she lit upon lares and penates as brands to be snatched from the burning; and she taught them such doleful facts about the uncertainty of their salvation that the last time alfred was down here we persuaded him to threaten her with nervous prostration for lares if she persisted in her gloomy preachments. "a boy or girl's responsible for they sins as soon as the bumps breaks out on they faces," she was telling them this afternoon, when the storm was at its worst, and the two sat huddled with grapefruit behind the stove, like poor little frightened chickens in a fence corner. mother, who had not seen the meaning gestures that mammy had been making toward her volcanic right side, was inclined to make light of the sins of the twins, and suggested that they come out from behind the stove, so that the minute the rain held up a little they could run on down to the ice-factory and tell the man to hurry with the ice. we were going to have our favorite caramel cream that night. but with mother's advent into the kitchen the pains in mammy's side grew much worse, and she began suggestions that she didn't know but what the lord was going to strike her with another spell, "for the old dominecker rooster had been crowin' sad all day!" the rain kept on, and late in the afternoon the ice-man telephoned that some of the machinery at the factory was broken, so there would be no ice! then father's rheumatism suddenly grew so bad that we had to stop our preparations for the feast, and spent half an hour searching for the stopper to the hot-water bag. he must have that bag put to his shoulder, he declared, but after we gathered all the essentials together and put it there he could not stand it on account of the heat! upon going back to the kitchen to temper the water down a little i was astounded at mammy's declaration that, if dilsey would go down to the cabin and bring up her easy chair, while i held an umbrella over it, she would _try_ to stay up long enough to direct _us_ about finishing that dinner! did ever a girl have such dreams and such nightmares mixed up together? night descended rapidly, as night has ever had a way of doing when you are in a fearful hurry, and mother was distractedly searching through her recipe book for a dessert that could be quickly made, yet when finished would be grand enough to set before gubernatorial timber! her maternal love had caused her steadily to refuse my help with the dessert, and she made me run on up-stairs for a final bath and a few minutes of manicuring before time to dress. "be sure to dress carefully," she had bidden me, as she always does, for sometimes i am inclined to be a little absent-minded in the matter of hooks and eyes; but her warning was superfluous to-night. "make yourself beautiful--an' _skase_," is mammy lou's favorite slogan in the campaign after masculine admiration, and i had prepared to carry it out so far as nature and instinct would permit. i had carefully pressed my prettiest white gown, a filmy, ruffled thing, and spread it out on my bed, with a petticoat that was long enough, but _not_ too long, lying conveniently near. where is the woman who has not shed tears and used feminine profanity because she could not find exactly the right petticoat at an eleventh-hour dressing? as i came into my room i glanced toward the bed with a feeling of complacency, then i turned on the lights and looked more closely. my hopes fell and i saw that the gown had shared in the general determination of everything on the place to go wrong that afternoon because we were so particularly anxious that all should go right. a window near the bed had been left open, in the hurry and confusion, and the dress had seemed to drink in every bit of dampness that it could find lying around loose. it looked as limp and dejected as if it had slept in an upper berth the night before. i had no other thin dress that was available, with all its attachments, at that hour, so i laid aside my ambition to look romantic and slipped on a shirt-waist--with a collar so stiff that it scratched my neck until i looked as if i bore the marks of the guillotine. toward eight o'clock, after it was inky dark, and mother had got her dessert safely stored away in the refrigerator to cool, she and i were taking a breathing spell in the dining-room, although we were holding our breath every other minute, listening for the approach of wheels, when the night began to be made hideous by the sounds of the most violent calf distress down in the lot. "ba-a-a-h! _ba-a-a-a-ah!_" came in hoarse, hollow bellows to our already overstrained ears. "it's that hateful little jersey," mother said, starting up and going toward the kitchen. "he has his head caught in the fence again!" "you sit still," i said, drawing her back toward her chair, "i'll go and send penates to unfasten him." there were savory odors in the kitchen, and mammy was so interested in the final outcome of the meal that she had abandoned her temporary throne and was stirring around the stove as usual. the three little negroes were gathered at the window, looking out into the blackness and listening with enjoyable horror at the turbulent sounds from the cow-lot. "go and unfasten him, penates," i said. "he'll kill himself and us, too, with that noise!" but penates looked at me to see if i could be in earnest. when he saw that i was he began to whine. "i's a-skeered to!" he half whimpered. "the idea! a great big boy like you! what are you afraid of?" "granny's done tol' us the devil's gwiner ketch us," he began, and, as he saw mother coming in at the kitchen door, he looked appealingly toward her; but the nerve-racking strain of the afternoon had done its work with her--and the calf voice was something frightful! "your granny's an old idiot," she said forcefully, looking with wrath toward the stove, where mammy was peering into the oven in an entirely detached fashion. "you go straight and unfasten that calf!" "mis' mary, i declare he'll ketch me ef i so much as step outside the do' there in the dark! granny's jus' now tol' us he's watchin' ever' minute to ketch us--" "lou, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to stuff these children's minds full of lies!" mother said, exasperated out of all semblance of her gentle, even-tempered self by the piled-up mishaps of the afternoon and the anguish of the present moment. in case you have never heard a calf with his head caught in the fence i will state, under oath, that the diabolical sounds of the brocken scene in faust are dulcet music compared with the cry for help that the terrified creature sends forth. it usually brings the neighbors for miles around to find out the cause of the trouble, or rather _why_ the trouble is permitted to continue--for every one who has ever heard it once knows its sound for ever. what an unlovely salute for prince charming when he should drive up in the rainy, black night, i was thinking in agony! mammy straightened up and looked at mother as steadfastly as she had looked the day she announced her determination of marrying bill williams, the "yankee nigger." "it's a _sin_ to teach children about the devil!" mother's voice was a challenge. "_sin?_ why, mis' mary!" mammy's tones were husky with horror. "an' you been a church member for thirty years!" "well, the devil has never entered into my calculations in all those thirty years," mother responded hotly, not observing that father had slipped up close behind her and was listening to the theological controversy with an amusement which had routed his rheumatism. "well--that's between you an' your maker," mammy argued stoutly. "i'm goin' to treat _my_ devil with some respeck, if white folks _don't_ mention theirs no mo' than if he was a po' relation that lived in arkansas!" father was smiling almost audibly, but mother was not looking in his direction--and the little jersey had evidently found no balm in gilead for his afflicted head! "i don't believe there's any _such_ thing as a devil!" mother finally broke out with vehemence; and she had turned quickly around as if she would go to the cow-lot herself, when she beheld father standing there, a look of amazement upon his face. "_mary!_ have i lived to hear you deny the faith of your fathers?" but mother was in no mood for banter. "don't _you_ talk to me about the devil, dan fielding!" she said, facing him squarely, and reluctantly unfolding her daintiest linen handkerchief to wipe the little beads of perspiration from across her upper lip. "i've had enough to make me believe in him this day, with three politicians coming, and a thunder-storm, and a broken ice-factory, and rheumatism and gall-stones!" "well, you know _you_ were the one who suggested inviting them here," father defended himself, adam-like. "well, maybe i was, but i should never have dreamed of such a thing if you hadn't said, with that woebegone look of yours that you wished you could see them and hear them talk about the latest phases of the situation! then, just to please you, i suggested that it was too bad to let them go to that dreadful hotel for dinner, when it would be no trouble for mammy lou to prepare one of her delightful meals!" "of course, neither one of us could know beforehand how deucedly contrary everything was going to turn out to-day, else i should have told you _not_ to invite them"--father was reiterating in what he intended for a soothing tone, when all of a sudden i heard the tramp of feet upon the front porch, for my ears all the time had been straining in that direction, else i should never have heard them, far away as the kitchen is, and with that hideous noise. "_hush!_" i implored, as the footfalls grew quite distinct and i pulled down my cuffs, settled my belt, fluffed my hair out a little more at the sides, and flicked a tiny feather off the toe of my shoe. "they've come!" "and ann in a shirt-waist suit," mother sent after father as a final shot when he started toward the front part of the house, "and that bovine orchestra!" she hurried into her bedroom and made a motion with her powder-puff before she followed father, while i stopped in the dining-room and gave a glance of satisfaction at the shaded lights, the old-fashioned good taste of the furnishings, and the quantities of roses. the table was perfect, and i knew mammy too well to doubt that the dinner, too, would be everything that palate or eye could desire; then i glanced into the great old gold-framed mirror hung above the mantelpiece. "i believe he'll enjoy his dinner," i decided, nodding in a friendly fashion toward the reflection in the glass; and, hearing the voices still coming from the direction of the porch, i hurried on out there. they had come! in truth they had come, but alas it was not richard chalmers and satellites! it was miss delia badger, mrs. sullivan and neva, drenched and bewildered, that bob hall, the fool, had brought from bayville! "oh, mrs. fielding," poor mrs. sullivan was saying beseechingly, as she looked at mother's startled face, "_do_ you know what's happened to tim? we was to stay another week at maw's, but when bob hall drove into bayville at dinner-time to-day and said he'd come after somebody that wanted to get took back here to mr. fielding's house, i knew it must a-been tim took sick and sent for me! so we all piled right in without waitin' for me to belt down my mother-hubbard!" "jumping jerusalem!" said father, and the calf bellowed dismally. * * * * * investigation had shown the sullivan cottage to be locked and barred, and the supposition was that tim, although not already sick, was in a fair way to be so in the morning, as persistent telephoning on my part finally located him at the drug store with a crowd of friends whose company was both cheering and inebriating. "i better git bob to drive down there an' git 'im," mrs. sullivan suggested forlornly, looking at bob, who was leaning against one of the big, white columns and twirling his cap around on one finger. "for heaven's sake, _don't_," father objected. "he'll be just as likely to drive up with the county undertaker as with tim sullivan! i'll go myself." "but who'll get the calf out of the fence corner?" mother asked anxiously, as father walked to the hat-rack for an umbrella. "_me!_" cried bob, speaking for the first time, but to so much purpose that we all beamed gratitude upon him. so, after being "much tossed about by land and on the deep," the calf was finally loosed from his pillory, the sullivans were settled in the sanctuary of their own home, the lovely dinner was eaten in silence, and our family went grumpily to bed. then this morning early the three belated dinner guests drove in from bayville. the two lesser lights caught the nine-o'clock car into the city, but mr. chalmers drove on to the little hotel in the village and later presented himself, in due calling season, at our house, with apologies for the catastrophe of last evening. mother said he had spoken of it as catastrophe before i came into the room, but when he mentioned the accident to me later on in the day, as we two sat quite apart from the others, he referred to it as _calamity_. father and rufe urged him to spend the day, an invitation which mother warmly seconded after a moment's quick recollection of how many of the dainties left over from last night's feast could be creamed and pâted and souffled. he said it was rather necessary for him to be in town that day, but he stayed; and father and rufe both remembered during the course of the forenoon that they had some matters to attend to which, if he would excuse them for half an hour or so, they would despatch with all possible haste and rejoin him before the ladies had quite had time to talk him to death! rufe really did have some telephoning to the city to get through with; it is his regular morning duty; and father had to drive across part of our place to give directions about some fences which had been washed away last night. of course, mother was needed about the dining-room, but cousin eunice, bless her, unselfishly betook herself off up-stairs out of pure kindness of heart! even the day was one of those golden days which come at the very end of summer, when the cool morning air mounts to the head like old wine, and the rich afternoon sunshine seems to hover lovingly over the earth and rejoice in having fulfilled the summer's glorious promise. all through the morning the birds caroled as happily as if they thought it was winter instead of summer a-dying; then later, they settled down like the rest of the world in the hushed silence of the hot afternoon, when the heat causes a brilliant haze over the fields around; and it seems as if all nature rests. all my life this hour of summer afternoons has held a strange, undefinable sadness. when i was a little girl and used to spend long hours out under the trees reading, my book would always drop from my hand as this period of stillness came on, and my eyes would wander away to the intense blue of the sky and the dazzling whiteness of the distant clouds, while a small but persistent voice seemed to keep mocking my memory with the query: "_can't_ you remember what used to happen on days like this?" and my memory would grope longingly away after the lead of that tormenting voice, and it would visit all the far-away lands of romance, summer lands of sunshine always, italy, india, egypt--but it never would remember exactly. "where tasso's spirit soars and sings," i used to repeat in a mystified wonder, for the beauties of his land were as familiar to me as my own fields and meadows. then i grew older and learned about reincarnation of the spirit. "that's it!" i cried exultantly, hugging the beautiful mysticism to my heart. "that is _bound_ to be it!" life took on a new significance, and then for months i felt myself one with the initiated! i was radiantly happy and achingly miserable with this new, intangible philosophy; then alfred morgan came along and told me that my vague memories were imagination; and that my restless longings came from a perpetual idleness. and i believed him, because i could not hear any statement from alfred morgan's lips without believing it. "i'd rather have tuberculosis than an imagination like yours, ann," he had said, and he advised me to learn to cook. perhaps it was the extraordinary beauty of the day and the surroundings that led our talk into unusual channels as richard chalmers and i walked out together through the golden afternoon haze. yes, we had our hour alone again, as in the morning; but not by accident this time. he had graciously demanded it. "can't you rescue me from clayborne's relentless newspaper spirit?" he had asked in a low tone while we were at the table. i smiled assent, whereupon he looked at me gratefully and a few minutes later announced that i had promised to show him the orchard where those magnificent peaches grew. so it happened that when the rest of the family dispersed in different directions, early in the afternoon, i pinned on a big, flat hat--a white embroidered affair, with a great bow of black velvet ribbon--and walked with him out into the glow. down the avenue of cedars we went and up the broad road, for the orchard can be reached through a big gate opening off the pike, and the distance is much longer around that way. we soon gained the desired shade of its luxuriant leafiness, and i pointed out to him our most noteworthy trees. he admired their beauty without looking at them. after walking around the orchard a bit we finally sat down on a fragment of stone wall, a prehistoric structure, which still protects a portion of the grounds; and he took off his hat and began to fan with it. his forehead was a little damp, and, as he wiped away the perspiration, i observed again the exceeding fairness of his skin. his hair, too, is so nearly light that the sprinkling of gray is almost unnoticed, save by the closest scrutiny. my survey of him, while at close range, was quite brief, for, after a remark or two about the heat at this time of day, he turned to me suddenly and asked with disconcerting straightforwardness: "what were you doing that day at the gates of the little cemetery?" "oh! why, i was walking around--trying to get warm." i longed to ask him what he was doing there. "i figured that day that you were a faithful little soul, going out to visit some hallowed spot. you looked so strikingly dark and _vivid_ against the colorless background of the sky that i quite thought you were oriental. then the next time i saw you, in the lobby of the city hall--do you remember?--well, you were with a tall, foreign-looking woman, a russian, i imagined; so that convinced me--" "she is a pole," i corrected, "but she's the wife of doctor gordon, a great friend of ours." "--and that convinced me," he went on, as if ann lisbeth's nationality were of no more moment to him than one of the bits of stone which i had gathered up from fragments scattered over the top of the wall, and was making white marks upon the solid rock sides with these tiny splinters, "that you were foreign." then, in a lower tone, and with little hesitation in his delightful, drawling voice, he added: "i called you rebecca--because i had to call you something." "how disappointing to find me a plain american girl!" "when i found this morning that you are an american girl--i deny the 'plain'--i gave a start which i know was noticed by everybody in the room! it isn't often that i lose my self-possession, but i was _amazed_ to find you here, in this little town--and my friend, clayborne's, niece." "his wife's cousin," i explained, but again he paid no attention to my interruption. "i had haunted the theaters and shopping districts for weeks last winter--looking for rebecca," he finished up. "no wonder i was surprised to find that you are _you_!" he paused, waiting for me to say something, and, just because it was the last thing i wished to say, and because i would not, for the world, have had him suspect such a thing, i stammered out the truth! "i--i wondered who _you_ were, too," i faltered. "you are so entirely anglo-saxon-looking; and the place is hebrew! besides, it was such a very cold day to visit a cemetery!" he smiled a little, but politely caught at my bait. "i had been to see old man cohen, the sexton. he is interested in politics." then we fell to talking about foreign types of faces, a subject which he discussed extremely well, having traveled everywhere, as i felt sure he had when i first laid eyes on him; and from the types of beauty, we fell to discussing the various countries. he looked surprised at what he termed the "wistful" note in my voice when i asked him questions about my favorite lands; and he smiled when i explained to him that i have never been anywhere. "so much the better for your enthusiasm," he said with the provoking air of a person who has been everywhere and done everything--and found it all a bore. "i judge that you are a very enthusiastic young woman." "my daily life is punctuated with exclamation points," i admitted, but i longed to ask him how he knew i was enthusiastic. still, it has always seemed in bad taste to me for a girl to try to draw a man into a long discussion of her personality--a new acquaintance, i mean. mammy lou's slogan, "make yourself beautiful, and _skase_," can be applied in devious ways that she wotted not of when she handed it down to me. "i suppose that is partly on account of your age?" he said, still looking at me with his amused smile. my age! his tone and smile awoke a kind of resentment. he must feel himself infinitely older and wiser, else he would never assume that superior air. "age has nothing to do with it! it is entirely a matter of temperament," i contradicted, with a little show of feeling. he smiled more broadly, and a hot flush of shame spread over my face as i recalled my dreams of this man. i had thought of him for months, had imagined him in every great and heroic rôle; had made a hero of him. worse still, i fancied that he--perhaps--had thought of me; had stayed here to-day because he had found me! and here he was smiling down at me as he made playful remarks about my age! "why should you look distressed over a mention of your age?" he suddenly broke in, so gently that i looked up in surprise and found his face grave. he had been reading my thoughts--at least in part. "now, if you were as old as i--that would be something worth troubling over." "you? yet the papers always speak of your youth. they will call you the 'boy governor' when you're elected." he was pleased at my words. "or the boy who also ran--perhaps! but age is only a relative condition. my political friends call me a boy because i am only thirty-seven years old. yet, to _you_ that age may seem patriarchal. doesn't it?" i thrilled at the look of earnestness in his eyes. he was the one now who was concerned over what i thought of his age. "rufe is thirty-seven," i answered, trying to make my tone non-committal. "and yet you call him rufe!" "i've known him always. he's like my brother." "well, if you should some day grow to know me 'always,' could you--even if i am thirty-seven--could you call me richard?" i made several violent white marks upon the old rock wall with the bit of stone in my hand before i attempted to answer this, the most intimate question ever put to me by a man in my life. except for alfred i had never known any other man well, and had certainly never cared about sitting with one upon an old stone wall while the glorious summer afternoon slipped by. all i knew of even incipient love-making i had read in books, so that i could not tell whether his question meant much or little. i had told him earlier in the afternoon that i was booked for a long visit in the city this fall, whereon he had congratulated himself on his friendly footing with the claybornes. it was possible he meant-- "could you?" he repeated softly. i stopped making marks and threw away the bits of stone. i had opened my lips to reply, although i do not know what i had intended saying, when there was an indian yell close behind us. "whoopee! here he is again!" came an exultant voice, and, glancing around, we beheld a freshly bathed and dressed waterloo, digging his white linen knees and elbows into the soft black earth, as he raised a radiant face and announced his second discovery of the "little tarrypin." grapefruit followed him at a respectful distance, while lares and penates lingered shyly in the background when they espied us. "and here's _ann_," waterloo explained, in great triumph, waving his hand in my direction. "we can make her tote 'im back to the house for us. she ain't skeered of 'em!" "quick! tell me!" richard chalmers insisted, and his seriousness made me flippant. "age has nothing to do with it! it is entirely a matter of temperament!" he laughed, quite like a boy, as he sprang down from the wall and extended both hands to help me. i grasped only one of his hands, and that very lightly, as i stepped to the ground. we joined the little band of hunters and thus formed a funny procession home. mr. chalmers and i were in the lead, his right hand gingerly clutching a most disinterested-looking mud-turtle, while, with the left, he attempted to help me over the rough places in the road. waterloo was close at our heels, while the three little negroes, struggling with their giggles, tagged along behind. the task of "toting" a mud-turtle fitted so ill with his immaculate clothes and intense dignity that i laughed every time i looked up at him. and he laughed. perhaps we should have done this, even if nothing funny had happened, for the late afternoon was so beautiful, and everything seemed so happy. the birds were all making a cheerful fuss over going to bed, and the tinklings that lulled the distant folds seemed to me, for the first time in my life, joyous. "i shall think of this scene the day you are inaugurated," i said, still laughing, after the mud-turtle had been deposited in an empty lard bucket and borne away by waterloo and his retainers. we had found ourselves alone for a moment in the shaded, deserted library. "you'll be there?" he asked, turning toward me as i stood on the hearth rug and leaned my elbow against the white marble mantelpiece. as he had carefully wiped from his finger-tips the imaginary dust from the mud-turtle i had been studying his profile in the mirror. it was the most perfect face i had ever seen--unless-- my eyes quickly traveled to the little oval portrait of lord byron, the old-time idol of my beauty-loving soul. i used to kiss his picture good night when i was twelve years old! i glanced back again to the living presence of beauty equally as perfect. his gray eyes were upon me. "you'll be there--if i am ever inaugurated?" he asked again. "of course. but you'll never see _me_." outside there was a glorious sunset, red and yellow and orange. it was like a sea of blood and a sea of gold, with a wonderful blending of the two. the radiance was trying to steal in at the shaded window, and i started across the room to open the blinds to its flood of glory. he put out his hand and stopped me. "if you were there," he said slowly in his deep, rich voice--which is, in itself, attraction enough for any _one_ man--"if you were there, i should be far more conscious of _that_ than of the inauguration." and the quick look which followed these words made a feeling of having been born again run in little zigzag streaks of joy to my finger-tips. chapter vi neva's beau brummel many days have passed since neva and her mother made their dramatic return from bayville. these days have seemed long to me, but short to neva, for protracted meeting has been in progress--and she has had a beau swarm. the swell young clerk at the racket store, who says "_passé_," most frenchily, and manicures his nails; a fat drummer who sells lard and sings bass; a "wild" young man who drives a fast horse, which the villagers all discuss above their breath, and who also does some other things which they take care to discuss--but in whispers; all these have been neva's, besides hiram ellis, a young farmer whom she cares for most, but makes the most fun of behind his back. i know that she cares for him, else she would never have counterfeited a swoon one hot night in church when the service held on an unconscionable time and she feared that hiram would become impatient and start on his five-mile drive to his farm, without waiting to escort her home, as was his custom when she happened to be unaccompanied by any of the "town fellows." from her point of vantage in the choir she could see that hiram was restlessly moving his hands and feet about, although he was seated on the back bench and there was the church full of perspiring humanity between her and the gawky object of her secret love. the minister continued to exhort and to perspire, as he drank glass after glass of water; and, as the time for mourners seemed to draw no nearer, neva took that night's destiny into her own hands and fainted--a stiff, peculiar faint. fortunately she was sitting close by a small door which opens directly out into the cool night air, so that her carrying-out could be accomplished without any ungraceful display of uplifted feet and sagging petticoats. neva's artistic temperament could never have endured that! the performance created small notice outside the choir. hiram was around at that little back entrance in a twinkling, his good-natured, sunburnt face a picture of devoted anxiety. neva was sitting on the steps shaking with a considerable degree of suppressed emotion, but not looking particularly ill, and insisting that her mother and aunt delia should go on back and hear the sermon to its end, if, indeed, it had an end. this they did, after seeing hiram place neva carefully in his buggy and start off home; but they failed to reach the choir in time to see the whisperings which had passed between two of neva's rivals who sat there, and who were not unobservant of the peculiar nature of her fainting-spell. "it wasn't like any faint _i_ ever saw before," some one openly declared to mrs. sullivan after the service was over, whereupon the whisperings between the rivals were renewed; and several days thereafter the townspeople were frankly discussing neva sullivan's "spell." in less than a week after the incident which i have just related, because there is absolutely nothing of my _own_ happening that is worth relating, neva ran over one day in a great flurry of excitement to consult my expert judgment as to what she should wear that night, as a young gentleman from the city had come down to see her and was coming out that evening to call. "a young gentleman from the city! how exciting!" i congratulated her. "but i didn't know you knew any of the beau brummels up there!" "that's the curious part of it," she explained as she sat down and panted a little, for she had run across the road and up our long walk. "i don't know him--never heard of him before. but he telephoned me from the hotel this afternoon that he had heard of me and had come down to see me on business. his name is doctor simmons, and he said he was very anxious to see me at once and give me some professional literature." "some professional _what_?" i asked, for she was talking very fast, and her enunciation at best is not like a normal school teacher's. "professional literature," she repeated, lingering over the words this time as if they were chocolate creams. "i told mamma maybe he is a poet. it sounded kinder like it, you know--him saying 'literature.'" "i don't believe that poets carry around _professional_ literature," i said, trying to let her down easy, for she is a sad little visionary--and somehow i have a sympathy for visionaries. but he was a _man_, a new man, even though he might not be a poet, so neva's solicitude concerning him was in nowise dampened. "well, that's what he said--'professional literature,'" she kept on flutteringly--inconstant little minx, when only a week ago she had disturbed "public worship" for the sake of driving home in hiram ellis' buggy!--"so mamma said i better come on over and ask you how i ought to dress to see him; and _oh_, how i ought to have the parlor fixed! you go up to the city so often, of course you know all the swell ways." "i reckon i _do_," i said confidently, for i could see the chance that my hands had been itching for ever since i took the education of neva in charge. "first, you must empty the room of candy-boxes, for if he is a prospective suitor, you see, all those boxes would frighten him away. he would think you are entirely too popular already." "there ain't a girl in this town got half as many," she said rather wistfully, and i saw that the loss of the boxes meant bereavement to her. "mine comes up to the top of the piano on _both_ sides, while stella hampton's don't more than fill in under the bottom of the center-table!" "but you must remember that he is a doctor," i reminded her soothingly, "and they are awfully queer about _germs_. he might get it into his head that those empty boxes were regular nests for them--and they may be, for all we know." "all right--if you say so," the poor child said sorrowfully, and i knew that her affection for me had been put to a fiery test. "then the mckinley picture! it ought to come down. it is dismal, somehow--it might cast a damper over his feelings." "all right," she agreed again, much more willingly this time. "i know that mr. roosevelt _does_ look more cheerful, so, if you say so--" "but i _don't_," i almost shrieked. "we can put a tall vase of roses in the space so that no picture will be needed." "oh, that will be lovely," she exclaimed gratefully; "and i'll wear flowers in my hair." "i believe black velvet ribbon will be prettier--just a band, you understand--no combs or fancy pins. your hair is too pretty to be disfigured with ornaments." her eyes showed slow, but gratified, comprehension. "and my dress--" she hurried on. "a rather plain white one," i suggested fearfully, for i apprehended trouble there as with the candy-boxes. "you see, he'll not like to find you with a dress which has lace all twisted and _tortured_ across the front--doctors are such humane creatures." "i'm just dying to see what he looks like!" she exclaimed, her eyes dancing. "and i'm so much obliged to you." "i hope you'll have a pleasant time with him," i started, when she looked at me in dismay. "oh, surely i'll see you again before he comes! can't you come over a little later on, or maybe after i'm dressed--to see if i am fixed all right, and if the parlor looks swell?" her big dark eyes held a flattering appeal. "why, of course! i'll be glad to get mother to run over there with me--just before time for him to come," and she gave my arm a gratified little squeeze and went away filled with charming anticipations. as the mystic hour approached, mother and i threw crocheted things over our heads and started across the wide road which lay between the houses. drawing near the cottage we noticed a dim light bobbing about queerly just off the front porch, and mother clutched my arm in agony. "surely--_surely_ they're not hanging japanese lanterns out in honor of his coming!" "oh, i hope not," i responded, feeling not at all certain as to the course which neva's enthusiasm might take. but as we clicked the gate and passed on into the yard we discerned the generous outlines of mr. tim sullivan rising from a rickety, three-legged chair, which he had placed directly in front of mrs. sullivan's nasturtium frame. this frame was but a poor skeleton affair, having been built in the yard early in the summer for the flowers to clamber up on, but the fall of the leaf was approaching, and the flowers had refused to clamber. in one hand mr. sullivan held a small, smoky lamp, the flame of which was entirely a one-sided affair; and in the other he brandished a paint brush. we knew it was a paint brush because it out-smelt the lamp. "come in! come right in," he invited us hospitably, and as he gallantly approached to light us on our way up the walk, we caught a whiff of his breath; and the paint brush and the lamp faded into insignificance in the smelling line. "why, what are you doing, mr. sullivan?" mother inquired as she strained her eyes toward the nasturtium frame and saw big splotches of green paint smeared about at intervals upon its wooden gauntness. "i'm painting," he explained politely, as he held the lamp high above his head that it might cast its doubtful rays over the dark walk. "just painting." "but why paint to-night?" she persisted, doubtless wondering if this was being done in honor of the "city beau." "why, there ain't no time like the present, as i've always been told, you know, mrs. fielding," he further elucidated, his voice growing louder and louder as the distance between us increased, and as we gained the freshly-scoured front steps he moved back toward his field of operation and resumed his work. the wild sweeps of his brush gave, in the dim light of the unsteady lamp, the impression of some weird acrobatic performance. we went into the house and found the feminine portion of the family in a state of conflicting emotions. mrs. sullivan was perfectly limp with rage over the misfortune of having tim even mildly drunk and disorderly on the night when neva's destiny might be hanging in the balance. neva herself was perturbed, but radiant, and was praying cheerfully that something might happen to check her father's artistic endeavors before the arrival of her beau. that doctor simmons was a suitor for her hand, impressed by her beauty in some mysterious and romantic manner, it had not entered into neva's silly little head to doubt; and since one of her friends had seen the young gentleman at the hotel in the afternoon and had telephoned her that he was the swellest-est dressed man to enter that town since heck was a pup, her expectations were soaring at dizzy heights. i found that fortunately she had spent the force of her own swell longings upon the attire of her mother this time, inasmuch as i had so urgently recommended simplicity for herself. the glittering combs and bandeau were adorning mrs. sullivan's head, rising resplendent from divers unaccustomed puffs and braids and curls. mrs. sullivan's hair ordinarily wore a look of conventual severity, as did her hat, but there was never any congeniality between the two. in fact they were never on speaking terms. "i done it to please nevar," she confessed to me, smiling wanly at her reflection in the mirror, "but if i had a-had my way i wouldn't a-done it. i don't like it. if i had a tubful o' wet clo'es on my head it couldn't feel no heavier!" we were so cordially invited to remain and view the stranger from a speechless distance that we finally consented to do so, occupying straight chairs that would not creak and betray our presence as we sat at the front window of the room opposite the parlor and breathlessly awaited his arrival. presently he came and we were repaid for waiting. when i had mentioned him in the afternoon as being a possible beau brummel i little realized what an inadequate term i had employed. beau brummel with all his diamond-studded snuff-boxes was never rigged up to compare with doctor simmons. in stature he was tall, in demeanor grave, in color red-headed. his trousers were very light and his shirt was very pink, while a large diamond stud gleamed from his glossy bosom. two other great stones were set in rings. his shoes were tan, but his hosiery was not; and his broad straw hat had birds embroidered in the band. neva received him nervously, her voice high-pitched and unnatural. mrs. sullivan bade us sit still while she tiptoed around through the back hall and up close to the parlor door, where she could overhear the announcement of his mission. her maternal anxiety justified this. we sat an interminable time, it seemed, listening to miss delia badger's low-toned conversation, which she felt must for politeness' sake be kept up; but there was no light in the room, and we were thus saved the pain of looking at her parti-colored hair, so it might have been worse. after a long time mrs. sullivan came in. we could not see her face, but her voice had the most doleful droop i had ever detected in its depths, and she collapsed into the nearest chair. "he's a fit doctor," she announced briefly, after a moment's strained silence. "a _what_?" "a fit doctor. he cures fits up at his hospital in the city. somebody from here wrote him that nevar had done had one. he'll give a gold-trimmed fountain pen for ever' name of a fitified person you'll send him." "how unkind of the one who wrote him about neva!" mother exclaimed in an indignant whisper, but i was unable to speak. "'twas some of them mean girls in the choir," mrs. sullivan pronounced lifelessly. "they're always so jealous of nevar having the most beaus and the prettiest dresses." "well, it's a shame!" mother repeated wrathfully. "what i'm worrying about _now_ is how to git 'im off without tim killing 'im," neva's mother continued, still in an apathetic whisper. "if he could catch the nine o'clock car out o' town to-night he would be safe, but it's mighty near that time now. if he was to leave this early and tim out there painting he would stop 'im and ask 'im his business. then there would be a killing on the spot." it was not clear whether tim would kill doctor simmons for curing fits or doctor simmons would kill tim for painting the nasturtium frame. but mother was all anxiety to avert either tragedy. "well, we'll run right on home this minute," she said, rising hurriedly, and her inspiration was so sudden and so happy that she forgot to whisper, "and ask mr. sullivan to go with us. then mr. fielding shall make him a mint julep--while you explain to the fit doctor that he would better make haste back to his hospital." there were grateful whisperings from mrs. sullivan and her sister. "and you'll have to use a lantern to wave the car down," mother turned back a moment to caution them, "for it's so dark they'll never see you if you don't." but mrs. sullivan did not wait to tamper with the chimney of a lantern. the smoky little lamp had been placed, still lighted, upon the edge of the porch when mother had mentioned mint julep to mr. sullivan. his wife caught it up and bore it along bravely after we had crossed the road and entered the thick shade of our walk. she was closely followed by a very homesick physician, whose one desire was to leave this quiet little town, and an outraged but still admiring neva. as we gained our front porch mother whispered a quick word into father's ear and he hospitably bade mr. sullivan follow him into the dining-room, while she and i quickly turned and fled back down the walk to the front gate. yes, they had him safely down at the car track, and in a very brief while the car came along. mrs. sullivan made spasmodic little signals with the lamp, which brought the car to a standstill, and also brought forth a thousand rainbow gleams from the jewels in her hair. doctor simmons stepped upon that running-board with all the alacrity of a newsboy with a bundle of "extras." he deposited his package of professional literature upon the seat in front of him, then turned and gravely lifted his hat to the ladies. "thank goodness!" mother said with a sigh of genuine relief as we watched the car pull out. then she turned to me and for the first time that evening i could discern a smile in her voice. "ann," she said, trying to speak seriously, "when i see other women's daughters i know that i have much to be thankful for. you _are_ a star-gazer and a poor cook, but, oh dear--you don't have beaus from the city." "touch wood before you boast," but she stopped and caught me by the arm. "what do you mean, honey?" she questioned. "has alfred--" "no, indeed. i don't mean anything except that i am at the age of eve and--very hopeful." "well, you _know_ what we all think of alfred," she said, then stopped still at the lower step and broke off a dead twig from a rosebush near by. a shaft of light was shining from the hall and i could see that her face was very earnest. it was the first time in my life she had ever spoken to me of lovers. "and i think everything of alfred that you do--and more," i assured her, "but i am not in love with him. i might be--if--under other circumstances----i might be, but not now!" she deliberately lingered at the steps, and we heard pleasant sounds coming from the dining-room. "eunice and i fancied that mr. chalmers looked at you--er, rather attentively the other day," she ventured timidly, as if to try to draw me out, yet dreading a little the answer i might make. "that might have been imagination," i parried. "but--we also imagined that _you_ looked at him." "well," i answered with a laugh which i hoped would sound light, "haven't you just said that i am a _star_-gazer?" with this admission i ran away up-stairs. yes, i had looked at him. and since then it seemed that there had been nothing for my eyes to rest upon that did not bear the impress of his face. he had stayed through that long, perfect day, and had left when the cool, white night was at the zenith of its beauty. the cool, white night which, alas, had to be followed by a morning after! i had never, until then, felt this way about the morning, for it has always been my favorite time of day, my only thought upon arising being an eager craving for the sunshine. but then, i had never known until that time just what an exquisite thing night could be. there is a little sepia copy of the sistine madonna hanging across the room from my bed where i can see it the first thing when i awake every morning; and, on bright days there is a golden bar of sunlight which comes traveling in and across the ceiling until it falls upon the picture. i lie still and watch it until it has reached the virgin's heart, then i get up and open all the windows to the light. it serves me in place of a clock, and much better, for it is true as to time, and it has no unpleasant way of striking a sudden and disenchanting note which breaks in upon my dreams. my warning little ray of sunshine was casting a spot of intense light directly upon the mother's heart as i turned and glanced toward it for the first time on the morning after richard chalmers' visit, but i was so tired that i lay still until it had traversed the entire length of the wall and settled for a moment upon the floor. i was not enjoying that stretching, smiling, lazy luxuriance which i sometimes indulge in after a too brief sleep. that is a pleasant sort of lingering upon the threshold of the day, but this other feeling of mine was the deadening reaction which comes after a period of over-tension. "you are a nervous freak," i said disgustedly as i finally jumped out of bed after a soft suggestion from dilsey that i should find my bath prepared if i could only be induced to get up and go seek it. i crossed the convent-like little apartment which it has pleased my fancy to fix up as a sleeping-chamber and made for a mirror in the adjoining room, for there is "some little luxury there"--flowered curtains and battenburg table-covers and punched score-cards. i wished to see if there were outward and visible signs of the change which was causing such inward tumult. "you are a freak," i repeated as i looked in the mirror and noticed that my eyes appeared heavy and tired; and my tongue felt as thick as a sunday morning newspaper. "it's a pity you can't keep your emotions stopped up in a vial and portion them out with a medicine-dropper--instead of _soaking_ yourself in them!" dilsey had left the water running, as she has learned to do on mornings when i am unusually lazy, for no woman who has a domestic heart in her bosom can lie abed and run the risk of the tub overflowing and making a mess of the bath-room floor. i slipped my feet into some flip-flop turkish slippers--if turkish women have to wear such footgear as this i don't blame them for sitting still most of the time; but then they have the comfort of trousers, poor dears!--and went to turn off the water. "of course he thinks you are an absurd young person who openly tried to make eyes at him," i mused, as i gave a savage twist that stopped that provoking sound of water wasting. when i had imagined, upon first seeing him, that richard chalmers had warring elements in his character i was only saying about him the things i knew to be true of myself. "he does bad things sometimes, but he never enjoys doing them, because he has a conscience that will not let him." this is my own disposition, and i fancied that it might be his, because his eyes bear a dissatisfied look, as if he did not come up to his own ideal of himself. alfred morgan is entirely different. i do not believe that he ever had a morbid regret in his life. in his work he is fanatically conscientious, doing the best he can and knowing that his best is as good as any other man's, for he does not attempt anything unless he is sure of his qualifications. this does not imply any lack of grief and worry when a patient "goes to the bad." he _does_ grieve, sitting with his head between his hands, while his black hair is ruffled up like a shoe-brush straight across his forehead. sometimes he softly repeats, "well, i'll swear! well, i'll _swear_!"--in a baffled, helpless sort of way, but you know that he has not been helpless where any other man would have been potent. and he never has the soul-eating remorse which follows the knowledge that one might have done better. as to alfred's _life_, i imagine that it is kept in the same condition of fitness that his body is--clean and wholesome, yet full-blooded and entirely normal. if he should meet red-robed folly on a pleasant highway he would undoubtedly linger a while, taking off his hat politely and addressing her as human nature. he would shake hands good-temperedly as he left her and promise to come again some time when his business engagements would permit. but he would never give the matter another thought probably. richard chalmers' cold face proclaims an asceticism that would call the prettily dressed little folly "sin," yet i fancy that he would linger--much longer than alfred, no doubt--and leave the gay fairy with a frown on his face, which would remain until the next morning, when he would throw his bootjack at his valet. where was i? oh, yes, i had just turned the water off! it's a good thing i did, too, before this digression, or the house would have been flooded. again, what i have said of richard chalmers is also true of myself. i had lingered on the pleasant highways with a delightful folly all day yesterday, which seemed to me in the cold light of day this morning a sort of sin. a sin against good sense, i concluded, or against good taste, _especially_ if he noticed. "a horrid _young_ idiot! of course that's what he considered you were." i kept torturing myself with these thoughts until others more agonizing still came to torment me. suppose he had not thought of me at all! the dash of the cold water restored me to something much more nearly like my normal self, and by the time i had combed the tangles out of my hair and spoken to a pair of redbirds which live in a tree right by my window i was feeling poetry again. a shower of scattered cigar ashes, which dilsey had not yet swept off the front porch, with two or three red-and-gold bands which i had noticed on his cigars, set me singing. "you're not an idiot at all, ann," i commented, as i looked about to make sure that no one was near, then grabbed up one of these red-and-gold bands. "no _wonder_ you have lost your head over him, for he is perfectly beautiful, and you always did get intoxicated on beautiful things.--and if _he_ wasn't impressed too, his eyes were lying! no, they could not lie, because they are too lovely!" i knew that the family would all be talking about him at the breakfast-table, which i found to be true, and they were so absorbed in their talk that they all, except mother, gave me a perfunctory greeting as i came in. strange to say, they were not talking about his good looks. "well, he's had occasion to study the question in all its phases," rufe kept on with the subject at hand as i slid into my chair and gave myself up to the charms of a breakfast food. "he's studied it in nearly every land. he spent a part of last year in--" "i think one of the delights of wide travel is to be able to pronounce names of obscure places in such a way that stay-at-homes won't know what you're talking about," cousin eunice said, looking toward mother and me. she had not intended interrupting the masculine conversation, but rufe stopped and listened to what she had to say, which proves that he is a model husband, i think--"did you notice how he called peru 'payrhu' last night? of course he's been there." "i noticed the new-fangled way he had with several of his words," father said, a bit drily. "he differentiated between 'egoist' and 'egotist.' he seems to have been _there_, too." "surely," rufe coincided so willingly that i was amazed. "but the quality of egotism possessed by this fellow is not the cheap, objectionable kind. he simply has unlimited faith in himself, and an unlimited ability of making other people do what he wants them to do." "a tyrant, then?" father inquired with a half-smile at rufe's enthusiasm. "not at all--a governor." "well, who is he and where did he come from?" mother asked, coming into the discussion in an abstracted sort of fashion. "i never heard of him until the last few months." then followed a long discourse concerning richard chalmers' past life, and his qualifications for the office which he might be called upon to fill--all of which fell like diamonds and rubies from their lips, for it was all creditable to him. the look of strength, which had told its own story the first time i had ever seen him, and which had since then held me in the spell of a fascinated memory--it was all true, then! as i listened to the story of how the man had, by sheer strength and personality, raised himself from being simply a well-thought-of young lawyer, with a good deal of inherited wealth, to his present position in the minds of the state's best politicians, i felt that he must possess that steel-clad, relentless, yet necessary attribute--power. now, i revere power, whether in man, or beast, or automobile. "next to marrying it, the worst way on earth for a man to get money is to inherit it," father said, apropos of the story we had just heard. "it's bad for the man, and it's bad for the money." we all laughed a little and agreed with father, then rufe became aware of my presence for the first time. "and mistress ann has not had a word to say upon this interesting subject," he said chaffingly, looking around as if he had not seen me before, which in truth he had not, for he had been so absorbed when i came in that he merely nodded a "good morning" without detaching his mind from his discussion. "he was so visibly impressed, too." "shut up, rufe--teasing her," cousin eunice commanded after she had looked at my face. "i swear i wasn't teasing," he insisted more soberly. "i don't believe chalmers looks at a woman once a year--he hasn't time for them, and besides, he's a cold-blooded devil--but he looked at ann many times throughout the course of the day, to say naught of 'toting' home a mud-turtle for her dear sake. then when he was leaving last night he asked me again whether the fieldings were related to me or to my wife." "did you tell him the truth or did you take the credit to yourself?" i inquired sarcastically. "no, i confessed that the beauteous blossom springs from the same tree that produced that perfect flower, mrs. clayborne. but i told him that the fact of my having 'raised' you invested you with a 'dearness not your due'--from blood ties alone." "well, she will have the honor of being looked at by him a great many times this fall, when she goes home with us," cousin eunice said, then turning to mother she added: "and she will need a _bushel_ of pretty clothes, aunt mary." "i want one black dress, with a spangled yoke," i hastily put in, but was interrupted by little shrieks of disapproval from the two. "i--thought i'd have to look kind of _old_," i wound up, as they regarded me with amused surprise. after breakfast was over cousin eunice gathered up her tablet and pencil and nodded for me to come with her. "i want to look at your face as i write," she explained with a sympathetic smile, "for i am hopelessly stupid and commonplace. i can't even think of a surname for my hero that isn't already the name of an automobile." chapter vii alfred cousin eunice's new house in the city, which is really a very old house with the addition of all the wires and pipes and hardwood trimmings which we think we can't live without these days, is a love of a place. they bought it for the height of the ceilings and the size of the rooms, where every member of the family can spread out like a fried egg. but its especial glory is the drawing-room, a long, stately apartment all tricked out in the deepest, wild-woodiest green. the walls and hangings are of the hue that our mother nature loves best, while the antique furniture is the color of chestnuts at hallowe'en. there are dark-toned pedestals at intervals, holding jars of ferns, and the entire room presents such a perfect reproduction of a shady nook in the woods that rufe declared at first he dared not venture into it, for fear of being snake-bitten. there is a big leather chair over in one secluded corner, a chair which will easily hold the entire clayborne family, and, on nights when there is no company and they are in a sentimental mood, the married lovers pretend that the room is the ravine in which they did their courting, and that the big chair is the old gray rock they were sitting on when he proposed to her. this is a delightful make-believe--for them. usually waterloo and i are thrown upon each other for companionship, if it is late in the evening and grapefruit has gone home. he often begs for music, which i am always glad to furnish, or would be if his taste were not so very pronounced and so limited, and does not by any means include my favorite classics. "you play 'ditsie,' and i'll play 'little ditsie,'" his baby voice suggests, as he finds his french harp and blows a violent accompaniment. but if i tire of this and my fingers wander off into the mournful notes of the _miserere_ from _il trovatore_ (another love of my youth) his harp and the corners of his mouth drop simultaneously, and he implores me not to play that "poor song." this has not happened very many times, however, for there is nearly always somebody here. the gordons frequently, and sometimes alfred. they never come together, for whenever doctor gordon goes out anywhere at night alfred has to stay at home and attend to the calls that come in. this is what a "cub" is for; then, too, it gives the gordons a better chance to talk about him, which they take as much pleasure in doing as if he were their own dear son. it is amazing how much they all think of alfred. not amazing, certainly, in any sense that he is not worthy of all the affection they bestow upon him, but i believe that it is seldom a girl has a young man thrown at her head so _unanimously_ as i have alfred thrown at me by our loving friends. if he threw himself i should die, but he never does. he is frank, and loyal, and sober-sided; just a little merry with me now and then, but for the most part going his even-tenored way and doing his work without any more fuss and splutter than--a fireless cooker. he never talks about what he is going to do, although his eyes are so deep and brown that i feel sure he is a dreamer. he is the kind of man who seems to walk, with deliberate yet sure step, into the things he wants. this denotes, of course, that he has sat up late many nights, smoothing out rough places in the road, so that his course might be dignified and steady when he gets ready to run it. and, if solomon--or whoever it was--told the truth about silence being golden, then alfred morgan is sinfully rich. he is timid, too, around women--_well_ women, i mean; and i don't believe he would ever have grown so fond of me if he had not first known me at an age when i wore such plain linen blouses and soft silk ties you couldn't tell whether i was a boy or girl. even after my dresses began to sweep the ground i think he still thought of me as a boy. "you're a good little chap," he would say to me occasionally when i had done something for his comfort or pleasure; and i so entirely considered _him_ a boy in spite of those six years between us that i seldom felt to see how my hair was arranged when i would hear his footsteps approaching. then, one day i had a rude shock about alfred's degree of manhood. ann lisbeth and i were in his private office waiting for doctor gordon to get through with a string of patients which was overflowing the reception-room, and write out a check for her to take on a shopping excursion. (things have changed with them since the days of their early married life, when ann lisbeth got a new dress only once a year; and then had to have it made by somebody who was owing her husband for a baby or a spell of measles.) there was plenty of space in alfred's room, poor boy, and i was sitting in front of his desk, idly fingering some papers and journals lying around in scattered confusion. my attention was arrested presently by a small, oblong blotting-pad, with his name, doctor alfred morgan, printed on the celluloid cover. the drug firms of the city sent such things out to all the doctors occasionally, but this was a particularly pretty one, with a little raised medallion on it--a picture of a stately stork approaching a cheery little cottage, with the fat, rosy, inevitable burden in his bill. the moon and stars were shining as they never shone on sea nor land, and there was a comfortable glow coming from the cottage windows, a glow of welcome, it seemed. it was a happy-looking little picture, but it brought a curious feeling of uneasiness to my mind. "ann lisbeth," i called, loud enough to cause her to look up from the magazine she was reading, yet not so loud as to be heard by alfred, who was in the next room making a blood count. "do you suppose they let anybody as young as alfred do _this_?" i held up the picture. "oh, my goodness," she laughed, looking not so much at the picture as at my horrified face. "_young!_ why, he has two pairs of twins _named_ for him, besides a little girl whose happy parents are so fond of him that they made him name her. her name is ann morgan." "the ann is for _you_," i cried, my face flushing. "nay, for you," she insisted, still laughing so that alfred heard her and came in to see what it was that was so funny. "some of ann's nonsense," she explained, and i slapped the blotter into my purse before he turned and looked at me. after that i naturally began to treat alfred with a good deal more respect, which he never seemed to notice. it was about this time that he began finding a "good class" of patients who were trusting enough or reckless enough to let him operate on them; patients who remembered his work at the hospital, or who were willing to take doctor gordon's word for it when he assured them that morgan could do the job as well as he himself. of course this last happened only when there was an emergency case that doctor gordon could not attend to, or an out-of-town call that promised to have so little compensation that the elder doctor felt that he would not be justified in leaving the city for it. and then it was that perhaps some old six-cylinder surgeon who happened to see the operation would go away and remark that he always knew morgan was going to make good, for, by george! the fellow handled the knife like a veteran! these stories never failed to bring a thrill of satisfaction to my breast, for alfred is my old chum, and i have already mentioned in here my reverence for power. jean everett likes alfred almost as much as i do, and reads me long lectures upon the idiocy of my course. she religiously invites him out to her house when i am spending the week-end there and makes me dress up in absurdly coquettish things, in view of the fact that he has possibly seen me for the past seven days in the plainest of tailored clothes. jean has not grown up to be a beauty, that is, not a beauty that could be marked off by rule, but she has that indefinable something about her exquisite get-up which makes you suspect that all her lingerie is stitched with thread number . so dainty is she in her pretty blue frocks that a poetic he-cozen of hers calls her a wedgwood girl, but guilford calls her his twenty-two carat girl, because her heart is as golden as her hair. i have been in the city only a little while--if i take the calendar's word for it; but it has seemed long to me, for the season of the year is that when everything is very dull. all the people who have country homes are reluctantly bidding them good-by and the signs of fall cleaning are disfiguring all the city homes. the theaters are publishing long lists of attractions which are coming later on, but now there is nothing. the only politicians i have seen i have met accidentally up at the _times_ office--and they are all old, and wear long frock coats,--and look as if they chewed tobacco. so, as i promised in the first chapter that i was not going to bother you with daily details and venison pasties, i suppose i shall have to close this chapter without recording _one_ thing of interest. i can assure you, however, that you do not regret the dullness of it _half_ so much as i do. but hold! shall i forget neva? self-centered thing that i am! because the last three weeks have been dreary and barren to me shall i not rejoice in the happiness of some one else? among the other unimportant things which i have done since coming up to the city i have helped neva get installed in a boarding-school for young ladies. an expensive place, it is, where for a certain unnaturally large sum each year they teach you to broaden your a's, sharpen your eyes, and loath your home surroundings for ever afterward. the matter had been under discussion for some days before i left home, and i set forth the pros and especially the _cons_ to mrs. sullivan. but the humiliation of the fit doctor's visit was fresh and galling; and neva's boarding-school experience would more than turn her rival's triumph into dead sea fruit. she must be entered as a student at the beautifully named college. they came up together a week before time for the school to open, neva and her mother, so that they could learn their way about the city a little and also buy neva some new music and a supply of winter clothes. now, neva's songs, while new and silly, are sung in her buoyant young voice with so much gusto on the caressing words that they are a kind of actual music; a joyous sort of wholesome music, like the sound of the postman's whistle on a sunshiny morning, when you know that he is bringing you a love-letter! there goes my imagination again, for i never had a love-letter in my life! not even a post-card, and it's been _three weeks_. possibly dignified people do not write post-cards! especially gubernatorial timber! now, what started this digression? oh, yes, neva's silly songs which she bought while she was up here those few days before school commenced. i started out to say that they did not seem at all silly to me this time. i actually caught myself singing them over and over again and found considerable beauty in one that was a plea to some hardhearted beloved to make "ev'ry dream come true." yes, i was delighted with neva's new songs, and neva was delighted with everything she saw in the city: with the pure linen shirt-waists marked down to one dollar; with the vast, dim cathedral which we would drop into to enjoy its solemn beauty nearly every time we were near it, after i found that neva responded to its appeal; she admired the egyptian mummies in the museum--the terrified delight of my early years; but she found the greatest joy in watching the fire-engines at work. mrs. sullivan remained strictly at home after her first day of tramping the city streets, which she declared "was the death o' her feet," so that neva's bubbling accounts of the sights seen, when she would return to their hotel at night and try to cheer her mother up with her lively recitals, were by no means the least enjoyable part of the day's program. "oh, mamma, the cathedral's just _grand_," she declared with enthusiasm, after her first visit. "i told miss ann that i _wished_ papa had stayed a catholic and had raised me that way." mrs. sullivan's baptist eyebrows flew up in horror, then her entire face settled into its normal look of hopelessness. "maybe you won't be so glib to wish it at the great day of judgment," she said warningly, and the capital letters i have used were all in her voice. "--and the mummies!" neva hastened on, seeing that she had struck the wrong key, and her tones were as light and frolicksome as her mother's were lugubrious. "i just love mummies!" mrs. sullivan still refused to show a smiling interest. "well, i reckon they're all right, if miss ann recommends 'em," she said grudgingly, but with a little wonder depicted on her face; "still, i make it a rule not to fill _my_ stomach too full of strange vittles!" "oh, mamma! they ain't things to eat," neva corrected, struggling between her shame and amusement, then she launched forth into a brief explanation of embalming "after the manner of the egyptians." at the word "egyptians" quick comprehension dawned in mrs. sullivan's disapproving eyes. certainly she had read her bible. "shucks! is _them_ what you're talking about? well, i can tell you, miss, i knew all about mummies before _you_ was ever borned! but you talked about 'em so gushing that i thought of course they was some kind o' new-fangled ice-cream." "when i said that i _loved_ them i meant that they are _so_ interesting, you know," neva said, hoping to mollify her, but her explanation proved a poor quality of oil poured upon the troubled waters of maternal understanding. "them's strange things for a girl to be going to see," she commented with pointed brevity. "--men, women and children layin' there without _no_ clo'es on--and nobody not knowing what they died with!" but the fires! i don't know whether there was an unusually large number of such calamities during this period or not, but i had never had my attention so attracted to them before. we happened to find ourselves almost in the thick of one the very first day we were up in the shopping district, and the excitement so appealed to neva that after that no member of the fire department could have taken a more lively interest in the clang of the bell than she did. on the last night of mrs. sullivan's stay, when she was already weeping over having to leave her only born, there was such a sudden and close clang of the alarm as would furnish edgar allan poe with inspiration enough for four more stanzas of "bells, bells, bells." neva listened, counted the strokes, then scrambled around distractedly for the alarm card. the fire might be near enough for her to see! "well, nevar," her mother said, wiping her eyes and looking at her motions with reproach, "it is poorly worth while trying to educate _you_! you've been here a whole week and _ain't learned the fire-alarm card yet_!" chapter viii alfred collects a debt alfred morgan is one of those men whose backbone is built out of seasoned hickory. i wish some of the poets would start the fashion of writing epics about the hero who goes through college without getting any money from home. to me he seems vastly greater than he who taketh a city. alfred did this, selling his pretty saddle mare for money enough to start in on, then borrowing some from the banks and winning scholarships the rest of the way. incidentally, he has a very handsome chin. now there are two things that are an abomination to me, yea three--white eyelashes, a receding chin, and negro dialect written by a northern writer. the white eyelashes i admit are a misfortune, not a fault; the receding chin--well, i have wondered if that defect might be remedied by a little crinoline infused into the character, for without a doubt it is a visible sign of a weakness that will sooner or later become visible. the negro dialect allusion has no business here, but i had written it down once in a note-book in a list of my pet abominations, and i wanted to work it in somewhere, so this seemed as good a place as any. however, the question of chin is the only one with which we have to deal to-night. as i have above intimated, alfred is dark-lashed and well-chinned, else we could never have been the friends that we are. that we are good friends is proved by the fact that whenever i want to go anywhere with him i ask him to take me along, and if there is any reason why i should not go, all he ever says by way of explanation is a brief, "no, i can't be bothered with you to-day, my dear." it happened pretty much after that fashion yesterday afternoon, when i had lunched with ann lisbeth and he had mentioned that he had a long country drive to take. the sun was shining alluringly, and i had been feeling very dull. "i believe i'll go with you," i volunteered, as we congregated around him at the front door and he began looking about for his black leather bag. "i wish i could take you, for it's a beautiful drive," he responded, looking down at me with a smile in his brown eyes, "but i couldn't be sure of getting you home before very late." "is the trip such a long one?" "no; but i have some urgent business in the city afterward. i've brought suit for a medical bill, and am expecting at any moment to be summoned to the magistrate's court." "how exciting! but i could come home on the car if you are detained very late." "how disgusting rather!" he answered, ignoring the suggestion of mine about the street-car, but i saw him pick up a lap-robe lying near and brush a little dust from it. this was a sign that he expected me to go, for he scorns the comforts of a lap-robe for himself, even on the coldest days. "it's hateful business," he continued, dropping the robe and searching around for the little broom which ann lisbeth keeps tied to the hat-rack, for both her doctors consider that cleanliness is godliness. "there will be a pack of lies sworn to in heathen jargon and hours wasted trying to make the scoundrels come to terms." "heathen? literally or figuratively?" "both. the man who owes the money is that hindoo i operated on last year for appendicitis, but the circus he travels with is really responsible for the debt; so i'm going to attach a few of their lions and tigers and snake-charmers to make them settle up while they're in town this time." "why, alfred! i don't know of anything this side of african jungles so thrilling. i believe i'll go with you anyway, even if i have to walk back. if the circus men should decide to pay you in lions instead of money you might need me to help herd them home." he smiled as i reached for my hat. "there's something in that," he said, "for they would willingly follow _you_." then, coming a step nearer so that he could not be heard by ann lisbeth, who stood near by, he kept on, "i would trust you to charm anything that has eyes." the telephone rang just as he spoke, and ann lisbeth went to answer it. i was surprised at the tone of his voice, for alfred very rarely pays me compliments, and never one anything like this before. i was surprised still more at myself as i caught at this opportunity for a sincere, _masculine_ compliment. "alfred," i said quickly, half afraid that ann lisbeth would come back before i could make him say what i longed to hear, "alfred, do you think i'm good-looking?" i had the grace to blush as i said it, but the blush was not for alfred. i felt that he knew the real question in my mind was, "do you suppose richard chalmers thought i was good-looking that day we sat on the old stone wall by the orchard gate?" but alfred was simple and sincere always, and he saw in my question only the query any vain girl might put to a close friend. and into his eyes darted a quick look of pain and confusion. i wondered if my vanity lowered his ideal of me. "you evidently have no knowledge of what i _do_ think of you--else you wouldn't ask such a silly question," he answered gravely. "i beg your pardon if--if i have offended you by my foolish talk, but i was only trying to make you say something pretty to me--you never do, you know." i was genuinely confused, myself, now. "i thought 'pretty things' were unnecessary between you and me, ann," he answered again, more gravely still. "every woman likes them," i said, trying to relieve the tension by my tone of lightness. "then i can gratify you--if that's what you want. i think--that is, to me you are the most beautiful woman in the world!" i was so stunned at his unexpected reply and the entirely _new_ look on his face as he made it that i should have betrayed the thoughts which came surging to my mind if ann lisbeth had not rejoined us then with a commonplace remark about my taking a heavy coat along with me if i decided to go with alfred. "you're going, aren't you?" he asked casually, as if the matter were of no moment with him, but i saw how he reached for my coat as i nodded my head, and he bade ann lisbeth not to take up so much of his valuable time as she fussed a little over the careless way i fixed my veil, and insisted on my letting her pin it on properly. the woods were beautiful, but i saw their beauty only in a vague, fantastic way. my thoughts were in a sad tumult, partly on my own account, partly on alfred's, for i felt that his strange words spoken at the hall door would be followed up by something far more manifest. i knew him so well that there was no need for me to agitate my mind over whether his words and looks meant anything, as i had done in the case of richard chalmers that day in the orchard when he had said "pretty things." ah, he had said them so prettily! how could i let alfred know, without wounding him and spoiling our comradeship? or would it be better _not_ to let him know? to ignore his words and avoid such dangerous ground in the future--until he had forgotten them himself. even the strongest, staunchest lovers cease to love after a while, when there is nothing for the flame to feed upon, i argued, and i set about steering away from any reference that might lead back to the perilous line of talk which had been so mercifully interrupted. i espied a redbird--belated little wanderer--sitting on the fence by the side of the road, and i began telling alfred of mammy lou's superstitions concerning redbirds and other little creatures too happy and bright to have even a tinge of superstition attached to them. but as i laughed at the notion i made a wish, and saw with joy that the bird flew away out of view. there is a queer admixture of the fatalist in my make-up and, as the redbird flew away, carrying my wish with him, i had a feeling that that wish would come to pass. it was a very simple, fervid, all-embracing affair--that i should see richard chalmers again very soon--and that he should _love_ me. the first time i had looked at that man's face i felt as if i had turned a leaf in the book of my destiny. when rufe mentioned his name to me and i later learned that he was the same man whose face had formed the centerpiece of all my mental pictures, i fancied that fate was about to keep her promise; and when he had lingered over saying good-by that night at home i felt as if my fancies might have a chance of coming true. then i had come up to the city and stayed for days and days, without hearing one word from him. this humiliated me until i was angry with myself for having ever given him a thought. i am of a proud nature which would demand far more of a man than he should ever _see_ that i gave. i was certainly not in love with richard chalmers as i drove with alfred out that country road, but i was intensely fascinated, so much so that my thoughts flew to him with the flight of the redbird, and for a while i forgot that i was neglecting my task of keeping alfred's mind diverted. from the country we drove back to alfred's office and i stayed in the reception-room and looked at magazines while he was busy with some patients in his private office. it was getting well toward evening and the stenographer was beginning to arrange her desk in readiness to leave when alfred came into the room and began to fume about the delay in being summoned to court. he suggested that i telephone cousin eunice that i would be late, which i did, but i found that my absence was going to make small difference to them, as she and rufe were going out to a lecture, and i should be thrown on the society of waterloo for the evening. "make alfred take you on to ann lisbeth's, and rufe and i will come by for you after the lecture," she suggested, which was an easy solution and would not cause alfred to feel that he must hurry on my account. he smiled when i told him of this arrangement. "so you are going to be left entirely to me this one evening, it seems," he said. "the gordons are dining out and bade me satisfy my hunger before i came home. i propose that we go on up to beauregard's now and have dinner, then i'll take you home and let you tell tales to waterloo until he goes to sleep." "i'm not dressed to go to beauregard's," i began, looking down sadly at my tailored clothes and linen blouse. i was very hungry, and beauregard's is a delicious place. but my longings were cut short by a ring at the telephone, and i knew from the answers he made that alfred was at last summoned to the magistrate's court. "jump in and go with me," he directed, as he began giving the colored boy and stenographer directions for closing up the office. "likely i sha'n't be long; and we'll go to dinner as soon as they get through with me." we drove to the magistrate's court and i sat in the car and waited for him. i waited while the darkness came on and the street lights flared up; i waited while everybody else was crowding into the homeward-bound electric cars--and i was still waiting long after the throngs had thinned out and the cars were carrying their scant loads, which means that all the world is at its evening meal. finally he came out, looking tired and disgusted, but he told me that the case had been adjusted satisfactorily to him, although the final settlement was not to be made until after the circus performance that night, when the business manager of the mighty show could be freed from his duties and so present himself at the pleasant little affair. "the mischief of it is that my lawyer and i have to go out to the show grounds and keep an eye on the manager," he explained, with a slightly worried look. "and don't you know what to do with me?" "exactly! it's too late to send you home in a cab by yourself, and i can't go and take you now. what shall i do with you?" "why, take me to the circus." he looked at me a moment, then looked at his watch and hesitated. "i hate to," he said, "but i don't see anything else to be done." so we started off again. fortunately the performance was nearly over when we got there, for it was the last night and everything was cut delightfully short, so i decided that i would rather stay out in the machine for that length of time, and watch the crowds swarm out to the street-cars than to be mixed up more closely with them. alfred drove up under a big arc-light and halted at the end of a long string of automobiles and carriages. "you'll not be afraid here--and i'll be back as soon as i can," he said as he left me. i pulled the rug up over me and reached back for a magazine i had brought, but the unsteady light on the printed pages soon caused my eyes to hurt, so i laid the book down again and gave myself up to the misery of just plain waiting. after what seemed hours to me alfred sent a little negro boy to the car with the message that i was to empty out his largest instrument case and send it to him. "maybe they have compromised on part money and a few baby lions," i mused, as i leaned back and gave myself up to another period of waiting. i once heard ann lisbeth say that the only medical attention a doctor's wife ever gets is a sample bottle of iron tonic hastily handed her from a desk drawer once in a while, if she happens to be sitting near by and looking pale. i should not object to this, being healthy and seldom needing an iron tonic, but i do think the long waiting spells which any one who goes out with a doctor has to be subjected to would eventually make a woman so nervous that she would have to have some kind of tonic. i have registered a vow that hereafter, even if i start out somewhere with alfred in august, i shall take my furs along, not knowing but that it will be winter when i get back. he finally came, however, and in looking at him i forgot the tediousness of my long wait. his eyes were flashing and his face was flushed. he looked very angry--and very handsome. evidently he had not been suffering from cold as i had. he had on his long overcoat, which seemed almost to drag him down, big as he is, with its weight; and the pockets were bulging dropsically--if there is such a word. his instrument case he deposited in the car, right in the way of my feet, but when i tried to move it i found that it would not budge. "are you tired?" he asked, as he began to crank the car. "i'm tired and cold--and _hungry_." "all of which will soon be remedied," and he smiled as he looked at me. "ann, you never saw a man in my condition before in your life." "what?" he had a hard time working his way into the car with those bulging pockets, but he finally got fixed satisfactorily, then he moved the heavy instrument case; and i gave my feet several relieved shakes. "very likely for the first time in your young life you behold a man who has more money than he knows what to do with!" "_money!_" i edged away respectfully to give the pockets more room. "is it money?" "every pound of it is coin of the realm," he answered. "it is _nickels_." "alfred!" "those low-down scoundrels paid me in nickels." and his eyes began to flash again. "what on earth for?" "for pure cussedness!" "and you had to count them all!" no wonder he had been gone a long time. "i sat there like a fool and counted the instrument case full; then i dumped the rest into my pockets. the lawyer is sitting in front of his little pile now, counting it; and there is a small bag full to be sent to the magistrate to-morrow." "why, it's like a dream, isn't it? i never heard of so much money." "and i never believed before that surgeons charge too much for their services--but now--" we laughed all the way back to town; we drove up to beauregard's laughing; we laughed as alfred slipped off his coat and the solemn waiter looked startled at the heaviness of the garment. then we looked around leisurely to select a table, for it was late and the diners were few. "let's go into the booth," i suggested, nodding toward a small mahogany partition at one side and near the front of the restaurant. this compartment was built with some other purpose in view than acting as a private dining-room, for the open doorway is unscreened in any way, and the partition itself is only about seven feet high. i set down these uninteresting figures to let you know that i am a well-brought-up young person and don't go into private dining-rooms unchaperoned--nor should i have been here at all with any one but alfred. i had learned the comforts of this mahogany screen from having come here often with cousin eunice and waterloo. we always make a bee-line for its shelter when we have him with us, for he fills his mouth so full that his mother always has to make him stop and unload. this is less embarrassing when there is a partition between her and the public. the place happened to be unoccupied when we came into the restaurant that night, and alfred and i sat down with a sigh of mingled exhaustion and content. he began a lavish and extensive order which i curtailed materially on account of the lateness of the hour. "we can't spend _all_ our nickels to-night," i said, reprovingly; and we laughed a little over the nickels, at intervals, all through the meal. then we talked, or at least, i talked, which is usually the case when alfred and i are together. i asked him questions about the circus people and the curious sights he had seen in the tent which was not open to the public. and he told me about the hideous cossacks standing guard over their high-pommelled saddles, as the hurried process of packing went on, the long-haired ranchmen, who were tenderly laying away their guns; and the hindoo woman who sat and glared at him as he handled the nickels which would mean months of a lessened salary for her and her husband. "_think_ of the balloons and pop-corn and red lemonade those nickels represent," i said, still on the subject of the circus, as we finished our meal and left the table. under the influence of the good dinner, the soft lights, with their soothing shades on the table, and the warm air of the comfortable room after my long wait in the autumn cold, i was beginning to feel deliciously sleepy, and was thinking with pleasure in how short a time alfred could make the distance home, now that the streets were not crowded--when we left the booth and i looked around at the people occupying the other tables. i looked at them indifferently, as i waited for alfred to put on his overcoat, my eyes traveling slowly around the room, until they stopped at a table close in front of where i was standing. just outside the partition and sitting so squarely facing it that i dropped one of my long gloves in my startled surprise when i saw him, was richard chalmers, smoking a fragrant cigar, from which he had stripped a dainty red-and-gold band, which was lying upon the newspaper he had spread out in front of him. but he was not reading, and i imagined from his look that he had not been reading for some time, for he was looking straight at me with the same half-amused smile he had worn when he had sat on the old stone wall that day and told me that there was a vast difference in our ages. it seemed that he was quietly waiting for me to look at him, and, as our eyes met, he rose at once, and came over and shook hands with me. "i was waiting for you to come out, miss fielding," he said, after i had introduced the two men and they had reached simultaneously for my glove, which alfred got to first--then mr. chalmers began to fold the paper he had not been reading, and made preparations to leave the place as we did. "i happened to drop in here a little while ago, and, fortunately, chose this table. then i heard your voice--i felt sure that it was you--so i waited to see." alfred excused himself a moment and crossed the room to speak to a white-haired old gentleman at one of the tables. i recognized this old man as a well-known back number in the medical profession of the city, and had heard doctor gordon say that he was pitiably grateful for any attention which the younger fellows showed him. alfred spoke a few words of congratulation on a recent address the old doctor had made at a medical meeting, they both laughed over a half-whispered joke, then alfred turned to leave. an appealing hand was laid on his coat sleeve, as he allowed himself to be cornered by the old man, and a harangue ensued, carried on in a quavering, high-pitched voice, with now and then a deep-toned word from alfred. i stood and waited for him and richard chalmers came closer to me as i glanced over into one of the mirrors on the wall and began to tie the big veil around my hat again, and to pull up my coat-collar a bit closer, preparatory to going out into the chilly air. he dropped his voice and began to talk as rapidly as his lazy, southern drawl would let him. he seemed to have a good deal to say and he wished to say it all. i was in an agony of fear that the old doctor's harangue might not last long enough. "yes, the next week after seeing you i went east and returned only this morning," richard's voice was saying, and, while the words made all the difference in the world to me, still i heard them only indistinctly. all i could take in was the fact that i was hearing his voice again. "i reached the city this morning, and telephoned clayborne about noon to ask him where you were. you remember you told me that you were booked to come home with them? i was very glad indeed when he said that you were at his house, and i should have gone out to see mrs. clayborne to-night--i wanted to tell her about my mother and sister coming up to town next week for some shopping. they live in charlotteville--eastern end of the state, you know--but clayborne said that there was a lecture or something on for to-night. he thought you would all likely be at home to-morrow evening." "yes--i think so. we shall be very glad to see you." "it was the merest chance that i dropped in here and heard you talking--i understood that something very amusing had happened at a circus." "yes," i said weakly. "so i stayed to listen. you will forgive me--for i knew that it was your voice, and"--with a _wonderful_ smile--"you see i am very fond of music." chapter ix a shopping expedition "_o richard, o mon roi_," i carolled this morning, but i confess that i carolled it as much in an undertone as the unfortunate aristocrats had to employ when they chose to give vent to their feelings by singing that song during the reign of terror. i was up-stairs in my own room at cousin eunice's, brushing, shaking, smoothing, folding, and now and then mending a little ripped place in my clothes, for, during the last four weeks i have done nothing but wear them. early in the morning, all through the day, and late at night, i have lived to maltreat those clothes. and they are showing signs of being weary and wounded. it is a good thing, possibly, that mother and cousin eunice would not let me have the black spangled net that my soul yearned for, else there would not have been a spangle left to tell the tale by this time. cousin eunice was in the next room throughout the time i was thus employed--that is, she was in and out, hence the undertone in my singing. "ann," she finally called in a vexed tone, after a period of silence, "you'll live to learn, after you're married, that a man and his poll-tax receipt are soon parted." "it's a registration certificate," i amended softly. "well, what if it is? it's eternally lost when they want it." she had spent the morning emptying bureau drawers, scratching through piles of old papers, peering under the clock, into a cracked vase, moving the piano and searching in the dusty lint beneath, and dazzling her eyesight by a scramble through a five-years' accumulation of pink electric light bills--but no sign of the registration certificate. toward luncheon time rufe called her up and said he hoped she had not put herself to any trouble, for he forgot to tell her early this morning that he had already found the missing paper in his pocket-book. "they have to register before they can vote, don't they?" i knew that they did, but i was in a mood to talk politics this morning. "yes. this is just a measly little municipal election, however." "oh, i know that it is not gubernatorial." "i observe that you have improved your store of knowledge mightily--since that day we sat under the althea hedge." she came into my room as she spoke, and sat down on the side of the bed. "yes, i feel that i know all about the state of affairs now." "then i wish you would tell me, so i can tell rufe." she was tired out from her strenuous morning, and her head fell over among the pillows. i laid down the skirt i had been brushing and seated myself on the foot of the bed. "what's the trouble?" i asked. "i thought the matter was very simple." "you thought the matter was simple, you dear little goose, because our favorite piece of gubernatorial timber has showered you with devoted attentions this past month. it seems that he has declared his intentions toward you--so far as looks and acts go--but he is backward about his political doings." "then you have just not listened to what he has said," i denied stoutly, the spirit of the game strong within me, and the spirit of my admiration for him much stronger. "nobody could denounce appleton more entirely than he does!" "oh, appleton!" there was infinite scorn in her tone. "what decent person doesn't denounce him?" "then, what's the trouble?" i asked again. "appleton stands for whisky; we stand for water--the affair seems quite clear to me." "and jim blake stands for whisky _and_ water--with a goodly dash of sugar. he's a kind of toddy for our split democracy." "but what has _he_ to do with richard chalmers?" i asked, an uneasy fear clutching at my gay spirits. "that's just what we want to know--before the _times_ can rally to the support of chalmers." "the _times_!" i was genuinely aroused now. "why, i thought the _times_ had virtually _made_ richard chalmers." "well, the paper has boomed him because he has always stood for the right principles heretofore. but there is a grave complication about to set in now, it seems. of course the people of this state are not going to stand for appleton again--we are not hottentots, and either a strong democrat must come out, and stand on a strong platform, else we are going to have a republican for governor." "well?" "well, the law-abiding faction is ready to support richard chalmers, so long as he does not compromise, but at the first evidence of weakening on his part--the vote goes to some _clean_ republican." "and you are afraid that he will join blake--in some way?" "in a very clearly defined way. blake is the most popular man in the state. he could put up a good fight for anything he wanted here--and he could throw his influence to chalmers." i traced the pattern of the counterpane with the end of the clothes-brush which i was still holding in my hand. "i don't know a thing about it," i said finally, my tone and feelings far different from what they were but a few minutes before, when i had declared confidently that i knew all about it. "he has never once mentioned politics to me these last few weeks." "well, i dare say not," she said, straightening up and smoothing back her hair. "imagine a man talking politics before mrs. chalmers and evelyn! and they have been with you every minute that you and he have been together." it was true. these last few weeks had brought about a delightful state of closer personal contact between richard chalmers and me, a condition which he has seemed determined to make stronger and more pronounced by every means in his power--and he has the most charming means--but always under the supervision of his mother and sister. supervision? good heavens, what an absurd word to use in connection with either one of those women where richard is concerned, for they are truly as much slaves to him as if he had chains around their wrists and ankles. a worshipping slave is his mother, while evelyn is so timid and fearful in his presence that she appears to be much stupider than she really is, which is stupid enough, in all conscience! when i first discovered this mighty reverence in them for the man who is so kingly to me i felt that they must recognize in him that wonderful _regal_ attribute, which so irresistibly attracted me. but i soon learned, for we were together constantly, that evelyn fears and dislikes him, and the only time during those weeks of companionship that she displayed the slightest eagerness over anything was when she was urging me to accompany them on some pleasure party, where, unless i should go along with them, they would be left solely to the companionship of her august brother. "he's so much nicer when you're around," she explained to me one time with a look of pleading candor, when she was insisting that i go to dinner with them that evening. i had received pressing invitations from the three members of the family, but was hesitating on account of mammy lou's slogan. evelyn is an intensely inane girl, but not bad at heart, and it had not occurred to her that she was saying the wrong thing. her mother, who is much more acute, came forward with a flurried palliation for evelyn's thoughtless words. richard is so dignified that evelyn has never grown to _know_ him, she explained, with what impressed me as undue haste; he is so much older than she, and has been away from home so much of recent years. "it doesn't make me think any less of him to know that you are both deadly afraid of him," i smiled to myself as i ran up-stairs to change my dress. "but i am not in the least afraid of him." his women are not at all like richard, even in so far as length, breadth and thickness go. the quality in him which results in simply a splendid physique, in them tends toward heaviness, and i have heard from his own lips that he "hates dumpy women." yet he cares extremely for the handsome appearance which they make in their expensive clothes, and his cold dignity finds a pleased echo in their studied correctness. correct they both are, and stylish and _orthodox_, church and clothes being the alpha and omega of their conversation. they are conventionally polite, whereas he is always superbly courteous; and mrs. chalmers can invariably be depended upon to do and say exactly the right thing. evelyn passes muster all right, because she never does or says anything. while richard's mother can describe to the turning of a milliner's fold the latest foibles of fashion's fancy, she is complacently old-fashioned in her notions about other things, maintaining the faith in which she was brought up, namely, that all children should be whipped and all husbands watched, while women should say their prayers regularly and see that their corsets suit their figure. she quotes the bible unendingly and is so morbidly "proper" and ladylike that i am sure she thinks, if she ever thought about it at all, that being burned at the stake was no more than joan of arc deserved for being so immodest as to ride cross-saddle before all those fast and loose frenchmen. it fell to cousin eunice's lot to go shopping with mrs. chalmers and evelyn; and to the hair-dressers, and to the thousand and one other places that out-of-town women always feel that they must visit when they are in a city for a little while. i usually fight shy of this phase of getting acquainted, not because, as you may think, that richard was never along, for he was frequently; but simply because i _hate_ shopping. one morning, only a little while before they were to go back to charlotteville, they asked cousin eunice to meet them in the city as they had some rather important purchases to make and desired her judgment on the matter. cousin eunice has known richard's family ever since he shot up so suddenly on the political firmament, and she had shopped with them before, so she fortified herself for this occasion by putting on her most comfortable shoes and arranging her hair to stand the strain of a day's long crusade away from a mirror. i had been invited to lunch with ann lisbeth that day, for there had been killed a fatted calf to glorify alfred's birthday, and i pleaded this engagement when i was politely urged to join, at least for a while, the shopping expedition. "i wish you would come on in and see that coat i'm worried over," evelyn rather insisted, as i was about to make my adieus at the entrance of one of the big shops, without even glancing at the bewildering array of new fall goods displayed in the windows. clearly evelyn considered my seeming indifference to fashionable apparel a pose, for she continued, looking at me slightly aggrieved: "you evidently must be interested in your own clothes. richard said last night that you were a feast for an artist." my face turned a little red, but i meekly followed them on into the place. i might have told her that, while to _her_ clothes were an end, to me they were a means--and no one is ever deeply interested in a mere means. yet when the end is such a speech as _that_ from such a man as that, it stands one in hand to take a little interest in the means. this brought about the frenzied overhauling of raiment which i instituted this morning. although it was still warm weather, the autumn stock of furs was already on exhibition, and evelyn's attention had been particularly attracted by a coat of short, glossy, and very expensive fur. one more sight of the attractive garment decided her. "well, i'm certainly glad you've made up your mind," mrs. chalmers said, as she opened her shopping-bag and drew out her check-book. she was busily filling out the blank after "pay to the order of" when she suddenly stopped and looked up at evelyn. "i wish i could get this cashed somewhere else," she said in a low voice, "for richard will criticize our taste unmercifully when he learns that this amount of money has been paid for that coat. he always looks over my returned checks." "oh, we'll just tell him that this was the entire amount of our shopping bill at this store," evelyn answered easily, as if such a deception might be an every-day affair with them. "if he asks me i'll tell him that the coat cost only half of what it did." "that's true, we can do that," mrs. chalmers said, looking relieved and going on with her writing. "but don't you forget to back me up in whatever i tell him." after she had handed the check to the gratified saleswoman and again given directions about a slight alteration in the set of the collar she turned to cousin eunice and said a word or two in explanation. "richard is such a critic," she stated rather absently, her eyes fixed on a handsome evening wrap hanging in a case close by; "when he knows we have paid a good deal for our clothes it seems to give him real pleasure to criticize them. he says evelyn and i will buy anything a shop-girl shows us if she will only flatter us enough. so i am in for doing anything that will keep the peace. i consider it one of the first duties of a christian." her mouth closed primly for a moment after her last sentence, but opened again almost immediately, for her eyes were still fascinated by the beauty of the delicate-colored wrap. "mrs. clayborne, _do_ you think i am too stout for one of those loose cloaks?" i stood for a moment looking at the group and fingering the handle of my shopping-bag nervously. i was glad that my opinion of the evening wrap was not asked, for i should have given a random answer. i was wondering so many things in so short a space of time that my brain could not find room for words just then. of all the different kinds of lies that one meets up with in life it has always seemed to me that the lies women tell about the cost of clothes are the lowest class. what a deplorable lack of understanding must exist between members of a family when such lying is deemed necessary! i imagined mother or me trying to lie to father--about the cost of clothes! the bewitching evening wrap was brought forth from its case and mrs. chalmers and evelyn trailed away after the shop-woman to the dressing-room. cousin eunice and i sat down to wait for them. she looked at her watch, stifled a yawn, and then turned to me rather hesitatingly. "i wonder if our friend, mr. chalmers, is a domestic tyrant?" she said. i started, for this phase of the matter had not presented itself to my mind. "he doesn't seem to be," i answered, with as much nonchalance as i could muster. "of course every one can see that they both stand in awe of him; but i thought that must be because he is so extraordinarily--clever." she laughed, then she looked at me more seriously. "if it were only his cleverness they would not be hypocritical with him. and tyrants _do_ breed hypocrites." "not unless there is hypocritical material--to start out with." "i--don't know! if you loved a tyrant, and desired above everything else to please him, it might mean the ultimate ruin of even _your_ frank character." "i couldn't love a tyrant," i argued. "you might not recognize the tyrant in him--until after you had married him," she said. the same uneasy feeling that again came over me when i discussed his political prospects took possession of me then, and i started to ask her frankly what she had in mind, when evelyn came up and said that her mother wanted cousin eunice to come and see her with the wrap on. so she passed on back to the dressing-room to help decide the momentous question, while evelyn and i sat there and discussed the good points of the coat she had just bought. * * * * * ann lisbeth was sweet and wholesome when i met her an hour or two later--an admirable antidote to the disagreeable feeling i had brought away from the shops. "alfred doesn't know you're coming," she said with a bright smile, "he'll be so pleased!" as is usual when the fatted calf is killed for a medicine man he takes that occasion to be an hour late--an emergency case at the last minute, or some one at the office that it took an unreasonable time to get through with. i hardly heard the excuse which alfred made when he came in, but i knew it was true, whatever it was, and, as doctor gordon was not going to be able to come at all, we three went in and gave ourselves up to the joy of the occasion. i was absently eating everything that was brought to me, and was thinking all the while how perfectly preposterous it was that richard chalmers--a man like richard chalmers--should have such weak-minded females attached to him; and i had just reached the conclusion that there could never, _never_ be anything like friendship between us, no matter what there might be as an occasion for friendship, when the dessert was brought in, and with it a great, beautiful cake, iced in forget-me-nots. "now, don't you think i'm sentimental?" ann lisbeth asked with a smile, after we had used up all the adjectives that we had at our command. "you see, i thought maybe alfred's next birthday might be spent in london, or vienna, or somewhere far away--and i knew that i was going to have you here to-day, ann--so i told the woman who made the cake to be sure and use forget-me-nots. so when he thinks of us on his next birthday he will have to remember how much we all love him!" all of a sudden i had that uncomfortable feeling that comes in my throat sometimes when i don't want it to, and i realized that if something did not happen to divert my mind i should certainly cry. ever since his graduation alfred had been trying to devise means for this course of study abroad, and i had known how much better his practice had been lately, but somehow, i had not thought of his going so far away so _soon_. suppose mammy lou should have gall-stones again! i wrestled for a moment with that awful lump in my throat; then i spoke, and my voice was natural again. "is this sudden 'wanderlust' the outcome of collecting all those nickels?" i asked with a laugh. after we left the table alfred and i went into the library for a while, and ann lisbeth stayed in the dining-room to keep her husband company while he ate, for he had come in just as we were finishing, and declared that he was starved. "ann, i have a surprise for you," alfred said, springing up from the big leather chair into whose depths he had lazily thrown himself a moment before. he sometimes took a short nap after luncheon, when he had been out all the night before, and i had picked up a magazine to amuse myself with in case he deserted me in favor of his siesta. "a surprise?" he had given me a surprise the last time i spent the day at the gordons'. "a bully one. i found it down home the other day--last week when i was out there--while i was rummaging in a box of ancient books and papers. wait, i'll run up-stairs and get it." he returned almost immediately with a book in his hand, a ponderous old tome it was, with yellowed edges and time-stained leather covers, but i saw a name on the back which sent my pulses throbbing with pleasure. "moore's _life of byron_," i said, reaching out for it eagerly. alfred had known that i wanted the book for years, and whenever he had been in a big city for any length of time he had always searched about for it, but had never come across a copy. "it isn't moore's _life_," he said, sitting down beside me on the couch, "but from what i have been able to gather, by glancing through it, it seems to be a rather more intimate affair than even that. besides the poems, there are a lot of letters and extracts from his journal; the entire correspondence for several years between him and a fellow whom he calls his 'dear murray.' guess you know who his dear murray is--i'm sure i don't. then there are some letters to the countess g-u-i-c--" "oh, alfred! guiccioli! i'm so glad to get my hands on this book. you are a darling to think about bringing it up for me to read!" "oh, i brought it up for you to keep. it belonged to my grandfather, and i can give it to any one i want to." i laughed a little at his simplicity. "but surely you would not be such a barbarian as to let a book like this go to any one outside of your family. boy, this is an heirloom! i never heard of just this edition before. the engravings in it are wonderful. it is a very valuable book. i couldn't think of letting you give it to me!" ann lisbeth had come into the room for a moment, but as she saw us sitting together on the leather couch and absorbed in the book, she had hastily left the room, closing the door behind her. as i finished speaking alfred glanced at the closed door then deliberately reached over and caught both my hands as they fluttered about over the leaves of the book. in my surprise they struggled a moment, but he held them--he has such big, warm, _capable_ hands; no wonder people are trusting as to their ability--and thus it was, with our heads bent close together and our hands pressing down upon the passionate poems of the greatest passion poet, that i received my first declaration of love. "don't you know that there is nothing in the world i own or could get too valuable for me to give to you, ann?" he said, in low, tense tones that i had never heard from him before. "surely you know what you are to me! the greatest privilege i could ask is to give you everything i have or shall have--a life of devotion--a heart, darling, that has always been yours! a world of _love_!--" he came closer still, and in another moment he would have had his arms around me, carried away as he was by the force of his own feelings, but i drew back and he was arrested by the look on my face. his own went white with sudden misery. "ann! surely you don't mean to tell me that i am already too late?" "too late?" "that you love some one else!" his face, pale and drawn, looked strangely unlike my genial, even-tempered alfred. he was capable of great depth of feeling, then--besides being so strong, so fine! i had always had an infinite respect for him, and admiration, and affection! i had known that the strength of his nature had been tested and found _there_; and it was like the strength of oak, sturdy, deep-rooted, indomitable. "i _so nearly_ love _you_, alfred," i cried, struggling between the pain i felt at his hurt and the bewilderment of my own confused feelings. for the face of richard chalmers was between us, and his face, too, spoke strength. strength of steel, cold, inflexible, even cruel, perhaps--yet holding such a potent attraction. "--but you _quite_ love some one else?" his voice was calm, although his face was even whiter than a moment before. "i don't know--i only know that i am oh, so sorry for you--and for myself, too!" he was still holding my hands in his strong clasp, and they felt so wonderfully at home there that i never thought to move them--if i had never known that other man i should have loved _him_ so! "ann, is it chalmers?" the question was frankly put, and as frankly answered. "yes.--but there is nothing yet--nothing has been _said_--still, i know--" "ah, i was afraid of that! that was what overpowered my determination not to speak of my love until i came back from europe! i noticed something that first time i met him--then the gordons told me of his attentions to you." "yes," i said. "but he has never told me that he cares." "he will. and i congratulate him." alfred arose, as he spoke, and i laid my hand on his arm. "this is not going to make any difference between us?" i asked appealingly. i felt that i could not lose my friend. "not in my feeling for you," he answered, looking down at me with a look that i hated to see in his brown eyes--they usually met the world with such a level, untroubled glance. "if you should ever change, or ever need me--you know that i will be there. but, dear, it will be painful to go on meeting you. i'm going away in a few weeks, perhaps, but until then--" "i know. i'll stay out of your way," i promised humbly. he leaned over suddenly and caught my face between his hands. he brushed his lips lightly against the coils of my hair. "good-by, _darling_," he said. then he went out softly and closed the door. chapter x ann receives a caller "whoopee, what a pretty pitcher!" waterloo cried admiringly, as he came down to breakfast this morning with the belt of his rompers still unfastened and a look of sleepiness in his brown eyes. he followed his mother into the kitchen, as did we all, for the cook was late, and rufe was anxious to get off early. "let me play with it. i won't hurt it." i do not know whether it was the appeal in his voice or the wish to avoid a conflict, which always made her so nervous that she let the toast burn, which made cousin eunice pick the object under discussion up in her hand and silently debate a minute. "isn't it a sign of the times when a child of his age doesn't know a coffee-pot when he sees one?" rufe asked, as he stood in the doorway and absorbed lots of space. when galileo, or whoever it was, made his famous remark about nobody being able to occupy more than one space at a time he had never seen a man in the kitchen before breakfast. "i think it speaks well for his up-bringing," he continued (rufe's i mean, not galileo). "it shows how entirely we are on the water wagon here at this house." "lemme play with the coffee-pot," rufus, junior, was insisting, dangerous signs appearing around the corner of his mouth. cousin eunice, who is observant, noticed these signs. it always gives her a spell of indigestion for him to have a crying spell before breakfast. "now listen, son," she said, handing the vessel over to him with a dubious look, "you must be very careful with the coffee-pot. father went up himself yesterday and bought it for mother, because we are going to have so much company this afternoon that the other pot won't hold enough. so you just sit down on a pile of sofa pillows to play with it, then you can't drop it and make ugly dents in the pretty, shiny thing." this arrangement proved so satisfactory that breakfast was finished and eaten before waterloo could be prevailed upon to break his fast. a pocket full of marbles poured headlong into the new-fangled coffee-pot had added very materially to its success as a plaything, and the music of this kept him engaged for at least half an hour after the cook finally showed up and took the reins of the kitchen work out of our relieved hands. cousin eunice then went into the dining-room to give another look at the piles of silver, china and napery that are considered necessary accompaniments to civilized eating in public. "almonds, olives, mints," she said, touching the glass and silver dishes which were placed in a row on the sideboard. "oh, isn't there always a gala feeling about eating out of wedding presents? and i'm going to use every pretty dish i have this afternoon." "is mrs. barnette such a big personage, then?" i inquired. the "scribblers' club" was going to meet with mrs. clayborne, and i had heard much of the visiting lioness just mentioned. cousin eunice is the kind of woman who takes her parties hard, and before the actual date of one, everything in the house, from waterloo's scalp to the back kitchen shelves, is put in apple-pie order--as if a visit from the health officer were impending. "big?" cousin eunice was going over the row of dishes again, to make sure that she was going to be able to use them all. "why, she speaks seven different languages, and has all her underclothes suspended from her shoulders." "mercy! then it will take every piece of silver and fine glass you can muster to offset that, i'm sure." "naturally i must make an impression some way. if my book had been published and talked about all i should do would be to offer them a cup of tea and a wafer--and they would fall all over themselves for the honor of coming." "meanwhile, being humble and obscure, you have to serve flesh and fowl and coffee--say, don't you reckon i'd better be scrubbing out the coffee-pot?" "please do," she nodded, as she went on with her work while i bearded waterloo and demanded the glittering object of his admiration. manlike, he had already tired of the plaything, and was ready to scamper away with grapefruit, for she had found a dead frog out in the yard, she said, and they would have a grand funeral if he would come on. "take him for a little walk now and save the funeral ceremonies until afternoon," i suggested, "so he'll stay out of his mother's way during the party." then i poured the marbles out of the coffee-pot into his grimy little hands, the life-lines and head-lines of which constituted little streaks of whiteness, thereby proving them to be the hands of a caucasian. "there's one that won't come out," he informed me, as he pocketed the others and departed with grapefruit. i investigated and found a marble lodged firmly in the neck of the spout, a most tantalizing position it occupied, resisting coyly my efforts to remove it, yet protruding almost halfway into the body of the pot. i stood there fingering it until cousin eunice came to see what was the matter. i explained, and when she insisted upon trying her own hand at the marble's removal i reluctantly gave it over to her. "now isn't that _too_ bad?" she finally exclaimed with a nervous impatience after she saw that it was useless to try any further. "it serves me right for giving it to him to play with--but i _do_ hate to get him started before breakfast." each member of the family and the servants took turns at trying to get the marble out of the fine new coffee-pot, spending, all told, several hours of the busy morning, and when rufe came in to luncheon the story was poured into his somewhat unsympathetic ears. "i knew he would do the thing some damage when i saw you hand it over to him to play with this morning," he said with a fatherly air. "doesn't he tear, or break, or _chew_, or sprinkle over with talcum powder everything he can get his hands on?" "maybe you can get the marble out," i said, bringing the coffee-pot to rufe, and he worked over it for a full half-hour. "oh, it's ruined," he said disgustedly, when he saw that it wasn't coming out. "of course the coffee won't _pour_! it will just drop, as reluctantly as tears at a rich uncle's funeral." "why, we hadn't thought to try," cousin eunice said, and i took the thing from rufe's hand and sped with it to the kitchen sink. "it pours," i announced triumphantly. "then your glory as a hostess is saved," rufe comforted her. "but who wants to go through life with a marble up the coffee-pot spout?" she persisted, with little worried lines between her eyes. "besides it will be sure to taste like marbles," i added. the little worried lines between cousin eunice's blue eyes grew deeper in the early afternoon as the ices and cakes were delayed an hour in coming, and we found that waterloo had sprinkled frazzled wheat biscuit all over the chairs and floor of the reception-room, just as the door-bell was ringing to announce the first scribbler. then she grew cheerful again when some of her best friends among the club members arrived, and only slightly flurried at the advent of mrs. barnette. i stayed in the presence of the learned body long enough to hear with my own ears that they were not discussing anything too deep for me to understand, everything being spoken in plain english; but this happened to be a business meeting as well as an occasion for social enjoyment, so when the time for election of officers drew near i fled, fearing at least esperanto--if not actual blows. i was present once at a meeting of mother's missionary society when this ordeal had to be gone through with, and i shall never forget the injured expression and cutting accents of the secretary _pro tem._ when she found that the office was not permanently hers. the only untoward event that happened this afternoon (and that wasn't untoward through any fault of ours) was when mrs. howard, an immensely tall, raw-boned scribbler, happened to speak in complimentary terms of dear mrs. clayborne's lovely sylvan room. "i am _so_ sensitive to rooms," she said, fluttering her rich lace scarf toward one corner of the apartment which she particularly liked, "and the least false note gets so on my nerves!" she was sitting alone upon a small sofa--alone, yet not alone, for waterloo's little, but _loud_, mechanical bug was also sitting on the sofa, although his presence was unsuspected by mrs. howard. this amazing insect is like love in the springtime, it only takes a touch to set it a-fluttering, for it seems always to be wound up. the heavy lace scarf hanging from mrs. howard's long arms and creeping over its back and sprawling legs was quite enough. it caught in the silken fabric with its sudden zizzing, clicking noise; and it climbed steadily upward, toward the lady's stalwart, but nervous, shoulders. the meshes of the lace concealed the true identity of the intruder, and mrs. howard no doubt considered herself to be in the clutches of some poisonous and persistent spider. she shook her scarf; she tried to slay the monster with her book of minutes; she screamed. finally, jerking the scarf from her shoulders and flinging it into the middle of the floor, she bravely trampled the "thing" underfoot, and thus she silenced it. then she subsided upon the sofa, pale and exhausted. "let's have the sandwiches--quick," cousin eunice whispered to me, and i fled to the dining-room to see that everything was in readiness. under the genial influence of the buffet luncheon i found that they all unbent somewhat--enough to get down to commonplaces, even discussing such things as husbands, wall-paper and jap-a-lac. i vibrated between the scene of gaiety in the house and the more enjoyable frog funeral, which was in full blast in the back yard. grapefruit had taken down one of the kitchen window shades to make a tent, under which there was an attractive tub of water, with several members of the bereaved frog family sporting heartlessly around in its muddy depths. i had not thought of danger, although i had seen waterloo dabbling in this tub pretty constantly during the last sad rites; but after the final scribbler had departed and his weary mother came upon the scene, little waterloo was ordered peremptorily in the house, and dire predictions were made. "oh, you'll be sure to have croup to-night," cousin eunice said dejectedly, as she followed waterloo up the stairs and rubbed down his dripping little hands and arms with a turkish towel. this task being finished to her maternal satisfaction, she turned to me with a look of unutterable weariness. "unhook me, ann; my head is bursting. i'm going to bed." so this is how it came about that when the door-bell rang at eight o'clock to-night there was nobody but me in fit condition to receive callers. rufe was alternately filling the hot-water bottle for cousin eunice's aching head and racking his own brain trying to remember where he had put the wine of ipecac after waterloo's last spell of croup. and the poor little darling was coughing in a manner that to me was frightfully alarming. with no thought in my mind save to help rufe in his nursing feats, i had taken off my party frock and had slipped on a low-neck peter pan blouse, with a fresh linen skirt. my hair was about ready to tumble and my face flushed with worry over waterloo. "oh, the devil!" rufe pronounced, when the penetrating sound of the door-bell reached us. but it was not the devil. "it is mr. chalmers," i said, with a little catch in my breath as i heard his voice down in the hall. "well, you run down and get him settled," rufe said, holding up a little bottle of dark-colored liquid to the light to read the label, "--then come on back for a few minutes and help me give the rooster a dose of this--will you? it always requires an assistant." "let's give the medicine now--then i'll dress before i go down." "nonsense! you look a thousand times prettier flushed and careless--as you are now--than you do all fixed up with your hair smooth. i don't like to keep him waiting long, for he might have come to see me about something important. you sound him, like a good girl, and if he doesn't want to see me particularly tell him that my family is ill and that you will entertain him." i did take time to glance into the mirror to satisfy myself that rufe was not entirely wrong--then i ran down-stairs. mr. chalmers was standing on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire (which cousin eunice had ordered kindled up all over the house when she realized that there was danger of waterloo having croup), as i came down the steps, and when he saw, through the big doorway, that i was alone, he came to the foot of the stairs to meet me. the front part of the house was still open, and there was a beautiful moonlight. after i had greeted him i stood in the dimly lighted hall a moment, looking out into the night; then i went on into the long, beautiful room, which was filled with the scent of roses to-night, and, as we drew up before the fire, i shivered a little. there was just enough crispness in the chilly air to cause a deliciously shivery sensation. "well, you have no engagement for this evening, i hope," he began, as i moved closer to the hearth and stirred the fire into a brighter blaze. "i should have telephoned, i know, but i was detained at the office until quite late." "no, there are no engagements to-night. cousin eunice has gone to bed with a headache and rufe is nursing waterloo through a spell of croup. by the way, you'll excuse me while i run back a few minutes and help give the little fellow a dose of medicine?" "certainly--if you'll promise not to be long," he said with a smile. "oh, it will take only a little while. then, when the invalids both get settled rufe can come down--unless you are in a special hurry to see him about some mighty political secret. in that case i can send him right now, and play the part of nurse myself." "please do _not_," he answered, speaking much more earnestly than the occasion warranted. "i came solely to see you. tell clayborne he is not to disturb himself on my account." waterloo was breathing better and had gone to sleep by the time i reached his bedside again. "i don't believe he's going to need the stuff, after all," rufe said, unbuttoning his collar and beginning to make preparations to be comfortable. "eunice says her head is a little easier, so i'm going to lie down here and read the paper until i'm sleepy. chalmers didn't want anything special with me, did he?" "no. he said you were not to disturb yourself at all," i answered, and he looked up quickly as he deposited his collar on the dressing-table. "so? he came to see you?" "that's what he says. he may later swear it by the inconstant moon. she is so beautiful to-night, that you can forgive her for being inconstant." i rattled away to hide my trembling joy, brought on by the anticipation of two hours alone with _him_. but rufe's eyes were grave. "ann, don't lose your head over chalmers," he said soberly, with that queer density with which a married man usually regards a love affair. (oh, stupid rufe! my head has been lost so long that i have grown delightfully accustomed to doing without it!) "he is a good fellow, and all that, but i don't know that he's good enough for you." "ann!" it was cousin eunice's voice calling weakly from the darkened room beyond. i went to her bed. "ann, is that richard chalmers down-stairs?" "yes." "and rufe isn't going down?" "no." "well, listen, dear: he may propose to you to-night--i have seen that he was only waiting to get a good chance--but _don't_ promise him anything! until we know him better, dear!" i patted her hand softly, then ran into my own room to get a fan that i might have something to toy with. there was a bottle of rich perfume on my table, my favorite lily-of-the-valley, and i drew the long glass stopper across my lips. then i went to the window and looked out at the white light of the moon. "not promise him anything!" i said half aloud, the beauty of the night drawing a sigh of longing that was almost a sob. "oh, don't they _know_ that i would promise him my very soul if he should ask it?" richard was restlessly walking up and down the length of the long room when i came down again. he crossed to meet me and held out his hand, catching mine in his strong grip, just as if we had not shaken hands only a short time before. "so i am going to have you all to myself to-night?" "rufe said he would stay with his ailing family, if you would put up with my society." "ah! don't you believe that i came just to see you? i was afraid that i should not be able to get a moment alone, so i was going to ask mrs. clayborne, as a great favor, to let me take you to the theater--or anywhere else that you preferred. i have tickets here to the lyceum, and there is a taxi-cab at the door. shall we go?" "let's stay here," i begged. "it has been an awfully tiresome day. go and dismiss the cab." he looked gratified at my decision, then went out to send the cab away. i glanced at the bower of a room and felt a thrill of satisfaction. it was all so beautiful, and i love beauty. "shall i close these doors?" he asked carelessly, as he came in again and i heard the chug-chug of the cab as it sped away. "shall i close these doors? it is really chilly to-night." "yes, i noticed," i said in some confusion, for i remembered that the closing of a door had meant a great deal to alfred a few days ago. ann lisbeth had closed it, because she knew that he wanted her to; and he had looked to see before he had said a word. evidently it is a way with lovers! "i noticed that it is cold," i repeated, as he came over and stood near me without speaking. "my hands are quite cold." i recognized the absurdity of this as soon as the silly words were out of my mouth, and i tried to think of something else to say quickly enough to cover my shamefaced silence, but nothing would come to my aid, and i had finally to meet his compelling eyes with a frankly embarrassed little laugh. "let me draw your chair back from the fire," he said, after we looked straight into each other's eyes for a moment, "or, better still, throw something around you and let's go out on the little side balcony where clayborne and i always go to smoke. it is a glorious night." i went out into the hall and got a long, loose wrap. as he held it for me to slip my arms into the sleeves his eyes traveled slowly over the crisp freshness of the linen gown i wore. my back was to him, but i was watching him in the mirror. "i have a worshipful reverence for virginity," he said at length, "even if it be only of a white linen suit. i have always wanted the first and best of everything. it is this entirely fresh and unspoiled quality of your beauty that has so attracted me." we were walking out through the long french window which opens on to the balcony, and as we gained the shadow of a thick growth of vines at one side he stopped, putting up his arm to stop me. "ann," he said, with the same sudden directness that had startled me that day in the orchard when he had asked me about our first meeting, "ann, you have seen that--i am attracted? dear, i don't want to frighten you, you beautiful little _young_ thing," here he lost his self-possession, "but i love you, sweetheart--love only you--love you--_you_!" his arms slipped about me, and tightening their clasp after a moment, he drew me very close, so close that his perfect face closed everything else on earth from my view. and his keen gray eyes became two points of steel that pierced through, straight to my soul, and carried with them a sweet potion that inoculated my being with adoration for him. i felt his cheek brush close to mine, his thin, cold face transfigured; and, as if to prolong the exquisite torture of suspense, we both held apart a moment before our lips met full. then-- i was so swept by the storm of strange and wonderful emotion that my senses failed to take it in at first--that richard chalmers was mine! he loved me; he was feeling the same joy and the same torture that were running like fire and wine to my brain. even in the dim light my eyes must have betrayed some of this bewilderment to him, if his own thoughts had not been equally in a tumult. "you are _sure_?" he questioned, after his passionate breath had slackened a little so that he could speak. "ann, this means everything to me. don't let me kiss you like that again unless you are very sure of your own mind." --but he kissed me again, and kissed--and kissed until his lips grew cold, and i felt suddenly so tired that i could stand up no longer. oh, divine rapture of senses and soul! could i forget that kiss in the hour of death? i wished that death might come then, as we stood together in that first passionate embrace, our lips meeting in kisses of fire, our hearts throbbing in physical pain. oh, to die thus--together! so perfect was the moment--so supreme the joy! my head fell over, with a little droop of utter weariness upon his shoulder, and his arms loosened. "you are tired," he said, in quick contrition, turning my face up to the moonlight. "shall we go back into the house? i'm a brute to treat you this way!" we passed in through the long window and walked over to the far corner, where the big leather chair is. i sat down, lost in its ample depths. then he stood up in front of me and looked down with the calmly contented expression of one who is greatly pleased over a new possession. "you beautiful little _young_ thing," he said again. "young?" i felt so secure, so happy, when discussing the question of age with him now. "that is all i'm afraid of! you may grow tired of me." "you are afraid of nothing, coeur de lion," i answered with an adoring look that brought on another avalanche of caresses. "i have always called you that." "always? since when?" "since that day at the gates of the cemetery." "ah! and i have never ceased for an hour to think of you since that day--and to wonder how i could make you love me." "when all the time you were the man of my dreams. your face told me that when i first saw you--cold as steel to all the world, yet strong as steel for me." "you have never imagined yourself in love before, ann?" he asked, after a little silence which he beguiled by raising each finger-tip of my left hand to his lips. "no." "i thought not. a woman doesn't kiss like that but once." "--and a man?" "i've told you that i have never cared for any other woman. that's what makes me feel such an utter fool now! to think that, at my age, i should have let a passion take such possession of me--before i knew whether or not there was the slightest chance of its being returned!" "oh, love, how humble the little god makes us! when all along you have been _king_ richard to me." "well, there was never a king who found so worthy a queen-consort. when are you going to marry me, ann?" we had strayed off the heights a little and i was taking a much-needed breathing spell in the less rarified air, when he sent my senses reeling again at the question. married! to this regal creature, who is so splendid in mind, body and spirit! and he was asking me to marry him, me--simple ann fielding, a dreamer of dreams, who had never dreamed one half so radiant as this blessed reality! to live with him always! "the desire of the moth for the star," oh, joy, the moth was going to reach the star this time! greater joy! the star was reaching out just as longingly for the moth, and calling the tiny creature another, an infinitely brighter star! "i hardly expected you to be in such a hurry about marrying," i finally answered, after he had repeated the question. "i have heard you say such cynical things about the holy estate--when you thought i wasn't listening. one time you said you thought passion consisted largely of not knowing what a woman looks like before breakfast." "sweetheart," and his eyes were very serious, "i am sorry for every light word i have ever spoken about marriage--since you have honored me so." then teasingly he continued after a moment, "the thing i desire most on earth just now is to know what _you_ look like before breakfast, sweet mistress ann." "do you desire that most? then what next?" "you know, love. my ambition is next--and all i have in the world besides you." "you want to marry me and be governor of this state--now, on your honor, which do you desire the more--_richard_?" he threw his arms around me again, as i called his name, and stopped my mouth with kisses. "don't jest," he begged. "it is sacrilege to-night." then we strayed from the heights again, and fell to talking about his ambition, and from that to more commonplace affairs still--how we were going to spend the next few days, and how we might arrange that to-morrow, sunday, could be passed together. _together_, that was all that either of us desired. "i'll come early enough in the morning to go to church with you," he suggested, "then we'll have luncheon at beauregard's, if we can get mrs. clayborne to go with us, and--" "mrs. clayborne?" i asked in surprise. "what for?" "ann," and he took my hand gently, as if he might be admonishing a child, "i consider it entirely out of place for a woman to go out alone with a man, even if the two are engaged. evidently your mother has never given the matter as much consideration as i have always insisted should be used in the case of my sister--for i have seen you alone with this friend, doctor morgan, several times. when i happened to meet you in beauregard's the night of the _circus_," there was a struggle here between amusement and sarcasm, "i thought, of course, he was some very close relative. but i find that he is only a dear friend, with whom you take long country drives--and who gives you heirloom volumes of byronic poetry." "we have known each other since he first started to college," i stated, by way of defense, but i own with less assurance than i should have used if there had not been before me the picture of the scene in ann lisbeth's library. "i think it would be well to return the book with a note saying that you had found it too valuable a gift for you to feel justified in accepting. and, of course, you understand that from now on _i_ furnish you with every pleasure that it is in the power of a man to provide for the woman he loves. if you want books, you have only to let me know; if you wish to take a long country drive, you have but to call me. i'll even take you to the circus," we both laughed, "if your inclination is in that direction; but, little love, no other man must come near you!" "you are inclined to be jealous?" "not at all! i am simply trying to avoid all cause for jealousy." "there isn't any other man who wants to come near me," i answered truthfully, as i recalled alfred's beseeching look when he had virtually asked me to avoid meeting him. "nonsense," he declared, so suddenly and so decidedly that i smiled with the pure joy of having him jealous. richard chalmers jealous! afraid that i might fall in love with some other man! "nobody could look at you without being attracted. i am far from being a ladies' man, but i acted a fool for weeks last winter--because i had happened to pass you on a country road. when you were driving with another man, too!" "that was because we had found each other," i said, running my hand through his soft, light hair, and dwelling on the proud privilege that was mine. "--well, you will be guided by my advice in this matter, i feel sure," he said finally, "and you are too clever a little woman not to manage to keep all other men at arm's length without betraying the secret of our engagement." "secret?" "yes, please, dearest! let us keep it secret from every one save our families until this deuced nomination business is over. there would be a lot of talk, you understand, because i happen to be a little in the limelight now. they would be wanting to put your picture in the papers for all the other men to gaze at. i can't bear to see a woman's picture in the paper." i laughed a little and agreed with him. this was only another phase of his kingly character. whatever is his must be _his_, with a fanatical exclusion of every one else. "i called you richard, coeur de lion, but it was a mistake. you are a sultan." "with only one love, my nourjehan." chapter xi a drawn battle "and all the time the marble _belonged_ in the coffee-pot spout!" "how do you know? who told you?" rufe and cousin eunice looked up from the grape-fruit which had been absorbing their attention. they always sleep late on sunday morning, and, on account of the headache and croup of the night before, they had slept later than usual this morning. i had been up for hours and had already had a walk out in the brilliant october sunshine. "your cousin richard told me!" my words were quietly spoken, with only a tiny smile that insisted upon creeping around the corners of my mouth, out of sheer happiness from speaking his name. but, quiet as they were, they electrified the two at the table. "ann! _what?_" "'tis true. the marble is placed in there, when the pot is being made--to keep in the heat, you understand. richard always makes the coffee himself on hunting-trips, and--" "ann! _will_ you hush talking about coffee-pots? tell us what you mean! are you already engaged to richard chalmers?" "yes. _engaged!_" "well, upon my word! and this is how the shy young creatures feel about the matter when the man's back is turned," rufe said, starting up and pulling out my chair for me. "you ought to have your eyes cast down, and whisper the news with blushes and tears, you horribly modern young woman!" but he patted my shoulder affectionately and said chalmers always had been a lucky devil. cousin eunice stared at me a moment in silence. "and you are very happy?" she asked. "yes. _very_ happy." "then i congratulate you both." but she did not come and kiss me, for which i was very thankful. i have a masculine dislike for scenes. it was for this reason that i sprung the news of the marble in the spout first. she asked a few questions as to how it had come about, but, while she manifested no great enthusiasm, she was too humane to make any kill-joy reference to her request of me last night. we finished breakfast and i pushed back my chair. "well, i must hurry and dress for church," i said, looking nonchalantly out the window, for i knew that this would be another bomb. i have always been a notorious heathen in my family circles. i usually spend sunday morning in the woods with a book of poetry or philosophy--sometimes with two or three children from the village--but i _never_ go to church. the bomb exploded. "rufe, listen! did you hear that? going to church with her young man!" "well, it was his first request of me. i couldn't refuse it, could i?" "chalmers always has had a way of making people do exactly what he wishes," rufe said, coming up to cousin eunice to kiss her good-by. "i shall do as he wishes when i think it is right," i answered with some spirit, for it aroused me to think they should consider me an incipient "doormat wife." "but of course he will soon learn that i am not like his mother and evelyn." "god forbid that he should ever make you like them!" cousin eunice said, with so much fervor that i looked at her in surprise. "you don't think that he made them--what they are?" i asked. "i--don't know," she said, looking at me gravely. "he is masterful; but that is far from being a bad trait. i imagine that his attitude toward you will be just what you make it. be frank and sincere with him always--just as you are with the rest of the world. and never let him make you do anything that will lower your self-respect. many wives do not know the meaning of that word." "but richard will always exalt his wife." "yes. he will exalt everything that is _his_--simply because he possesses self-respect himself, raised to the n-th power. you will be the best-dressed, the best-housed, the best-established woman in your set. and that set will be wherever he chooses to place you. if he rises politically you will have a brilliant course marked out before you; if he does not you will still have a life of luxury, leading the smart set in charlotteville." "_don't_," i begged, for she had spoken half in earnest about the life in charlotteville. "you know how i hate just plain society--the kind that mrs. chalmers and evelyn love. it would be the extinction of me. above everything else on earth i love freedom. but i also love the 'paths of glory.'" "and, don't you see, dear child, that if you tread these paths with a man as much older than yourself as richard chalmers is, and especially a man whose disposition tends toward tyranny, that you will march to the music that _he_ directs?" "well, if it's the music of his voice i shall bow my head and face the east whenever i hear it." "don't think that i am a croaker, but i am a married woman and older than you," she kept on, ignoring the extravagance of my last sentence, "and i may be able to give you some advice that will help you. you are a girl of an _intense_ nature, very candid, very kind-hearted, but alas, very impractical. having been reared as you were you are naturally self-centered and visionary, with a capacity for development, but as yet you have not reached any very high degree of serenity or _strength_, in spite of all the pencil-marks you put in your little volume of _marcus aurelius_. you have never had to practise sacrifice, patience, endurance--any of the virtues which make a _woman_, and without which life is a vain thing." "all those things will come with--marriage," i said. "with marriage where the man recognizes an equal partnership," she amended. "cousin eunice, you have no idea of what richard thinks of me," i explained, feeling very grave myself by this time, but wishing to set her right in regard to my standing with my lover. "of course all of you still think of me as being ridiculously _young_ and irresponsible, somehow, just because i have never, as you say, been put to any test. but richard knows that i am a woman, capable of knowing my own mind--and he adores me--just as i do him." "dear," our voices had sunk low, and she came over and laid her hand upon my arm, "an adoring husband is a delightful thing--between the pages of a book. but you will need a man who loves and _trusts_ you." "i am sure richard does that." "i hope so. it may be that you can be a power for good in his life, taking a sincere interest in his work, and letting your own honesty be a kind of bulwark to him in the corruption which will be sure to assail him in his career. never _hedge_ with him, ann, in the little things; then he will have an ideal of his wife which will keep _him_ from ever being tempted to hedge in the big things." "you know it is not my nature to hedge," i replied, rather emphatically. "you have never been tempted to," she answered. "i know that you would never come down to lying about the price of a fur coat, but luxuries happen not to be your weak point." "fortunately not," i said, with a little laugh, for the discussion seemed a waste of time to me. still i know that newly engaged girls and brides have to listen to a lot of admonishing from their female relatives. i wished, upon this occasion, that i could take mine as indifferently as i once saw a bride take hers. i was a child at the time, but even then i was impressed by the absurdity of a conventional aunt giving, in a well-modulated voice, the usual advice about "bear and forbear," as the pretty little bride-niece sat by and allowed big, conventional tears to roll down her cheeks, while she kept on industriously cleaning her diamond rings! "what is my weak point?" i asked the question, half hoping that the talk would be steered away from the radiant subject, but to my surprise i found that i was moving around in a circle. "your weak point is richard chalmers--now and for the rest of your life!" "you mean?" "i mean that you idealize him and worship him." "i do," i answered proudly. "and he thinks you are the prettiest little creature he ever saw, so he wants you for his," she kept on, analyzing my feelings and his with such a persistent accuracy that i found myself hoping my bridal advice would be given me by some one with less power of character delineation than is possessed by a lady novelist. "ann, when a middle-aged man marries a young woman, especially if the man has money, he is likely to treat his wife less like a wife than a--mistress. he showers her with violets, kisses, diamonds; but he neither burdens her with his troubles nor calls upon her for help. now, this may be pleasant for the woman, if she be a certain type of woman, who marries a man to be 'taken care' of, but it is not conducive to character development. if the man is poor and the woman has to _cook_ she has a better chance to enter the kingdom of heaven; but this is a rare opportunity, for a young woman seldom marries a middle-aged _poor_ man." "but surely you don't think that i am marrying richard for his money?" there was no reproach in my tone; i was simply astounded that any one could take such a view of the matter. "certainly not in cold-blood," she answered. "i think you are bewildered--hypnotized by the halo which you have placed upon his head; and the glitter of the man's amazing good looks." "the halo was already there," i corrected, but not so staunchly as my conscience made me feel that i should have done. cousin eunice has a disagreeably convincing tone in argument. "his good looks, while undeniably _there_, are enhanced by the luxury with which he surrounds himself--his handsome clothes are a distinct asset. can you deny it?" "certainly not! and his cigars are a joy. when i shook out my hair last night it was fragrant with the odor. he smoked, you know, out on the balcony." "ah, and then you thought that your hair was a halo--because it had the odor of his cigars in it!" "well, let's not get away from the subject of _his_ halo. i believe you said that i placed it around his head?" "you have done so, ann! that halo has lain all the years of your life in your imaginative mind. you have kept it in a sacred chamber of your thoughts, while every tale of chivalry and every record of noble deeds has sent you to that chamber with more golden virtues to weave into the beautiful crown. then one day you suddenly storm that room and snatch up the halo to place it triumphantly upon the head of the first startlingly handsome man you meet!" "if i have had a halo i have placed it upon the head of richard chalmers, who wears it so gracefully," i defended. "i admit the grace," she said, still speaking gravely. "but--_does it fit_?" "well, he will be here in less than an hour," i replied, looking up at the clock in some alarm, for i felt that i must be very beautifully and carefully dressed upon this occasion. "i want you to come in and talk with him every time he comes, and maybe you will tell me if you think i need to take any tucks in the halo!" at half-past ten he came. i was still up-stairs when i heard the gate click, but i ran to the window and gazed down upon him in silent satisfaction. he threw away his cigar and swung briskly up the walk, the morning sun shining down upon his glossy hat, and changing it into an absurd kind of halo. "how is my little girl?" he asked in a low tone as i met him in the hall. "has it seemed a long time since last night?" we passed into the drawing-room and found chairs that would not be directly in the line of vision of any one who might be crossing the hall in front of the door. he caught my hand and pressed it, but there was no sudden attempt at a stolen kiss. this was exactly to my liking, for, above all things, i am _artistic_, and i should not care for a lover who came in and kissed me before there had been time for any display of feeling to warrant it. yet i am saying nothing against this habit in _husbands_. "have you been waiting long?" he asked, his eyes wandering approvingly over my dressed-up, sunday attire. i wore a pretty pink foulard silk, with a tiny white figure in it, the cream lace yoke and bit of black velvet ribbon at the collar managing some way to bring out the best there is in my eyes and complexion, for when pink and i are left alone we are not congenial. i felt a sudden sense of gratitude toward the woman who had made the dress and put that yoke and collar to it, for i realized that richard would be quick to detect any incompatibility of colors. his eyes were still approving when they strayed down to my high-heeled black suede shoes! and i felt sinfully proud of my instep. "i've been dressed half an hour. do i please you, coeur de lion?" "you are so entirely perfect that i know now i can never find jewels that will be worthy of you." "jewels?" "guess what i've been doing this morning!" he had leaned over closer to my chair as he spoke, and he again caught my hand and pressed it. i smiled and shook my head. "i've been buying my sweetheart an engagement ring." "oh!" "that's what detained me. i couldn't find a stone that i exactly cared for." he drew a little brown kid box from his pocket and touched the tiny pearl clasp. "see if you think this will do," he said, handing me the opened box. on the rich satin lining lay a big blue diamond; it caught the gleams of morning sunlight to its heart, then sent them back, with a dazzling radiance, to my eyes. i looked up at him and had begun to speak when there was the swish of skirts at the door and cousin eunice came into the room. i closed the box in my hand and listened to what she might say to him in greeting. "i came to warn you two benighted young people that it is high time for you to start to church, if you are still in the notion of going," she said, after she had shaken hands with richard and remarked upon the beauty of the morning. "you can't rely upon ann to know anything about church time," she continued, as he wheeled up a chair for her and we all three sat down again. "she hasn't been to church since she was in the infant class at sunday-school." "ah! so i shall have missionary work to do--the first thing," he said, answering her light banter. then, after a moment he reached over and took my hand, which was lying on the arm of my chair, in his. the gesture was infinitely chivalrous and caressing. "mrs. clayborne, ann has told you of our happiness?" "yes. and i congratulate you sincerely." her blue eyes were suddenly grave and tender. she arose and extended her hand to him in frank fellowship. he towered above her a moment as he gratefully pressed the welcoming hand, then she turned and put her arm around my shoulder. "ann is my little sister," she said, looking into his eyes with a steady glance. "you must always be very good to her." "i expect to be," he answered gravely. we showed her the ring and she admired its brilliant beauty. "but, you conceited man," she said, with a really cousinly laugh as she turned upon him, "you must have bought this before she accepted you! she told me that the wonderful event happened only last night! this is sunday." "oh, i happen to know harper pretty well," he explained, mentioning the name of the best-known jeweler in the city. "i called him early this morning and he went down and we took a look through the vaults together. this was rather the best stone i could find, so i waited for him to set it for me." "well, i must admit that i admire both your taste and your--precipitation," she said, smiling on him in the friendliest fashion. i had not had time before to give the matter a thought, but it dawned upon me then that nobody save my imperial richard would have had the temerity to call a rich diamond merchant from his warm bed on a sunday morning and have him go forth with tools in hand to set a jewel. surely he could do anything he wished! he possesses an undoubted power over men, and a high-handed, yet charming way of having people do as he desires them to. cousin eunice was already showing signs of weakening from her harsh judgment of the earlier morning. i remembered suddenly the slim, satiny horse he was driving the day i first saw him, and how he spoke only a word to her when she became frightened at alfred's car. she at once obeyed the influence of his voice. tyrant? he is no tyrant. he manages to get his way always by being so lovable and so charming that it is a pleasure to give in to him. "well, shall we be off to church?" he asked as cousin eunice went out into the hall to meet waterloo, who was just then returning from sunday-school. "if you prefer. i always try to take a long walk on sunday morning. it makes me feel so good and _holy_ somehow!" he smiled. "and don't you feel that way in church?" he asked. "no--except when the big pipe-organ is playing. i love the feeling of cathedrals, without any organ, but i know that this is only a revel to the senses, and it seems wicked to go--just for that." he laughed outright. "so you think that people ought to get spiritual upliftment from going to church, do you?" "i do. and if they get no such upliftment i think they ought to have respect enough for their maker to stay away!" "their maker? are you so old-fashioned as to think that there is much _worship_ in these churches--with their paid singers and their paid preachers and their heedless, gossiping throngs?" "there is _some_ worship. for the sake of those few i feel that the reverential spirit ought always to be carried there. but i am like you. i scorn hypocrisy. the sight of a notoriously immoral deacon or steward sickens me with church-going for months. so i get my spiritual upliftment from going near to nature's heart. the birds and the bees are not orthodox--neither are they hypocrites." "well, you shall show me some of these temples of yours about the week after next, when i have packed you off down home, and have speedily followed you there." "there are plenty such temples around here," i answered. "we might go to-day." "yes, but we are going to church this morning." "why? you have just agreed with me that you gain nothing from listening to a man who is paid so much a year to explain to you something of which he knows nothing." "good heavens, child! what a sentence from the mouth of a babe! i go to church because it is good form." "then you are the one who needs a missionary." "well, i'll promise to quit going altogether after we are married. i shall expect you and mother and evelyn to keep up the appearance of respectability for the family." "listen, richard," i said, standing close to him and lowering my voice so that i might not be overheard. "i may as well tell you now, in the beginning, that i could _never_ be a 'religious' woman the way your mother is. our ideas on the subject are wholly different. i have a religion, but your conventional orthodoxy has little to do with it. and i shall not pretend that it has." "ann! i believe i have fallen in love with a little reformer. will you be so good, madam, as to set forth your views?" he spoke in the lightest tone of jest. evidently he had no idea that a woman possessed such a thing as views. "oh, it is a vague sort of belief; a dawning light of faith in the eternal wisdom, against which orthodoxy seems like a harsh glare which makes you squint your eyes." "upon my word! what would mother say to that?" "she'll never say anything to it, for i shall never express such a thought to her. it is a useless waste of breath. but, richard, if you love me, you will leave me untrammeled in such matters." "my dear, you are to be untrammeled in all matters. my only wish is your happiness. now run and get your hat." "i'm not going to church with you for the sake of good form." "what?" "my conscience would hurt me all day." "of course you are not in earnest," he said, and the smile died away from his lips. "so hurry, dear. we are late already." "but i am in earnest." "then you are a very foolish little girl, and i'll explain, as we walk on down the street, why it is well for me to show my face in the different churches around the city." "you don't need to explain," i responded, but without stirring to get my hat. "i know that it will gain votes for you. but i don't approve of such methods." "ann, i have found that it will never do to discuss any kind of business proposition with a woman. so let us not waste any more time arguing the matter. go and get your hat." i had moved back from him a step or two and had opened my lips to state my position again, when cousin eunice, for the second time, broke in upon an interesting scene. "mr. chalmers, rufe has just called me to ask if you were out here. it seems that there are some important out-of-town voters down at the _times_ office. they are anxious to see you, as they are just passing through the city and will leave at two o'clock. rufe apologized for his cruelty, but he says it is important that you should come." "thank you very much, mrs. clayborne. of course i shall have to go." he turned to me with sudden regret. evidently he had already forgotten the slight difference of opinion. if he recalled it he would smile over my "stubbornness." after he was gone i told cousin eunice of the occurrence. "so soon?" she asked, with a smile for my earnestness. she did not consider his proposed offense such a crime as i did, but she looked serious as i told her of our little clash. "if the telephone hadn't summoned him i wonder which of you would have come off victorious?" she questioned. "i--wonder?" i repeated absently, but the big diamond was flashing a reminder of his love into my eyes and heart, and, as cousin eunice turned and left me, i bent and kissed the stone. chapter xii shadows at home, back of the village, and extending so far away that i had never yet explored the uttermost reaches of it, lies a long, low hill. it is wooded in places with patriarchal oaks, so stately and far-reaching that they call to mind the tales of fairy forests, where knights in glittering armor rode through; or giants lived in hidden houses in the midst of them. with the varying seasons this hill always seems to tell the silent story of the feelings in nature called forth by the changes. it speaks of joy in the spring; a gentle sadness in the summer; a glorious renunciation when the living green must give way to the gorgeous, though dying, red; and in winter there seems to be a spirit of patience. back of the actual summit of the hill, and partly shut in by its crest, which runs along half of its rounding curve, and skirted on the other side by the woods, where the oaks and chestnuts grow, is an expansive depression, wide, rolling, beautiful. the ground, which is barren red clay, is thickly coated over with a scrubby growth, green for only a short while every spring, when there are millions of minute blue blossoms deep-set in its mazes. later, it takes on a dull brown which lasts until fall, when it changes to a withered yellow. a few small cedar trees, growing sometimes singly, sometimes in sparse clumps, are dotted around over the ground, but the only actual beauty of the place is its look of great space. it is the only spot i know of where i can see sky enough. the sky! yes, that is its charm. it seems to close down upon this cup with such a _nearness_ that on summer days you can almost reach up and touch the clouds. and they are unbelievably lovely at such times. then on other days, when the heavens are hidden by long, sweeping bars of heavy gray cloud, and the wind comes tearing over the crest, like a monster knowingly cruel and relentless--then the expanse of earth and sky indeed seem to run together; but the look of nearness is lost. the feeling of immensity is crushing; and you have the sense of being brought face to face with an unseen presence. cathedrals hold this presence, but tamed, trained and refined sometimes out of all semblance to its mighty prototype of the wilds. years ago, when i was a child, cousin eunice used to take me up here, for she was the first one of our family ever to discover the place. to be sure, it had always been there, and we had driven around it whenever it had been necessary, but nobody ever dreamed of wanting to take walks there, for it is a wild, lonesome-looking spot, besides being cut up in places by great gulches. in the exact center of the depression there is the bed of a prehistoric lake. the stone basin is there, with all signs of water, at a tremendous distance in the past. "isn't it _great_!" cousin eunice exclaimed, as we came upon the spot for the first time in our rambles. "why, it is like being in another world, where everything is fresh, and free, and primitive. let us pretend that this is our sacred garden, where we can carry only happy thoughts; where we can look at this immensity and learn the true value of things!" so we would often walk here, sometimes with rufe; and then they would discuss the mysteries of life and death and abiding love. on the monday morning after the events of sunday which i have just recorded, i awoke with an overpowering desire to get away to this "garden." i wanted to get out to where there was sky enough! to a place so immense that i could think it all out and get a true value of things! i wanted to dwell on the great happiness that has come to me; to take in, if i could, the unbelievable fact that i have been whirled away through the infinite spaces of human longing until i have come upon and possessed the star of my heart's desire. star of my heart's desire! king or sultan, he is the "god of my idolatry,"--richard chalmers, my lover! and while i craved this sight of a wild, free nature, i felt keenly that i should wish, on a morning like this, that the clouds and sky and trees should shrink into their proper place in the background of the mighty stage. they should move back and make room for me; and my triumphant ego should come and place itself in the limelight for me to review. i wanted to see myself at the age of eve. i explained some of this feeling to cousin eunice, in idiomatic english, after breakfast on monday morning, but here was a hue and cry. it was the wrong thing for me to do, she declared. i should stay here and get better acquainted with my fiancé. besides, the first few weeks of a courtship were too dear and precious to be spent apart! i should die of homesickness for a sight of this beautiful city where i had gained my new-found joy! i mentioned the matter to richard when he came that evening--that i wanted to go home for a day or so anyway, then i might come back--and i found that he approved the plan most decidedly. "i shall be out of town for several weeks," he said, "and of course i don't want you here in the city while i'm away." he spoke with a half-playful air, but i had already learned to read his expression so well that i knew he was in earnest. "you don't suppose for a minute i'm going to give any other fellow a chance to steal you away from me now, do you? before i have had time to realize my good fortune?" "i wish you would _not_ talk that way, even in jest," i told him seriously. "it implies a kind of distrust." he had been there quite half an hour when this took place, but he came over to my chair and kissed me for the first time. if richard does treat his wife as a plaything, as cousin eunice suggested, i don't believe he will find it necessary to shower many violets and diamonds upon her. i believe that kisses will do the work. "distrust! love, _little_ love, don't say that again!" "then let's for ever bar discussions about any other man." "i shall be delighted to! and, to make assurance doubly sure, i'm going to pack you off down home, as i mentioned yesterday. i'll be gone just a few weeks, and shall, of course, run down to see you the minute i get back to this part of the state. i am going by charlotteville to tell mother and evelyn the news." "and we'll have letters every day." "and i'll call you up whenever i'm where a long-distance 'phone is. some of those little towns don't boast one." he drew me close to him and we went together out to the little balcony where he could smoke. the smoke blew through my hair and lingered there. it seemed almost like a kiss from him that night, as i loosened my hair and began to brush it out. "oh, i _wish_ it could stay there until he comes back," i whispered in agony, as i buried my face in the soft, odorous mazes; and thought of the long days that would have to pass some way before i could see him again. "i believe i'll go and get neva to walk with me this morning," i decided, when mother told me that mrs. sullivan has been obliged, by maternal affection, to send for her daughter to come home and spend the week-end. "she will not disturb my musings." i have been home several days now and have had an equal number of letters from richard, dear letters, all; and after the receipt of each one i feel that same inclination to get out under the open skies with my joy. this was sunday morning, and there is a glorious indian summer sun shining over the earth with that soft haze which only this season of the year gives. of course i could not stay in the house. when i rang the door-bell at the sullivan cottage about ten o'clock i was admitted upon a scene of confusion which vainly tried to smooth itself out into a sabbathical family-quiet upon my entrance. but the tension made itself felt in spite of the sunday clothes in evidence, and the bibles lying in readiness on the center-table in the parlor. i mentioned the object of my visit, but neva shook her head reluctantly. she would love to go walking with me, she explained, but she was going to church. her tone and statement were both so inoffensive that i was naturally startled at the storm which burst forth at her words. "you _ain't_," mrs. sullivan contradicted flatly, displaying an unwonted degree of animation. "i am," neva answered, with a _vere de vere_ repose. "your hats is all locked up," her mother suggested. "then i'll go bareheaded. they'll think it's a new style that i've learned in the city." mrs. sullivan subsided into a chair and showed signs of tears. "i see that it's poorly worth while to educate you," she began, but neva interrupted her nervously. "oh, mamma, don't say _educate jew_." "now, did you ever hear anything that sassy? i don't see how _no_ man could want you!" mrs. sullivan's tone was tearful, but neva's sensitive ears had already drunk in their money's worth of culture at the college for young ladies. "there you go again! '_want chew._' mamma, haven't i begged you not to go through life saying chew and jew, unless you refer to mastication--or an israelite?" the tears actually started at this piece of filial cruelty, and mrs. sullivan turned to me for consolation. "now, i'll put it to you, miss ann, ain't that enough to make a woman wish she hadn't never saw a child? and do you know what this trouble is all about?--that common, ig'nant clodhopper, hiram ellis, that nevar's almost broke her neck to see since she's been home." "why, i thought hiram was in high favor--with you _all_," i said in surprise, remembering the occasion of the fainting-spell. "he was, so long as nevar was just a ordinary country girl," mrs. sullivan explained, wiping her eyes and glancing with a look of shame and reproach at neva; "but do you reckon me and tim's spending all that money on her education, and then let her turn in and marry anybody as _plain_ as hiram ellis?" "_plain!_ well, i don't see as we're so _fancy_!" neva said indignantly. "is she going to marry him this morning?" i asked, and i noted then the extreme fussiness of neva's hair arrangement. it bore a truly leonine aspect. she had on her school uniform, and so, except for the number of class-pins, she had not sinned excessively in the way of dress. but the hair gave me some misgivings as to her intentions. "ain't no telling what she'll do," her mother said hopelessly. "she's bent on going to church where she can see him! we've done all we could to keep her at home, even to locking up her hats and tim carrying off the curling-irons in his pocket so she couldn't curl her hair. but do you know what that young'un done? i'll be blessed if she didn't hunt up her pappy's old tool box and git out his old _augur_--and curled her hair on that. did you ever hear of a girl so deep in love that she'd _curl her hair on a het augur_?" "oh, mamma," she begged piteously, "don't say 'pappy!' and _don't say 'het!'_" so it happened that i walked alone through the "garden." alone, yet i felt that i was in a beloved presence, for richard's last letter was with me. i sat down at the edge of the lake which had dried up in the stone age, and drew the letter out from its resting-place to read it over again. richard's handwriting is heavy, black, and almost as free from flowing curves as the chirography of a literary man. "sweetheart," the letter began, and the firm lines which formed the letters looked very much as if he meant it. it was signed "richard, r. i.," in humorous acceptance of the title i had given him. but perhaps the dearest thing in connection with the letter was the faint aroma of "habana" which hung over it. i held the sheets up close to my face and shielded them from any vandal winds that might slip up and covet that sweet odor; and i recalled the smile in his eyes when he made me the promise that he would always be smoking when he wrote to me--that the letters might be more realistic. "don't tell me any more that you are a full-grown woman," he said, as he made the promise. "you are a child--but adorable." he knew that i would be lonely, the letter stated, but he had left orders with a book-dealer that a batch of new books be sent out to me each week, to help while away the time. orders had also been left with the florist and confectioner--and i must at once report to him any negligence on the part of these worthies. "of course you have already acted upon my suggestion that you return the byron book," the letter continued, as if the mention of books had brought this affair to his mind, but i fancied that he had mentioned them rather as a means of leading up to this. "i know you would not keep it after i have shown you the impropriety of your doing so." "impropriety!" that is a word that i hate and avoid. no one had ever, to my knowledge, used it in connection with anything i have ever done up until this time. i bridled a little as i read it over. somehow, out here in the wilds, i seemed to recall suddenly that if richard is a gallant lover, so also is alfred an old, and very dear friend--while the byron book is a delightful possession. "i shall not send it back," i decided, after a little reflection. "i shall stand my ground. he is not unreasonable, and he will sooner or later understand that i am old enough to judge for myself between things proper and improper! ugh, how the words remind me of my prospective mother-in-law!" i hastily mapped out a letter in reply to this, telling him that i should keep the book, because i saw no reason, on the grounds he mentioned, for sending it back. so intent was i upon this idea that i hastily jumped up from my sunny nook by the old lake and shook out my skirts. i would go home right now and write that letter! i made my way across the breadth of the valley and leisurely climbed the hill, for the midday sun was quite hot. i paused and looked back once in a while, for the garden was so beautiful this morning. there was absolutely no thought of defiance in my idea of showing richard my viewpoint, for i did not dream that he considered the affair in any other light than the cut-and-dried distaste to "a young woman receiving presents from a young man to whom she is not engaged." he had not _asked_ me to return the book. he had simply shown me the error of my way--and i had failed to recognize it. i stopped again to look around at the wild beauty of the place before leaving it, then, with a little running start, i quickly gained the crest. when i had reached it i stopped once more, this time with a startled surprise, for i found myself face to face with neva. i noted, with amusement, that she had possessed herself of a hat. "well, so you decided to come for a walk?" i said in greeting. "how did you manage to get your hat out of the wardrobe?" she stopped still in the path and her eyes suddenly met mine in a look of dumb misery. i first thought that the question might have been embarrassing to her, and was trying to think of something to cover it, when she spoke. "piled a box on a chair on a table," she explained with an effort, "until i could reach up high enough to prize the top off. 'twas old and loose--and i still had the augur!" "neva! think of the perseverance! and after all that, you didn't get to see him?" at my words her mouth tightened at the corners, and her eyes looked very bright and dry. "oh, i saw him," she answered bitterly, after a moment's struggle. "he drove right past me while i was trudging down that dusty road to church. but he didn't see _me_. he had stella hampton in the buggy with him." "stella hampton? who is she?" "she's the girl that sicked the fit doctor on to me!" i tried to comfort her, but she was desolate. "it ain't that i care so much about _him_," she assured me, forgetting, in her misery, her boarding-school english, "but oh, i can't bear to face them at home. it's so terrible to be made ashamed before folks." i agreed with her and insisted that she go home with me, not braving the ordeal of facing her own family until late in the afternoon, when they should have forgotten it a little. tears of gratitude came to her pretty, troubled eyes as she joyously accepted my invitation. mother was on the front porch as we came up the walk and she welcomed neva cordially. "ann," she said, turning to me and speaking in an undertone, "there is a long-distance call for you. the operator has rung up several times, then said that the 'party' would call again at twelve-thirty." "oh, mother!" i cried, with a great throb of pleasure. in a few minutes i should be listening to the sound of his voice, and that was a deal more satisfying than the aroma of cigar smoke in a letter! "little runaway, where have you been all morning?" i heard in his dear, drawling tones after the connections had been made and listening ears supposed to be removed from the line. "i've been trying for three hours to get you." "i've been out for my sunday morning tramp," i answered, a sudden overwhelming longing to _see_ him sweeping over me. his voice sounded so near that i could scarcely believe that half the length of the state lay between us. "alone?" there was no drawl to this query. "no, not alone. i had your letter with me." "when are you going to answer it, sweetheart?" "to-day. i have already thought up some of the things i'm going to say to you." it might have been thought transmission, or it might have been chance, but at all events, it is the honest truth, that the next question was the one in my mind. "and what have you to say for yourself about doctor morgan's book, my lady?" "a good deal more than is profitable to say over a long-distance telephone," i replied, hoping to change the drift of the talk. i felt that i could say my little speech better on paper than i could over the wires. "well, that has been troubling me a little, ann," he said in his unsmiling voice, and i felt that his eyes were looking coldly into the space just beyond his telephone. "i see that you are disposed to argue the matter. i had an idea that you had not sent it back, so i decided to ask you when i got you to the 'phone. now, the question is, are you going to be guided by what i tell you in this matter, or not?" no woman who has not experienced the agony can half appreciate the feeling of sudden terror that came over me at the cold sound of his voice. it seemed to have a threatening tone of _finality_ in it that chilled me to the bone. i had such a feeling of helplessness somehow. you can argue with a man and cajole him and smooth his hair when he is where you can get your hands on him, knowing all the time that you are not going to let him leave the house until he has smiled the smile that won your heart; but, oh, the futility of trying to argue with a masterful lover over a long-distance telephone. "are you talking? i can't hear a word." "i'm not talking, richard," i answered. "i'm--i'm _thinking_." "well, i called you because i wanted to hear you talk. you haven't answered my question yet." again that tone of cold meaning. a hundred thoughts a minute were flying through my brain. should i say no and have a quarrel with him? should i say yes, and prove myself a coward--or should i lie to him? if this were a tale of heroism, i should have a few ringing words of challenge to insert right here and then a quick curtain. but this is not a heroic story, it is only simple truth, told with regret and aspirations after a higher courage, yet still a true account of what happened in our back hall this beautiful sunday morning. _i hedged._ "i'll send it back, richard," i told him, and he at once changed his tone and the subject of his discourse, beginning a recital of how he missed me and how he was going to cut short his trip up there and come on back. i scarcely heard the words, for i was trying to frame for my own conscience my sophisticated excuse. "i shall send it back if he _convinces_ me that there is any just occasion for doing so," i pleaded to myself. but after he had said good-by and i started from the telephone i found mother's eyes fixed upon me in a kind of pitying wonder. i flushed and looked away. then i recalled cousin eunice's words: "don't let him make you do anything that will lower your self-respect. many wives don't know the meaning of that word." wives? dear me! i have been his fiancée only a week! chapter xiii thanksgiving day thanksgiving day--and i have written nothing since the middle of october! but you remember i told you in the beginning that my journal might be, not so much a record of deeds as a setting forth of wishes; and my wishes all come to pass so speedily these days that there is no time to write them down. to be honest, i had no idea of bringing my journal up here to charlotteville with me, when i came for this thanksgiving visit, for i thought of course richard would be here all the time and i should not find a moment dull enough for me to sit down and write. but, as it happens, i am glad that the book was slipped into the tray of my trunk almost without my knowledge, else i should be spending a lonely evening right now. let me see--shall i begin where i left off--that sunny morning when i parried with richard across half the state and lived to regret it? or shall i begin with my entrée into charlotteville and then jot down the past happenings as they come to me? the latter course strikes me as rather the better, then perhaps i shall not be tempted to give any one little occurrence too much space. things seen in a sort of over-the-shoulder perspective are more likely to shrink into their normal size. if i had snatched you up, my journal, the day that richard sent me that exquisite chased card-case--a counterpart in pattern of his own sacred cigarette-case which i had once fingered with admiring reverence--i should have used up pages and pages of space, besides impoverishing myself in the way of adjectives. but i spent so many days dangling that card-case in front of me, as i stood before the mirror--using always my sparkling left hand--that before i had grown accustomed to the possession of it there came something even better calculated to take my breath away. a dull gold brooch it was this time, set with a green jade scarab--the little beetle bearing along with it a page of typed pedigree, showing the why and wherefore of its being. it in nowise detracted from the joy of possession, that these trinkets came in the nature of olive branches. yes, my sovereign was angry when i brought up the discussion of the book again, the byron book, which i had promised to return, but with the proviso, under my breath, that i should be made to see the reason why first. i learned that he not only has the heart of a lion, but a little of that beautiful animal's kingly fury also when he is aroused. and he was aroused at what he termed my deception. i made a clean breast of the matter the very first hour we were together again, knowing that i could make him listen to reason if i got him _literally_ at arm's length. but i had to listen to some things, too, in that hour; coming off victorious to such an extent that he finally called himself every kind of high-class villain imaginable. then, the next week this plethora of express packages. so it seems that my idea concerning the warring elements in his character was not altogether wrong. but to hasten on to charlotteville! mrs. chalmers wrote mother several weeks ago that she wanted me to come for thanksgiving, so there was plenty of time for the getting together of clothes which i now knew to be absolutely essential to my peace of mind when i should be with richard. i never knew a man to pay such attention to these little details. but what else can you expect when you are engaged to an olympian god? still--i almost wish sometimes that he did not lay so much stress on mere luxuries, for people can have a lot of enjoyment in life without them. yet to richard a big house, servants, expensive clothes, all are as necessary as the air he breathes, and he wants to make me feel the same dependence on them. during the one little visit i have made in the city since our engagement he kept his promise of taking me for long country drives--but always in a big touring car, with a chaperon and a chauffeur! when i suggested that it would be more "fun" to drive that pretty horse of his and go alone, he assured me gravely that many things in this life which were good "fun" were not proper. so i said no more, but i felt a sudden sense of gratitude toward fate for not ever sending richard driving past me last winter when i used not only to drive out the pikes with alfred, but get out and go down on my knees to help him with a puncture. true, i wasn't much help, usually being good only to hand him things, or _blow_ on the patches to make them dry the faster--but i always liked to help, and he always let me. but charlotteville! well, it is a small town in the eastern end of the state--a citified little place enough--where there are at least a dozen people who own handsome motor-cars; and the ices are always frozen in fancy shapes at the parties. still it is a little town, where everybody likes to talk about everybody else--and the power-house shuts off the electricity at midnight. i was glad when i found that there were other guests for this occasion, for i thought that would give me more time alone with richard, and after i had met these guests i felt glad on their own account, for they are delightful. mr. maxwell, the only other man, came down the same day that i reached here; on the same train, in fact, but neither of us knew this at the time, for i happened to be in the day-coach and he was in the pullman. when i reached the station here at charlotteville, and at first saw no one on the little platform to meet me, i felt a sudden sinking around my heart; but, after the crowd had moved along a bit, i espied richard's tall form at the extreme end of the platform. he was looking with a good deal of eagerness into the windows of the one pullman car. with him, and talking exuberantly, was a boyish-looking young man who had forgotten to remove his traveling-cap. richard seemed to be paying no attention to this bright-faced youth. i dropped my bag and hastened down the platform. "oh, she's disappointed you, old boy! 'tain't another thing," the man in the cap was saying as i came up close behind them and slackened my pace. "i'll swear there wasn't a thing in that car that looked like a cross between venus de milo and--" "richard," i called softly, and he wheeled around in delighted surprise. "bless your little heart!" he said, so genuinely glad to see me that he forgot for a moment the presence of the other man. that is, i thought at the time he had forgotten, but i soon saw that he considered mr. maxwell too much of a good-natured fool to count. "i thought you had failed to come," he kept on. "where the dickens were you?" "i was in the day-coach," i answered, after i had shaken hands with mr. maxwell, when richard remembered to present him. "what?" his tone was low and quiet, but his eyes spoke surprise, and i remembered, with a sudden chill, that according to his ethics i had done almost a disgraceful thing. "there were some people in the day-coach i--wanted to be with," i began by way of explanation, but i saw that this was making matters worse. "what kind of people?" he asked drily. "a woman. i got to talking to her when we changed trains at m--; she had _such_ a headache--and two babies. the littlest one consented to let me walk him around some; and i fed the other one the remains of a box of chocolates. when this train came they got into the day-coach, and of course i went with them." "why 'of course?'" he asked again, but with an amused smile dawning in his eyes. "well, i was still carrying the baby! i couldn't go off into another car with him, could i?" richard looked at mr. maxwell and laughed perfunctorily, but i knew that in some way he felt that i had humiliated him. mr. maxwell did not laugh, although his is essentially a laughing face. "i understand," richard said finally, turning to me again and asking for my checks. "you have quite the appearance of a good samaritan. your hair is--er--just a trifle ruffled. couldn't you have managed some way to smooth it a little before you reached here? evelyn always spends the last hour of a journey back in the dressing-room arranging her hair and powdering her face." "well, of course i know that is the ladylike thing to do," i responded, with something more nearly like sarcasm than i had ever used to him before. mr. maxwell was busy taking his things from the porter, and as he exchanged his cap for a more dignified, but less becoming, hat, i noticed a scar on his forehead, high up and extending quite a distance toward the crown of his head. his hair grew queerly along the line of the scar. he seemed purposely to have detached himself from us for a moment, so i spoke to richard again. "richard," i said, speaking low and rapidly, so that only he could hear. "i am sorry if i am a _fright_! but i just couldn't prink before that woman on the train. she was deathly sick, so i kept the baby all the way. then she was _poor_ and proud and--i didn't care about opening my bag and spreading all my silver things out before her!" he laughed again. "you are an extremist, ann," he said. "but you are not a fright. only, you're so fine, when you're at your best--and mother won't understand." "of course not," i answered rather shortly; and the drive out to the house might have been a very quiet one if it had not been for mr. maxwell's irrepressible chatter. i was grateful for the chatter at the time, still more so when we reached the house, for it helped my ruffled hair to pass unnoticed. the feminine portion of the family met us at the front steps, and, as darkness was drawing on, i failed to take in at the time the full magnificence of the outside of the house. when i saw it next morning in the bright sunshine it struck me as being an oppressively massive, gleaming structure, with a great display of plate-glass doors and windows; and, instead of long, generous porches, as we have at home, there are several tiled vestibules that each morning are--no, not scoured, they are _manicured_. mr. maxwell is a great friend of richard's, strange as it may seem that two such incompatible natures should find so much in common; and, being heir to his mother's fortune, is such a desirable catch that mrs. chalmers frequently has him down here, hoping that he and evelyn will take a fancy to each other. richard told me this, quite simply. evelyn wears her prettiest gowns and uses her softest tones when he is around, but she is no more interested in him than she is in any other man. in fact, she is too well brought-up to display any preference in her marriage. whatever her mother arranges for her will be entirely satisfactory. and as for mr. maxwell--but that brings me up to a mention of the other guest here now, and it is surprising that i have not said something about her before, for she and i have been great friends from the day i arrived. it is amazing that people can get so well acquainted in such a short space of time when they are staying together in the same house, yet when neither of them is what you would call "easy to get acquainted with." i am not, i know, and i feel equally as sure that sophie is the same way, yet you will notice that sometimes when two such diffident people are thrown together they will take a liking to each other right away. it was this way with sophie chalmers and me. she is richard's cousin and lives in some vague place "out west." she happened to be visiting some of the other chalmers relatives in a near-by town for a few weeks this fall and i think mrs. chalmers must have felt that if she had to invite her it would be less trouble to have her when there were other guests, so she asked her to come and spend the thanksgiving holidays with them. if the girl had been less obviously a sort of "poor relation" (though by no means looking the part) or if mrs. chalmers had not tried so persistently to keep her in the background the "unexpected" which happened in this case would have been less surprising. for mr. maxwell had no more than walked into the drawing-room and been presented to her than he fell in love with her; and, like most merry-eyed people, he fell very deeply in love. even their meeting was most unusual--dramatic, you might call it. and, as it took place at the moment of our arrival, it served to divert somewhat the attention from my disheveled looks, which had been such a shock to richard. "mr. maxwell--miss chalmers," some one had said, as we all passed into the house and the tall, rather tired-looking girl unfolded herself from one of the big chairs drawn up close to the hearth. she showed no surprise as she extended her hand to the new arrival, but mr. maxwell looked at her for a moment as he held her hand in his; then he asked quite simply: "where have we met before?" the question was so earnest and so direct that the girl's face flushed, but before she could even start to offer a suggestion as to whether they had met before or had not, mrs. chalmers hastily put in that there was little probability of a former meeting, inasmuch as sophie had not been in this part of the country in several years. "we have certainly met before," mr. maxwell persisted, his eyes still fastened on sophie's face, and running his fingers through his hair, along the line of the scar, as if that could help him in remembering. "i am certain of that. and i should surely not be so discourteous as to acknowledge that i have forgotten--except there are so many things hazy in my mind--since that night just outside el paso." i, too, was watching sophie intently, as we all were, and i saw her eyes wander to the scar along his forehead. she looked away, but in another moment had returned to it again, as if the queer little white line held a fascination for her. at his mention of el paso she gave a distinct start, but regained her equilibrium almost immediately. "i must be a very common-looking person," she said with a little laugh, turning to me as she spoke, "for i seldom meet a stranger who doesn't know some one whom i am so exactly like that the resemblance is startling!" we had all moved about a little from the positions into which mr. maxwell's first earnest words had petrified us, and mrs. chalmers was beginning to say something about taking us to our rooms, when that persevering young man spoke again. he had not moved an inch, but stood there in the middle of the floor, his eyes fastened on sophie's face. "it's not your looks, that is, your looks are not so convincing as your--your voice," he said, his expression still showing his bewildered surprise; but something in the girl's face must have pleaded with him to change the subject, which he did, easily. "well, don't you think the scar adds to my list of attractions?" he asked banteringly, as he turned to mrs. chalmers, who beamed approval upon him. "the girls all think i acquired it in some brave, though mysterious, manner--those who don't know that i got my sky-piece cracked in a wreck in texas last year." from that hour he began a course of small attentions, minor courtesies, but none the less meaning, all of which have been calculated to make sophie regard him with quite a degree of favorable interest, and if i am not mistaken none of these calculations has failed to hit the mark. but since their first meeting i have only once heard him refer to that unusual resemblance she bears to some one whom he has known; and i am sure he found the impulse then to speak so strong and sudden that the words were out before he had time to think, for sophie so clearly disliked a mention of the subject. this proves to me that they have known each other in some mysterious manner, but as she has never told me the secret, of course i have never questioned her. last night at the dinner table was when it came about, and, when i think it over, it was a ludicrous happening rather than a sentimental or even mysterious one. mrs. chalmers had been holding forth upon some scriptural interpretations which her beloved pastor has recently made use of in his sermons, and, among others, the casting of pearls before swine was brought forward for discussion. from the moment the word "swine" was mentioned mr. maxwell's face took on its bewildered look and he fixed his eyes on sophie with that same intensity of expression which they have worn so often this last week. suddenly he seemed to remember what his mind was so evidently searching for. "swine! _pigs!_" he blurted out, in such a startled way that we all instinctively stopped eating to await developments. "_that's_ what i heard you--or the girl with your voice--saying that night. i remember it distinctly now! it was hot--heavens, how hot it was!--and there was a fierce pain in my head for some reason; but i heard your voice, just a short distance away from me, saying: 'this little pig went to market, this little pig stayed at home; this little pig had--' and there you broke off, because you couldn't remember what it was the third little pig had. there was a peevish child's voice crying: 'tell little pigs! tell little pigs,' and then a man's voice, trying to help you out. you asked the man, '_do_ you know what the third little pig had--or did?' but he couldn't remember either. he began saying the doggerel over again, 'this little pig went to market; this little pig stayed at home; this little pig had--' "'roast beef, damn you,' i hollered, for somehow i wasn't as near being dead as you thought. 'roast beef, but you needn't stand outside my door rehashing it all night. then you and the man laughed in a surprised, though subdued way, and walked away from me, although i didn't hear the sound of footsteps." his scar showed very white as he finished this queer little story; and he looked at sophie almost beseechingly. he had the appearance of a man groping about in the dark. sophie, too, was clearly embarrassed, but said nothing by way of explanation; and, ridiculous as the incident was, not one of us even smiled. there was a heavy, tense silence about the board for a moment, then richard spoke. "upon my word, but this is interesting," he said, in a slow, sarcastic drawl. "sophie, have you been traveling in vaudeville?" * * * * * as we left the dining-room one of the servants told richard that there was a long-distance call for him, a bit of news which brought a frown to my lord's handsome face. "well, tell 'em i can't be found," he commanded briefly, as he caught the extreme tip of my elbow and began steering our course toward the library. we usually had a few short minutes alone there after dinner. "the operator has already told the party that you are here, mr. chalmers," the colored boy answered, looking embarrassed and trying to slink away into the back hall as soon as he could. "the devil!" richard exclaimed, under his breath, but he loosed his hold upon my arm as we reached the foot of the steps, and he suggested that i run on up-stairs and wait until i thought he had had time to finish his conversation, then come back and join him in the library. "if you mix up with them in the drawing-room now you can't find an excuse to get up and leave when i have finished," he explained, and i smiled a happy assent. sophie, too, had gone to her room for a few minutes after dinner, and, as she heard me stirring around in mine, she called at my open door to say that she wanted my advice about something. "come in, by all means," i bade her. "i have lots of advice." "it's about a dress for the ball to-morrow night," she said, holding over her arm a dainty gown of soft white silk. she spread the garment out upon my bed, then stood off a few steps and looked at it. "do you think it will do?" she finally asked. "do? why, i think it's lovely!" i declared truthfully. "well, i want to look lovely," she answered, with a queer little smile, but as she sat down on the bed and picked up a bit of chiffon flounce in the neck of the gown, she looked up at me again, with an expression of almost tragedy in her eyes. "but i have no gloves that are long enough and clean enough to wear with this!" "well, wear a pair of mine, then," i began, noting that her hands and mine are about the same size, but before i could suggest this she had interrupted me. "i didn't come in here for _that_," she exclaimed, rather haughtily, throwing back her head a little and looking me squarely in the eyes. "i wanted to talk with you a little because you don't seem so oppressively elegant and _rich_, you know--" "i am not in the least rich," i assured her comfortingly. "nearly all my gloves have been _cleaned_." i hastily threw up the top of my trunk and scrambled around for my glove box. "see!" i exclaimed, holding up a pair that she had seen me working on the day before. "they _look_ as good as new, but whew! it would take one of your texas cyclones to blow the smell of gasolene out!" "one of _my_ texas cyclones?" she looked surprised, but i fancied that she was pleased. "who told you that i live in texas?" "nobody that i remember; yet i got it into my head somehow that you live in texas." "i do. i live in el paso," she threw aside the flounce of chiffon which she was still fingering and started to her feet. i was standing in front of her with the pair of freshly cleaned gloves in my hand. "ann, i hate lying, and i am going to tell you something, for i can't keep up this deception any longer. i don't care what aunt ida says." there was a quick rap at the door at this most interesting juncture and evelyn stuck her head in. "ann," she said, glancing quickly at us both and seeming a little surprised to see us closeted together in this familiar fashion. "richard has just had a long-distance message from the city. he has to go up there to-night on business and he wants to know if you'll let him come up to your door and say good-by?" chapter xiv sophie's story i had to lay my journal aside last night before i reached the really thrilling occurrence of thanksgiving day, which was, strangely enough, neither the dinner nor the ball, although each was in its own peculiar way a decided success. i have evelyn's word that the ball was a success, for neither sophie nor i attended it, albeit richard had, at my whispered suggestion, sent sophie a box of long white gloves from the city, getting them off on an early train that they might reach her in time; and sending along with this a box of roses--maréchal niel for sophie, la france for mrs. chalmers and evelyn, while for me there was a great sheaf of american beauties. but he did not come back in time for the ball, and i suddenly lost all interest in the affair as the last train out from the city that evening failed to bring him. sophie had been suffering all day with a frightful neuralgic headache, and, as night drew near, it became so much worse that she declared that she could not go to the ball. the lights and dizzy whirling around would be the death of her, she decided, so she dropped down into a chair in the library after dinner and said she would give it up. "then i'll stay with you," i volunteered, and, despite her own protestations and feebler ones from mrs. chalmers and evelyn, the matter was thus arranged. there were always far too many girls at such affairs anyway, they all knew, so that my absence would really be a blessing. mr. maxwell came into the room just as the matter had been thus satisfactorily settled and when he heard of the arrangement his face beamed with a kind of mischievous happiness. "now, that's what i call luck," he said, as the door closed upon mrs. chalmers' retreating form and left us three alone together. "i'll go with the ladies and stay long enough to see that evelyn's card is filled--then i'll take a sneak, and come on back home to see how the headache is progressing." his smile spoke immense approval of his own cleverness, but sophie cut it short. "you'll do nothing of the kind," she said decidedly, looking up at him as he stood by the library table, a folded newspaper in his hand; "you'll stay and do your duty by the wall-flowers." "not i, sweet lady," he answered banteringly. "life is too short. i'm coming back here and entertain your headache away!" and he did. he came in at about half-past ten, for the filling up of evelyn's card had been a matter quickly despatched, and he was in radiant spirits over having "jumped the game." "mrs. chalmers didn't mind at all," he explained as he drew a chair up to the fire and lighted a cigarette. "i left her in a corner with a few other fond mammas and she even insisted that i should not go back, as jim goes for them about two o'clock. all i'm to do is to go out to the stables and punch jim in the ribs and wake him up in time. so we are going to have a jolly evening together." "oh, dear, what a pleasant prospect!" sophie said, only half in jest, as her hand went up to her aching head. "now, if i could just get rid of this one-eyed pain i might find life decidedly worth living." "isn't there anything we can do?" he asked solicitously, casting his cigarette quickly into the fire as if he thought the smoke might make her head worse. "can't miss fielding and i make you a mustard plaster--or something?" "there is a little bottle of stuff in my bag up-stairs that sometimes acts like magic in a case like this," she finally said with some hesitancy, and i realized that she was hesitating because she disliked the idea of having any one fussing over her. she is one of these capable creatures who seldom ask even a small service of any one. "let me run and get it," i said starting up and resolving that i should get the bottle, hand it in to mr. maxwell at the door, then betake myself off to my own room and leave them alone together. i imagined that he would enjoy the privilege of hunting about to get her a glass and a spoon himself. and it would make them feel more at home with each other for him to be rendering her these little services. i went to sophie's room and found a bag where she had told me to look, in the closet on the lower shelf. i caught it up and moved across to the bed, where i sat down and deposited it by my side; then i began a wrestling match with the most obstinate catch that it has ever been my ill-fortune to come across on an alligator-skin bag. "i'll just have to take it down and get mr. maxwell to open it," i finally decided, after i had worked with the thing until my strength and patience were both exhausted. "it is provoking to see the ease with which a man can subdue a thing like this after a woman has broken off all her best-looking finger-nails over the task." so i caught the bag up in one hand and my trailing skirts in the other and wended my way back to the library. my load was quite heavy, heavier than an ordinary traveling-bag i remembered afterward; and in struggling with the lock i had at one time pulled slightly apart an end of the stubborn opening. a whiff of drugs was borne to me in that instant--a kind of combination of odors, none of which i knew by name, but they were all strikingly familiar, for they were exactly like the smells in alfred's small black instrument case. "i hope you don't take all these different kinds of dope for your headaches," i thought with a quick little feeling of contempt, for i don't have much patience with the headache-powder habit. i learned this contempt from alfred, of course. mr. maxwell was alone in the library when i returned and told me that sophie had gone to get a glass of hot water. "she says that is all she ever takes for these spells of neuralgia," he said, holding out his hand for the bag, when i explained to him about the fastening. "but there is a little bottle of something or other in here that she rubs on her forehead--and that eases the pain." "then why on earth didn't she rub it on early this morning?" i inquired wonderingly. "that's what i asked her," he answered with a slight laugh, "but she says that the stuff burns the skin and leaves a red mark; and she didn't want to be disfigured for the ball--i told her that she would have looked just the same to me--red mark or no red mark." he was smiling good-naturedly as he worked with the lock of the bag, which after a moment or two came open with a lamb-like docility. he was walking across the room to deposit it upon the table when sophie came in and saw him with the bag opened in his hand. she gave a little startled exclamation and we both wheeled and faced her. "that's the wrong bag," she said, speaking with such nervous haste and her face wearing such a white, scared look that we both instinctively glanced into the open case mr. maxwell held in his hands. "don't! there's something in there that i don't want you to see!" poor girl, if it had been a dynamite bomb or a counterfeiter's kit of tools, she could scarcely have looked more frightened, for mr. maxwell and i had already seen the contents. his face suddenly went white, too, as he quickly strode across the room and laid the bag upon the table. "_this_ is likely the thing you didn't want us to see," he exclaimed, reaching in and holding up to the light a glittering little object. it was a hypodermic syringe! when she saw the silvery-looking instrument actually in his hand and observed the stern, harsh look in his eyes she gave a wild, hysterical laugh and walked quickly across to him. she clutched the shining thing from his hand and held it up before me. "_now_ you both know the 'disgraceful secret' which aunt ida has made me keep so securely locked away from you," she cried, holding the instrument in her hand and pulling the piston backward and forward with a deftness born of long familiarity. "she made me promise to keep it a secret, for she said that if her 'society' friends knew of it i should be considered beyond the pale. heavens knows that i am sorry for it and ashamed of it, but there was a mighty--temptation." she sat down in the nearest chair and began to cry, her face buried in her folded arms, and her shoulders heaving convulsively. i went over quickly and laid my hand upon her head. "don't cry, sophie!" i begged, "it will make your head worse; and--_this_ doesn't make the slightest difference in our feeling for you. we are not 'society,' are we, mr. maxwell?" i glanced appealingly toward him, but he did not see me. his eyes were fixed upon sophie's bowed head with a pitying, yet _horrified_ stare, then the look of bewilderment which he wore at the first sight of her came over his face, painfully intensified this time. "my god!" he finally broke out, and i knew that he did not know he was speaking aloud. "i have seen you before to-night with that thing in your hand! i can even feel its sharp little sting in _my_ arm--but where--_where_--i can't remember." at his queer words sophie looked quickly up, but he had already turned his back to us two and was leaving the room. we heard him linger a moment in the hall as if he might be looking for his hat; then the big front door closed behind him. "he still doesn't remember!" she said slowly, looking at me in surprise. "i thought he would. i don't imagine that he has had much experience with trained nurses, so i fancied it would all come back to him when he found that i was one." "you took care of him when his head was hurt last year?" "yes. i nursed him from the night he was brought into the hospital until he was almost out of danger--it was a long, tedious case, and we thought for a while that we were not going to save him." "and you really were telling some child about the little pigs going to market one night when he heard you?" i asked, thinking how much stranger than fiction this case was. "yes. that was after he was beginning to be better, but i was still his 'special.' the baby's cot had been moved out into the corridor just beyond his door--it was so hot--and i used to slip out there occasionally and get the little fellow to sleep. but i came down with malarial fever myself before mr. maxwell was entirely well. that's the reason his memory of me is so hazy." "then why didn't you tell him plainly--when you first met him here and saw that he remembered you?" i asked as she got up and opened the bag wider to try to find the bottle of medicine she wanted, for her hand went to her head in a manner which told me that all this excitement had in nowise lessened the pain. "that's what i am so sorry for and ashamed of," she answered simply, as she lifted some of the contents of the bag out and placed them upon the table. "i shouldn't have stayed here an _hour_ after aunt ida told me i must sail under false covers, but--i said a while ago, in my excitement, that there was a mighty temptation! i didn't intend to say it, but--it is true." "and the temptation was--" we heard the front door open then and close again softly. mr. maxwell had finished his walk out in the cool night air. i hoped that he would come on back into the library as he heard our voices, but he passed the door and in another moment we heard his footsteps on the stairs. "they told me that _he_ was coming," sophie said. * * * * * four days have passed since the night of the thanksgiving ball; and at a house-party where four days drag there is a greater sense of calamity than would be caused by a dreary four weeks at some other time. for there is always the tormenting thought of how much hay one might have been piling up if the sun would only shine. here are the three of us--evelyn, sophie and i--all at the age of eve; and all enduring such a period of gloom that i feel sure if the original eve had been half as badly bored she would never have waited for a pretty snake to come along and amuse her--she would have started up a flirtation with a _grub-worm_! richard is still away and i have not even had a line from him. neither has any one else on the place, of course, but his name appeared in the society columns of the _times_ the day after thanksgiving. he had attended the football game that afternoon with major blake's party, the paper stated--and alas! i was in no position to dispute the statement. now if there is _one_ thing a girl hates worse than having her rat show in the presence of her beloved it is to have that beloved's name appear in a society column when her own is not in the same line! "why the blakes?" i kept wondering uneasily, as i read over the hateful paragraph again and again; and i tried to fight down the fierce feeling of jealousy which took possession of me. "why couldn't he have gone to the foot-ball game with some one else--or why couldn't he have come home?" i found upon this occasion that jealousy is a passion which makes me physically ill, and i thought quickly of how tormented richard must be by his jealous disposition. i wondered if he had ever felt the quick desire to strangle alfred morgan that i now caught myself feeling to annihilate the entire blake faction. they had no right to make richard leave home upon such an occasion as this; or they should have finished their hateful business and sent him on back home for thanksgiving. they certainly had no right to take him off with them to a foot-ball game for all the world to see--and have his name with theirs in the paper next morning. "major blake had with him in his car, besides mrs. blake, miss berenice blake, who returned last week from denver, and mr. richard chalmers." i knew the horrid words by heart, yet i read them over and over. and even this was not the worst. on the front page of the _times_ was a cartoon representing major blake seated beside a little creek, angling persistently for a fish in midstream--a fish with richard's handsome head and "chalmers" printed in big letters across the side. the bait was a bag of gold and a handful of glory; and beneath it was written "little fishie in the brook, can daddy catch him with a hook?" such a cartoon in rufe's paper struck me as being pregnant with meaning. what did it portend? why did richard leave home at this time to spend thanksgiving with old man blake if it did not mean that he was entangled with him? how deeply entangled--and for what? major blake had some time ago given the anti-liquor forces to understand that they had not money enough for their campaign to make a union with them interesting to him. but the appleton followers had been equally unsuccessful in trying to gain his support. _could_ it be that he and richard intended forming a separate faction where his own personal popularity should cut a tremendous figure in gaining for him what he wanted, and he could have the backing of richard's friends among the temperance forces? but where would richard come in then? why should old man blake give all the biggest portion of the plum to richard, when he had never been governor himself? i thought over the matter and _thought_--until i grew dizzy with the problem, yet i never found anything that could serve even as a half-way solution. but enough of my own grievances. as i have said, sophie and evelyn are both miserable, too, though in entirely different ways. evelyn is half ill, with a constantly threatening pain in her right side--a trouble which she has had for several years--and sophie, poor girl, has stayed in her room most of the time because she is so disappointed in the way mr. maxwell has acted since he learned that she is a working-woman. horrid cad! he has watched sophie every minute she has been in his presence since that night, looking as if he were a detective and suspected her of carrying concealed weapons about her. yet all the time there is a look of dumb misery in his eyes--sorrow and _incredulity_. he has several times tried to get me off alone where he could talk to me of the occurrence thanksgiving night, but i have been careful to avoid him, for i am as much disappointed in him as sophie is. each of them has tried to leave, but mrs. chalmers has insisted upon their not doing so. she is so upset over evelyn that she needs sophie's skilled advice in nursing, although no open acknowledgment of the matter has been made. and she has insisted that mr. maxwell remain at least until richard returns. meanwhile she has tried to get a message through to richard in the city, but she has been so far unable to find him. altogether it is rather a miserable household. * * * * * another day; and it started so well and ended so queerly that i am not going to try to sleep for hours yet--until i have written the whole thing out so i can read it over and see whether or not it really happened, for i find it so hard to believe. to begin at the beginning, richard called up from the city this morning and explained to his mother that he had been on a business trip down in the country--far away from a telephone station, he said, and so he had not been able to communicate with her. he asked her to call me to the telephone and we had as satisfying a little talk as people in our position ever have over wires. he would be down home on the first train in the morning, he told me, and he insisted that i tell him something he might have the pleasure of bringing me. "oh, i'll excuse the olive branch," i replied in answer to this question, "for i'll be so glad to see you." glad to see him? ah yes, so glad! and in the joy of the thought i forgot all about being jealous of the blakes. with this restoration of happiness the day naturally passed more quickly to me, and i found myself wondering why evelyn didn't get over that hurting in her side, and why mrs. chalmers still looked so anxious and why sophie and mr. maxwell continued to eye each other so reproachfully when the one thought the other was not looking. richard was coming home in the morning! surely all would be well then! dinner was a dismal affair, for evelyn was not any better--was not so well, mrs. chalmers said, with a look of great anxiety, although the doctor had not said positively what the trouble was. as soon as we had left the table sophie followed mrs. chalmers to evelyn's room, thus leaving mr. maxwell to a tête-à-tête evening with me. there was a brilliant fire in the library and we both were attracted toward its cheer as we crossed the hall. he lit a cigarette and sat staring moodily at the little clouds of smoke which he puffed into the air. clearly he was not going to thrust conversation upon me. to make sure that he should have no encouragement to do so i began looking around vaguely for something to read. there was a pile of fresh papers which had come by the night's train lying folded on the table, but i have had little appetite for newspapers since the day of the fishy cartoon. i should not read any more of the horrid tales about him, but he should tell me all that there was to tell and i would believe him. but not a question did i expect to ask. his confidence should be entirely voluntary or not given at all. no newspapers for me then this night; and i glanced around the room for something else. something forbidding-looking and very deep i decided on as being best to keep mr. maxwell's conversational powers in abeyance. i went to one of the book-shelves which lined the walls. running my hand along a line of huxley's works i came to _science and the christian tradition_ and promptly decided that this was the very volume i needed to impress mr. maxwell that i was reading something very profound and needed all my wits about me. returning to my chair by the fire i sat down and opened my book, but i was in nowise disappointed by finding that the leaves had never been cut. there was a heavy pearl-and-silver paper-cutter lying on the table near by, but i did not take the trouble to reach for it. what did i care for a lot of prehistoric teeth and toe-nails dug up and brought forward to prove that before "adam delved and eve span" the baboon was a gentleman? mr. maxwell continued to stare into the fire, and i do not believe he ever glanced at the impressive three-quarters morocco binding i was holding up so persistently for him to see. after half-an-hour had been thus profitlessly spent i grew tired and decided that i would go to my room and go to bed. morning would come the more quickly this way. as i started to cross the room to replace the book in its niche i heard mrs. chalmers going up the steps again--it seemed to me fully fifty times that evening she had made pilgrimages up and down those stairs on her way to and from the invalid's room. "evelyn must be worse," i said aloud before i remembered that i was trying _not_ to start conversation. "possibly so," he answered politely. "i believe i'll go now and see if i can do anything to help mrs. chalmers; she must be worn out." i put the huxley back where he belonged and had turned again to wish mr. maxwell good night, when i found that he had at last unfastened his eyes from the bright fire and was looking toward me appealingly. "miss fielding," he began with an unwonted timidity. i had already opened the door to leave the room, but i came back a few steps, leaving the door wide open; and as i did so i heard, for the fifty-first time, the sound of mrs. chalmers' footfalls upon the stairs. she was coming down this time. "yes?" i said coldly in the direction of mr. maxwell. "miss fielding, i am going away in the morning," he said rather awkwardly, as he pushed up a chair for me again, but i did not sit down. i leaned over a little and rested my elbows against its high leather back. he stood upon the hearth-rug, and even the shaded lights of the room brought out the troubled lines on his face. "i am going away on the same train that brings chalmers home," he repeated. "yes." "and i was anxious to talk with you a little before i go," he went on with considerable hesitation. my attitude was far from being encouraging. "you seem to be on friendly terms with her still--with sophie, i mean." "i _am_ on friendly terms," i said rather pointedly. "i am fortunately not the kind of person who indulges in _seeming_ friendship." "oh, i say, miss fielding, don't rub it in on a fellow! don't you see that i have been half crazy ever since i found it out? surely you don't think that the matter hasn't made me feel worse cut up than anything that ever happened to me before! a man doesn't get over a shock like _that_!" "shock?" "certainly shock," he repeated earnestly. "if she had told me she is a horse-thief i couldn't have felt worse. of course a man could keep up a sort of pitying friendliness after such an acknowledgment as that, but--i had intended asking her that night to marry me." he looked at me as if he might be beseeching me to speak a word of comfort to him, but i stood there and said nothing. "miss fielding, surely you understand that i couldn't marry a woman who, by her own acknowledgment, is a--a dope-fiend." "dope-fiend!" i gave a little shriek. he looked at me a moment as if he thought i had lost my mind, then we were both startled by the abrupt entrance of mrs. chalmers at the door which i had a few minutes before left open. she had evidently heard my horrified exclamation and come in to investigate. she looked from one to the other of us inquiringly, and there was no use trying to hide the situation from her. "miss fielding and i were talking about sophie, mrs. chalmers," mr. maxwell explained after a moment of painful silence. "she acknowledged to us, miss fielding and me, the other night the--the truth about this unhappy condition." "the truth?" mrs. chalmers' tone was questioning, although i knew that she must have heard my startled cry as i repeated the hideous word he had used a moment before. "it was the night that we stayed away from the ball--we three--and we found the evidence in her bag. she acknowledged that it was true. i had expected to ask her to marry me that night--but she is a drug-fiend." mrs. chalmers started, but she did not speak. she made no effort to correct him. "so of course i am leaving in the morning. i should have gone long ago, but--" he looked at richard's mother, who stood in the center of the room, directly beneath the chandelier. the light shone down on her soft white hair and changed it into a veritable crown of glory. she moved her crown slightly as she nodded an assent to his suggestion of leaving in the morning, but she did not lift a finger to detain him, nor to set him right in regard to sophie. could it be that her desire to get evelyn married off to him was going to carry her to such lengths as this? it seemed so; and i caught myself wondering quickly if in so doing she might be carrying out a command of richard's. likely he was very positive in bidding her keep sophie's secret, or in impressing it upon her that evelyn ought to be suitably married. in either case she would be mortally afraid to speak--she would _not_ speak. then quickly upon the heels of this came the knowledge that if she did not speak it was my place to do so, for i knew the truth as well as she did--but it might make richard angry! it would be sure to if he had given commands that the secret should be kept! i might even lose him-- "that train leaves at six-thirty, i believe?" again he looked at mrs. chalmers and she again nodded her head. but she did not speak. "then i shall not have an opportunity of seeing you in the morning," and he walked over and shook hands with his hostess, making his adieus in a wretchedly forced way. she shook hands with him and allowed him to pass on to me. i gave him my hand in a mechanical fashion, and my eyes were fixed upon mrs. chalmers' face. she was evidently frightened at the thought of the thing she was doing; but she was just as evidently going to see it through. "good-by, miss fielding," mr. maxwell said simply, then turned toward the door. i was still looking at her as i heard the sound of his hand upon the door-knob, but as i realized in that instant that he was really _going_ and that neither of us had lifted a finger to set him right, a sudden power over which it seemed that i had no control came and caught me, almost physically forcing me out of my place. i ran across the room. "mr. maxwell!" i called. he came back a few steps and stood facing us. "you were leaving--that is, we were about to let you leave--under a false impression," i stammered breathlessly, all the time a sense of my doing something very much out of place strong upon me. "false impression?" his eyes were glittering feverishly. "yes. it is true that we found the--the thing you mentioned in sophie's bag that night, but she is no--dope-fiend." he stood still as if he were petrified. "physicians carry those things in instrument cases," i went on, feeling that my explanation sounded very tame and inadequate. "physicians carry them and so do _nurses_." he looked at me a moment in utter bewilderment, then, slowly, comprehension dawned in his eyes. even the understanding was going to be bitter to him, for there would be the humiliating confession that he would have to make to her that he had misjudged her. as i said the word "nurses" mrs. chalmers moved a step forward and held up a warning hand. "ann," she exclaimed in a frightened whisper, "richard said that this affair was _not_ to be mentioned." "a professional nurse!" mr. maxwell cried, his face lighting up as a hundred hazy memories came flooding over him. "in el paso--my god! _of course!_" he came up to me and caught my arm. "this is what you mean?" he asked. mrs. chalmers' eyes were fixed on me in a kind of fascinated wonder. how _could_ any one go against richard's expressed wish? but my own eyes were meeting hers steadily as i turned to answer mr. maxwell's pleading question. "yes, that is what i mean. sophie belongs to the great army of the red cross!" chapter xv the douglas in his hall as is frequently the case when i have gone to bed late and in a perturbed state of mind, i awake early, with a heavy feeling between my eyes and a marked distaste to getting up. it was so this morning, except i had an indistinct impression that, instead of waking normally, i had been awakened by some unusual noise. i turned over in bed and looked around the room for a few minutes before i began to think of the effort of getting up. i had by no means forgotten that richard was coming--might already be here, as the spasmodic bursts of sunshine indicated that it was at least seven o'clock--but he would not expect me to do anything so unusual as to dress this early and meet him down-stairs for a few minutes' stolen happiness before we should meet and shake hands formally at the breakfast table. the bliss of such a secret little reunion might, doubtless would, appeal to most lovers, but not to coeur de lion. he would see in it only the impropriety of a young woman meeting a man in a deserted library in the early hours of the morning. richard has this way of throwing--well, not exactly cold water, but _iced lemonade_, over the exuberance of my youthful feelings! i wish this were not so, but-- i looked around the beautiful, befrilled bedroom, with its handsome furniture of circassian walnut and its dainty blue silk hangings--and i thought, with a quick little pang of longing, of my severely plain sleeping apartment at home. this spartan bareness is in imitation of alfred's cell-like bedroom, which ann lisbeth had once shown me, and which had attracted me by the air of wholesomeness the immaculate cleanliness gave it. alfred and i have often planned a house so plain and sanitary that we could turn the hose all through it. housekeeping would be a delightfully simple affair with him, for he and i agree so perfectly in our dislike of complicated things. dear me! i wonder what kind of house richard and i will keep? it will be--expensive, but will it be harmonious? the events of last night came crowding before me and i remembered with a most disagreeable little chill that mrs. chalmers' eye had held a look of terror as she thought of richard's commands being disobeyed. was richard a monster then? did he _eat_ people when they dared to go contrary to his wishes? i also recalled the day he and i had had our first actual quarrel--about the volume of byron which alfred had given me. his eyes grow very cold and glittering when he is angry, and--yes, i can understand that a certain class of women might be very much afraid of him. especially if they had him to live with! and i wondered if, at last, after months of struggling, i, too, might not find it more restful and peaceable to become a groveling sort of hypocrite to my lord and master? "never, never!" i cried aloud, jumping out of bed as i heard again the same sounds which had awakened me--hurrying footsteps down-stairs through the halls, and the sound of many doors being hastily opened and closed. "i'll give him up if i find him as they say he is." just then i recognized the heavy, dignified slam of the massive front door, a kind of muffled protest against the impertinence of using haste with such an august portion of that house; then, a moment after, there was the sound of an automobile starting. "evelyn must be much worse," i thought uneasily, as i hurried through with my bath and slipped into my clothes. if this were so i knew that i should not have to meet mrs. chalmers at the breakfast table, and i should be relieved of the ordeal of coming in contact with her bland smile. i instinctively felt that she would meet us all exactly as if nothing had happened the night before. she is entirely too well-bred to bear malice. now, for my part, i have a nervous distaste to whited sepulchers, aside from any question of morality, and i always have a sense of being brought face to face with the rottenness and dead men's bones whenever i am forced to _smooth_ over a situation which has not been thoroughly explained and threshed out. when i have a grievance against any one, my first desire is to "have it out" with the offender, and i always want any one whom i have offended to offer me the same privilege of setting myself straight. but mrs. chalmers would, i know, sit for ever at the mouth of such whited sepulcher with a bottle of vera-violet held to her nose before she would face anybody in helping to rid the place of its pestilence. these thoughts were running through my mind as i was dressing, and i will say that i had the grace to feel ashamed of them as i ran down the steps and met her in the hall, her face looking old and drawn with anxiety, her hair in disarray, and her figure enveloped in a fantastic kimono. "evelyn is very much worse," she said in a trembling voice as i came up with her and inquired after the patient. "it is an acute attack of appendicitis and doctor cooley has just telephoned to the city for doctor gordon to come out on the first train. he says--she can't--_live_ without an operation; and, even so, he is very much afraid that it--the appendix--has ruptured." she broke down here and sobbed miserably, burying her face in her hands and wiping away the tears upon one long silken sleeve of her flowered kimono. "evelyn is all i have in this world," she moaned, and i suddenly felt infinitely sorry for her--and forgiving. "she is all i have to comfort me in my miserable life, and now richard has come home and blames this trouble on me." "blames you?" i questioned, looking down upon her disordered hair in amazement at the thought. "he says that i ought to have known better than to let her dance so much the other night," she explained, lifting a tear-stained face to me for a moment, as if to acknowledge the sympathy in my voice. clearly she was not accustomed to sympathy. "dance!" i said again in surprise. "why, people have appendicitis who have never seen inside a ball-room! that is a most absurd idea." "not nearly so absurd as some things he hatches up against us two," she broke out, her anger toward richard making her forget, for a moment, her anxiety for evelyn. "oh, ann, he leads us _such_ a life! he is exactly like his father--and he was a _despot_!" we were interrupted by the quick footsteps of sophie, as she came hurrying through the hall. she had an ice-cap in her hand, and there was a thermometer-case thrust through her belt. there was no trained nurse in charlotteville, so she had quietly explained to doctor cooley her qualifications to act in that capacity. mrs. chalmers whispered this to me, as sophie passed by; also that mr. maxwell had left on the same train that brought richard, but not before he and sophie had spent a long hour together in the quiet library. "she was up nearly all night," mrs. chalmers said, "so they came face to face here in the hall at daybreak. she is a good girl, and he will make her happy. i am glad they have come to an understanding." "but i thought--" i began, then stopped, not knowing how to express my idea about her plans for mr. maxwell and evelyn; but she read my mind. "you thought i wanted to catch him for evelyn?" she asked without embarrassment. "well, i did, but i shouldn't have gone to such lengths, except for the sake of keeping richard in a good humor." "then he'll be in a very bad humor with me when he hears that i was the one who told about sophie," i suggested, but she cut me short. "oh, he's in such a fiendish humor about something that happened to him on this trip of his that he will forget all about these things here at home." "is there some sort of political trouble?" i asked anxiously, but she shook her head. "richard never mentions his business affairs to us," she said, as she smoothed down her kimono and followed sophie up the stairs. half an hour later richard met me at the door of the breakfast-room, looking very tired and morose. we sat down and ate breakfast in unchaperoned gloom. he asked me a few perfunctory questions about the happenings here since he left, but he volunteered no information as to what kind of business it was which had taken him away, nor where he had been. after breakfast we established ourselves in the library, he with a batch of newspapers which he had brought with him from the city and i had a new magazine, but he seemed to care little for reading, and he sat and smoked in moody silence for a while. the day was warm, but the sunshine of the early morning grew fainter, and by noon there were signs of a thunder-shower, the clouds seeming to gather from all directions; and the air became oppressively heavy. richard finally threw away the end of his cigar, yawned a time or two in an abstracted sort of fashion, then got up and walked over to the window. he pulled aside the curtains and looked out at the threatening sky. "get your hat and let's go out for a little fresh air before it rains," he suggested as he came back and threw himself into his chair again, stretching out his long legs to the fire. i got up obediently and started toward the door, but he reached out, caught my hand and stopped me. "isn't it a devilish old day?" he said lazily, as he drew me down toward him. "you haven't kissed me once since i came home. don't you love me any more?" "love you? of course i love you!" i answered, kissing him on the forehead and smoothing back his fair hair. i had entirely forgotten the traitorous thoughts of the early morning. "but you have been in _such_ a mood! who wants to kiss something that looks about as lover-like as rameses ii?" he smiled a little and took my face between his hands. "i _am_ a savage," he admitted, though not at all bearing the appearance of one at that moment; "but i've had a lot to try me lately--and then i was so disgusted when i came home and found that mother had let evelyn dance herself into another of these attacks." "oh, richard! surely you don't really think it was the dance that brought it on? it might have been the dinner--but i shouldn't even suggest that to your mother. she is miserable enough already. you ought to try to comfort her." "that's very charitable of you," he said, a sarcastic little flicker around the corners of his mouth, "but, all the same, i find that i can manage my womenkind better to use a little frankness with them occasionally." i drew back from him somewhat. "frankness?" i cried in genuine surprise at his cold sarcasm. "even if frankness were the right name for--this, do you consider that now is the time for it? when she is so wretched?" he turned from me and threw down the paper he had picked up a moment before as i stood talking to him. "let's don't quarrel," he said finally, in a low tone; and, impulsively reaching out both hands to me, he added: "and, ann, for god's sake, don't ever act as if you were afraid of me!" "afraid of you!" he smiled. i think he has the most adorable smile of any man on earth. "go and get your hat," he said. as i came down-stairs again with my hat on i found sophie standing at the front door talking with richard. she was dressed entirely in the garb of a nurse by this time, and i looked admiringly at the becoming white uniform, but richard made no reference to the change nor anything that it entailed. "sophie thinks that we would better not go very far," he said to me as he stepped outside into the vestibule and looked up again at the clouds. "she says evelyn is not resting so well--and mother, of course, has entirely lost her grip." "do you think that there is any new danger in evelyn's case?" i asked anxiously. "well, we are eager for the surgeon to get here as quickly as possible," she answered. "he'll be here on the noon train, and, of course, he can operate immediately. and it hasn't been nearly twenty-four hours since the onset of the acute attack. the mortality is less than one per cent, if taken within--" i had been looking into sophie's eyes as i spoke and had not observed that richard was listening intently to what i was saying, but as i made use of this last bit of medical jargon a contemptuous little half-laugh broke from him and i looked up quickly. he was smiling sardonically. "of course your friend, doctor morgan, is your authority," he said, his brows elevated and a disagreeable expression around his mouth. "he is--and i couldn't ask a better," i flashed back at him. we stood thus a moment, our eyes meeting in fiery challenge, and in that brief moment i realized that such a scene repeated a few times would cause us to hate each other. i felt suddenly as if the earth were receding from me and leaving me in a very uncertain stratum of air. i was violently angry with richard--and he was infuriated. "it's a pity the public continues to display such a lamentable ignorance in regard to this wonderful hippocrates of yours," he sneered, though in an even voice. "that ignorance is growing less every day," i responded easily, so easily, in fact, that i am sure sophie never suspected that we were both at white heat. but she was embarrassed at the bad taste we were both exhibiting, so she made some excuse and quickly left us. we walked slowly down toward the gate, not that there was any joy left in the prospect of a quiet walk together, but because there seemed nothing better to do right then. out through the gate and quite a distance up the street we passed before either of us spoke, and i noticed once that his right hand, which clasped his slender silk umbrella, was trembling. "ann," he said finally, speaking in a remarkably low, gentle voice, "why does it seem to give you such pleasure to torture me that way?" "torture you?" i answered. "oh, richard! why should you torture yourself into a passion if i but mention anything even remotely connected with the medical profession?" "medical profession!" his voice was still very quiet. "you would imply then that i am--that i am jealous of this yearling doctor?" there was infinite contempt in the word "yearling." "i don't _imply_!" i responded warmly. "i have good, clear english for what i wish to say." "you certainly have for all that you wish to say about this paragon of yours." "he _is_ a paragon; but he isn't mine." "no? i wonder why? you certainly might have won him!" was this a lovers' quarrel? i had always heard them spoken of as being frivolous, make-believe disagreements, whose sting was light as thistle-down and whose shadows were quick to disappear at the dawn of a beloved smile. but if this were true, then my altercation with richard was a much more serious affair, for i found my patience strained to the breaking point when i finally burst out: "richard, hush! this is disgraceful! i will not quarrel with you any longer. you make me wish that i had never seen your face!" my vehemence seemed to startle him out of his own wrath, or, at all events, it acted as a signal to him that he was to go no further, for he began to retract; not humbly, not penitently, as if he had found himself in the wrong, but with a sudden sparkling brilliance, his eyes and his smile dazzling my senses as they did the sunny afternoon we spent together, sitting on the orchard fence. "well, i'm glad i have seen your face," he said fondly, as he looked down upon me with that same air of possession, "for you are the prettiest little spitfire i ever saw." he suggested that we walk up to the river side, not a great distance away, but it is as secluded a spot as if it were miles away from human habitation. there are thickets of undergrowth just beyond a skirt of woods, and a stone wall where we might sit down for a quiet little talk. we made for this spot in silence, and, as he placed a strong, lithe hand on either side of my waist to lift me bodily up on the wall he said, with that same directness of manner which i found characterized his speech: "ann, i beg your pardon--ten thousand times, sweetheart! will you forgive me--and--and kiss me?" his lips were already upon mine, and i knew then that there was nothing in this life so beautiful and sweet and intoxicating as their touch. i gave myself up to the exquisite madness with an abandon which shuts out all knowledge that richard and i are not comrades, not even friends--that we have no ideals in common, no similar tastes! what does all this matter when he has his arms about me and i am so close to him that i can hear the quick thump, thump of his heart-beats, and i know how they quicken for me! nothing matters! i love him! "that's my own little girl," he said radiantly, as he lifted his face from mine and saw my entire surrender. "this is the first moment to-day that i have felt as if you really love me." he dusted off a space on the wall then sprang lightly up to a seat by my side. "i've been waiting for you to brighten up a bit and look like yourself," he continued after a few minutes of happy silence. "i have something to show you." "something to show me?" i looked at him wonderingly. "something i brought you from--from the city." "but i told you not to bring me anything." "i know. but i had already bought it then, and i couldn't take it back to the jeweler and tell him that my lady had turned it down, could i?" he drew a little case from his pocket, a long, slender one this time, and as i found my eyes fixed with an eager fascination upon his hands as they worked for a moment with the catch, i seemed to see stretching before me a long vista of years, each one punctuated with quarrels like the one we had just endured, and the rough places left by these ruptures filled in and smoothed over by myriads of these small, dainty jewel-boxes. but richard's deft fingers had opened the case, and he passed it over to me. i gave a little gasp of astonished delight as i saw lying upon its bed of velvet a string of pearls--white, softly-glistening, beautiful things. "let's see how they look on you," he suggested, unfastening the dull gold clasp and slipping the lovely chain around my neck. he fastened them securely, then smiled approval as he leaned back and viewed the effect. "i've wanted you to have something like this ever since i've known you," he said with the air of a connoisseur as he still held back and looked at the pearls lying close around the neck of my collarless blouse. "so when i happened to see these the other day in--the city, i decided that they were exactly what i wanted for my little girl." i was opening and shutting the box as he talked, and when he mentioned seeing them in the city i idly glanced at the name on the lining, and saw that the case bore the name of a well-known firm in st. louis. "why, richard," i cried, "did you go all the way to st. louis to find them?" i laughed, but there were two tiny lines between his eyes. "don't say anything about it to mother, but the truth is i did have to go to st. louis while i was away from home this time." "your mother thinks you were down in some little country town--away from a telephone!" "well, it was a--business trip. she wouldn't be interested, and i never have believed in a man boring his family with his business affairs." "i shouldn't be bored, richard," i began, hoping so fervently that he was going to confide in me that half the joy i should have been feeling over my beautiful new possession was turned into pain when i saw that he was not. he changed the subject quietly and we discussed various minor matters, until i remembered, with a start, that it was time for us to be going home. it must be long past noon. i mentioned this to richard and he jumped down immediately. "i haven't heard the train whistle, have you?" "no, but we haven't been listening for it. look at your watch." he did so, and we were both surprised and not a little ashamed when we saw that it was half-past one. "we'll have to hurry," he said briefly, and we walked home faster, i dare say, than ever lovers walked away from that delightful spot before. when we reached the house we found that the doctor from the city had indeed arrived; the preparations for the operation being well under way. there was not to be an hour's delay, sophie told us, as she paused on her way up the steps. her hands were full of glistening instruments, and a negro servant followed with kettles of boiled water. "what does gordon think of her condition?" richard asked, as he eyed sophie's burden with a little shrinking. "doctor gordon couldn't come," she answered abstractedly as she looked around and gave the servant some directions about keeping a bountiful supply of water that had been boiled, "there was a wreck on the road that he is surgeon for--it didn't amount to much, but still he had to be there, so he telephoned doctor cooley that this young colleague of his whom he sent to do the operation is thoroughly competent--it seems that they operate together a great deal. i didn't catch the young doctor's name when he was introduced--and i've been too busy since to ask." "doctor morgan," i said, feeling sure that doctor gordon would send no one but alfred on a case like this. "doctor morgan--the _devil_ it is!" richard's voice burst out so suddenly and so fiercely that i turned and looked at him in amazement. then, for the first time, i realized how easy it might be to be afraid of him. fierce and sudden as the words were, they were spoken in his deep, even voice, and not a muscle of his face showed the intense fury which i felt that he was laboring under. it was a cold, cruel anger, and it showed only in his eyes. they were glittering like two sharp-pointed steel blades. "doctor morgan here--and you knew all the time that he was coming!" he looked at me so accusingly that sophie sensed the point of the situation at once, although she had never heard alfred's name mentioned before; and she broke in with a light laugh. "why, he didn't know himself that he was coming until ten minutes before train time. it was too late even to find a nurse to bring with him, so i am going to help in the operation." her words had the effect of quieting, in a measure, this insane suspicion of richard's; and he and i followed her up the broad staircase. she led the way into the room which had been hastily divested of its rich furnishings and transformed into a semblance of an operating-room; and we two followed automatically. sophie passed in and began busying herself about the preparations, but just inside the doorway we stopped. standing in the middle of the floor, near the end of a long table upon which had been placed several bowls of water, some clear, others light blue, his top shirt off and his arms up to his elbows thickly coated over with a soft lather, was alfred. another young fellow, whom i afterward learned was a local physician, stood near the table; and he too was busily "scrubbing up." as we came into the room alfred bade sophie hurry up with her own preparations. "would you object to hearing a word from me before your manipulations go further?" richard's voice broke in, after the briefest and most perfunctory of greetings, which fortunately were divested of any hypocritical handshaking on account of alfred's green soapiness. "i understand that our family physician, doctor cooley, telephoned to the city for doctor _gordon_ to come down here and operate upon my sister." "doctor gordon received the message, but was detained by a small wreck on the eastern," alfred said quietly, rinsing the soap-suds from his hands and motioning sophie to drop another bichloride tablet into the next bowl of water. "he sent me to do the work." "so i have been informed," richard said, his eyes looking far colder and more cutting than the steel instruments which sophie was now rattling about in a big pan, "but--as it happens--i don't want you to do the work." the insult was so barefaced and so ugly that sophie suddenly turned scarlet and the young doctor bending over the bowl of water busied himself unnecessarily with a bottle of green soap. richard himself began nervously tampering with his watch-fob, while i afterward recalled that my fingers were playing convulsively with the pearls which were still around my neck. it was an _electrical_ moment and we all showed signs of weakening before the current--all except alfred. he stood in the same spot at the end of the table, directing straight at richard his level, steady glance, and looking the personification of simple dignity--in an undershirt. "that might put a different aspect upon the matter," he said slowly after a moment's deliberation. not a muscle of his face changed, and no one less well acquainted with him than i am could have detected the hardness in his voice. "_might_ put a different aspect?" richard looked incredulous. "yes, it might--if the patient were a minor, and you her sole guardian." "ah! then you mean to ignore my rights?" "i do--if you wish to put it that way. your sister's condition is critical; and there is no one else to operate." "then there is no appeal to be made to your pride?" i do not know what richard meant, nor do i believe that he knew himself, for he surely would not have run the risk of trying to get another surgeon when it had been made so clear to him that the delay would be fatal. alfred seemed to realize that there was no more occasion for argument than if he had been talking to an unreasonable child--or a dangerous lunatic. "no; my pride lies dormant in a case like this," he answered simply. "i acknowledge only duty." then, at alfred's words, it seemed that the magic change which i have before noticed comes over richard when he sees that he has gone far enough, began to make itself felt. it appeared that he was not going to have the courage to turn about and apologize, as he had done with me earlier in the day; but he began to do what he considered all that was ever necessary from _him_ to ordinary mortals. he began to back, sullenly. "of course, if it is only an ordinary case of appendicitis _you_ might do," he admitted grudgingly, "but--suppose there are complications?" i give richard credit for not intending this worst insult of all. he was so entirely absorbed in gaining his own end, and that end was proving to alfred that he was incompetent to operate, that he failed to consider the words he used. to him this was only a simple argument in favor of his theory. alfred met the thrust as he had met the minor ones. "if there are complications, i shall grapple with them," he answered quietly. "that's what i studied surgery for." sophie came across the room then and told us in a low voice that they were about ready. would we please wait outside? without another word richard took me by the arm and we walked out together. he held my arm tightly as we made our way cautiously down the steps; cautiously because it had suddenly grown very dark and there were threatening rumbles in the distance, following vivid flashes of lightning. the fumes of the anesthetic were filling the house, while outside the big drops of rain were beginning to pelt down, making little comet-shaped streaks of wetness against the window-panes. we heard the shuffling steps as they moved evelyn into the room and placed her upon the table; then we heard alfred call from the head of the steps, his voice calm and unruffled as it would be in the case of any gentleman making a request of another. "mr. chalmers, will you call the power-house and have them turn on the lights?" hours after, when it was all safely over and sophie earnestly supplemented the local doctor's praise of alfred's skill and technique, richard sought me out as i stood alone in the dining-room locking up the silver. i had seen mrs. chalmers do this and knew that it was a habit of hers; and to-night there was no one else to do it. "ann," he said, coming close and looking around to make sure that there was no one else near, "ann, i'm really sorry about what i said to that fellow, morgan, this afternoon. of course i didn't intend any aspersions upon his ability, but i suppose, according to their infernal ethics, it was--discourteous." i picked up a soft flannel case and wrapped a handful of heavy forks in it. "yes, i dare say he considered it so," i agreed. "i've wondered what i can do to make amends," he continued. "do you think i might double the amount of his fee?" "no, no," i begged earnestly, a sudden sense of disgust at the thought of such a thing. "no, don't try to offer alfred _money_." poor richard! was there nothing in the world he could do except trample upon people's feelings then offer to pay them to get in a good humor again? he had insulted alfred, who was a hero, then suggested offering him money to wipe out the stain. he had neglected and offended me this miserable day--but he had given me a string of pearls! chapter xvi the ides of march "love's second summer," was the name mammy lou bestowed on the troubled period of my engagement with richard chalmers which followed the portentous events chronicled in the last few chapters. "a love affair ain't no different from a baby," she would say to me sometimes, as her quick eye saw that all was not going well, and her maternal pity for me caused her to forgive the disappointment i had given her in my choice of a lover. "it's bound to have some miz'ry as well as joy mixed along with it. why, you can't no more make true love run smooth than you can play a 'juice harp' with false teeth." true love! oh the irony of the words! so many months have passed since the happenings that i last recorded that i can look back now and dispassionately dissect even the motives of many things which transpired during that gilded year. for it proved to be only a gilded year, while i thought at the time that it was a golden one. and i can see, among many other strange and bewildering things, that at the moment i saw alfred morgan stand up and bravely defy richard's selfish tyranny, the scales seemed to fall from my eyes and i knew then which was the false and which the true. that i did not act upon this knowledge and follow the dictates of my intuition, i afterward regretted more poignantly than it often befalls the lot of a girl to rue a guiltless deed. on that november night when i stood in the dining-room and counted out and stored away the chalmers' family silver while richard stood by and suggested appeasing alfred's outraged pride by a gift of money, i felt an almost overpowering desire to fly precipitately away from the great, gleaming house with its midas-like master, who, as i remembered for the first time with a shudder, was also _my_ master. the storm without, which had broken so violently at the hour of the equally violent storm within, and between those two strong and determined spirits, had spent its force during the afternoon, and when the dreary night closed down there was a sharp wind from the east, and the rain changed into a driving sleet. out into this alfred went, and i stood at the door with him as we said good-by, until the piercing wind blew in and brought with it a little shower of light sleet, which it scattered over the inlaid floor. "i'll be in the city for a day or two next week," i said as he held out his hand and looked with a slight shiver out into the icy blackness through which he must pass. "i'll see you then." for the moment i had forgotten that alfred and i no longer saw each other when i was in the city. i had failed to remember the fact, and also the circumstances leading up to it. "but i'm leaving for new york saturday night," he said briefly, as he pulled a little closer the big storm collar of his heavy coat, and slipped on his long automobile gauntlets. he had left the city so hurriedly that he had not had time to exchange these for ordinary gloves. "--and i sail on the following wednesday." "oh! so this is good-by then?" "yes--for all time, i suppose. you'll be married long before i get back." we were standing alone at the door which led out to the driveway and there was a motor-car a few feet away puffing softly a warning to hurry; richard was somewhere near, in the front part of the house--but i thought not of his anger if he should find me in such a plight; i did not stop to remember that alfred was in danger of missing his train; above all i did not recall that only a few months before i had had the chance of making a decision which, if differently made, would have put such a different aspect upon the world's cold blackness this miserable night--i remembered nothing, except that alfred was going away from me--and i had already seen my mistake. giving way completely as this mighty knowledge came bearing down upon the tired, aching nerves of my brain, which had already been working at over-tension for the past many days, i covered my face with my hands and gave vent to the sobs and tears which seemed to have been gathering in my heart since i had last seen alfred. now he was going away, and i was to see him no more! "ann," he begged, as he quickly stripped off the long gauntlets and started to put out his hand, "_don't_! for god's sake don't cry! i've stood a lot to-day, but i'll swear i can't stand that." "if you've stood a lot, don't you think that i have, too?" i demanded in a low voice, the convulsive little catches in my throat making speech difficult. i had lost all power of self-control for the moment, and i think that if richard had come out into the hall at that instant and demanded an explanation i should have frankly given it. many times through the succeeding months i regretted bitterly that he had not. alfred's hand started out toward me again at my passionate words, and caught mine this time, dragging them gently down from my face as he compelled my eyes to meet his. "what do you mean?" he demanded. "is he unkind to _you_, too?" "oh, no, not unkind," i stammered, half frightened at the sudden turn of our conversation. "certainly not unkind. he is the soul of generosity--but we don't--get along well--together." i broke down weakly in my speech, for the sense of disloyalty was strong upon me, and i felt that it was almost as grave a crime to recount the faults of a lover as those of a husband. but alfred's face was very serious, and if my perfidy made any impress upon him it was lost in the mazes of a greater problem. "that is what i've been afraid of," he said in almost the same tones he had used when he made a similar remark upon my telling him i cared for richard. "i thought you would find that your natures are--incompatible." "incompatible? oh, alfred, if we marry we'll _fight_!" i sobbed, burying my face in my hands again, and forgetting the _lover_ alfred in the dear friend whom i could always go to with a trouble. and i would be willing to stake anything in life that, in that moment, he, too, had forgotten that he was my lover. "well, that is a very serious question, and one which you will have thoroughly to thresh out before it is too late," he said, his bright brown eyes anxious and troubled. he looked down upon me with infinite sympathy. "and you are going away so soon--and for so long?" "well, if i were not going away i could no longer be a--a friend to you, ann; for i am not capable of giving you unbiased advice, and that is what you need. it would be a great temptation to make capital for myself out of your troubles with--him; and i can't lower myself this way. so don't grieve over my going away, and--take council with your mother and mrs. clayborne. i am not the one to advise you in this case." so he went out into the blackness! * * * * * from new york, the day he sailed, he wrote me a note saying that he could not leave without telling me some things which he could not honorably speak of while we were in richard chalmers' house that night; and those things were that his own feeling for me would never change; if years passed before i ever felt that i needed him i was to send for him just as confidently as i would to-day. no matter what decision i came to in regard to my marriage with richard chalmers he would never approach me again in the light of a lover until i sent for him, the note ran on; and, as i read this last i looked up and smiled into vacancy over the thought of how proud and high-minded he is. he gave me the address of a london hospital and said that if i cared to write to him at any time within the next few weeks the letter would reach him there. but i did not write to him within the next few weeks. on the morning after alfred's departure from charlotteville i came down-stairs early and found richard in the breakfast-room. he was smiling radiantly as he looked up and saw me; then he threw aside his morning paper and pulled up a chair close to the fire. "evelyn is doing splendidly; the political news is to my liking; there are fresh trout for breakfast, and--here's a rose for your hair, my lady-love," he said, holding out to me a perfect bud of pearly whiteness. a box of them had come on the early train from a friend of evelyn's in the city, and richard had purloined the most beautiful one for me. the ground outside was white and there was the sharp little sound of sleet against the window-pane, but the breakfast-room was a scene of glowing cheer. a japanese tea-service was on the table, and the trout, which richard had been fortunate enough to secure from a passing fisherman that morning, was broiled to a most delicious brown and seemed to be enjoying its repose upon its bed of water-cress. a steaming pot of hot water was presently brought in and placed beside my plate, and the tea-ball was brought to me. i was to make the tea and richard and i were to breakfast together. "this strikes me as being a happy arrangement," he said, smiling what i had often called his "twenty-one-year-old smile," for when he wore it it was difficult for me to believe that he was as far advanced in the thirties as i knew him to be. "this looks quite married and home-like, doesn't it--mrs. chalmers?" richard seldom jested about our marriage, and he never, but this one time, made reference to the name which would be mine when we married. such a jest on the morning before, when he had just come in from his trip and was the personification of gentlemanly grouch, would have made all the world radiant to me; but, as it was, i blushed painfully as he spoke the name--and he took the blush at its face value. "ah, madam, i see that the thought pleases you!" he kept on banteringly as my hand trembled a little over the tea-ball. "perhaps this is my opportunity for pressing my suit--isn't that what they call it in novels? it smacks too much of the tailor shop to suit my taste, however.--but honestly, ann, i do want us to make arrangements for our marriage the first minute this nomination business is over. what do you say, dear heart?" again, if the question had been asked yesterday morning it would have made a startlingly different impression, but, as it was this morning, i parried. "i say that we are two very selfish and thoughtless young people to be talking about such things while evelyn is lying up-stairs so ill--and your mother in such distress, richard," i answered. "well, we'll not say another word about it, if it troubles you, sweetheart," he said gently. then after a moment he added: "i never expect to do anything to hurt you, even a little bit, again." "you mean--?" "i mean as i did yesterday--about morgan, you know. did you notice how i stayed clear away last night while you went to the door with him? but," resuming his tone of persiflage, "you were there an unreasonable time, it seems to me. now, tell your rightful lord what you two cronies were talking about." "about his trip," i said quickly, spilling a little tea upon the cloth and vigorously mopping it up with my napkin. "he's going to europe next week." "well, he's a pretty decent chap, although he does look deucedly young to be cutting into people--don't you think so?" he asked, not that he really did think so, for alfred is quite old-looking for his years, but he thought it would place him in a better light--the way he acted yesterday. "oh, you'd like a bearded old surgeon who learned so much technique before the war that he hasn't needed to learn any since," i answered, and the breakfast-hour passed away with this kind of light, bantering talk. from that day richard set about being the most agreeable companion when we were together, and the most devoted lover when we were separated that it has ever been my lot to meet in fact or fiction. i left charlotteville the next day and he followed me up to the city on the fourth day thereafter, as soon as the doctors pronounced evelyn out of danger. i had not intended stopping over in the city any length of time, but i found cousin eunice in a state of despair over the progress, or lack of progress, of her new book. "do stay," she begged, as i announced this intention to her, "at least until i get through with the proposal. it's as hard to get your hero to propose nicely as it is to get the gathers of a sleeve to set right. there's always either too much or too little in a given spot. and it's so provoking, when i'm right in the midst of such a delicate situation, to have pearl call out to me from the foot of the steps: 'mrs. clayborne, here's a jepman at the do' want's to know if your husban's a householder and a freeholder.' "'tell him yes, and a _slave-holder_,' i yell back at her; for any woman who really keeps house _is_ a slave." "what do 'jepmen' want to ask such fool questions for?" i asked wonderingly. "to avoid election frauds. you see there is so much deviltry right now in politics that the law-enforcement faction is sending men around all over the city to find out every voter, and if he has the right to vote." "well, what good does it all do?" "none; but it gives the poor, overworked housewives one more trip to the front door, in the course of the day.--then there are agents selling non-rustible wired bust-forms. pearl never knows what to say to them, either." "mercy, what should one say?" i demanded, thinking all of a sudden that maybe my task was going to be too large for me. "say anything that comes to your mind, just so it's unfit for publication--nothing milder will do for them," she answered bitterly. "and waterloo doesn't give you any trouble while you're trying to work, does he?" i inquired. "happily no, for grapefruit is his consolation and his joy. never were there such ways of a nursemaid with a man child. never has anybody invented such tales and games--" "and spitting contests," i interpolated. "it's true she taught him that ugly habit," she responded with some dignity, "but all boys learn it sooner or later." so i stayed and the book grew like a soap-bubble the first week. then pearl's brother got into that condition which is always described by our colored servants with much gusto and rolling of white eyeballs as "'bout ter die," and, whether he ever dies or not, is a matter that the housekeeper knows nothing of. but the servant always leaves, and she did in this case; and upon the sunday morning thereafter the gas stove in the clayborne home looked as if gangrene had set in on it. i had magnanimously insisted on doing the cooking; and i didn't know before that a gas stove had to be washed as often as a new-born baby. cousin eunice came out of her cataleptic state on sunday morning, for she is ashamed to write on the type-writer that day for fear waterloo will tell it at sunday-school--and she showed me how to dispose of the week-old egg-shells and concentrated soup cans which had accumulated amazingly around the fenders of the range. "oh, i think a literary ambition is an evil thing sometimes," she said with a deep sigh, looking around at the house, which she declared was enough to give us all bubonic plague. "it is--er, disheartening to have you shut up all the week in the little back room up-stairs," rufe admitted, fishing one of his best gloves out from behind the coal-box. "when you're locked away up there the house looks as empty as a hotel bureau-drawer--and that's the emptiest thing on earth." "i know it," she answered, looking at him sympathetically. "--besides, it's wearing to have a book for ever in your mind. inspiration is so uncertain--and so urgent. i've had it strike me while i was washing my hair; and it's far from pleasant to have to dash the soap out of your eyes while you search all over the house for your note-book and pencil--and the water drips down all over the furniture." "it must be," rufe agreed. "and here lately i've grown so absent-minded that when i go down-town for a little shopping i have to dress with my memorandum in my mouth to keep from going off and forgetting it." but on monday morning genius was burning again, and i stayed through that week, but only in the capacity of a protection against interruptions. we got another cook, for pearl's brother, like charles ii., was "an unconscionable time a-dying." richard came every day and every night and was so attentive to the whole family that rufe rather sarcastically asked one day: "ann, is chalmers courting you or me?" rufe's words meant little to me then, but later they kept recurring to my mind with a persistency that would make banquo's ghost appear like a tame and laggard thing. was richard hoping to gain, through his friendship with me, the support of the _times_? he knew that if rufe's personal influence could not bring about an actual support of him in the coming campaign it would be a factor in having the paper judge his manipulations with a lenient eye. and now this finally brings me up to that miserable day the following spring, the ides of march, it was, when the skies fell; and they never fell upon a more wretched, more humiliated, more bitterly disciplined young woman. as i have said, richard had made an ideal fiancé throughout the time which followed that miserable parting with alfred, and i had occasion many times to wonder if, after all, i might not have been mistaken about the incompatibility of our natures. besides, the fascination of the handsome, physical richard chalmers was still there; perhaps it was never so strongly and bitterly there as on the fifteenth of march that i have just mentioned. as the winter wore away, richard's visits down home here, in the country, had been much further apart, especially since the time for the actual political fight drew nearer; and, from this fact and from the newspapers' more volcanic outbursts, i knew that a gubernatorial contest was about to take place. but i should never have known it from the man who was most concerned in the race, for, during all this time, richard never confided one hope nor fear of his to me; and i see now that it was not because he "didn't want to bother my pretty little head about such things," as he occasionally stated, with a fond smile, but because he judged me to be exactly of the same intellectual stripe as his mother and evelyn. he thought that i would not have sense enough to understand the situation. richard had been out of town a good deal lately on business trips, and the meeting that morning in march, at rufe's office, was in the nature of an accident. richard had not known that i was in the city for a day's shopping, so when we accidentally ran across each other on the street, the _times_ building was the nearest place we might drop into for a little talk. "well, you are taking your campaign hard," i said, as i looked at him critically after rufe had assured us that we might have the whole morning without interruption, in his own particular little den, as he was going to be out in town. then richard had asked him to give orders that we were not to be interrupted, as he particularly wished for a little talk with me. "ann, i've had enough to run any man crazy since i saw you last, dear," he said wearily, in answer to my comment on his looks. he dropped down into the nearest chair and put up one hand to shade his eyes from the brilliant morning glare. "this political business is the most infernal--" "what, richard?" he was looking steadily into my eyes, but at my question he looked away; then after a moment moved his chair over closer and caught up my left hand. "i'm in a devil of a mess, love," he said after a little inward struggle--then with that charming directness of his he ventured--"i want you to promise to help me out." "of course i will," i readily agreed. "oh, that's not the kind of promise i want," he instantly objected. "say it solemnly. say, 'i'll promise to stick to you.'" "why, richard, you make me fear that something is seriously wrong," i cried in sudden alarm, for my sense of oneness with him had grown so amazingly since those months between the time of my visit to charlotteville and then, and i felt as entirely identified with his interests as if we were already married. his attitude toward me at the breakfast-table the morning after alfred's departure was a key-note to the manner in which he strove every day after that to cement this relation; and i know now that this was an immense factor in causing me to allow the engagement to exist through those days of doubt. i had always felt that an engagement was very nearly as binding as a marriage--and richard had always exercised such a charming right of possession. "something is seriously wrong, ann," he said gravely, and his eyes held mine in a sort of fascinated wonder; "and i expect you to stand by me." his manner was very grave; and he seemed to be in a serious doubt as to whether or not i would stand by him. "tell me about it," i suggested as patiently as i could, for i was trembling with uneasy eagerness. "give me your hand and swear that you will stick to me." "oh, sweetheart, i'll stick to you if you're a horse-thief," i said, trying to force a laugh. "then listen! you know that i want to be governor of this state--" i nodded my head. "--and the temperance party is about to go back on me because they think that major blake and i are going to form a separate faction and leave out the liquor question." "yes, i know." "well, that is just what we are going to do--to save the state from the republicans." "well?" "and blake is going to work up the campaign _for me_--on the condition--" my blood was pounding like fire through my veins, but i felt absolutely unable to move. i knew what he was going to say and my heart was pleading for mercy, but my lips were mute. they could not even move enough to say, "i know it all. don't say the hideous words." richard had grown painfully embarrassed, and he stammered awkwardly: "--on the condition that i become his son-in-law." just what happened after this i do not know. i might sit here all night trying to recall his explanations and protestations, but i shall get through with it all as speedily as possible, for all i really remember about that terrible day is that i felt dreadfully ill--and _benumbed_. i listened in a sort of trance to his recital of how berenice blake had labored under an hallucination for some time that he cared for her; and she had learned to return the fancied affection; how very ill she was, so ill that when she came home for thanksgiving it was found that she would have to go right back to denver-- "and you went as far as st. louis with them--and brought me a string of pearls," i said in a dazed fashion. "yes, i always think of you first--no matter where i am," he answered, looking at me fondly. "and our love-affair will not even be suspended for very long," he went on. "she can't possibly live six months; and her father wants, above everything on earth, that she shall be happy for the little while that she has to live." "by marrying you." "by being engaged to me. i would _not_ marry her--there is no necessity for that." "and you are asking me to release you?" "i am _not_," he said very firmly. "i am asking you to give me--a leave of absence." some unknown power seemed to put the words into my mouth, for i was not conscious of any effort toward thinking. "but i release you, richard. i could not be--mixed up in that kind of thing." he sprang from his chair and caught me violently in his arms. "that's just what you're not going to do. you are _mine_. you are going to stick to me." "i said that i would stick to you if you were a horse-thief," i said slowly. "--but not--_this_." "oh, ann, you are breaking my heart," he cried, as he caught me close to him and buried his head on my shoulder. "you can't mean to throw me over." "you are kind to put it that way, richard," i said. "you are a sensible girl," he exclaimed suddenly as he raised his head and looked at me again. "you must listen to reason and do exactly as i tell you in this matter. then all will be well. the affair will be nothing more than a make-believe between us all, for major blake knows that i do not love the poor, homely, half-dead creature; the betrothal will have no more feeling in it than a stage kiss. the only deception you will have to practise will be to announce your own engagement to some one else this week, so that--" "this week? my own engagement? richard, what do you mean?" "i mean just this, my poor little girl," he began, his deep gray eyes full of tears, and his hands, as they held mine, trembling piteously, "--that if the story gets noised abroad that i--i hate even to suggest such a thing, ann, it is so far from truth, darling--but if the story gets noised abroad that i jilted you it will harm my prospects, as well as being a humiliation to you." "oh, i see." "so i thought you might announce your engagement to some one else--of course, just for a pose, but--" "but there isn't any one else." his eyes glanced into mine for a moment, then sought the floor. "i've thought of all that," he said easily. "but you know that alfred morgan would--would--" "would let me use his name?" "oh, ann, don't look so queer and unnatural, dear; you frighten me! you're not going to faint, nor--anything, are you?" he began, looking around helplessly. "i'm not going to faint," i assured him with a little smile that was forced up from somewhere in the depths of my misery. "but i'm not going to use alfred's--nor any other man's name in the way you suggest." "it is only to save yourself humiliation, dear," he said, looking annoyed and relieved at the same time. "oh, i'll take the humiliation for my part," i said but with no evidence of anger nor reproach. i was still stunned and benumbed. "i can stand the humiliation--but i hate a liar." * * * * * so it ended this way--that beautiful dream of mine; and i should not tell the truth if i pretended that i did not wish many times in the bitter weeks which followed to close my eyes to the cruel reality and dream again, even knowing all the while that it was a dream. no, there was no sense of thankful relief that i had found my knight of the lion heart to be a poor-spirited, craven, selfish thing. not then! at the time of the revelation and for many days following i gave myself up to a bitter, longing sorrow for the man whom i had created out of my own fancy and had named king richard. i had made the image as entirely as ever pygmalion made galatea, and i had worshipped it. i had loved it so that if its coming to life could have been brought about through my giving up my own i should gladly have let it live. but it would not come to life, for it was nothing--it was a dream-creature. even as such, its image continued with me, and i sorrowed for it with such an aching, lonely hopelessness that more times than once during the spring months of that year i felt that it was not within my nature to keep up the struggle any longer. i must give it up and send for richard to come back. the pale blue of the flowers which came up and blossomed in thousands along the hillsides of the "garden" back of the village, and the deep blue of the april skies were both turned to gray this spring--the cold, piercing gray of his eyes. they had not been cold for me! and then a little later there was the "humiliation" he had mentioned. possibly he did what he could to make this as light as it might be made, for his engagement to major blake's daughter was not publicly announced until several weeks after i felt sure the understanding had been reached. but he could not ask her to keep the betrothal a secret, as he had asked me, for his capital must be quickly and surely made from its brief existence. taking a new lease on life from this sudden and mighty happiness of hers, the poor, dying creature came home from colorado and set about a feverish enjoyment of the brief span of time which was left her. there were crowded arrangements made for the wedding, which was announced for june--after the primaries were well over--and she had the satisfaction of having her full-length picture appear in all the prominent newspapers of the state, all bearing the legend that she was mr. richard chalmers' fiancée. the sight of these pictures, homely as they were, was no consolation to me, for i had never been jealous of her. and now i felt an infinite pity. i used often to think with a laugh of scorn of the man i had imagined richard chalmers to be, making love to the poor, ugly, emaciated thing, in hopes of gaining her father's political favor! for of course he had made love to her all along, just as he had to me, in the same beautiful language, and with the same beautiful smile--but he had not kissed her. i could fancy him telling her of his great admiration and his mighty respect, and how unworthy he was to touch the hem of her garment--when all the while he was thinking how ugly she was and what a risk there might be of his catching tuberculosis! poor girl! she was happy, though, for her little while, tagging around the country with her father and richard, and watching him adoringly as he made his pretty speeches to the enthusiastic crowds of constituents. but she played the game too quick and fast, and with such a studied disregard for consequences that it was no wonder the end came so soon. she spent the most uncertain, changeable weeks of the time which is ever an ominous one for consumptives in driving through long stretches of damp country roads, then sitting for hours in stuffy, ill-ventilated little assembly rooms, where the foul air did its deadly work for her. she contracted pneumonia and died; and mr. chalmers canceled all speaking dates for one week! but she died still thinking her richard was a lion-hearted king, so who can say that fate was not kind to her? that there was an aftermath to my own affair with richard was almost inevitable, for only in books do such bubbles burst and vanish entirely, leaving nothing in their wake. but this is the true record of what happened that spring and summer, and undignified and inartistic enough these happenings ofttimes were. if fate had wished to bring the matter to a beautiful and aesthetic close she would never let richard and me meet again in this world, for oh, those after-meetings are bitter dregs of romance! but we met again--on the night of his defeat, a strange chance meeting it was, for he was standing at the door of his headquarters hotel, which is just across the street from the _times_ building, trying to make way for his mother and evelyn, when i passed with the claybornes. evelyn saw me and called out a surprised greeting, so i was forced to stop for a moment, while rufe and cousin eunice, never missing me, continued threading their way slowly across the street. richard stood very pale and weary looking, with his hat in his hand, while i spoke to mrs. chalmers and evelyn; then seeing that i had been left alone he gravely suggested that i could never make my way through the crowd by myself, so he sent his mother and sister up-stairs and constituted himself my temporary knight errant. his hand, which tightly clutched my arm, as we struggled on, was icy cold; and the lines around his eyes made him look decidedly middle-aged. clearly he had already realized his defeat, although the returns were only beginning to be flashed before the eyes of the cheering throng. he walked with me to the elevator of the _times_ building, and the great mirror in the back of the car held our two images a moment as he lifted his hat and turned to leave me. the reflection held a wholesome lesson as i gazed for an instant upon the features of the handsome, blasé, middle-aged man, then glanced at myself in my short-sleeved white gown, with my rounded elbows showing youthfully. yes, i was undeniably _young_; and i felt, even in the midst of my sorrow for him, a little thrill of satisfaction that it was so. it was a week or two after his defeat that richard began a renewal of his lover-like attitude toward me, calling me on the telephone and asking permission to come, and again bombarding the express office with boxes of candy and flowers. when i gave abnormally polite refusals to these requests he would usually acquiesce with his half amused smile, which i could see just as plainly as if only a few feet lay between us, instead of many miles. "you are a stubborn little vixen," he would say sometimes. "how long do you expect to keep this up?" and if he had studied the matter over carefully and tried to hit on a means of curing me of my fancy for him he could never have found anything more effectual than this. then one day in the early autumn when all the world was dreary and the state was so evidently going republican that no doubt he had cause for his odd temper, richard called me again and asked that a meeting might be arranged, either at home or in the city. i began giving my usual reasons for not seeing him, when he cut me short with quick impatience. "oh, that's all right, if you don't want to see me," he said harshly, his rich drawl entirely obliterated in the sudden anger which tinted his speech. "and i'll promise never to give you the chance again of turning me down. but, my dear ann, you must remember there was a time when i didn't have to _beg_ you for every little favor i got." "there was a time!" ungenerous, despicable as this was, coming from richard, i took it with a sort of calmness born of the knowledge that it was only what i deserved. for i don't believe that a woman ever acts a fool over a man but that she lives to have the unwholesome fact cast up to her while she is drinking the dregs of her folly. "there was a time," the man is always ready to remind her, ofttimes hoping to use this memory as a lever to remove the aftergrowth of indifference or positive hatred. in this case the words caused me to feel something very nearly akin to hatred for richard, and i quickly ran away up-stairs, where i threw myself across my bed and gave way to the storm of tears which had been brought on by the angry selfishness of his act. but tears, while they are bitter and scalding, are also _cleansing_, and they acted that day as a purifying flood which washed my soul clean from all thoughts of richard chalmers. when, late in the afternoon of that rainy day, i arose from my bed i was weak from weeping, and unutterably saddened over this final, ugly blow which reality had dealt the fragments of my house which was built upon the sands; but, weak and sad and world-wise, as i felt myself to be, there was a great joy singing in my heart, for i knew, for the first time, i _knew_ that i was free. the next day i wrote a letter to jean asking her to get me several boxes of the latest style gold-edged note paper with my monogram embossed thereon, and insisted that she have the stationer hurry the order through. "i want the very newest and most exquisite style you can find," i wrote her, "for i am about to begin a most particular correspondence and if you will take pity upon my loneliness enough to run down any time within the next few weeks i'll tell you the name of my distant correspondent. yet, for fear you will not be able to get here before your curiosity consumes you, i'll let you into the secret enough to satisfy you that the gentleman is a 'medicine man' and he is now wandering on a foreign strand. and if you should hear that i have done such an unladylike thing as to _send_ for him, you will know in your heart that it is not entirely on account of father's rheumatism and mammy lou's still threatening right side. "but come, dear jean, if you love me, for i am very lonesome, with absolutely nobody but neva and her mother to divert my mind." poor little neva! i must not wind up this chapter without some little word about her, for there is going to be only one more chapter after this, and there will be no room for neva in that. this final word may be written next week--it may not be written until a whole year has passed, but whenever it is it will be the last, for i know that if mammy lou's definition of the period is correct it will wind up the age of eve. but neva! we left her a lovelorn lass grieving over the perfidies of hiram, the fickle. we find her again a college girl, breathing academic atmosphere from the tassel of her mortar-board down to the rubber heel of her "gym" shoes. she cares for nothing but school, and the sororities therein. she knows all the places up in the city where one is most likely to come across the college boys one desires most to see; and the class of ices that take the longest time to consume while one is sitting watching these boys pass by. she sometimes does not know the name of a certain desirable young man, but she always knows the name of his high-sounding greek letter brotherhood. "she don't talk about nothing but 'frats' and 'spats' and things like that," her mother one time complained after a brief visit from neva. "and she calls some of her mates by the curiousest names i ever heard. there's one she likes a good deal that she says is a _new phi chi_; and another one that she has to look to some because she's a '_old tau!_'" "the stage has to be passed through," mother said to mrs. sullivan comfortingly, "for it's as certain and as harmless as chicken-pox." but mammy lou takes a much more serious view of neva's collegiate career and high-flown talk. "education ain't no good for girls," she often declares emphatically, "for it spoils their powers of emmanuel labor. you can just as shore count on a educated girl makin' a lazy wife as you can count on damp weather makin' a baby's hair curl an' a ol' woman's feet hurt!" chapter xvii may day "'for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.'" i quoted this bit of classic loveliness softly as i looked out this morning very early from my bedroom window and feasted upon the scene of sweet spring beauty which was everywhere spread before my eyes. yet the cause of the verse coming to my mind at the moment was due much more to the feeling in my heart than to the scenery all about me, although each seemed a reflection of the other. "how many years ago to-day was it that we looked down into the old well in the lot and tried to see our future husband's face?" jean inquired with a wistful little smile as she came over to the window and dropped her chin on my shoulder, peering out upon the fresh green landscape. one of her arms slipped affectionately around me, while with the other hand she toyed with the fresh white curtain at the window. it was upon this hand that there gleamed the ring which guilford had at last persuaded her to let him place there. "more years than we are proud to own, considering that we are still spinsters," i answered lightly and a little at random, for my thoughts were wandering, though i am glad to state that they did not have such a long journey to travel now as formerly. each of my foreign letters lately has borne a postmark a little nearer home. "i'm not going to be a spinster long, thank you," she responded quickly, holding her left hand close to her face so that she could catch some of the myriads of tiny rainbows in her eyes. "and i don't any longer need to look down into an old well upon this magic day to catch a glimpse of my future husband's face." "still--let's do it again to-day!" "all right," she agreed readily, smiling at the enthusiasm of my eyes. "i'm in for anything that will take us out into this glorious sunshine." throughout the course of the morning we managed to dig out from ancient trunks of debris two white sunbonnets which mammy lou graciously freshened for us, plying her "raw starch" and sound advice with equal vigor during the task. we accepted the bonnets and admonitions gratefully, and donning short skirts and low-collared blouses we prepared for a tramp through the woods before the hour for the phenomenon in the well. we had skirted around back of the orchard fence and had found an ideal resting-place under a clump of softly green sweet-gum trees, where we might sit in the delicate shade and read the magazines we had brought with us, when there was the sharp, piercing whistle of the eleven o'clock train as it sped close by our secluded little nook and drew up pantingly a few moments afterward at the village station. "doesn't that whistle sound _close_ on these clear, still mornings?" jean remarked with a little start, as she looked up from her magazine and watched the column of smoke mount into the sunny, blue sky. "close, and decidedly cheerful, i always think," i answered, allowing my eyes also to wander after the smoke up into the dizzy heights. "you city people can't realize what the coming of the trains mean to us who are tucked away in the little country towns. our first thought always is, 'is there a letter on that train for me?' or, rather, that is my first thought always. it's a pity we're dressed this way or we might walk down to the post-office and see. the whistle sounded so unusually musical this morning that there may be a very important one. the last one i had was from liverpool--there ought to be one very soon from new york!" "but the old well!" jean cried in sudden alarm, for she is a sadly sentimental creature and would not have missed the little superstitious performance this morning for several letters--bearing _my_ name and address. "we are not going to give that up now." "well, we would better be moving upon the field of operation then," i suggested, closing my book and starting to my feet. "that train wanders into the village at any hour which suits it best, so there's no telling just what time of the beautiful may morning it is. let's hurry on down to the lot so that we shall be on the spot when the first twelve o'clock whistle blows." we hurried back in the direction of home, taking a short cut which led us through one end of the orchard and soon landed us beside the clump of ancient lilac bushes which form a kind of hedge along the barbed wire fence of the disused horse lot. in the center of this is the well, the uncovered frame top of which affords an excellent opportunity for this old-fashioned may-day indulgence. we rested a bit in the shade of the tall lilac hedge, but the noon-day whistles soon sounded and we scampered over to the well and laughingly peered in. there was nothing to be seen in its gloomy depths, but the day was so beautiful and we were so absurdly lighthearted over the divine order of all things in nature that we refrained from making any sarcastic remarks on our grown-up sophistication. "i don't see guilford's face down there, but i'm glad we came out to look for it; for the walk has made me ravenously hungry," jean said, as we straightened up and pushed our white bonnets back from over our eyes. "then let's hurry on to the house, for i am starving, too--and i know that there are delicious things for dinner. mammy lou made me promise to get back in time to make the salad. there are tomatoes for it and the loveliest young lettuce you ever saw, with tiny, slender onions--not a bit bigger than my little finger. i can't bear them when they grow bigger--" "ann, hush! let's don't waste time talking." we hurried up through the side yard, and as we approached the house there were signs of an unwonted stirring in the vicinity of the dining-room and kitchen. my spirits fell at the sight and i intentionally slackened my steps. "unexpected company to dinner," i announced dismally to jean, as i saw mother flutter excitedly across the back porch, followed by dilsey bearing a big bowl of strawberries to set in the refrigerator. just then mother caught sight of us coming leisurely up the walk and she made a spasmodic motion for us to hurry. "go on up-stairs and dress," she said in a stagy voice when we had come within earshot. "dress _beautifully_." "why, what on earth--" i started to ask, when i saw the transfigured face of mammy lou at the kitchen door. "some august company to dinner?" "'tain't dinner! it's luncheon," she replied grandly, "in _courses_. and the chil'ren o' israel lookin' into canaan and seein' the bunch o' grapes that it took two men to carry ain't saw nothin' compared with what i've saw this day." "good gracious! who _is_ here?" i demanded, much more impressed by her calling the meal "luncheon" than by the weightiness of her biblical allusion. "is there but _one_ man on earth i'd turn the name o' my vittles up-side-down'ards for?" she questioned meaningly, gazing upon me with a beatific glow. "--and he's the grandest that the lord ever made and put on earth to be pestered with poll-taxes." "_alfred!_" i cried, a sudden burst of understanding and joy sweeping over me; and leaving me very weak-feeling and happy. "alfred is coming!" "not coming, but already here," i heard his voice saying close behind me. his voice! it seemed a thousand years since i heard it last; and i knew in that moment that i could listen to it for a thousand years without ever once growing tired.--but as i turned and faced the big, bearded man coming through the hall doorway, the quick color flew to my face and i felt suddenly very small and insignificant. for it seemed in that instant that alfred had grown into a giant, a great, bearded giant, over seas--and i have always had such an admiration for giants. "well, have i stayed away long enough?" he demanded, as he came on the porch and took my hand. mother and jean had fled, but mammy lou steadfastly held her ground. "are you glad to see me, ann?" "yes--yes," i stammered in a mighty confusion. "how glad? how glad, _darling_?" his brown eyes were deep and grave.--but the afternoon wore away and the spring twilight had fallen before i answered that question. star, bright by mark clifton [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy science fiction july . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] there is no past or future, the children said; it all just is! they had every reason to know! _friday--june th_ at three years of age, a little girl shouldn't have enough functioning intelligence to cut out and paste together a moebius strip. or, if she did it by accident, she surely shouldn't have enough reasoning ability to pick up one of her crayons and carefully trace the continuous line to prove it has only one surface. and if by some strange coincidence she did, and it was still just an accident, how can i account for this generally active daughter of mine--and i do mean _active_--sitting for a solid half hour with her chin cupped in her hand, staring off into space, thinking with such concentration that it was almost painful to watch? i was in my reading chair, going over some work. star was sitting on the floor, in the circle of my light, with her blunt-nosed scissors and her scraps of paper. her long silence made me glance down at her as she was taping the two ends of the paper together. at that point i thought it was an accident that she had given a half twist to the paper strip before joining the circle. i smiled to myself as she picked it up in her chubby fingers. "a little child forms the enigma of the ages," i mused. but instead of throwing the strip aside, or tearing it apart as any other child would do, she carefully turned it over and around--studying it from all sides. then she picked up one of her crayons and began tracing the line. she did it as though she were substantiating a conclusion already reached! it was a bitter confirmation for me. i had been refusing to face it for a long time, but i could ignore it no longer. star was a high i.q. for half an hour i watched her while she sat on the floor, one knee bent under her, her chin in her hand, unmoving. her eyes were wide with wonderment, looking into the potentialities of the phenomenon she had found. it has been a tough struggle, taking care of her since my wife's death. now this added problem. if only she could have been normally dull, like other children! * * * * * i made up my mind while i watched her. if a child is afflicted, then let's face it, she's afflicted. a parent must teach her to compensate. at least she could be prepared for the bitterness i'd known. she could learn early to take it in stride. i could use the measurements available, get the degree of intelligence, and in that way grasp the extent of my problem. a twenty point jump in i.q. creates an entirely different set of problems. the child lives in a world nothing at all like that of the child, and a world which the child can but vaguely sense. the problems which vex and challenge the pass over the as a bird flies over a field mouse. i must not make the mistake of posing the problems of one if she is the other. i must know. in the meantime, i must treat it casually. "that's called the moebius strip, star," i interrupted her thoughts. she came out of her reverie with a start. i didn't like the quick way her eyes sought mine--almost furtively, as though she had been caught doing something bad. "somebody already make it?" she disappointedly asked. she knew what she had discovered! something inside me spilled over with grief, and something else caught at me with dread. i kept my voice casual. "a man by the name of moebius. a long time ago. i'll tell you about him sometime when you're older." "now. while i'm little," she commanded with a frown. "and don't tell. read me." what did she mean by that? oh, she must be simply paraphrasing me at those times in the past when i've wanted the facts and not garbled generalizations. it could only be that! "okay, young lady." i lifted an eyebrow and glared at her in mock ferociousness, which usually sent her into gales of laughter. "i'll slow you down!" she remained completely sober. i turned to the subject in a physics book. it's not in simple language, by any means, and i read it as rapidly as i could speak. my thought was to make her admit she didn't understand it, so i could translate it into basic language. her reaction? "you read too slow. daddy," she complained. she was childishly irritable about it. "you say a word. then i think a long time. then you say another word." i knew what she meant. i remember, when i was a child, my thoughts used to dart in and out among the slowly droning words of any adult. whole patterns of universes would appear and disappear in those brief moments. "so?" i asked. "so," she mocked me impishly. "you teach me to read. then i can think quick as i want." "quickly," i corrected in a weak voice. "the word is 'quickly,' an adverb." she looked at me impatiently, as if she saw through this allegedly adult device to show up a younger's ignorance. i felt like the dope! * * * * * _september st_ a great deal has happened the past few months. i have tried, a number of times to bring the conversation around to discuss star's affliction with her. but she is amazingly adroit at heading me off, as though she already knows what i am trying to say and isn't concerned. perhaps, in spite of her brilliance, she's too young to realize the hostility of the world toward intelligence. some of the visiting neighbors have been amused to see her sit on the floor with an encyclopedia as big as she is, rapidly turning the pages. only star and i know she is reading the pages as rapidly as she can turn them. i've brushed away the neighbors' comments with: "she likes to look at the pictures." they talk to her in baby talk--and she answers in baby talk! how does she know enough to do that? i have spent the months making an exhaustive record of her i.q. measurements, aptitude speeds, reaction, tables, all the recommended paraphernalia for measuring something we know nothing about. the tables are screwy, or star is beyond all measurement. all right, pete holmes, how are you going to pose those problems and combat them for her, when you have no conception of what they might be? but i must have a conception. i've got to be able to comprehend at least a little of what she may face. i simply couldn't stand by and do nothing. easy, though. nobody knows better than you the futility of trying to compete out of your class. how many students, workers and employers have tried to compete with you? you've watched them and pitied them, comparing them to a donkey trying to run the kentucky derby. how does it feel to be in the place of the donkey, for a change? you've always blamed them for not realizing they shouldn't try to compete. but this is my own daughter! i _must_ understand. * * * * * _october st_ star is now four years old, and according to state law her mind has now developed enough so that she may attend nursery school. again i tried to prepare her for what she might face. she listened through about two sentences and changed the subject. i can't tell about star. does she already know the answers? or does she not even realize there is a problem? i was in a sweat of worry when i took her to her first day at school yesterday morning. last night i was sitting in my chair, reading. after she had put her dolls away, she went to the bookshelves and brought down a book of fairy tales. that is another peculiarity of hers. she has an unmeasurably quick perception, yet she has all the normal reactions of a little girl. she likes her dolls, fairy stories, playing grown up. no, she's not a monster. she brought the book of fairy tales over to me. "daddy, read me a story," she asked quite seriously. i looked at her in amazement. "since when? go read your own story." she lifted an eyebrow in imitation of my own characteristic gesture. "children of my age do not read," she instructed pedantically. "i can't learn to read until i am in the first grade. it is very hard to do and i am much too little." she had found the answer to her affliction--conformity! she had already learned to conceal her intelligence. so many of us break our hearts before we learn that. but you don't have to conceal it from me, star! not from me! oh, well, i could go along with the gag, if that was what she wanted. "did you like nursery school?" i asked the standard question. "oh, yes," she exclaimed enthusiastically. "it was fun." "and what did you learn today, little girl?" she played it straight back to me. "not much. i tried to cut out paper dolls, but the scissors kept slipping." was there an elfin deviltry back of her sober expression? "now, look," i cautioned, "don't overdo it. that's as bad as being too quick. the idea is that everybody has to be just about standard average. that's the only thing we will tolerate. it is expected that a little girl of four should know how to cut out paper dolls properly." "oh?" she questioned, and looked thoughtful. "i guess that's the hard part, isn't it, daddy--to know how much you ought to know?" "yes, that's the hard part," i agreed fervently. "but it's all right," she reassured me. "one of the stupids showed me how to cut them out, so now that little girl likes me. she just took charge of me then and told the other kids they should like me, too. so of course they did because she's leader. i think i did right, after all." "oh, no!" i breathed to myself. she knew how to manipulate other people already. then my thought whirled around another concept. it was the first time she had verbally classified normal people as "stupids," but it had slipped out so easily that i knew she'd been thinking to herself for a long time. then my whirling thoughts hit a third implication. "yes, maybe it was the right thing," i conceded. "where the little girl was concerned, that is. but don't forget you were being observed by a grownup teacher in the room. and she's smarter." "you mean she's older, daddy," star corrected me. "smarter, too, maybe. you can't tell." "i can," she sighed. "she's just older." i think it was growing fear which made me defensive. "that's good," i said emphatically. "that's very good. you can learn a lot from her then. it takes an awful lot of study to learn how to be stupid." my own troublesome business life came to mind and i thought to myself, "i sometimes think i'll never learn it." i swear i didn't say it aloud. but star patted me consolingly and answered as though i'd spoken. "that's because you're only fairly bright, daddy. you're a tween, and that's harder than being really bright." "a tween? what's a tween?" i was bumbling to hide my confusion. "that's what i mean, daddy," she answered in exasperation. "you don't grasp quickly. an in between, of course. the other people are stupids, i'm a bright, and you're a tween. i made those names up when i was little." good god! besides being unmeasurably bright, she's a telepath! all right, pete, there you are. on reasoning processes you might stand a chance--but not telepathy! "star," i said on impulse, "can you read people's minds?" "of course, daddy," she answered, as if i'd asked a foolishly obvious question. "can you teach me?" she looked at me impishly. "you're already learning it a little. but you're so slow! you see, you didn't even know you were learning." her voice took on a wistful note, a tone of loneliness. "i wish--" she said, and paused. "what do you wish?" "you see what i mean, daddy? you try, but you're so slow." all the same, i knew. i knew she was already longing for a companion whose mind could match her own. a father is prepared to lose his daughter eventually, star, but not so soon. not so soon.... * * * * * _june again_ some new people have moved in next door. star says their name is howell. bill and ruth howell. they have a son, robert, who looks maybe a year older than star, who will soon be five. star seems to have taken up with robert right away. he is a well-mannered boy and good company for star. i'm worried, though. star had something to do with their moving in next door. i'm convinced of that. i'm also convinced, even from the little i've seen of him, that robert is a bright and a telepath. could it be that, failing to find quick accord with my mind, star has reached out and out until she made contact with a telepath companion? no, that's too fantastic. even if it were so, how could she shape circumstances so she could bring robert to live next door to her? the howells came from another city. it just happened that the people who lived next door moved out and the house was put up for sale. just happened? how frequently do we find such abnormal brights? what are the chances of one _just happening_ to move in next door to another? i know he is a telepath because, as i write this, i sense him reading it. i even catch his thought: "oh, pardon me, mr. holmes. i didn't intend to peek. really i didn't." did i imagine that? or is star building a skill in my mind? "it isn't nice to look into another person's mind unless you're asked, robert," i thought back, rather severely. it was purely an experiment. "i know it, mr. holmes. i apologize." he is in his bed in his house, across the driveway. "no, daddy, he really didn't mean to." and star is in her bed in this house. it is impossible to write how i feel. there comes a time when words are empty husks. but mixed with my expectant dread is a thread of gratitude for having been taught to be even stumblingly telepathic. * * * * * _saturday--august th_ i've thought of a gag. i haven't seen jim pietre in a month of sundays, not since he was awarded that research fellowship with the museum. it will be good to pull him out of his hole, and this little piece of advertising junk star dropped should be just the thing. strange about the gadget. the awful secret talisman of the mystic junior g-men, no doubt. still, it doesn't have anything about crackles and pops printed on it. merely an odd-looking coin, not even true round, bronze by the look of it. crude. they must stamp them out by the million without ever changing a die. but it is just the thing to send to jim to get a rise out of him. he could always appreciate a good practical joke. wonder how he'd feel to know he was only a tween. * * * * * _monday--august th_ sitting here at my study desk, i've been staring into space for an hour. i don't know what to think. it was about noon today when jim pietre called the office on the phone. "now, look, pete," he started out. "what kind of gag are you pulling?" i chortled to myself and pulled the dead pan on him. "what do you mean, boy?" i asked back into the phone. "gag? what kind of gag? what are you talking about?" "a coin. a coin." he was impatient. "you remember you sent me a coin in the mail?" "oh, yeah, that," i pretended to remember. "look, you're an important research analyst on metals--too damned important to keep in touch with your old friends--so i thought i'd make a bid for your attention thataway." "all right, give," he said in a low voice. "where did you get it?" he was serious. "come off it, jim. are you practicing to be a stuffed shirt? i admit it's a rib. something star dropped the other day. a manufacturer's idea of kid advertising, no doubt." "i'm in dead earnest, peter," he answered. "it's no advertising gadget." "it means something?" in college, jim could take a practical joke and make six out of it. "i don't know what it means. where did star get it?" he was being pretty crisp about it. "oh, i don't know," i said. i was getting a little fed up; the joke wasn't going according to plan. "never asked her. you know how kids clutter up the place with their things. no father even tries to keep track of all the junk that can be bought with three box tops and a dime." "this was not bought with three box tops and a dime," he spaced his words evenly. "this was not bought anywhere, for any price. in fact, if you want to be logical about it, this coin doesn't exist at all." i laughed out loud. this was more like the old jim. "okay, so you've turned the gag back on me. let's call it quits. how about coming over to supper some night soon?" "i'm coming over, my friend." he remained grim as he said it. "and i'm coming over tonight. as soon as you will be home. it's no gag i'm pulling. can you get that through your stubborn head? you say you got it from star, and of course i believe you. but it's no toy. it's the real thing." then, as if in profound puzzlement, "only it isn't." a feeling of dread was settling upon me. once you cried "uncle" to jim, he always let up. "suppose you tell me what you mean," i answered soberly. "that's more like it, pete. here's what we know about the coin so far. it is apparently pre-egyptian. it's hand-cast. it's made out of one of the lost bronzes. we fix it at around four thousand years old." "that ought to be easy to solve," i argued. "probably some coin collector is screaming all over the place for it. no doubt lost it and star found it. must be lots of old coins like that in museums and in private collections." i was rationalizing more for my own benefit than for jim. he would know all those things without my mentioning them. he waited until i had finished. "step two," he went on. "we've got one of the top coin men in the world here at the museum. as soon as i saw what the metal was, i took it to him. now hold onto your chair, pete. he says there is no coin like it in the world, either museum or private collection." "you museum boys get beside yourselves at times. come down to earth. sometime, somewhere, some collector picked it up in some exotic place and kept it quiet. i don't have to tell you how some collectors are--sitting in a dark room, gloating over some worthless bauble, not telling a soul about it--" "all right, wise guy," he interrupted. "step three. that coin is at least four thousand years old _and it's also brand-new_! let's hear you explain that away." "new?" i asked weakly. "i don't get it." "old coins show wear. the edges get rounded with handling. the surface oxidizes. the molecular structure changes, crystalizes. this coin shows no wear, no oxidation, no molecular change. this coin might have been struck yesterday. _where did star get it?_" "hold it a minute," i pleaded. * * * * * i began to think back. saturday morning. star and robert had been playing a game. come to think of it, that was a peculiar game. mighty peculiar. star would run into the house and stand in front of the encyclopedia shelf. i could hear robert counting loudly at the base tree outside in the back yard. she would stare at the encyclopedia for a moment. once i heard her mumble: "that's a good place." or maybe she merely thought it and i caught the thought. i'm doing that quite a bit of late. then she would run outside again. a moment later, robert would run in and stand in front of the same shelf. then he also would run outside again. there would be silence for several minutes. the silence would rupture with a burst of laughing and shouting. soon, star would come in again. "how does he find me?" i heard her think once. "i can't reason it, and i can't esp it out of him." it was during one of their silences when ruth called over to me. "hey, pete! do you know where the kids are? time for their milk and cookies." the howells are awfully good to star, bless 'em. i got up and went over to the window. "i don't know, ruth," i called back. "they were in and out only a few minutes ago." "well, i'm not worried," she said. she came through the kitchen door and stood on the back steps. "they know better than to cross the street by themselves. they're too little for that. so i guess they're over at marily's. when they come back, tell 'em to come and get it." "okay, ruth," i answered. she opened the screen door again and went back into her kitchen. i left the window and returned to my work. a little later, both the kids came running into the house. i managed to capture them long enough to tell them about the cookies and milk. "beat you there!" robert shouted to star. there was a scuffle and they ran out the front door. i noticed then that star had dropped the coin and i picked it up and sent it to jim pietre. * * * * * "hello, jim," i said into the phone. "are you still there?" "yep, still waiting for an answer," he said. "jim, i think you'd better come over to the house right away. i'll leave my office now and meet you there. can you get away?" "can i get away?" he exclaimed. "boss says to trace this coin down and do nothing else. see you in fifteen minutes." he hung up. thoughtfully, i replaced the receiver and went out to my car. i was pulling into my block from one arterial when i saw jim's car pulling in from a block away. i stopped at the curb and waited for him. i didn't see the kids anywhere out front. jim climbed out of his car, and i never saw such an eager look of anticipation on a man's face before. i didn't realize i was showing my dread, but when he saw my face, he became serious. "what is it, pete? what on earth is it?" he almost whispered. "i don't know. at least i'm not sure. come on inside the house." we let ourselves in the front, and i took jim into the study. it has a large window opening on the back garden, and the scene was very clear. at first it was an innocent scene--so innocent and peaceful. just three little children in the back yard playing hide and seek. marily, a neighbor's child, was stepping up to the base tree. "now look, you kids," she was saying. "you hide where i can find you or i won't play." "but where can we go, marily?" robert was arguing loudly. like all little boys, he seems to carry on his conversations at the top of his lungs. "there's the garage, and there's those trees and bushes. you have to look everywhere, marily." "and there's going to be other buildings and trees and bushes there afterward," star called out with glee. "you gotta look behind them, too." "yeah!" robert took up the teasing refrain. "and there's been lots and lots of buildings and trees there before--especially trees. you gotta look behind them, too." marily tossed her head petulantly. "i don't know what you're talking about, and i don't care. just hide where i can find you, that's all." she hid her face at the tree and started counting. if i had been alone, i would have been sure my eyesight had failed me, or that i was the victim of hallucinations. but jim was standing there and saw it, too. marily started counting, yet the other two didn't run away. star reached out and took robert's hand and they merely stood there. for an instant, they seemed to shimmer and--_they disappeared without moving a step!_ marily finished her counting and ran around to the few possible hiding places in the yard. when she couldn't find them, she started to blubber and pushed through the hedge to ruth's back door. "they runned away from me again," she whined through the screen at ruth. jim and i stood staring out the window. i glanced at him. his face was set and pale, but probably no worse than my own. we saw the instant shimmer again. star, and then immediately robert, materialized from the air and ran up to the tree, shouting, "safe! safe!" marily let out a bawl and ran home to her mother. * * * * * i called star and robert into the house. they came, still holding hands, a little shamefaced, a little defiant. how to begin? what in hell could i say? "it's not exactly fair," i told them. "marily can't follow you there." i was shooting in the dark, but i had at least a glimmering to go by. star turned pale enough for the freckles on her little nose to stand out under her tan. robert blushed and turned to her fiercely. "i told you so, star. i _told_ you so! i said it wasn't sporting," he accused. he turned to me. "marily can't play good hide-and-seek anyway. she's only a stupid." "let's forget that for a minute, robert." i turned to her. "star, just where do you go?" "oh, it's nothing, daddy." she spoke defensively, belittling the whole thing. "we just go a little ways when we play with her. she ought to be able to find us a little ways." "that's evading the issue. _where_ do you go--and _how_ do you go?" jim stepped forward and showed her the bronze coin i'd sent him. "you see, star," he said quietly. "we've found this." "i shouldn't have to tell you my game." she was almost in tears. "you're both just tweens. you couldn't understand." then, struck with contrition, she turned to me. "daddy, i've tried and tried to esp you. truly i did. but you don't esp worth anything." she slipped her hand through robert's arm. "robert does it very nicely," she said primly, as though she were complimenting him on using his fork the right way. "he must be better than i am, because i don't know how he finds me." "i'll tell you how i do it, star," robert exclaimed eagerly. it was as if he were trying to make amends now that grownups had caught on. "you don't use any imagination. i never saw anybody with so little imagination!" "i do, too, have imagination," she countered loudly. "i thought up the game, didn't i? i told you how to do it, didn't i?" "yeah, yeah!" he shouted back. "but you always have to look at a book to esp what's in it, so you leave an esp smudge. i just go to the encyclopedia and esp where you did--and i go to that place--and there you are. it's simple." star's mouth dropped open in consternation. "i never thought of that," she said. jim and i stood there, letting the meaning of what they were saying penetrate slowly into our incredulous minds. "anyway," robert was saying, "you haven't any imagination." he sank down cross-legged on the floor. "you can't teleport yourself to any place that's never been." she went over to squat down beside him. "i can, too! what about the moon people? they haven't been yet." he looked at her with childish disgust. "oh, star, they have so been. you know that." he spread his hands out as though he were a baseball referee. "that time hasn't been yet for your daddy here, for instance, but it's already been for somebody like--well, say, like those things from arcturus." "well, neither have you teleported yourself to some place that never was," star was arguing back. "so there." * * * * * waving jim to one chair, i sank down shakily into another. at least the arms of the chair felt solid beneath my hands. "now, look, kids," i interrupted their evasive tactics. "let's start at the beginning. i gather you've figured a way to travel to places in the past or future." "well, of course. daddy." star shrugged the statement aside nonchalantly. "we just tp ourselves by esp anywhere we want to go. it doesn't do any harm." and these were the children who were too little to cross the street! i have been through times of shock before. this was the same--somehow, the mind becomes too stunned to react beyond a point. one simply plows through the rest, the best he can, almost normally. "okay, okay," i said, and was surprised to hear the same tone i would have used over an argument about the biggest piece of cake. "i don't know whether it's harmful or not. i'll have to think it over. right now, just tell me how you do it." "it would be so much easier if i could esp it to you," star said doubtfully. "well, pretend i'm a stupid and tell me in words." "you remember the moebius strip?" she asked very slowly and carefully, starting with the first and most basic point in almost the way one explains to an ordinary child. yes, i remembered it. and i remembered how long ago it was that she had discovered it. over a year, and her busy, brilliant mind had been exploring its possibilities ever since. and i thought she had forgotten it! "that's where you join the ends of a strip of paper together with a half twist to make one surface," she went on, as though jogging my undependable, slow memory. "yes," i answered. "we all know the moebius strip." jim looked startled. i had never told him about the incident. "next you take a sheet and you give it a half twist and join the edge to itself all over to make a funny kind of holder." "klein's bottle," jim supplied. she looked at him in relief. "oh, you know about that," she said. "that makes it easier. well, then, the next step. you take a cube"--her face clouded with doubt again, and she explained, "you can't do this with your hands. you've gotta esp it done, because it's an imaginary cube anyway." she looked at us questioningly. i nodded for her to continue. "and you esp the twisted cube all together the same way you did klein's bottle. now if you do that big enough, all around you, so you're sort of half twisted in the middle, then you can tp yourself anywhere you want to go. and that's all there is to it," she finished hurriedly. "where have you gone?" i asked her quietly. the technique of doing it would take some thinking. i knew enough physics to know that was the way the dimensions were built up. the line, the plane, the cube--euclidian physics. the moebius strip, the klein bottle, the unnamed twisted cube--einsteinian physics. yes, it was possible. "oh, we've gone all over," star answered vaguely. "the romans and the egyptians--places like that." "you picked up a coin in one of those places?" jim asked. he was doing a good job of keeping his voice casual. i knew the excitement he must be feeling, the vision of the wealth of knowledge which must be opening before his eyes. "i found it, daddy," star answered jim's question. she was about to cry. "i found it in the dirt, and robert was about to catch me. i forgot i had it when i went away from there so fast." she looked at me pleadingly. "i didn't mean to steal it, daddy. i never stole anything, anywhere. and i was going to take it back and put it right where i found it. truly i was. but i dropped it again, and then i esp'd that you had it. i guess i was awful naughty." i brushed my hand across my forehead. "let's skip the question of good and bad for a minute," i said, my head throbbing. "what about this business of going into the future?" * * * * * robert spoke up, his eyes shining. "there isn't any future, mr. holmes. that's what i keep telling star, but she can't reason--she's just a girl. it'll all pass. everything is always past." jim stared at him, as though thunderstruck, and opened his mouth in protest. i shook my head warningly. "suppose you tell me about that, robert," i said. "well," he began on a rising note, frowning, "it's kinda hard to explain at that. star's a bright and even she doesn't understand it exactly. but, you see, i'm older." he looked at her with superiority. then, with a change of mood, he defended her. "but when she gets as old as i am, she'll understand it okay." he patted her shoulder consolingly. he was all of six years old. "you go back into the past. back past egypt and atlantis. that's recent," he said with scorn. "and on back, and on back, and all of a sudden it's future." "that isn't the way _i_ did it." star tossed her head contrarily. "i _reasoned_ the future. i reasoned what would come next, and i went there, and then i reasoned again. and on and on. i can, too, reason." "it's the same future," robert told us dogmatically. "it has to be, because that's all that ever happened." he turned to star. "the reason you never could find any garden of eden is because there wasn't any adam and eve." then to me, "and man didn't come from the apes, either. man started himself." jim almost strangled as he leaned forward, his face red and his eyes bulging. "how?" he choked out. robert sent his gaze into the far distance. "well," he said, "a long time from now--you know what i mean, as a stupid would think of time-from-now--men got into a mess. quite a mess-- "there were some people in that time who figured out the same kind of traveling star and i do. so when the world was about to blow up and form a new star, a lot of them teleported themselves back to when the earth was young, and they started over again." jim just stared at robert, unable to speak. "i don't get it," i said. "not everybody could do it," robert explained patiently. "just a few brights. but they enclosed a lot of other people and took them along." he became a little vague at this point. "i guess later on the brights lost interest in the stupids or something. anyway, the stupids sank down lower and lower and became like animals." he held his nose briefly. "they smelled worse. they worshiped the brights as gods." robert looked at me and shrugged. "i don't know all that happened. i've only been there a few times. it's not very interesting. anyway," he finished, "the brights finally disappeared." "i'd sure like to know where they went," star sighed. it was a lonely sigh. i helplessly took her hand and gave my attention back to robert. "i still don't quite understand," i said. he grabbed up some scissors, a piece of cellophane tape, a sheet of paper. quickly he cut a strip, gave it a half twist, and taped it together. then rapidly, on the moebius strip, he wrote: "cave men. this men, that men, mu men, atlantis men, egyptians, history men, us now men, atom men, moon men, planet men, star men--" "there," he said. "that's all the room there is on the strip. i've written clear around it. right after star men comes cave men. it's all one thing, joined together. it isn't future, and it isn't past, either. it just plain _is_. don't you see?" "i'd sure like to know how the brights got off the strip," star said wistfully. * * * * * i had all i could take. "look, kids," i pleaded. "i don't know whether this game's dangerous or not. maybe you'll wind up in a lion's mouth, or something." "oh, no, daddy!" star shrilled in glee. "we'd just tp ourselves right out of there." "but fast," robert chortled in agreement. "anyway, i've got to think it over," i said stubbornly. "i'm only a tween, but, star, i'm your daddy and you're just a little girl, so you have to mind me." "i always mind you," she said virtuously. "you do, eh?" i asked. "what about going off the block? visiting the greeks and star men isn't my idea of staying on the block." "but you didn't say that, daddy. you said not to cross the street. and i never did cross the street. did we, robert? did we?" "we didn't cross a single street, mr. holmes," he insisted. "my god!" said jim, and he went on trying to light a cigarette. "all right, all _right_! no more leaving this time, then," i warned. "wait!" it was a cry of anguish from jim. he broke the cigarette in sudden frustration and threw it in an ashtray. "the museum, pete," he pleaded. "think what it would mean. pictures, specimens, voice recordings. and not only from historical places, but star men, pete. _star men!_ wouldn't it be all right for them to go places they know are safe? i wouldn't ask them to take risks, but--" "no, jim," i said regretfully. "it's your museum, but this is my daughter." "sure," he breathed. "i guess i'd feel the same way." i turned back to the youngsters. "star, robert," i said to them both, "i want your promise that you will not leave this time, until i let you. now i couldn't punish you if you broke your promise, because i couldn't follow you. but i want your promise on your word of honor you won't leave this time." "we promise." they each held up a hand, as if swearing in court. "no more leaving this time." i let the kids go back outside into the yard. jim and i looked at one another for a long while, breathing hard enough to have been running. "i'm sorry," i said at last. "i know," he answered. "so am i. but i don't blame you. i simply forgot, for a moment, how much a daughter could mean to a man." he was silent, and then added, with the humorous quirk back at the corner of his lips, "i can just see myself reporting this interview to the museum." "you don't intend to, do you?" i asked, alarmed. "and get myself canned or laughed at? i'm not that stupid." * * * * * _september th_ am i actually getting it? i had a flash for an instant. i was concentrating on caesar's triumphant march into rome. for the briefest of instants, _there it was_! i was standing on the roadway, watching. but, most peculiar, it was still a picture; i was the only thing moving. and then, just as abruptly, i lost it. was it only a hallucination? something brought about by intense concentration and wishful thinking? now let's see. you visualize a cube. then you esp it a half twist and seal the edges together--no, when it has the half twist there's only one surface. you seal that surface all around you-- sometimes i think i have it. sometimes i despair. if only i were a bright instead of a tween! * * * * * _october rd_ i don't see how i managed to make so much work of teleporting myself. it's the simplest thing in the world, no effort at all. why, a child could do it! that sounds like a gag, considering that it was two children who showed me how, but i mean the whole thing is easy enough for even almost any kid to learn. the problem is understanding the steps ... no, not understanding, because i can't say i do, but working out the steps in the process. there's no danger, either. no wonder it felt like a still picture at first, for the speeding up is incredible. that bullet i got in the way of, for instance--i was able to go and meet it and walk along beside it while it traveled through the air. to the men who were dueling, i must have been no more than an instantaneous streak of movement. that's why the youngsters laughed at the suggestion of danger. even if they materialized right in the middle of an atomic blast, it is so slow by comparison that they could tp right out again before they got hurt. the blast can't travel any faster than the speed of light, you see, while there is no limit to the speed of thought. but i still haven't given them permission to teleport themselves out of this time yet. i want to go over the ages pretty carefully before i do; i'm not taking any chances, even though i don't see how they could wind up in any trouble. still, robert claimed the brights went from the future back into the beginning, which means they could be going through time and overtake any of the three of us, and one of them might be hostile-- i feel like a louse, not taking jim's cameras, specimen boxes and recorders along. but there's time for that. plenty of time, once i get the feel of history without being encumbered by all that stuff to carry. speaking of time and history--what a rotten job historians have done! for instance: george iii of england was neither crazy nor a moron. he wasn't a particularly nice guy, i'll admit--i don't see how anybody could be with the amount of flattery i saw--but he was the victim of empire expansion and the ferment of the industrial revolution. so were all the other european rulers at the time, though. he certainly did better than louis of france. at least george kept his job and his head. on the other hand, john wilkes booth was definitely psychotic. he could have been cured if they'd had our methods of psychotherapy then, and lincoln, of course, wouldn't have been assassinated. it was almost a compulsion to prevent the killing, but i didn't dare.... god knows what effect it would have had on history. strange thing, lincoln looked less surprised than anybody else when he was shot, sad, yes, and hurt emotionally at least as much as physically, yet you'd swear he was expecting it. cheops was _plenty_ worried about the number of slaves who died while the pyramid was being built. they weren't easy to replace. he gave them four hours off in the hottest part of the day, and i don't think any slaves in the country were fed or housed better. i never found any signs of atlantis or lemuria, just tales of lands far off--a few hundred miles was a big distance then, remember--that had sunk beneath the sea. with the ancients' exaggerated notion of geography, a big island was the same as a continent. some islands did disappear, naturally, drowning a few thousand villagers and herdsmen. that must have been the source of the legends. columbus was a stubborn cuss. he was thinking of turning back when the sailors mutinied, which made him obstinate. i still can't see what was eating genghis khan and alexander the great--it would have been a big help to know the languages, because their big campaigns started off more like vacation or exploration trips. helen of troy was attractive enough, considering, but she was just an excuse to fight. there were several attempts to federate the indian tribes before the white man and the five nations, but going after wives and slaves ruined the movement every time. i think they could have kept america if they had been united and, it goes without saying, knew the deal they were going to get. at any rate, they might have traded for weapons and tools and industrialized the country somewhat in the way the japanese did. i admit that's only speculation, but this would certainly have been a different world if they'd succeeded! one day i'll put it all in a comprehensive _and corrected_ history of mankind, _complete with photographs_, and then let the "experts" argue themselves into nervous breakdowns over it. i didn't get very far into the future. nowhere near the star men, or, for that matter, back to the beginning that robert told us about. it's a matter of reasoning out the path and i'm not a bright. i'll take robert and star along as guides, when and if. what i did see of the future wasn't so good, but it wasn't so bad, either. the real mess obviously doesn't happen until the star men show up very far ahead in history, if robert is right, and i think he is. i can't guess what the trouble will be, but it must be something ghastly if they won't be able to get out of it even with the enormously advanced technology they'll have. or maybe that's the answer. it's almost true of us now. * * * * * _november, friday th_ the howells have gone for a weekend trip and left robert in my care. he's a good kid and no trouble. he and star have kept their promise, but they're up to something else. i can sense it and that feeling of expectant dread is back with me. they've been secretive of late. i catch them concentrating intensely, sighing with vexation, and then breaking out into unexplained giggles. "remember your promise," i warned star while robert was in the room. "we're not going to break it, daddy," she answered seriously. they both chorused, "no more leaving this time." but they both broke into giggles! i'll have to watch them. what good it would do, i don't know. they're up to something, yet how can i stop them? shut them in their rooms? tan their hides? i wonder what someone else would recommend. * * * * * _sunday night_ the kids are gone! i've been waiting an hour for them. i know they wouldn't stay away so long if they could get back. there must be something they've run into. bright as they are, they're still only children. i have some clues. they promised me they wouldn't go out of this present time. with all her mischievousness, star has never broken a promise to me--as her typically feminine mind interprets it, that is. so i know they are in our own time. on several occasions star has brought it up, wondering where the old ones, the bright ones, have gone--how they got off the moebius strip. that's the clue. how can i get off the moebius strip and remain in the present? a cube won't do it. there we have a mere journey along the single surface. we have a line, we have a plane, we have a cube. and then we have a supercube--a tesseract. that is the logical progression of mathematics. the bright ones must have pursued that line of reasoning. now i've got to do the same, but without the advantage of being a bright. still, it's not the same as expecting a normally intelligent person to produce a work of genius. (genius by our standards, of course, which i suppose robert and star would classify as tween.) anyone with a pretty fair i.q. and proper education and training can follow a genius's logic, provided the steps are there and especially if it has a practical application. what he can't do is initiate and complete that structure of logic. i don't have to, either--that was done for me by a pair of brights and i "simply" have to apply their findings. now let's see if i can. by reducing the present-past-future of man to a moebius strip, we have sheared away a dimension. it is a two-dimensional strip, because it has no depth. (naturally, it would be impossible for a moebius strip to have depth; it has only one surface.) reducing it to two dimensions makes it possible to travel anywhere you want to go on it via the third dimension. and you're in the third dimension when you enfold yourself in the twisted cube. let's go a step higher, into one more dimension. in short, the tesseract. to get the equivalent of a moebius strip with depth, you have to go into the fourth dimension, which, it seems to me, is the only way the bright ones could get off this closed cycle of past-present-future-past. they must have reasoned that one more notch up the dimensions was all they needed. it is equally obvious that star and robert have followed the same line of reasoning; they wouldn't break their promise not to leave the present--and getting off the moebius strip into _another_ present would, in a sort of devious way, be keeping that promise. i'm putting all this speculation down for you, jim pietre, knowing first that you're a tween like myself, and second that you're sure to have been doing a lot of thinking about what happened after i sent you the coin star dropped. i'm hoping you can explain all this to bill and ruth howell--or enough, in any case, to let them understand the truth about their son robert and my daughter star, and where the children may have gone. i'm leaving these notes where you will find them, when you and bill and ruth search the house and grounds for us. if you read this, it will be because i have failed in my search for the youngsters. there is also the possibility that i'll find them and that we won't be able to get back onto this moebius strip. perhaps time has a different value there, or doesn't exist at all. what it's like off the strip is anybody's guess. bill and ruth: i wish i might give you hope that i will bring robert back to you. but all i can do is wish. it may be no more than wishing upon a star--my star. i'm trying now to take six cubes and fold them in on one another so that every angle is a right angle. it's not easy, but i can do it, using every bit of concentration i've learned from the kids. all right, i have the six cubes and i have every angle a right angle. now if, in the folding, i esp the tesseract a half twist around myself and-- bimmie says by sydney van scyoc [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy magazine october . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] bimmie says people are stupid. bimmie says he can help them--but they're not really worth his trouble, bimmie says. _june , _ bimmie said to do this, keep a diary. i said, cows? he said, you deaf, woman? a book! then i remembered, only i haven't seen one. it's for when he's famous. then we can have it published anytime we need money. i'd better tell about us. i'm short, sort of cute, and i cook good. bimmie's tall and skinny, he likes to eat. he's , i'm . we got married days ago. instead of a fancy wedding, bimmie told my folks, give us money. he needed the money for his laboratory. it's in the basement. it's what'll make him famous. * * * * * _june , _ we got a cat and dog. they're black and two months old. i wanted red collars. bimmie said, don't waste my money, woman. bimmie wanted them down in his laboratory. he said that'd be proper conditions. i said, no, i'll leave if you do and you'll have to eat capsules. the cat's he, the dog's she. bimmie doesn't want them outside, ever. * * * * * _july , _ we thought bimmie's folks'd change their minds. but they said, finally and conclusively, we won't. bimmie says he doesn't want to go to college if they're stingy because we got married. he already knows everything important. he wants me to finish school. i can finish in december. i thought when you got married you didn't have to, just slept late and fixed your hair. * * * * * _july , _ the puppy's susta, the cat's sup. susta's jealous because sup jumps on the couch, and she can't. bimmie'll have to make pills for susta. she hides from his needle. she'll be small. that's good, bimmie says. * * * * * _august , _ he just married me to cook! every night he's in his laboratory. i'm always in this stupid, _ugly_ house. * * * * * _august , _ susta won't change for a long time. bimmie has pills now. * * * * * _september , _ school started. frankie's still stuck on me. he says i'm sexy, that's why bimmie married me. i said, he married me for my cooking. he laughed. * * * * * _september , _ i felt funny again. i stopped by momma's. she bets she knows what it is. she knew after ten days. * * * * * _september , _ i had to ask the school nurse if it was that. she said, yes, two weeks. i hope she's wrong. babies are work. she said, but the fulfillment. i said, changing soppy diapers is what you call fulfillment? it doesn't show. frankie winked at me. * * * * * _september , _ the cat climbed those lace curtains bimmie's mother gave us. bimmie said it was my job to watch him. i said, that's a stupid way to spend my life. he said, i didn't marry you to have you sit around and do nothing. susta watched sup and whined. she wants to be a cat. * * * * * _september , _ bimmie read my diary. he said there wasn't a june . he says to tell more about his work. it won't make money if he's not in it. i told him about the baby. he said, whoopee! he got some obstetrics books. * * * * * _october , _ bimmie expects the baby to kick already. i'm glad it doesn't! he made the puppy's pills tonight. * * * * * _october , _ i let them outside. the smell in the house turns my stomach. i'm afraid to take the pills bimmie made me. * * * * * _october , _ i let them out again. there's a black dog next door with a long nose, ears like rosebuds and white feet. susta was scared. sup hissed. * * * * * _october , _ bimmie's so nice. he took me to a tridiversion. he hates them. he said, they're for the cloddy-minded masses. i said, well, what are we? i want a tridiversion wall. bimmie says, no. we had a fight. * * * * * _october , _ i took a pill bimmie made. i felt good. i let them out. it beats cleaning up. susta played with that dog. * * * * * _november , _ i went to dr. brantly. he hypnotized me. i don't remember it. * * * * * _december , _ susta's leaving spots. i thought, she's hurt. bimmie explained and said, don't let her out. he wants to wait till next time to have puppies. he said, the treatment must take full effect first. he explained but i didn't understand. * * * * * _january , _ i'm out of school. it's boring. momma says i'm too young to settle down. she's crazy. i'm sixteen. * * * * * _january , _ bimmie's reading more obstetrics books. hypnotism too. he tried to hypnotize me, but i went to sleep. * * * * * _january , _ i wish momma would stop. she said, where're you going to put a baby, with only one bedroom. she cried and called me baby. gosh! she said, you shouldn't have cats around babies, you'll have to give him away. bimmie heard, from the bedroom. he came out. he said, i am conducting an important scientific experiment with the cat and dog. i would as soon give away the baby. momma got white under her plasti-skin. she said, bimmie, you're a monster for experimenting on dumb animals. and for rejecting your own child. then sup climbed the curtains momma gave us. she shrieked, you're ungrateful! and huffed out. she came back later, asking us to forgive her. she said she wanted to help, since we're both still children. well! i do wonder where we'll put the baby. maybe on the couch. * * * * * _february , _ i had to tell bimmie i was letting them out. sup fought with the dog next door. bimmie got mad. he told me, they must have a controlled environment. i said, it's hard for me to bend over to clean up. finally he said he'd clean up and wasn't it funny sup and that dog knew they were rivals. i didn't know myself. * * * * * _march , _ i saw dr. brantly today. he says i'm fine. i tried to remember him putting me in the trance, but i couldn't. * * * * * _april , _ saw dr. brantly. sup pulled the curtains down. susta isn't jealous any more, she's playing with a string. * * * * * _may , _ i'm writing this next day. last night i had this sharp pain. i said, bimmie, call dr. brantly. i remember him looking at me funny. that's all i remember until i woke up in the hospital. bimmie was sitting beside me, looking proud. i asked him, what's happened? he grinned. we have a nine-pound son, he said. i named him after the man who delivered him. i said, did i faint? that wasn't the way it was explained, just that dr. brantly would put me in a trance. bimmie was too busy grinning to say, then he had to go to work. the doctor came in. i said, it wasn't bad, i only felt one pain. he frowned. i said, can i see the baby? he said, later. he went out too. i thought i must have cussed. i didn't understand until the nurse brought the baby. he had a little plastic bracelet that said bimford fost, jr. he was red and squalling. i felt like doing the same, because i knew why bimmie had been studying those obstetrics books. he has to try everything! * * * * * _may , _ i'm seventeen today. bimmie says to write more. he thinks that's all i have to do. the baby sleeps all the time he isn't crying. i like him, only i'm tired of diapers. susta gets three pills every day. she plays with them, then eats them. bimmie said last night, it won't be long until my experiment bears fruit. he said to write that here. * * * * * _june , _ susta tried to climb the curtains. * * * * * _june , _ bimmie wanted to give the baby some pills he made. i said, no. he said, they'll make him smarter, woman. i said, he's enough trouble dumb. today was our first anniversary. bimmie wouldn't buy me anything. * * * * * _june , _ we fought about a dryer. after he left i said, for that i'll let your animals out. the dog next door came up. susta arched her back. * * * * * _june , _ i've been putting them out every day. * * * * * _june , _ bimmie says to write every day, his experiment is coming to a head. i can't see anything happening. susta gets six pills now. * * * * * _june , _ the dog's that way again. bimmie said, at last my experiment shall be carried to completion. not that i care for fame and riches, no, i care only for the accomplishment of something man has never before achieved. i said he didn't sound natural. he said, put it down that way, woman. * * * * * _june , _ bimmie wanted to feed the baby. i caught him before he gave him a pill. we fought. he said, who delivered him? i said, i made him, and pointed to my stomach. i said, i won't have you using him like a guinea pig. * * * * * _july , _ bimmie says tomorrow we'll shut them up in the basement. * * * * * _july , _ the funniest thing. bimmie said, you put them in the basement. then he left. i thought, i'll just take them out while i hang diapers. but when we went out, three dogs came up. i said, scat! i couldn't chase them because i had my arms full of diapers, because bimmie won't buy me a basket. they came closer, edging around. i stomped my feet and yelled. the dog next door came and growled. then sup hissed at him. this was the first the other three saw sup. he hunched up, spitting and intending to chase them off. only they took out after him instead. he ran off with four dogs after him. i couldn't do anything, my arms were full. * * * * * _july , _ bimmie didn't think it was funny. he yelled, what are you, stupid? didn't you know dogs would come around? didn't you know dogs chase cats? he took the car and called, kitty, kitty, all over town. no luck. i said, get another cat. he said, this one is used to susta. i said, there'll be another time. he stared at me and said susta's system would tolerate only so much of the stuff he's been giving her. he can't give her any more after next month. he'll have to wait another year. then he went looking again. that was last night. maybe he'll come home tonight. * * * * * _july , _ he hasn't. bimmie's biting his fingernails. he'd bite harder if he knew what happened today. i thought susta was asleep when i went to hang diapers. i had my arms clear full. when i opened the door, susta shot past me. i yelled at her, but she went flying down the street, and i saw that dog next door take off behind her. i thought first thing, it's bimmie's fault for not buying a dryer. i hung the clothes fast. after all, nothing could happen in such a short time. then i started up the street calling, here susta! but the baby was alone, i had to hurry home. she came back in half an hour. i didn't tell bimmie yet. * * * * * _july , _ i didn't tell him, still. he was mad because he had to pay to get sup out of the pound. bimmie salved his ears, they were torn, and put them in the basement. he said, now! * * * * * _july , _ bimmie says to write every day. it's dull, them in the basement. they come up tomorrow. * * * * * _july , _ susta acts funnier than ever. she rubs my legs when i'm cooking. she keeps wetting her paws and rubbing her face. * * * * * _august , _ today i caught susta sharpening her claws on the couch. i said, bimmie, look at the crazy dog, thinks she's a cat. he frowned. he only has one pimple now, he's kind of handsome. i said, isn't it cute? bimmie went downstairs. i think he was worried. * * * * * _august , _ susta's getting big. i let her sleep with the baby. bimmie says, whoopee! it worked! i'm scared to tell him now. * * * * * _august , _ susta rubs my leg when she's hungry. then she sits and switches her tail for a long time. * * * * * _august , _ susta meowed today. i was fixing dinner. she looked up and said, meow. it wasn't supposed to be this way. bimmie's afraid she'll have kittens. that isn't what he's trying to do. * * * * * _september , _ susta wanted to go down in the basement this afternoon. when i called her for supper she came up with her stomach flat. bimmie and i went down. susta ducked back in a hole in the wall. there's a sort of little cave. we said, they must be in there. we got a flash, and we could see little black balls. bimmie couldn't reach them. bimmie kept talking about how his experiment is going to revolutionize agriculture. * * * * * _september , _ i can hear her meowing to them. we can see them with the flash. we can't tell anything yet. * * * * * _september , _ he'll buy a typewriter but not a dryer! he's going to write a book about his experiment. he expects _me_ to type it. * * * * * _september , _ she still won't bring them out. she purred today, rusty-like. bimmie says, sometimes, it had to work. other times he bites his nails. he gave me ten pages to type. i thought i'd better. * * * * * _september , _ i went down to call susta and i saw them. there were five, wobbling everywhere. they're the cutest fat things. i picked one up, and then i felt sick. he had a long nose and little rosebud ears and white feet. he looked like the dog next door. all of them do. they're all puppies. nothing else, just puppies. i put them in a box, and took them upstairs. bimmie's working tonight. i'll go to bed before he comes home. * * * * * _september , _ he raved all morning and tromped around. i said, shut up or i'll leave and you'll have to eat capsules. he said, i could eat dog food! then he wanted to see my diary. i said, no. but he yanked out all the drawers and found it. i took the baby and went to momma's. it was suppertime when i came home. he was on the couch with sup and susta and the puppies. he didn't act mad, just nasty-nice. so you came home, he said. i never realized how limited you were, listie. your diary's shown me a lot. can you at least find homes for the puppies? i said, i guess. i put the baby down. he hadn't thrown anything or burned my diary. he said, good, then. i've fixed supper. he had hamburger, frozen pie and hot chocolate. some of it tasted bad. i didn't say anything. * * * * * _september , _ i asked bimmie, should i quit my diary? he said, yes. then, no, keep on. i asked, was he doing another experiment? he said, not yet. i said, bim better not start talking early. he said, you don't think i'd experiment with my own child? i didn't know. he said, bim might be smart anyway. i said, he might be, he's your son. it was a good compliment. * * * * * _september , _ bimmie wants to learn cooking. he said, you have to work hard, hanging diapers. it will help if i can cook. i'll teach him hot chocolate first. his fixing tastes _awful_. * * * * * _october , _ i have little to report. bimford, jr. is flourishing. the puppies are adorable. susta and sup tend them jointly. bimmie has no new project. he has thrown all his energies into cooking. he does quite well, except for hot chocolate, which still tastes of chemicals. i never, until yesterday, realized the intellectual and sensual joy to be derived from delving into greek drama. * * * * * _november , _ bimford, jr. is six months old today. since i gave up the last puppy, the house seems barnlike in its emptiness. i mentioned the fact to bimford. his glance was speculative. "i have some money saved. want a tridiversion wall?" i was horrified. "whatever for?" he shrugged. "maybe you'd like to go to the library. get something to read." i considered. "perhaps i will," i said. "there isn't much for me to do, hang diapers and push buttons. automation has almost completely eliminated the housewife's traditional chores." i left bimford, jr. with mother and walked to the library. i asked the librarian to show me about. "what are you interested in?" she inquired. "i don't know," i replied. "do you have any good recent works on chemistry or perhaps nuclear physics?" she raised her eyebrows but conducted me to the proper shelf. after finding several interesting volumes, i also checked out a volume on cookery for bimford. his hot chocolate doesn't improve, despite nightly practice. he tells me he is working on a new project. _satan's diary_ _satan's diary_ by leonid andreyev _authorized translation_ with a preface by herman bernstein boni and liveright publishers new york copyright, , by boni & liveright, inc. _printed in the united states of america_ preface "satan's diary," leonid andreyev's last work, was completed by the great russian a few days before he died in finland, in september, . but a few years ago the most popular and successful of russian writers, andreyev died almost penniless, a sad, tragic figure, disillusioned, broken-hearted over the tragedy of russia. a year ago leonid andreyev wrote me that he was eager to come to america, to study this country and familiarize americans with the fate of his unfortunate countrymen. i arranged for his visit to this country and informed him of this by cable. but on the very day i sent my cable the sad news came from finland announcing that leonid andreyev died of heart failure. in "satan's diary" andreyev summed up his boundless disillusionment in an absorbing satire on human life. fearlessly and mercilessly he hurled the falsehoods and hypocrisies into the face of life. he portrayed satan coming to this earth to amuse himself and play. having assumed the form of an american multi-millionaire, satan set out on a tour through europe in quest of amusement and adventure. before him passed various forms of spurious virtues, hypocrisies, the ruthless cruelty of man and the often deceptive innocence of woman. within a short time satan finds himself outwitted, deceived, relieved of his millions, mocked, humiliated, beaten by man in his own devilish devices. the story of andreyev's beginning as a writer is best told in his autobiography which he gave me in . * * * * * "i was born," he said, "in oryol, in , and studied there at the gymnasium. i studied poorly; while in the seventh class i was for a whole year known as the worst student, and my mark for conduct was never higher than , sometimes . the most pleasant time i spent at school, which i recall to this day with pleasure, was recess time between lessons, and also the rare occasions when i was sent out from the classroom.... the sunbeams, the free sunbeams, which penetrated some cleft and which played with the dust in the hallway--all this was so mysterious, so interesting, so full of a peculiar, hidden meaning. "when i studied at the gymnasium my father, an engineer, died. as a university student i was in dire need. during my first course in st. petersburg i even starved--not so much out of real necessity as because of my youth, inexperience, and my inability to utilize the unnecessary parts of my costume. i am to this day ashamed to think that i went two days without food at a time when i had two or three pairs of trousers and two overcoats which i could have sold. "it was then that i wrote my first story--about a starving student. i cried when i wrote it, and the editor, who returned my manuscript, laughed. that story of mine remained unpublished.... in , in january, i made an unsuccessful attempt to kill myself by shooting. as a result of this unsuccessful attempt i was forced by the authorities into religious penitence, and i contracted heart trouble, though not of a serious nature, yet very annoying. during this time i made one or two unsuccessful attempts at writing; i devoted myself with greater pleasure and success to painting, which i loved from childhood on. i made portraits to order at and rubles a piece. "in i received my diploma and became an assistant attorney, but i was at the very outset sidetracked. i was offered a position on _the courier_, for which i was to report court proceedings. i did not succeed in getting any practice as a lawyer. i had only one case and lost it at every point. "in i wrote my first story--for the easter number--and since that time i have devoted myself exclusively to literature. maxim gorky helped me considerably in my literary work by his always practical advice and suggestions." * * * * * andreyev's first steps in literature, his first short stories, attracted but little attention at the time of their appearance. it was only when countess tolstoy, the wife of leo tolstoy, in a letter to the _novoye vremya_, came out in "defense of artistic purity and moral power in contemporary literature," declaring that russian society, instead of buying, reading and making famous the works of the andreyevs, should "rise against such filth with indignation," that almost everybody who knew how to read in russia turned to the little volume of the young writer. in her attack upon andreyev, countess tolstoy said as follows: * * * * * "the poor new writers, like andreyev, succeeded only in concentrating their attention on the filthy point of human degradation and uttered a cry to the undeveloped, half-intelligent reading public, inviting them to see and to examine the decomposed corpse of human degradation and to close their eyes to god's wonderful, vast world, with the beauties of nature, with the majesty of art, with the lofty yearnings of the human soul, with the religious and moral struggles and the great ideals of goodness--even with the downfall, misfortunes and weaknesses of such people as dostoyevsky depicted.... in describing all these every true artist should illumine clearly before humanity not the side of filth and vice, but should struggle against them by illumining the highest ideals of good, truth, and the triumph over evil, weakness, and the vices of mankind.... i should like to cry out loudly to the whole world in order to help those unfortunate people whose wings, given to each of them for high flights toward the understanding of the spiritual light, beauty, kindness, and god, are clipped by these andreyevs." this letter of countess tolstoy called forth a storm of protest in the russian press, and, strange to say, the representatives of the fair sex were among the warmest defenders of the young author. answering the attack, many women, in their letters to the press, pointed out that the author of "anna karenina" had been abused in almost the same manner for his "kreutzer sonata," and that tolstoy himself had been accused of exerting just such an influence as the countess attributed to andreyev over the youth of russia. since the publication of countess tolstoy's condemnation, andreyev has produced a series of masterpieces, such as "the life of father vassily," a powerful psychological study; "red laughter," a war story, "written with the blood of russia;" "the life of man," a striking morality presentation in five acts; "anathema," his greatest drama; and "the seven who were hanged," in which the horrors of russian life under the tsar were delineated with such beautiful simplicity and power that turgenev, or tolstoy himself, would have signed his name to this masterpiece. thus the first accusations against andreyev were disarmed by his artistic productions, permeated with sincere, profound love for all that is pure in life. dostoyevsky and maupassant depicted more subjects, such as that treated in "the abyss," than andreyev. but with them these stories are lost in the great mass of their other works, while in andreyev, who at that time had as yet produced but a few short stories, works like "the abyss" stood out in bold relief. i recall my first meeting with leonid andreyev in , two weeks after my visit to count leo tolstoy at yasnaya polyana. at that time he had already become the most popular russian writer, his popularity having overshadowed even that of maxim gorky. as i drove from terioki to andreyev's house, along the dust-covered road, the stern and taciturn little finnish driver suddenly broke the silence by saying to me in broken russian: "andreyev is a good writer.... although he is a russian, he is a very good man. he is building a beautiful house here in finland, and he gives employment to many of our people." we were soon at the gate of andreyev's beautiful villa--a fantastic structure, weird-looking, original in design, something like the conception of the architect in the "life of man." "my son is out rowing with his wife in the gulf of finland," andreyev's mother told me. "they will be back in half an hour." as i waited i watched the seething activity everywhere on andreyev's estate. in yasnaya polyana, the home of count tolstoy, everything seemed long established, fixed, well-regulated, serenely beautiful. andreyev's estate was astir with vigorous life. young, strong men were building the house of man. more than thirty of them were working on the roof and in the yard, and a little distance away, in the meadows, young women and girls, bright-eyed and red faced, were haying. youth, strength, vigor everywhere, and above all the ringing laughter of little children at play. i could see from the window the "black little river," which sparkled in the sun hundreds of feet below. the constant noise of the workmen's axes and hammers was so loud that i did not notice when leonid andreyev entered the room where i was waiting for him. "pardon my manner of dressing," he said, as we shook hands. "in the summer i lead a lazy life, and do not write a line. i am afraid i am forgetting even to sign my name." i had seen numerous photographs of leonid andreyev, but he did not look like any of them. instead of a pale-faced, sickly-looking young man, there stood before me a strong, handsome, well-built man, with wonderful eyes. he wore a grayish blouse, black, wide pantaloons up to his knees, and no shoes or stockings. we soon spoke of russian literature at the time, particularly of the drama. "we have no real drama in russia," said andreyev. "russia has not yet produced anything that could justly be called a great drama. perhaps 'the storm,' by ostrovsky, is the only russian play that may be classed as a drama. tolstoy's plays cannot be placed in this category. of the later writers, anton chekhov came nearest to giving real dramas to russia, but, unfortunately, he was taken from us in the prime of his life." "what do you consider your own 'life of man' and 'to the stars'?" i asked. "they are not dramas; they are merely presentations in so many acts," answered andreyev, and, after some hesitation, added: "i have not written any dramas, but it is possible that i will write one." at this point andreyev's wife came in, dressed in a russian blouse. the conversation turned to america, and to the treatment accorded to maxim gorky in new york. "when i was a child i loved america," remarked andreyev. "perhaps cooper and mayne reid, my favorite authors in my childhood days, were responsible for this. i was always planning to run away to america. i am anxious even now to visit america, but i am afraid--i may get as bad a reception as my friend gorky got." he laughed as he glanced at his wife. after a brief pause, he said: "the most remarkable thing about the gorky incident is that while in his stories and articles about america gorky wrote nothing but the very worst that could be said about that country he never told me anything but the very best about america. some day he will probably describe his impressions of america as he related them to me." it was a very warm day. the sun was burning mercilessly in the large room. mme. andreyev suggested that it would be more pleasant to go down to a shady place near the black little river. on the way down the hill andreyev inquired about tolstoy's health and was eager to know his views on contemporary matters. "if tolstoy were young now he would have been with us," he said. we stepped into a boat, mme. andreyev took up the oars and began to row. we resumed our conversation. "the decadent movement in russian literature," said andreyev, "started to make itself felt about ten or fifteen years ago. at first it was looked upon as mere child's play, as a curiosity. now it is regarded more seriously. although i do not belong to that school, i do not consider it worthless. the fault with it is that it has but few talented people in its ranks, and these few direct the criticism of the decadent school. they are the writers and also the critics. and they praise whatever they write. of the younger men, alexander blok is perhaps the most gifted. but in russia our clothes change quickly nowadays, and it is hard to tell what the future will tell us--in our literature and our life. "how do i picture to myself this future?" continued andreyev, in answer to a question of mine. "i cannot know even the fate and future of my own child; how can i foretell the future of such a great country as russia? but i believe that the russian people have a great future before them--in life and in literature--for they are a great people, rich in talents, kind and freedom-loving. savage as yet, it is true, very ignorant, but on the whole they do not differ so much from other european nations." suddenly the author of "red laughter" looked upon me intently, and asked: "how is it that the european and the american press has ceased to interest itself in our struggle for emancipation? is it possible that the reaction in russia appeals to them more than our people's yearnings for freedom, simply because the reaction happens to be stronger at the present time? in that event, they are probably sympathizing with the shah of persia! russia to-day is a lunatic asylum. the people who are hanged are not the people who should be hanged. everywhere else honest people are at large and only criminals are in prison. in russia the honest people are in prison and the criminals are at large. the russian government is composed of a band of criminals, and nicholas ii is not the greatest of them. there are still greater ones. i do not hold that the russian government alone is guilty of these horrors. the european nations and the americans are just as much to blame, for they look on in silence while the most despicable crimes are committed. the murderer usually has at least courage, while he who looks on silently when murder is committed is a contemptible weakling. england and france, who have become so friendly to our government, are surely watching with compassion the poor shah, who hangs the constitutional leaders. perhaps i do not know international law. perhaps i am not speaking as a practical man. one nation must not interfere with the internal affairs of another nation. but why do they interfere with our movement for freedom? france helped the russian government in its war against the people by giving money to russia. germany also helped--secretly. in well-regulated countries each individual must behave decently. when a man murders, robs, dishonors women he is thrown into prison. but when the russian government is murdering helpless men and women and children the other governments look on indifferently. and yet they speak of god. if this had happened in the middle ages a crusade would have been started by civilized peoples who would have marched to russia to free the women and the children from the claws of the government." andreyev became silent. his wife kept rowing for some time slowly, without saying a word. we soon reached the shore and returned silently to the house. that was twelve years ago. i met him several times after that. the last time i visited him in petrograd during the july riots in . * * * * * a literary friend thus describes the funeral of leonid andreyev, which gives a picture of the tragedy of russia: "in the morning a decision had to be reached as to the day of the funeral. it was necessary to see to the purchase and the delivery of the coffin from viborg, and to undertake all those unavoidable, hard duties which are so painful to the family. "it appeared that the russian exiles living in our village had no permits from the finnish government to go to viborg, nor the money for that expense. it further appeared that the family of leonid andreyev had left at their disposal only one hundred marks (about dollars), which the doctor who had come from the station after andreyev's death declined to take from the widow for his visit. "this was all the family possessed. it was necessary to charge a russian exile living in a neighboring village, who had a pass for viborg, with the sad commission of finding among some wealthy people in viborg who had known andreyev the means required for the funeral. "on the following day mass was read. floral tributes and wreaths from viborg, with black inscriptions made hastily in ink on white ribbons, began to arrive. they were all from private individuals. the local refugees brought garlands of autumn foliage, bouquets of late flowers. their children laid their carefully woven, simple and touching little childish wreaths at the foot of the coffin. leonid andreyev's widow did not wish to inter the body in foreign soil and it was decided, temporarily, until burial in native ground, to leave his body in the little mortuary in the park on the estate of a local woman landowner. "the day of the funeral was not widely known. the need for special permits to travel deprived many of the opportunity to attend. in this way it happened that only a very small group of people followed the body from the house to the mortuary. none of his close friends was there. they, like his brothers, sister, one of his sons, were in russia. neighbors, refugees, acquaintances of the last two years with whom his exile had accidentally thrown him into contact, people who had no connection with russian literature,--almost all alien in spirit--such was the little group of russians that followed the coffin of leonid andreyev to its temporary resting place. "it was a tragic funeral, this funeral in exile, of a writer who is so dearly loved by the whole intellectual class of russia; whom the younger generation of russia acclaimed with such enthusiasm. "meanwhile he rests in a foreign land, waiting--waiting for free russia to demand back his ashes, and pay tribute to his genius." among his last notes, breathing deep anguish and despair, found on his desk, were the following lines: "revolution is just as unsatisfactory a means of settling disputes as is war. if it be impossible to vanquish a hostile idea except by smashing the skull in which it is contained; if it be impossible to appease a hostile heart except by piercing it with a bayonet, then, of course, fight...." leonid andreyev died of a broken heart. but the spirit of his genius is deathless. herman bernstein. _new york, september._ _satan's diary_ satan's diary january . on board the _atlantic_. this is exactly the tenth day since i have become human and am leading this earthly life. my loneliness is very great. i am not in need of friends, but i must speak of myself and i have no one to speak to. thoughts alone are not sufficient, and they will not become quite clear, precise and exact until i express them in words. it is necessary to arrange them in a row, like soldiers or telephone poles, to lay them out like a railway track, to throw across bridges and viaducts, to construct barrows and enclosures, to indicate stations in certain places--and only then will everything become clear. this laborious engineering work, i think, they call logic and consistency, and is essential to those who desire to be wise. it is not essential to all others. they may wander about as they please. the work is slow, difficult and repulsive for one who is accustomed to--i do not know what to call it--to embracing all in one breath and expressing all in a single breath. it is not in vain that men respect their thinkers so much, and it is not in vain that these unfortunate thinkers, if they are honest and conscientious in this process of construction, as ordinary engineers, end in insane asylums. i am but a few days on this earth and more than once have the yellow walls of the insane asylum and its luring open door flashed before my eyes. yes, it is extremely difficult and irritates one's "nerves." i have just now wasted so much of the ship's fine stationery to express a little ordinary thought on the inadequacy of man's words and logic. what will it be necessary to waste to give expression to the great and the unusual? i want to warn you, my earthly reader, at the very outset, not to gape in astonishment. the _extraordinary cannot be expressed_ in the language of your grumbling. if you do not believe me, go to the nearest insane asylum and listen to the inmates: they have all realized _something_ and wanted to give expression to it. and now you can hear the roar and rumble of these wrecked engines, their wheels revolving and hissing in the air, and you can see with what difficulty they manage to hold intact the rapidly dissolving features of their astonished faces! i see you are all ready to ply me with questions, now that you learned that i am satan in human form: it is so fascinating! whence did i come? what are the ways of hell? is there immortality there, and, also, what is the price of coal at the stock exchange of hell? unfortunately, my dear reader, despite my desire to the contrary, if i had such a desire, i am powerless to satisfy your very proper curiosity. i could have composed for your benefit one of those funny little stories about horny and hairy devils, which appeal so much to your meagre imagination, but you have had enough of them already and i do not want to lie so rudely and ungracefully. i will lie to you elsewhere, when you least expect it, and that will be far more interesting for both of us. and the truth--how am i to tell it when even my name cannot be expressed in your tongue? you have called me satan and i accept the name, just as i would have accepted any other: be it so--i am satan. but my real name sounds quite different, quite different! it has an extraordinary sound and try as i may i cannot force it into your narrow ear without tearing it open together with your brain: be it so--i am satan. and nothing more. and you yourself are to blame for this, my friend: why is there so little understanding in your reason? your reason is like a beggar's sack, containing only crusts of stale bread, while it is necessary to have something more than bread. you have but two conceptions of existence: life and death. how, then, can i reveal to you the _third_? all your existence is an absurdity only because you do not have this _third conception_. and where can i get it for you? to-day i am human, even as you. in my skull is your brain. in my mouth are your cubic words, jostling one another about with their sharp corners, and i cannot tell you of the extraordinary. if i were to tell you that there are no devils i would lie. but if i say that such creatures do exist i also deceive you. you see how difficult it is, how absurd, my friend! i can also tell you but little that you would understand of how i assumed the human form, with which i began my earthly life ten days ago. first of all, forget about your favorite, hairy, horny, winged devils, who breathe fire, transform fragments of earthenware into gold and change old men into fascinating youths, and having done all this and prattled much nonsense, they disappear suddenly through a wall. remember: when _we_, want to visit your earth _we_ must always become human. why this is so you will learn after your death. meanwhile remember: i am a human being now like yourself. there is not the foul smell of a goat about me but the fragrance of perfume, and you need not fear to shake my hand lest i may scratch you with my nails: i manicure them just as you do. but how did it all happen? very simply. when i first conceived the desire to visit this earth i selected as the most satisfactory lodging a -year-old american billionaire, mr. henry wondergood. i killed him at night,--of course, not in the presence of witnesses. but you cannot bring me to court despite this confession, because the american is alive, and we both greet you with one respectful bow: i and wondergood. he simply rented his empty place to me. you understand? and not all of it either, the devil take him! and, to my great regret i can _return_ only through the same door which leads you too to liberty: through death. this is the most important thing. you may understand something of what i may have to say later on, although to speak to you of such matters in your language is like trying to conceal a mountain in a vest pocket or to empty niagara with a thimble. imagine, for example, that you, my dear king of nature, should want to come closer to the ants, and that by some miracle you became a real little ant,--then you may have some conception of that gulf which separates me now from what i was. no, still more! imagine that you were a sound and have become a mere symbol--a musical mark on paper.... no, still worse!--no comparisons can make clear to you that terrible gulf whose bottom even i do not see as yet. or, perhaps, there is no bottom there at all. think of it: for two days, after leaving new york, i suffered from seasickness! this sounds queer to you, who are accustomed to wallow in your own dirt? well, i--i have also wallowed in it but it was not queer at all. i only smiled once in thinking that _it_ was not i, but wondergood, and said: "roll on, wondergood, roll on!" there is another question to which you probably want an answer: why did i come to this earth and accept such an unprofitable exchange: to be transformed from satan, "the mighty, immortal chieftain and ruler" into you? i am tired of seeking words that cannot be found. i will answer you in english, french, italian or german--languages we both understand well. i have grown lonesome in hell and i have come upon the earth to lie and play. you know what ennui is. and as for falsehood, you know it well too. and as for _play_--you can judge it to a certain extent by your own theaters and celebrated actors. perhaps you yourself are playing a little rôle in parliament, at home, or in your church. if you are, you may understand something of the _satisfaction_ of play. and, if in addition, you are familiar with the multiplication table, then multiply the delight and joy of play into any considerable figure and you will get an idea of my enjoyment, of my play. no, imagine that you are an ocean wave, which plays eternally and lives only in play--take this wave, for example, which i see outside the porthole now and which wants to lift our "atlantic"...but, here i am again seeking words and comparisons! i simply want to play. at present i am still an unknown actor, a modest débutante, but i hope to become no less a celebrity than your own garrick or aldrich, after i have played what i please. i am proud, selfish and even, if you please, vain and boastful. you know what vanity is, when you crave the praise and plaudits even of a fool? then i entertain the brazen idea that i am a genius. satan is known for his brazenness. and so, imagine, that i have grown weary of hell where all these hairy and horny rogues play and lie no worse than i do, and that i am no longer satisfied with the laurels of hell, in which i but perceive no small measure of base flattery and downright stupidity. but i have heard of you, my earthly friend; i have heard that you are wise, tolerably honest, properly incredulous, responsive to the problems of eternal art and that you yourself play and lie so badly that you might appreciate the playing of others: not in vain have you so many _great actors_. and so i have come. you understand? my stage is the earth and the nearest scene for which i am now bound is rome, the eternal city, as it is called here, in your profound conception of eternity and other simple matters. i have not yet selected my company (would you not like to join it?). but i believe that _fate_ and _chance_, to whom i am now subservient, like all your earthly things, will realize my unselfish motives and will send me worthy partners. old europe is so rich in talents! i believe that i shall find a keen and appreciative audience in europe, too. i confess that i first thought of going to the east, which some of my compatriots made their scene of activity some time ago with no small measure of success, but the east is too credulous and is inclined too much to poison and the ballet. its gods are ludicrous. the east still reeks too much of hairy animals. its lights and shadows are barbarously crude and too bright to make it worth while for a refined artist as i am to go into that crowded, foul circus tent. ah, my friend, i am so vain that i even begin this diary not without the secret intention of impressing you with my modesty in the rôle of _seeker_ of words and comparisons. i hope you will not take advantage of my frankness and cease believing me. are there any other questions? of the play itself i have no clear idea yet. it will be composed by the same impresario who will assemble the actors--_fate_. my modest rôle, as a beginning, will be that of a man who so loves his fellow beings that he is willing to give them everything, his soul and his money. of course, you have not forgotten that i am a billionaire? i have three billion dollars. sufficient--is it not?--for one spectacular performance. one more detail before i conclude this page. i have with me, sharing my fate, a certain irwin toppi, my secretary,--a most worthy person in his black frock coat and silk top hat, his long nose resembling an unripened pear and his smoothly shaven, pastor-like face. i would not be surprised to find a prayer book in his pocket. my toppi came upon this earth from _there_, i.e. from hell and by the same means as mine: he, too, assumed the human form and, it seems, quite successfully--the rogue is entirely immune from seasickness. however to be seasick one must have some brains and my toppi is unusually stupid--even for this earth. besides, he is impolite and ventures to offer advice. i am rather sorry that out of our entire wealth of material i did not select some one better, but i was impressed by his honesty and partial familiarity with the earth: it seemed more pleasant to enter upon this little jaunt with an experienced comrade. quite a long time ago he once before assumed the human form and was so taken by religious sentiments that--think of it!--he entered a franciscan monastery, lived there to a ripe old age and died peacefully under the name of brother vincent. his ashes became the object of veneration for believers--not a bad career for a fool of a devil. no sooner did he enter upon this trip with me than he began to sniff about for incense--an incurable habit! you will probably like him. and now enough. get thee hence, my friend. i wish to be alone. your shallow reflection upon this wall wears upon me. i wish to be alone or only with this wondergood who has leased his abode to me and seems to have gotten the best of me somehow or other. the sea is calm. i am no longer nauseated but i am afraid of something. i am afraid! i fear this darkness which they call night and descends upon the ocean: here, in the cabin there is still some light, but there, on deck, there is terrible darkness, and my eyes are quite helpless. these silly reflectors--they are worthless. they are able to reflect things by day but in the darkness they lose even this miserable power. of course i shall get used to the darkness. i have already grown used to many things. but just now i am ill at ease and it is horrible to think that the mere turn of a key obsesses me with this blind ever present darkness. whence does it come? and how brave men are with their dim reflectors: they see nothing and simply say: it is dark here, we must make a light! then they themselves put it out and go to sleep. i regard these braves with a kind of cold wonder and i am seized with admiration. or must one possess a great mind to appreciate horror, like mine? you are not such a coward, wondergood. you always bore the reputation of being a hardened man and a man of experience! there is one moment in the process of my assumption of the human form that i cannot recollect without horror. that was when for the first time i heard the beating of my heart. this regular, loud, metronome-like sound, which speaks as much of death as of life, filled me with the hitherto inexperienced sensation of horror. men are always quarrelling about accounts, but how can they carry in their breasts _this_ counting machine, registering with the speed of a magician the fleeting seconds of life? at first i wanted to shout and to run back _below_, before i could grow accustomed to life, but here i looked at toppi: this new-born fool was calmly brushing his top hat with the sleeve of his frock coat. i broke out into laughter and cried: "toppi, the brush!" we both brushed ourselves while the counting machine in my breast was computing the seconds and, it seemed to me, adding on a few for good measure. finally, hearing its brazen beating, i thought i might not have time enough to finish my toillette. i have been in a great hurry for some time. just what it was i would not be able to complete i did not know, but for two days i was in a mad rush to eat and drink and even sleep: the counting machine was beating away while i lay in slumber! but i never rush now. i know that i will manage to get through and my moments seem inexhaustible. but the little machine keeps on beating just the same, like a drunken soldier at a drum. and how about the very moments it is using up now. are they to be counted as equal to the great ones? then i say it is all a fraud and i protest as a honest citizen of the united states and as a merchant. i do not feel well. yet i would not repulse even a friend at this moment. ah! in all the universe i am alone! february , . rome, hotel "internationale." i am driven mad whenever i am compelled to seize the club of a policeman to bring order in my brain: facts, to the right! thoughts, to the left! moods, to the rear--clear the road for his highness, conscience, which barely moves about upon its stilts. i am compelled to do this: otherwise there would be a riot, an abrecadebra, chaos. and so i call you to order, gentleman--facts and lady-thoughts. i begin. night. darkness. the air is balmy. there is a pleasant fragrance. toppi is enchanted. we are in italy. our speeding train is approaching rome. we are enjoying our soft couches when, suddenly, crash! everything flies to the devil: the train has gone out of its mind. it is wrecked. i confess without shame that i am not very brave, that i was seized with terror and seemed to have lost consciousness. the lights were extinguished and with much labor i crawled out of the corner into which i had been hurled. i seemed to have forgotten the exit. there were only walls and corners. i felt something stinging and beating at me, and all about nothing but darkness. suddenly i felt a body beneath my feet. i stepped right upon the face. only afterwards did i discover that the body was that of george, my lackey, killed outright. i shouted and my obliging toppi came to my aid: he seized me by the arm and led me to an open window, as both exits had been barricaded by fragments of the car and baggage. i leaped out, but toppi lingered behind. my knees were trembling. i was groaning but still he failed to appear. i shouted. suddenly he reappeared at the window and shouted back: "what are you crying about? i am looking for our hats and your portfolio." a few moments later he returned and handed me my hat. he himself had his silk top hat on and carried the portfolio. i shook with laughter and said: "young man, you have forgotten the umbrella!" but the old buffoon has no sense of humor. he replied seriously: "i do not carry an umbrella. and do you know, our george is dead and so is the chef." so, this fallen carcass which has no feelings and upon whose face one steps with impunity is our george! i was again seized with terror and suddenly my ears were pierced with groans, wild shrieks, whistlings and cries! all the sounds wherewith these braves wail when they are crushed. at first i was deafened. i heard nothing. the cars caught fire. the flames and smoke shot up into the air. the wounded began to groan and, without waiting for the flesh to roast, i darted like a flash into the field. what a leap! fortunately the low hills of the roman campagna are very convenient for this kind of sport and i was no means behind in the line of runners. when, out of breath, i hurled myself upon the ground, it was no longer possible to hear or see anything. only toppi was approaching. but what a terrible thing this heart is! my face touched the earth. the earth was cool, firm, calm and here i liked it. it seemed as if it had restored my breath and put my heart back into its place. i felt easier. the stars above were calm. there was nothing for them to get excited about. they were not concerned with things below. they merely shine in triumph. that is their eternal ball. and at this brilliant ball the earth, clothed in darkness, appeared as an enchanting stranger in a black mask. (not at all badly expressed? i trust that you, my reader, will be pleased: my style and my manners are improving!) i kissed toppi in the darkness. i always kiss those i like in the darkness. and i said: "you are carrying your human form, toppi, very well. i respect you. but what are we to do now? those lights yonder in the sky--they are the lights of rome. but they are too far away!" "yes, it is rome," affirmed toppi, and raised his hand: "do you hear whistling?" from somewhere in the distance came the long-drawn, piercing, shrieking of locomotives. they were sounding the alarm. "yes, they are whistling," i said and laughed. "they are whistling!" repeated toppi smiling. he never laughs. but here again i began to feel uncomfortable. i was cold, lonely, quivering. in my feet there was still the sensation of treading upon corpses. i wanted to shake myself like a dog after a bath. you must understand me: it was the first time that i had seen and felt your corpse, my dear reader, and if you pardon me, it did not appeal to me at all. why did it not protest when i walked over its face? george had such a beautiful young face and he carried himself with much dignity. remember your face, too, may be trod upon. and will you, too, remain submissive? we did not proceed to rome but went instead in search of the nearest night lodging. we walked long. we grew tired. we longed to drink, oh, how we longed to drink! and now, permit me to present to you my new friend, signor thomas magnus and his beautiful daughter, maria. at first we observed the faint flicker of a light. as we approached nearer we found a little house, its white walls gleaming through a thicket of dark cypress trees and shrubbery. there was a light in one of the windows, the rest were barricaded with shutters. the house had a stone fence, an iron gate, strong doors. and--silence. at first glance it all looked suspicious. toppi knocked. again silence. i knocked. still silence. finally there came a gruff voice, asking from behind the iron door: "who are you? what do you want?" hardly mumbling with his parched tongue, my brave toppi narrated the story of the catastrophe and our escape. he spoke at length and then came the click of a lock and the door was opened. following behind our austere and silent stranger we entered the house, passed through several dark and silent rooms, walked up a flight of creaking stairs into a brightly lighted room, apparently the stranger's workroom. there was much light, many books, with one open beneath a low lamp shaded by a simple, green globe. we had not noticed this light in the field. but what astonished me was the silence of the house. despite the rather early hour not a move, not a sound, not a voice was to be heard. "have a seat." we sat down and toppi, now almost in pain, began again to narrate his story. but the strange host interrupted him: "yes, a catastrophe. they often occur on our roads. were there many victims?" toppi continued his prattle and the host, while listening to him, took a revolver out of his pocket and hid it in a table drawer, adding carelessly: "this is not--a particularly quiet neighborhood. well, please, remain here." for the first time he raised his dark eyebrows and his large dim eyes and studied us intently as if he were gazing upon something savage in a museum. it was an impolite and brazen stare. i arose and said: "i fear that we are not welcome here, signor, and----" he stopped me with an impatient and slightly sarcastic gesture. "nonsense, you remain here. i will get you some wine and food. my servant is here in the daytime only, so allow me to wait on you. you will find the bathroom behind this door. go wash and freshen up while i get the wine. make yourself at home." while we ate and drank--with savage relish, i confess--this unsympathetic gentleman kept on reading a book as if there were no one else in the room, undisturbed by toppi's munching and the dog's struggle with a bone. i studied my host carefully. almost my height, his pale face bore an expression of weariness. he had a black, oily, bandit-like beard. but his brow was high and his nose betrayed good sense. how would you describe it? well, here again i seek comparisons. imagine the nose betraying the story of a great, passionate, extraordinary, secret life. it is beautiful and seems to have been made not out of muscle and cartilage, but out of--what do you call it?--out of thoughts and brazen desires. he seems quite brave too. but i was particularly attracted by his hands: very big, very white and giving the impression of self-control. i do not know why his hands attracted me so much. but suddenly i thought: how beautifully exact the number of fingers, exactly ten of them, ten thin, evil, wise, crooked fingers! i said politely: "thank you, signor----" he replied: "my name is magnus. thomas magnus. have some wine? americans?" i waited for toppi to introduce me, according to the english custom, and i looked toward magnus. one had to be an ignorant, illiterate animal not to know me. toppi broke in: "mr. henry wondergood of illinois. his secretary, irwin toppi, your obedient servant. yes, citizens of the united states." the old buffoon blurted out his tirade, evincing a thorough lack of pride, and magnus--yes, he was a little startled. billions, my friend, billions. he gazed at me long and intently: "mr. wondergood? henry wondergood? are you not, sir, that american billionaire who seeks to bestow upon humanity the benefits of his billions?" i modestly shook my head in the affirmative. "yes, i am the gentleman." toppi shook his head in affirmation--the ass: "yes, we are the gentlemen." magnus bowed and said with a tinge of irony in his voice: "humanity is awaiting you, mr. wondergood. judging by the roman newspapers it is extremely impatient. but i must crave your pardon for this very modest meal: i did not know...." i seized his large, strangely warm hand and shaking it violently, in american fashion, i said: "nonsense, signor magnus. i was a swine-herd before i became a billionaire, while you are a straightforward, honest and noble gentleman, whose hand i press with the utmost respect. the devil take it, not a single human face has yet aroused in me as much sympathy as yours!" magnus said.... magnus said nothing! i cannot continue this: "i said," "he said,"--this cursed consistency is deadly to my inspiration. it transforms me into a silly romanticist of a boulevard sheet and makes me lie like a mediocrity. i have five senses. i am a complete human being and yet i speak only of the hearing. and how about the sight? i assure you it did not remain idle. and this sensation of the earth, of italy, of my existence which i now perceive with a new and sweet strength! you imagine that all i did was to listen to wise thomas magnus. he speaks and i gaze, understand, answer, while i think: what a beautiful earth, what a beautiful campagna di roma! i persisted in penetrating the recesses of the house, into its locked silent rooms. with every moment my joy mounted at the thought that i am alive, that i can speak and play and, suddenly, i rather liked the idea of being human. i remember that i held out my card to magnus. "henry wondergood." he was surprised, but laid the card politely on the table. i felt like implanting a kiss on his brow for this politeness, for the fact that he too was human. i, too, am human. i was particularly proud of my foot encased in a fine, tan leather shoe and i persisted in swinging it: swing on beautiful, human, american foot! i was extremely emotional that evening! i even wanted to weep: to look my host straight in the eyes and to squeeze out of my own eyes, so full of love and goodness, two little tears. i actually did it, for at that moment i felt a little pleasant sting in my nose, as if it had been hit by a spurt of lemonade. i observed that my two little tears made an impression upon magnus. but toppi!--while i experienced this wondrous poem of feeling human and even of weeping,--he slept like a dead one at the very same table. i was rather angered. this was really going too far. i wanted to shout at him, but magnus restrained me: "he has had a good deal of excitement and is weary, mr. wondergood." the hour had really grown late. we had been talking and arguing with magnus for two hours when toppi fell asleep. i sent him off to bed while we continued to talk and drink for quite a while. i drank more wine, but magnus restrained himself. there was a dimness about his face. i was beginning to develop an admiration for his grim and, at times, evil, secretive countenance. he said: "i believe in your altruistic passion, mr. wondergood. but i do not believe that you, a man of wisdom and of action, and, it seems to me, somewhat cold, could place any serious hopes upon your money----" "three billion dollars--that is a mighty power, magnus!" "yes, three billion dollars, a mighty power, indeed," he agreed, rather unwillingly--"but what will you do with it?" i laughed. "you probably want to say what can this ignoramus of an american, this erstwhile swine-herd, who knows swine better than he knows men, do with the money?" "the first business helps the other," said magnus. "i dare say you have but a slight opinion of this foolish philanthropist whose head has been turned by his gold," said i. "yes, to be sure, what can i do? i can open another university in chicago, or another maternity hospital in san francisco, or another humanitarian reformatory in new york." "the latter would be a distinct work of mercy," quoth magnus. "do not gaze at me with such reproach, mr. wondergood: i am not jesting. you will find in me the same pure love for humanity which burns so fiercely in you." he was laughing at me and i felt pity for him: not to love people! miserable, unfortunate magnus. i could kiss his brow with great pleasure! not to love people! "yes, i do not love them," affirmed magnus, "but i am glad that you do not intend to travel the conventional road of all american philanthropists. your billions----" "three billions, magnus! one could build a nation on this money----" "yes?----" "or destroy a nation," said i. "with this gold, magnus, one can start a war or a revolution----" "yes?----" i actually succeeded in arousing his interest: his large white hands trembled slightly and in his eyes there gleamed for a moment a look of respect: "you, wondergood, are not as foolish as i thought!" he arose, paced up and down the room, and halting before me asked sneeringly: "and you know exactly what your humanity needs most: the creation of a new or the destruction of the old state? war or peace? rest or revolution? who are you, mr. wondergood of illinois, that you essay to solve _these_ problems? you had better keep on building your maternity hospitals and universities. that is far less dangerous work." i liked the man's hauteur. i bowed my head modestly and said: "you are right, signor magnus. who am i, henry wondergood, to undertake the solution of these problems? but i do not intend to solve them. i merely indicate them. i indicate them and i seek the solution. i seek the solution and the man who can give it to me. i have never read a serious book carefully. i see you have quite a supply of books here. you are a misanthrope, magnus. you are too much of a european not to be easily disillusioned in things, while we, young america, believe in humanity. a man must be created. you in europe are bad craftsmen and have created a bad man. we shall create a better one. i beg your pardon for my frankness. as long as i was merely henry wondergood i devoted myself only to the creation of pigs--and my pigs, let me say to you, have been awarded no fewer medals and decorations than field marshal moltke. but now i desire to create people." magnus smiled: "you are an alchemist, wondergood: you would transform lead into gold!" "yes, i want to create gold and i seek the philosopher's stone. but has it not already been found? it has been found, only you do not know how to use it: it is love. ah, magnus, i do not know yet what i will do, but my plans are heroic and magnificent. if not for that misanthropic smile of yours i might go further. believe in man, magnus, and give me your aid. you know what man needs most." he said coldly and with sadness: "he needs prisons and gallows." i exclaimed in anger (i am particularly adept in feigning anger): "you are slandering me, magnus! i see that you must have experienced some very great misfortune, perhaps treachery and----" "hold on, wondergood! i never speak of myself and do not like to hear others speak of me. let it be sufficient for you to know that you are the first man in four years to break in upon my solitude and this only due to chance. i do not like people." "oh, pardon. but i do not believe it." magnus went over to the bookcase and with an expression of supreme contempt he seized the first volume he laid his hands upon. "and you who have read no books," he said, "do you know what these books are about? only about evil, about the mistakes and sufferings of humanity. they are filled with tears and blood, wondergood. look: in this thin little book which i clasp between two fingers is contained a whole ocean of human blood, and if you should take all of them together----. and who has spilled this blood? the devil?" i felt flattered and wanted to bow in acknowledgment, but he threw the book aside and shouted: "no, sir: man! man has spilled this blood! yes, i do read books but only for one purpose; to learn how to hate man and to hold him in contempt. you, wondergood, have transformed your pigs into gold, yes? and i can see how your gold is being transformed back again into pigs. they will devour you, wondergood. but i do not wish either to prattle or to lie: throw your money into the sea or--build some new prisons and gallows. you are vain like all men. then go on building gallows. you will be respected by serious people, while the flock in general will call you great. or, don't you, american from illinois, want to get into the pantheon?" "no, magnus!----" "blood!" cried magnus. "can't you see that it is everywhere? here it is on your boot now----" i confess that at the moment magnus appeared to be insane. i jerked my foot in sudden fear and only then did i perceive a dark, reddish spot on my shoe--how dastardly! magnus smiled and immediately regaining his composure continued calmly and without emotion: "i have unwittingly startled you, mr. wondergood? nonsense! you probably stepped on something inadvertently. a mere trifle. but this conversation, a conversation i have not conducted for a number of years, makes me uneasy and--good night, mr. wondergood. to-morrow i shall have the honor of presenting you to my daughter, and now you will permit me----" and so on. in short, this gentleman conducted me to my room in a most impolite manner and well nigh put me to bed. i offered no resistance: why should i? i must say that i did not like him at this moment. i was even pleased when he turned to go but, suddenly, he turned at the very threshold and stepping forward, stretched out his large white hands. and murmured: "do you see these hands? there is blood on them! let it be the blood of a scoundrel, a torturer, a tyrant, but it is the same, red human blood. good night!" --he spoiled my night for me. i swear by eternal salvation that on that night i felt great pleasure in being a man, and i made myself thoroughly at home in his narrow human skin. it made me feel uncomfortable in the armpits. you see, i bought it ready made and thought that it would be as comfortable as if it had been made to measure! i was highly emotional. i was extremely good and affable. i was very eager to play, but i was not inclined to tragedy! blood! how can any person of good breeding thrust his white hands under the nose of a stranger--hangmen have very white hands! do not think i am jesting. i did not feel well. in the daytime i still manage to subdue wondergood but at night he lays his hands upon me. it is he who fills me with his silly dreams and shakes within me his entire dusty archive--and how godlessly silly and meaningless are his dreams! he fusses about within me all night long like a returned master, seems to be looking about for something, grumbles about losses and wear and tear and sneezes and cavorts about like a dog lying uncomfortable on its bed. it is he who draws me in at night like a mass of wet lime into the depths of miserable humanity, where i nearly choke to death. when i awake in the morning i feel that wondergood has infused ten more degrees of human into me--think of it: he may soon eject me all together and leave me standing outside--he, the miserable owner of an empty barn into which i brought breath and soul! like a hurried thief i crawled into a stranger's clothes, the pockets of which are bulging with forged promissory notes--no, still worse! it is not only uncomfortable attire. it is a low, dark and stifling jail, wherein i occupy less space than a ring might in the stomach of wondergood. you, my dear reader, have been hidden in your prison from childhood and you even seem to like it, but i--i come from the kingdom of liberty. and i refuse to be wondergood's tape worm: one swallow of poison and i am free again. what will you say then, scoundrel wondergood? without me you will be devoured by the worms. you will crack open at the seams--miserable carcass! touch me not! on this night however i was in the absolute power of wondergood. what is human blood to me? what do i care about the troubles of _their_ life! but wondergood was quite aroused by the crazy magnus. suddenly i felt--just think of it--! that i am filled with blood, like the bladder of an ox, and the bladder is very thin and weak, so that it would be dangerous to prick it. prick it and out spurts the blood! i was terrified at the idea that i might be killed in this house: that some one might cut my throat and turning me upside down, hanging by the legs, would let the blood run out upon the floor. i lay in the darkness and strained my ears to hear whether or not magnus was approaching with his white hands. and the greater the silence in this cursed house the more terrified i grew. even toppi failed to snore as usual. this made me angry. then my body began to ache. perhaps i was injured in the wreck, or was it weariness brought on by the flight? then my body began to itch in the most ordinary way and i even began to move the feet: it was the appearance of the jovial clown in the tragedy! suddenly a dream seized me by the feet and dragged me rapidly below. i hardly had time enough to shout. and what nonsense arose before me! do you ever have such dreams? i felt that i was a bottle of champagne, with a thin neck and sealed, but filled not with wine but with blood! and it seemed that not only i but all people had become bottles with sealed tops and all of us were arranged in a row on a seashore. and, someone horrible was approaching from somewhere and wanted to smash us all. and i saw how foolish it would be to do so and wanted to shout: "don't smash them. get a corkscrew!" but i had no voice. i was a bottle. suddenly the dead lackey george approached. in his hands was a huge sharp corkscrew. he said something and seized me by the throat--ah, ah, by the throat!---- i awoke in pain. apparently he did try to open me up. my wrath was so great that i neither sighed nor smiled nor moved. i simply killed wondergood again. i gnashed my teeth, straightened out my eyes, closed them calmly, stretched out at full length and lay peacefully in the full consciousness of the greatness of my ego. had the ocean itself moved up on me i would not have batted an eye! get thee hence, my friend, i wish to be alone. and the body grew silent, colorless, airy and empty again. with light step i left it and before my eyes there arose a vision of the _extraordinary_, that which cannot be expressed in your language, my poor friend! satisfy your curiosity with the dream i have just confided to you and ask no more! or does not the "huge, sharp corkscrew" suit you? but it is so--artistic! * * * * * in the morning i was well again, refreshed and beautiful. i yearned for the play, like an actor who has just left his dressing room. of course i did not forget to shave. this canaille wondergood gets overgrown with hair as quickly as his golden skinned pigs. i complained about this to toppi with whom, while waiting for magnus, i was walking in the garden. and toppi, thinking a while, replied philosophically: "yes, man sleeps and his beard grows. this is as it should be--for the barbers!" magnus appeared. he was no more hospitable than yesterday and his pale face carried unmistakable indications of weariness. but he was calm and polite. how black his beard is in the daytime! he pressed my hand in cold politeness and said: (we were perched on a wall.) "you are enjoying the roman campagna, mr. wondergood? a magnificent sight! it is said that the campagna is noted for its fevers, but there is but one fever it produces in me--the fever of thought!" apparently wondergood did not have much of a liking for nature, and i have not yet managed to develop a taste for earthly landscape: an empty field for me. i cast my eyes politely over the countryside before us and said: "people interest me more, signor magnus." he gazed at me intently with his dark eyes and lowering his voice said dryly and with apparent reluctance: "just two words about people, mr. wondergood. you will soon see my daughter, maria. she is my three billions. you understand?" i nodded my head in approval. "but your california does not produce such gold. neither does any other country on this dirty earth. it is the gold of the heavens. i am not a believer, mr. wondergood, but even i experience some doubts when i meet the gaze of my maria. hers are the only hands into which you might without the slightest misgiving place your billions----" i am an old bachelor and i was overcome with fear, but magnus continued sternly with a ring of triumph in his voice: "but she will not accept them, sir! her gentle hands must never touch this golden dirt. her clean eyes will never behold any sight but that of this endless, godless campagna. here is her monastery, mr. wondergood, and there is but one exit for her from here: into the kingdom of heaven, if it does exist!" "i beg your pardon but i cannot understand this, my dear magnus!" i protested in great joy. "life and people----" the face of thomas magnus grew angry, as it did yesterday, and in stern ridicule, he interrupted me: "and i beg you to grasp, _dear_ wondergood, that life and people are not for maria. it is enough that i know them. my duty was to _warn_ you. and now"--he again assumed the attitude of cold politeness--"i ask you to come to my table. you too, mr. toppi!" we had begun to eat, and were chattering of small matters, when _maria_ entered. the door through which she entered was behind my back. i mistook her soft step for those of the maid carrying the dishes, but i was astonished by the long-nosed toppi, sitting opposite me. his eyes grew round like circles, his face red, as if he were choking. his adam's apple seemed to be lifted above his neck as if driven by a wave, and to disappear again somewhere behind his narrow, ministerial collar. of course, i thought he was choking to death with a fishbone and shouted: "toppi! what is the matter with you? take some water." but magnus was already on his feet, announcing coldly: "my daughter, maria. mr. henry wondergood!" i turned about quickly and--how can i express the extraordinary when it is inexpressible? it was something more than beautiful. it was terrible in its beauty. i do not want to seek comparisons. i shall leave that to you. take all that you have ever seen or ever known of the beautiful on earth: the lily, the stars, the sun, but add, add still more. but not this was the awful aspect of it: there was something else: the elusive yet astonishing similarity--to whom? whom have i met upon this earth who was so beautiful--so beautiful and awe-inspiring--awe-inspiring and unapproachable. i have learned by this time your entire archive, wondergood, and i do not believe that it comes from your modest gallery! "madonna!" mumbled toppi in a hoarse voice, scared out of his wits. so that is it! yes, madonna. the fool was right, and i, satan, could understand his terror. madonna, whom people see only in churches, in paintings, in the imagination of artists. maria, the name which rings only in hymns and prayer books, heavenly beauty, mercy, forgiveness and love! star of the seas! do you like that name: star of the seas? it was really devilishly funny. i made a deep bow and almost blurted out: "madam, i beg pardon for my unbidden intrusion, but i really did not expect to meet you _here_. i most humbly beg your pardon, but i could not imagine that this black bearded fellow has the honor of having you for his daughter. a thousand times i crave your pardon for----" but enough. i said something else. "how do you do, signorina. it is indeed a pleasure." and she really did not indicate in any way that she was _already_ acquainted with me. one must respect an incognito if one would remain a gentleman and only a scoundrel would dare to tear a mask from a lady's face! this would have been all the more impossible, because her father, thomas magnus, continued to urge us with a chuckle: "do eat, please, mr. toppi. why do you not drink, mr. wondergood? the wine is splendid." in the course of what followed: . she breathed-- . she blinked-- . she ate-- and she was a beautiful girl, about eighteen years of age, and her dress was white and her throat bare. it was really laughable. i gazed at her bare neck and--believe me, my earthly friend: i am not easily seduced, i am not a romantic youth, but i am not old by any means, i am not at all bad looking, i enjoy an independent position in the world and--don't you like the combination: satan and _maria_? _maria_ and satan! in evidence of the seriousness of my intentions i can submit at that moment i thought more of _our_ descendants and sought a name for _our_ first-born than indulged in frivolity. suddenly toppi's adam's apple gave a jerk and he inquired hoarsely: "has any one ever painted your portrait, signorina?" "maria never poses for painters!" broke in magnus sternly. i felt like laughing at the fool toppi. i had already opened wide my mouth, filled with a set of first-class american teeth, when maria's pure gaze pierced my eyes and everything flew to the devil,--as in that moment of the railway catastrophe! you understand: she turned me inside out, like a stocking--or how shall i put it? my fine parisian costume was driven inside of me and my still finer thoughts which, however, i would not have wanted to convey to the lady, suddenly appeared upon the surface. with all my secrecy i was left no more sealed than a room in a fifteen cent lodging house. but she _forgave_ me, said nothing and threw her gaze like a projector in the direction of toppi, illumining his entire body. you, too, would have laughed had you seen how this poor old devil was set aglow and aflame by this gaze--clear from the prayer book to the fishbone with which he nearly choked to death. fortunately for both of us magnus arose and invited us to follow him into the garden. "come, let us go into the garden," said he. "maria will show you her favorite flowers." yes, maria! but seek no songs of praise from me, oh poet! i was mad! i was as provoked as a man whose closet has just been ransacked by a burglar. i wanted to gaze at maria but was compelled to look upon the foolish flowers--because i dared not lift my eyes. i am a gentleman and cannot appear before a lady without a necktie. i was seized by a curious humility. do you like to feel humble? i do not. i do not know what maria said. but i swear by eternal salvation--her gaze, and her entire uncanny countenance was the embodiment of an all-embracing meaning so that any wise word i might have uttered would have sounded meaningless. the wisdom of words is necessary only for those poor in spirit. the right are silent. take note of that, little poet, sage and eternal chatterbox, wherever you may be. let it be sufficient for you that i have humbled myself to speak. ah, but i have forgotten my humility! she walked and i and toppi crawled after her. i detested myself and this broad-backed toppi because of his hanging nose and large, pale ears. what was needed here was an apollo and not a pair of ordinary americans. we felt quite relieved when she had gone and we were left alone with magnus. it was all so sweet and simple! toppi abandoned his religious airs and i crossed my legs comfortably, lit a cigar, and fixed my steel-sharp gaze upon the whites of magnus's eyes. "you must be off to rome, mr. wondergood. they are probably worrying about you," said our host in a tone of loving concern. "i can send toppi," i replied. he smiled and added ironically: "i hardly think that would be sufficient, mr. wondergood!" i sought to clasp his great white hand but it did not seem to move closer. but i caught it just the same, pressed it warmly and he was compelled to return the pressure! "very well, signor magnus! i am off at once!" i said. "i have already sent for the carriage," he replied. "is not the campagna beautiful in the morning?" i again took a polite look at the country-side and said with emotion: "yes, it is beautiful! irwin, my friend, leave us for a moment. i have a few words to say to signor magnus----" toppi left and signor magnus opened wide his big sad eyes. i again tried my steel on him, and bending forward closer to his dark face, i asked: "have you ever observed _dear_ magnus, the very striking resemblance between your daughter, the signorina maria, and a certain--celebrated personage? don't you think she resembles the madonna?" "madonna?" drawled out magnus. "no, _dear_ wondergood, i haven't noticed that. i never go to church. but i fear you will be late. the roman fever----" i again seized his white hand and shook it vigorously. no, i did not tear it off. and from my eyes there burst forth again _those_ two tears: "let us speak plainly, signor magnus," said i. "i am a straightforward man and have grown to love you. do you want to come along with me and be the lord of my billions?" magnus was silent. his hand lay motionless in mine. his eyes were lowered and something dark seemed to pass over his face, then immediately to disappear. finally he said, seriously and simply: "i understand you, mr. wondergood--but i must refuse. no, i will not go with you. i have failed to tell you one thing, but your frankness and confidence in me compels me to say that i must, to a certain extent, steer clear of the police." "the roman police," i asked, betraying a slight excitement. "nonsense, we shall buy it." "no, the international," he replied. "i hope you do not think that i have committed some base crime. the trouble is not with police which can be bought. you are right, mr. wondergood, when you say that one can buy almost any one. the truth is that i can be of no use to you. what do you want me for? you love humanity and i detest it. at best i am indifferent to it. let it live and not interfere with me. leave me my maria, leave me the right and strength to detest people as i read the history of their life. leave me my campagna and that is all i want and all of which i am capable. all the oil within me has burned out, wondergood. you see before you an extinguished lamp hanging on a wall, a lamp which once--goodbye." "i do not ask your confidence, magnus," i interjected. "pardon me, you will never receive it, mr. wondergood. my name is an invention but it is the only one i can offer to my friends." to tell the truth: i liked "thomas magnus" at that moment. he spoke bravely and simply. in his face one could read stubbornness and will. this man knew the value of human life and had the mien of one condemned to death. but it was the mien of a proud, uncompromising criminal, who will never accept the ministrations of a priest! for a moment i thought: my father had many bastard children, deprived of legacy and wandering about the world. perhaps thomas magnus is one of these wanderers? and is it possible that i have met a _brother_ on this earth? very interesting. but from a purely human, business point of view, one cannot help but respect a man whose hands are steeped in blood! i saluted, changed my position, and in the humblest possible manner, asked magnus's permission to visit him occasionally and seek his advice. he hesitated but finally looked me straight in the face and agreed. "very well, mr. wondergood. you may come. i hope to hear from you things that may supplement the knowledge i glean from my books. and, by the way, mr. toppi has made an excellent impression upon my maria"---- "toppi?" "yes. she has found a striking resemblance between him and one of her favorite saints. she goes to church frequently." toppi a saint! or has his prayer book overbalanced his huge back and the fishbone in his throat. magnus gazed at me almost gently and only his thin nose seemed to tremble slightly with restrained laughter.--it is very pleasant to know that behind this austere exterior there is so much quiet and restrained merriment! it was twilight when we left. magnus followed us to the threshold, but maria remained in seclusion. the little white house surrounded by the cypress trees was as quiet and silent as we found it yesterday, but the silence was of a different character: the silence was the soul of maria. i confess that i felt rather sad at this departure but very soon came a new series of impressions, which dispelled this feeling. we were approaching rome. we entered the brightly illuminated, densely populated streets through some opening in the city wall and the first thing we saw in the eternal city was a creaking trolley car, trying to make its way through the same hole in the wall. toppi, who was acquainted with rome, revelled in the familiar atmosphere of the churches we were passing and indicated with his long finger the _remnants_ of ancient rome which seemed to be clinging to the huge wall of the new structures: just as if the latter had been bombarded with the shells of old and fragments of the missiles had clung to the bricks. here and there we came upon additional heaps of this old rubbish. above a low parapet of stone, we observed a dark shallow ditch and a large triumphal gate, half sunk in the earth. "the forum!" exclaimed toppi, majestically. our coachman nodded his head in affirmation. with every new pile of old stone and brick the fellow swelled with pride, while i longed for my new york and its skyscrapers, and tried to calculate the number of trucks that would be necessary to clear these heaps of rubbish called ancient rome away before morning. when i mentioned this to toppi he was insulted and replied: "you don't understand anything: better close your eyes and just reflect that you are in rome." i did so and was again convinced that sight is as much of an impediment to the mind as sound: not without reason are all wise folk on the earth blind and all good musicians deaf. like toppi i began to sniff the air and through my sense of smell i gathered more of rome and its horribly long and highly entertaining history than hitherto: thus a decaying leaf in the woods smells stronger than the young and green foliage. will you believe me when i say that i sensed the odor of blood and nero? but when i opened my eyes expectantly i observed a plain, everyday kiosk and a lemonade stand. "well, how do you like it?" growled toppi, still dissatisfied. "it smells----" "well, certainly it smells! it will smell stronger with every hour: these are old, strong aromas, mr. wondergood." and so it really was: the odor grew in strength. i cannot find comparisons to make it clear to you. all the sections of my brain began to move and buzz like bees aroused by smoke. it is strange, but it seems that rome is included in the archive of the silly wondergood. perhaps this is his native town? when we approached a certain populous square i sensed the clear odor of some blood relatives, which was soon followed by the conviction that i, too, have walked these streets before. have i, like toppi, previously donned the human form? ever louder buzzed the bees. my entire beehive buzzed and suddenly thousands of faces, dim and white, beautiful and horrible, began to dance before me; thousands upon thousands of voices, noises, cries, laughters and sighs nearly set me deaf. no, this was no longer a beehive: it was a huge, fiery smithy, where firearms were being forged with the red sparks flying all about. iron! of course, if i had lived in rome before, i must have been one of its emperors: i _remember_ the expression of my face. i remember the movement of my bare neck as i turn my head. i remember the touch of golden laurels upon my bald head--iron! ah, i hear the steps of the iron legions of rome. i hear the iron voices: "vivat cæsar!" i am hot. i am burning. or was i not an emperor but simply one of the "victims" when rome burned down in accordance with the magnificent plan of nero? no, this is not a fire. this is a funeral pyre on which i am forcibly esconsced. i hear the snake-like hissing of the tongues of flame beneath my feet. i strain my neck, all lined with blue veins, and in my throat there rises the final curse--or blessing? think of it: i even remember that roman face in the front row of spectators, which even then gave me no rest because of its idiotic expression and sleepy eyes: i am being burned and it sleeps! "hotel 'internationale'"--cried toppi, and i opened my eyes. we were going up a hill along a quiet street, at the end of which there glowed a large structure, worthy even of new york: it was the hotel where we had previously wired for reservations. they probably thought we had perished in the wreck. my funeral pyre was extinguished. i grew as merry as a darkey who has just escaped from hard labor and i whispered to toppi: "well, toppi, and how about the madonna?" "y-yes, interesting. i was frightened at first and nearly choked to death----" "with a bone? you are silly, toppi: she is polite and did not recognize you. she simply took you for one of her saints. it is a pity, old boy, that we have chosen for ourselves these solemn, american faces: had we looked around more carefully we might have found some more beautiful." "i am quite satisfied with mine," said toppi sadly, and turned away. a glow of secret self-satisfaction appeared upon his long, shiny nose. ah, toppi, ah, the saint! but we were already being accorded a triumphal reception. february . rome, hotel "internationale." i do not want to go to magnus. i am thinking too much of his madonna of flesh and bone. i have come here to lie and to play merrily and i am not at all taken by the prospect of being a mediocre actor, who weeps behind the scenes and appears on the stage with his eyes perfectly dry. moreover, i have no time to gad about the fields catching butterflies with a net like a boy. the whole of rome is buzzing about me. i am an extraordinary man, who loves his fellow beings and i am celebrated. the mobs who flock to worship me are no less numerous than those who worship the vicar of christ himself, two popes all at once.--yes, happy rome cannot consider itself an orphan! i am now living at the hotel, where all is aquiver with ecstacy when i put my shoes outside my door for the night, but they are renovating a palace for me: the historic villa orsini. painters, sculptors and poets are kept busy. one brush-pusher is already painting my portrait, assuring me that i remind him of one of the medicis. the other brush-pushers are sharpening their knives for him. i ask him: "and can you paint a madonna?" certainly he can. it was he, if the signor recollects, who painted the famous turk on the cigarette boxes, the turk whose fame is known even in america. and now three brush-pushers are painting madonnas for me. the rest are running about rome seeking models. i said to one, in my barbarous, american ignorance of the higher arts: "but if you find such a model, signor, just bring her to me. why waste paint and canvas?" he was evidently pained and mumbled: "ah, signor--a model?" i think he took me for a merchant in "live stock." but, fool, why do i need your aid for which i must pay a commission, when my ante-chamber is filled with a flock of beauties? they all worship me. i remind them of savanarola, and they seek to transform every dark corner in my drawing room, and every soft couch into a confessional. i am so glad that these society ladies, like the painters, know so well the history of their country and realize who i am. the joy of the roman papers on finding that i did not perish in the wreck and lost neither my legs nor my billions, was equal to the joy of the papers of jerusalem on the day of the resurrection of christ--in reality there was little cause for satisfaction on the part of the latter, as far as i am able to read history. i feared that i might remind the journalists of j. cæsar, but fortunately they think little of the past and confined themselves to pointing out my resemblance to president wilson. scoundrels! they were simply flattering my american patriotism. to the majority, however, i recall a prophet, but they do not know which one. on this point they are modestly silent. at any rate it is not mahomet: my opposition to marriage is well known at all telegraph stations. it is difficult to imagine the filth on which i fed my hungry interviewers. like an experienced swine-herd, i gaze with horror on the mess they feed upon. they eat and yet they live. although, i must admit, i do not see them growing fat! yesterday morning i flew in an aeroplane over rome and the campagna. you will probably ask whether i saw maria's home? no. i did not find it: how can one find a grain of sand among a myriad of other grains--but i really did not look for it: i felt horror-stricken at the great altitude. but my good interviewers, restless and impatient, were astounded by my coolness and courage. one fellow, strong, surly and bearded, who reminded me of hannibal, was the first to reach me after the flight, and asked: "did not the sensation of flying in the air, mr. wondergood, the feeling of having conquered the elements, thrill you with a sense of pride in man, who has subdued----" he repeated the question: they don't seem to trust me, somehow, and are always suggesting the proper answers. but i shrugged my shoulders and exclaimed sadly: "can you imagine signor--no! only once did i have a sense of pride in men and that was--in the lavatory on board the 'atlantic.'" "oh! in the lavatory! but what happened? a storm, and you were astounded by the genius of man, who has subdued----" "nothing extraordinary happened. but i was astounded by the genius of man who managed to create a palace out of such a disgusting necessity as a lavatory." "oh!" "a real temple, in which one is the arch priest!" "permit me to make a note of that. it is such an original--illumination of the problem----" and to-day the whole eternal city was feeding on this sally. not only did they not request me to leave the place, but on the contrary, this was the day of the first official visits to my apartments: something on the order of a minister of state, an ambassador or some other palace chef came and poured sugar and cinnamon all over me as if i were a pudding. later in the day i returned the visits: it is not very pleasant to keep such things. need i say that i have a nephew? every american millionaire has a nephew in europe. my nephew's name is also wondergood. he is connected with some legation, is very correct in manners and his bald spot is so oiled that my kiss could serve me as a breakfast were i fond of scented oil. but one must be willing to sacrifice something, especially the gratification of a sense of smell. the kiss cost me not a cent, while it meant a great deal to the young man. it opened for him a wide credit on soap and perfumery. but enough! when i look at these ladies and gentlemen and reflect that they are just as they were at the court of aschurbanipal and that for the past years the pieces of silver received by judas continue to bear interest, like his kiss--i grow bored with this old and threadbare play. ah, i want a great play. i seek originality and talent. i want beautiful lines and bold strokes. this company here casts me in the rôle of an old brass band conductor. at times i come to the conclusion that it wasn't really worth my while to have undertaken such a long journey for the sake of this old drivel--to exchange ancient, magnificent and multi-colored hell for its miserable replica. in truth, i am sorry that magnus and his madonna refused to join me--we would have played a little--just a little! i have had but one interesting morning. in fact i was quite excited. the congregation of a so-called "free" church, composed of very serious men and women, who insist upon worshipping in accordance with the dictates of their conscience, invited me to deliver a sunday sermon. i donned a black frock coat, which gave me a close resemblance to--toppi, went through a number of particularly expressive gestures before my mirror and was driven in an automobile, like a prophet--moderne, to the service. i took as my subject or "text" jesus' advice to the rich youth to distribute his wealth among the poor--and in not more than half an hour, i demonstrated as conclusively as and make , that love of one's neighbor is the all important thing. like a practical and careful american, however, i pointed out that it was not necessary to try and go after the whole of the kingdom of heaven at one shot and to distribute one's wealth carelessly; that one can buy it up in lots on the instalment plan and by easy payments. the faces of the faithful bore a look of extreme concentration. they were apparently figuring out something and came to the conclusion that on the basis i suggested, the kingdom of heaven was attainable for the pockets of all of them. unfortunately, a number of my quick-witted compatriots were present in the congregation. one of them was about to rise to his feet to propose the formation of a stock company, when i realized the danger and frustrated this plan by letting loose a fountain of emotion, and thus extinguished his religiously practical zeal! what did i not talk about? i wept for my sad childhood, spent in labor and privation; i whined about my poor father who perished in a match factory. i prayed solemnly for all my brothers and sisters in christ. the swamp i created was so huge that the journalists caught enough wild ducks to last them for six months. how we wept! i shivered with the dampness and began to beat energetically the drum of my billions: dum-dum! everything for others, not a cent for me: dum-dum! with a brazenness worthy of the whip i concluded "with the words of the great teacher:" "come ye unto me all who are heavy-laden and weary and i will comfort ye!" ah, what a pity i cannot perform miracles! a little practical miracle, something on the order of transforming a bottle of water into one of sour chianti or some of the worshippers into pastry, would have gone a long way at that moment.--you laugh and are angry, my earthy reader? there is no reason for you to act thus. remember only that the _extraordinary_ cannot be expressed in your ventriloquist language and that my words are merely a cursed mask for my thoughts. maria! you will read of my success in the newspapers. there was one fool, however, who almost spoiled my day for me: he was a member of the salvation army. he came to see me and suggested that i immediately take up a trumpet and lead the army into battle--they were too cheap laurels he offered and i drove him out. but toppi--he was triumphantly silent all the way home and finally he said very respectfully: "you were in fine mettle to-day, mr. wondergood. i even wept. it is a pity that neither magnus nor his daughter heard you preach, she--she would have changed her opinion of us." you understand, of course, that i felt like kicking this admirer out of the carriage! i again felt in the pupils of my eyes the piercing sting of hers. the speed with which i was again turned inside out and spread out on a plate for the public's view is equal only to that with which an experienced waiter opens a can of conserves. i drew my top hat over my eyes, raised the collar of my coat and looking very much like a tragedian just hissed off the stage, i rode silently, and without acknowledging the greetings showered upon me, i proceeded to my apartments. ah, that gaze of maria! and how could i have acknowledged the greetings when i had no cane with me? i have declined all of to-day's invitations and am at home: i am engaged in "religious meditation"--this was how toppi announced it to the journalists. he has really begun to respect me. before me are whiskey and champagne. i am slowly filling up on the liquor while from the dining hall below come the distant strains of music. my wondergood was apparently considerable of a drunkard and every night he drags me to the wineshop, to which i interpose no objection. what's the difference? fortunately his intoxication is of a merry kind and we make quite a pleasant time of it. at first we cast our dull eyes over the furniture and involuntarily begin to calculate the value of all this bronze, these carpets, venetian mirrors, etc. "a trifle!" we agree, and with peculiar self-satisfaction we lose ourselves in the contemplation of our own billions, of our power and our remarkable wisdom and character. our bliss increases with each additional glass. with peculiar pleasure we wallow in the cheap luxury of the hotel, and--think of it!--i am actually beginning to have a liking for bronze, carpets, glass and stones. my puritan toppi condemns luxury. it reminds him of sodom and gommorah. but it is difficult for me to part with these little emotional pleasures. how silly of me! we continue to listen dully and half-heartedly to the music and venture to whistle some accompaniments. we add a little contemplation on the decollete of the ladies and then, with our step still firm, we proceed to our resting room. but we were just ready for bed when suddenly i felt as if some one had struck me a blow and i was immediately seized with a tempest of tears, of love and sadness. the extraordinary suddenly found expression. i grew as broad as space, as deep as eternity and i embraced all in a single breath! but, oh, what sadness! oh, what love, maria! but i am nothing more than a subterranean lake in the belly of wondergood and my storms in no way disturb his firm tread. i am only a solitaire in his stomach, of which he seeks to rid himself! we ring for the servants. "soda!" i am simply drunk. arrivederci, signor, buona notte! february , . rome, hotel "internationale." yesterday i visited magnus. i was compelled to wait long for him, in the garden, and when he did appear he was so cold and indifferent that i felt like leaving. i observed a few gray hairs in his black beard. i had not noticed them before. was maria unwell? i appeared concerned. everything here is so uncertain that on leaving a person for one hour one may have to seek him in eternity." "maria is well, thank you," replied magnus, frigidly. he seemed surprised as if my question were presumptuous and improper. "and how are your affairs, mr. wondergood? the roman papers are filled with news of you. you are scoring a big success." with pain aggravated by the absence of maria, i revealed to magnus my disappointment and my ennui. i spoke well, not without wit and sarcasm. i grew more and more provoked by his lack of attention and interest, plainly written on his pale and weary face. not once did he smile or venture to put any questions, but when i reached the story of my "nephew" he frowned in displeasure and said: "fie! this is a cheap variety farce! how can you occupy yourself with such trifles, mr. wondergood?" i replied angrily: "but it is not i who am occupying myself with them, signor magnus!" "and how about the interviews? what about that flight of yours? you should drive them away. this humbles your...three billions. and is it true that you delivered some sort of a sermon?" the joy of play forsook me. unwilling as magnus was to listen to me, i told him all about my sermon and those credulous fools who swallowed sacrilege as they do marmalade. "and did you expect anything different, mr. wondergood?" "i expected that they would fall upon me with clubs for my audacity: when i sacrilegiously bandied about the words of the testament...." "yes, they are beautiful words," agreed magnus. "but didn't you know that all their worship of god and all their faith are nothing but sacrilege? when they term a wafer the body of christ, while some sixtus or pius reigns undisturbed, and with the approval of all catholics as the vicar of christ, why should not you, an american from illinois, call yourself at least...his governor? this is not meant as sacrilege, mr. wondergood. these are simply allegories, highly convenient for blockheads, and you are only wasting your wrath. but when will you get down to _business_?" i threw up my hands in skillfully simulated sorrow: "i _want_ to do something, but i _know_ not what to do. i shall probably never get down to business until you, magnus, agree to come to my aid." he frowned, at his own large, motionless, white hands and then at me: "you are too credulous, mr. wondergood. this is a great fault when one has three billions. no, i am of no use to you. our roads are far apart." "but, dear magnus!..." i expected him to strike me for this gentle _dear_, which i uttered in my best possible falsetto. but i ventured to continue. with all the sweetness i managed to accumulate in rome, i looked upon the dim physiognomy of my friend and in a still gentler falsetto, i asked: "and of what nationality are you, my _dear_...signor magnus? i suspect for some reason that you are not italian?" he replied calmly: "no, i am not italian." "but where is your country?----" "my country?... omne solum liberam libero patria. i suppose you do not know latin? it means: where freedom is there is the fatherland of every free man. will you take breakfast with me?" the invitation was couched in such icy tones and maria's absence was so strongly implied therein that i was compelled to decline it politely. the devil take this man! i was not at all in a merry mood that morning. i fervently wished to weep upon his breast while he mercilessly threw cold showers upon my noblest transports. i sighed and changed my pose. i assumed a pose prepared especially for maria. speaking in a low voice, i said: "i want to be frank with you, signor magnus. my past...contains many dark pages, which i should like to redeem. i...." he quickly interrupted me: "there are dark pages in everybody's past, mr. wondergood. i myself am not so clear of reproach as to accept the confession of such a worthy gentleman." "i am a poor spiritual father," he added with a most unpleasant laugh: "_i never pardon sinners_ and, in view of that, what pleasure could there be for you in your confession. better tell me something more about your nephew. is he young?" we spoke about my nephew--and magnus smiled. a pause ensued. then magnus asked whether i had visited the vatican gallery and i bade him good-by, requesting him to transmit my compliments to maria. i confess i was a sorry sight and felt deeply indebted to magnus when he said in bidding me farewell: "do not be angry with me, mr. wondergood. i am not altogether well to-day and...am rather worried about my affairs. that's all. i hope to be more pleasant when we meet again, but be so kind as to excuse me this morning. i shall see that maria gets your compliments." if this blackbearded fellow were only _playing_, i confess i would have found a worthy partner. a dozen pickaninnies could not have licked off the honeyed expression my face assumed at magnus' promise to transmit my greetings to maria. all the way back to my hotel i smiled idiotically at the coachman's back and afterwards bestowed a kiss on toppi's brow--the canaile still maintains an odor of fur, like a young devil. "i see there was profit in your visit," said toppi significantly. "how is magnus'...daughter? you understand?" "splendid, toppi, splendid! she said that my beauty and wisdom reminded her of solomon's!" toppi smiled condescendingly at my unsuccessful jest. the honeyed expression left my face and rust and vinegar took the place of the sugar. i locked myself in my room and for a long time continued to curse satan for falling in love with a woman. you consider yourself original, my earthly friend, when you fall in love with a woman and begin to quiver all over with the fever of love. and i do not. i can see the legions of couples, from adam and eve on; i can see their kisses and caresses; i can hear the words so cursedly monotonous, and i begin to detest my own lips daring to mumble the mumbling of others, my eyes, simulating the gaze of others, my heart, surrendering obediently to the click of the lock of a house of shame. i can see all these excited animals in their groaning and their caresses and i cry with revulsion at my own mass of bones and flesh and nerves! take care, satan in human form, deceit is coming over you! won't you take maria for yourself, my earthly friend? take her. she is yours, not mine. ah, if maria were my slave, i would put a rope around her neck and would take her, naked, to the market place: who will buy? who will pay the most for this unearthly beauty? ah, do not hurt the poor blind merchant: open wide your purses, jingle louder your gold, generous gentlemen!... what, she will not go? fear not, signor, she will come and she will love you.... this is simply her maidenly modesty, sir! shall i tie the other end of the rope about her and lead her to your bed, kind sir? take the rope along with you. i charge nothing for that. only rid me of this heavenly beauty! she has the face of the radiant madonna. she is the daughter of the honorable thomas magnus and both of them are thieves: he stole his white hands and she--her pristine face! ah.... but i am beginning to play with you, dear reader? that is a mistake: i have simply taken the wrong note book. no, it is not a mistake. it is worse. i play because my loneliness is very great, very deep--i fear it has no bottom at all! i stand on the edge of an abyss and hurl words, many heavy words, into it, but they fall without a sound. i hurl into it laughter, threats and moans. i spit into it. i fling into it heaps of stones and rocks. i throw mountains into it--and still it remains silent and empty. no, really, there is no bottom to this abyss and we toil in vain, you and i, my friend! ...but i see your smile and your cunning laugh: you _understand_ why i spoke so sourly of loneliness.... ah, 'tis love! and you want to ask whether i have a mistress? yes: there are two. one is a russian countess. the other, an italian countess. they differ only in the kind of perfume they use. but this is such an immaterial matter that i love them both equally. you probably wish to ask also whether i shall ever visit magnus again? yes, i shall go to magnus. i love him very much. it matters little that his name is false and that his daughter has the audacity to resemble the madonna. i haven't enough of wondergood in me to be particular about a name--and i am too _human_ not to forgive the efforts of others to appear _divine_. i swear by eternal salvation that the one is worthy of the other! february , . rome, villa orsini. cardinal x., the closest friend and confidante of the pope, has paid me a visit. he was accompanied by two abbés. in general, he is a personage whose attentions to me have brought me no small measure of prestige. i met his eminence in the reception hall of my new palace. toppi was dancing all about the priests, snatching their blessings quicker than a lover does the kisses of his mistress. six devout hands hardly managed to handle one devil, grown pious, and before we had reached the threshold of my study, he actually contrived to touch the belly of the cardinal. what ecstasy! cardinal x. speaks all the european languages and, out of respect for the stars and stripes and my billions, he spoke english. he began the conversation by congratulating me upon the acquisition of the villa orsini and told me its history in detail for the past years. this was quite unexpected, very long, at times confusing and unintelligible, so that i was compelled, like a real american ass, to blink constantly...but this gave me an opportunity to study my distinguished and eminent visitor. he is not at all old. he is broad shouldered, well built and in good health. he has a large, almost square face, an olive skin, with a bluish tinge upon his shaven cheeks, and his thin, but beautiful hands reveal his spanish blood. before he dedicated himself to god, cardinal x. was a spanish grandee and duke. but his dark eyes are too small and too deeply set beneath his thick eyebrows and the distance between the short nose and the thin lips is too long.... all this reminds me of some one. but of whom? and what is this curious habit i have of being reminded of some one? probably a saint? for a moment the cardinal was lost in thought and suddenly i recalled: yes, this is simply a shaven _monkey_! this must be its sad, boundless pensiveness, _its_ evil gleam within the narrow pupil! but in a moment the cardinal laughed, jested and gesticulated like a neapolitan lazzarone--he was no longer telling me the history of the palace. he was playing, he was interpreting it in facial expression and dramatic monologue! he has short fingers, not at all like those of a monkey, and when he gesticulates he rather resembles a penguin while his voice reminds me of a talking parrot--who are you, anyhow? no, a monkey! he is laughing again and i observe that he really does not know how to laugh. it is as if he had learned the human art of laughter but yesterday. he likes it but experiences considerable difficulty in extracting it from his throat. the sounds seem to choke him. it is impossible not to echo this strange contagious laughter. but it seems to break one's jaws and teeth and to petrify the muscles. it was really remarkable. i was fascinated when cardinal x. suddenly cut short his lecture on the villa orsini by a fit of groaning laughter which left him calm and silent. his thin fingers played with his rosary, he remained quiet and gazed at me with a mien of deepest reverence and gentle love: something akin to tears glistened in his dark eyes. i had made an impression upon him. he loved me! what was i to do? i gazed into his square, ape-like face. kindliness turned to love, love into passion, and still we maintained the silence...another moment and i would have stifled him in my embrace! "well, here you are in rome, mr. wondergood," sweetly sang the old monkey, without altering his loving gaze. "here i am in rome," i agreed obediently, continuing to gaze upon him with the same sinful passion. "and do you know, mr. wondergood, why i came here, i.e., in addition, of course, to the pleasure i anticipated in making your acquaintance?" i thought and with my gaze unchanged, replied: "for money, your eminence?" the cardinal shook, as though flapping his wings, laughed, and slapped his knee--and again lost himself in loving contemplation of my nose. this dumb reverence, to which i replied with redoubled zest, began to wield a peculiar influence upon me. i purposely tell you all this in detail in order that you may understand my wish at that moment: to begin cavorting about, to sing like a cock, to tell my best arkansas anecdote, or simply to invite his eminence to remove his regalia and play a game of poker! "your eminence...." "i love americans, mr. wondergood." "your eminence! in arkansas they tell a story...." "ah, i see, you want to get down to business? i understand your impatience. money matters should never be postponed. is that not so?" "it depends entirely upon one's concern in these matters, your eminence." the square face of the cardinal grew serious, and in his eyes there gleamed for a moment a ray of loving reproach: "i hope you are not vexed at my long dissertation, mr. wondergood. i love so much the history of our great city that i could not forego the pleasure...the things you see before you are not rome. there is no rome, mr. wondergood. once upon a time it was the eternal city, but to-day it is simply a large city and the greater it grows the further it is from eternity. where is that great spirit which once illumined it?" i shall not narrate to you all the prattle of this purple parrot, his gently-cannibal look, his grimaces and his laughter. all that the old shaven monkey told me when it finally grew weary was: "your misfortune is that you love your fellow beings too much...." "love your neighbor...." "well, let neighbors love each other. go on teaching that but why do _you_ want to do it? when one loves too well one is blind to the shortcomings of the beloved and still worse: one elevates these faults to virtues. how can you reform people and make them happy without realizing their shortcomings or by ignoring their vices? when one loves, one pities and pity is the death of power. you see, i am quite frank with you, mr. wondergood, and i repeat: love is weakness. love will get the money out of your pocket and will squander it...on rouge! leave love to the lower classes. let them love each other. demand it of them, but you, you have risen to greater heights, gifted with such power!..." "but what can i do, your eminence? i am at a loss to understand it all. from my childhood on, especially in church, i have had it drummed into me that one must love his neighbor, and i believed it. and so...." the cardinal grew pensive. like laughter, pensiveness was becoming to him and rendered his square face immovable, filling it with dignity and lonely grief. leaning forward with his lips compressed and supporting his chin upon his hand, he fixed his sharp, sleepy eyes upon me. there was much sorrow in them. he seemed to be waiting for the conclusion of my remark, and not having patience to do so, sighed and blinked. "childhood, yes"...he mumbled, still blinking sorrowfully. "children, yes. but you are no longer a child. forget this lesson. you must acquire the heavenly gift of forgetfulness, you know." he gnashed his white teeth and significantly scratched his nose with his thin finger, continuing seriously: "but it's all the same, mr. wondergood. you, yourself cannot accomplish much.... yes, yes! one must _know_ people to make them happy. isn't that your noble aim? but the church alone _knows_ people. she has been a mother and teacher for thousands of years. her _experience_ is the only one worth while, and, i may say, the only reliable one. as far as i know your career, mr. wondergood, you are an experienced cattle man. and you know, of course, what _experience_ means even in the matter of handling such simple creatures as...." "as swine...." he was startled--and suddenly began to bark, to cough, to whine: he was laughing again. "swine? that's fine, that's splendid, mr. wondergood, but do not forget that one finds the devil, too, in swine!" ceasing his laughter he proceeded: "in teaching others, we learn ourselves. i do not contend that all the methods of education and training employed by the church were equally successful. no, we often made mistakes, but every one of our mistakes served to improve our methods...we are approaching perfection, mr. wondergood, we are approaching perfection!" i hinted at the rapid growth of rationalism which, it seemed to me, threatened to destroy the "perfection" of the church, but cardinal x. again flapped his wings and almost screeched with laughter. "rationalism! you are a most talented humorist, mr. wondergood! tell me, was not the celebrated mark twain a countryman of yours? yes, yes! rationalism! just think a moment. from what root is this word derived and what does it mean--_ratio_? _an nescis, mi filis quantilla sapientia rigitur orbis?_ ah, my dear wondergood! to speak of ratio on this earth is more out of place than it would be to speak of a rope in the home of a man who has just been hanged!" i watched the old monkey enjoying himself and i enjoyed myself too. i studied this mixture of a monkey, parrot, penguin, fox, wolf--and what not? and it was really funny: i love merry suicides. for a long time we continued our fun at the expense of _ratio_ until his eminence calmed himself and assumed the tone of a teacher: "as anti-semitism is the socialism of fools...." "and are you familiar...?" "i told you we are approaching perfection!... so is rationalism the wisdom of fools. the wise man goes further. the ratio constitutes the holiday dress of a fool. it is the coat he dons in the presence of others, but he really lives, sleeps, works, loves and dies without any ratio at all. do you fear death, mr. wondergood?" i did not feel like replying and remained silent. "you need not feel ashamed, mr. wondergood: one should fear death. as long as there is _death_...." the features of the monkey's face suddenly contracted and in his eyes there appeared horror and wrath: as if some one had seized him by the back of his neck and thrust him into the darkness and terror of a primeval forest. he _feared_ death and his terror was dark, evil and boundless. i needed no words of explanation and no other evidence: one look upon this distorted, befogged and confused _human_ face was sufficient to compel reverence for the great irrational! and how weak is _their_ steadiness: my wondergood also grew pale and cringed...ah, the rogue! he was _now_ seeking protection and help from me! "will you have some wine, your eminence?" but his eminence was himself again. he curved his thin lips into a smile and shook his head in the negative. and suddenly he broke out again with surprising fury: "and as long as there is death, the church is unshakable! let all of you who seek to undermine her, tear her, and blow her up--you cannot conquer her. and even if you should succeed in destroying her, the first to perish beneath her ruins would be yourselves. who will then defend you against death? who will give you sweet faith in immortality, in eternal life, in everlasting bliss?... believe me, mr. wondergood, the world is not seeking your ratio. it is all a misunderstanding!" "but what does it seek, your eminence?" "what does it want? _mundus vult decipi_...you know our latin? the world wants to be fooled!" and the old monkey again grew merry, begun to wink, to beam with satisfaction, slapped his knee and burst into laughter. i also laughed. the rascal was so funny! "and is it you," said i, "who wants to fool it?" the cardinal again grew serious and replied sadly: "the holy see needs funds, mr. wondergood. the world, while it has not grown rational, has become weaker in its faith and it is somewhat difficult to manage it." he signed and continued: "you are not a socialist, mr. wondergood? ah, do not be ashamed. we are all socialists now. we are all on the side of the hungry: the more satisfied they will be, the more they will fear _death_. you understand?" he flung out his arms and drew them in again, like a net filled with fish and said: "we are fishermen, mr. wondergood, humble fishermen!... and tell me: do you regard the desire for _liberty_ as a virtue or a vice?" "the entire civilized world regards the desire for liberty as a virtue," i replied angrily. "i expected no other reply from a citizen of the united states. but don't you personally believe that he who will give man limitless _freedom_ will also bring him _death_? _death_ alone releases all earthly ties. and don't you regard the words 'freedom' and 'death' as synonymous?" "i speak of political liberty." "of political liberty? oh, we have no objection to that. you can have as much as you please of that! of course, provided men themselves ask for it. are you sure they really want it? if they do, please help yourself! it is all nonsense and calumny to say that the holy see is in favor of reaction.... i had the honor to be present on the balcony of the vatican when his holiness blessed the first french aëroplane that appeared over rome, and the next pope, i am sure, will gladly bless the barricades. the time of galileo has passed, mr. wondergood, and we all know now that the earth does move!" he drew a circle in the air with his finger, indicating the revolution of the earth. i said: "you must permit me to think over your proposal, your eminence." cardinal x. jumped up from his chair and gently touched my shoulder with two of his aristocratic fingers: "oh, i am not hurrying you, my good mr. wondergood. it was you who were hurrying me. i am even convinced that you will at first refuse me, but when, after some little experience, you will have realized the real _needs_ of man.... i, too, love man, mr. wondergood, to be sure, not so passionately and...." he departed with the same grimaces, bearing himself with dignity and dispensing blessings all about him. i saw him again through the window at the entrance of the palace, while the coachman was bringing up the carriage: he was speaking into the ear of one of his abbés, whose face resembled a black plate. the cardinal's countenance no longer reminded me of a monkey: it was rather the face of a shaven, hungry, tired lion. this able actor needed no dressing room for his make-up! behind him stood a tall lackey, all dressed in black, reminding one of an english baronet. whenever his eminence turned about in his direction, he would respectfully lift his faded silk hat. * * * * * following the departure of his eminence i was surrounded by a merry group of friends, with whom i had filled the spare rooms of my palace for the purpose of alleviating my loneliness and ennui. toppi looked proud and happy: he was so satiated with blessings that he fairly bulged. the artists, decorators and others--whatever you call them--were greatly impressed by the cardinal's visit, and spoke with much glee of the remarkable expression of his face and the grandeur of his manner! the pope himself.... but when i remarked with the naïveté of a redskin that he reminded me of a monkey, the shrewd canailes burst into loud laughter and one of them immediately sketched a portrait of cardinal x.--in a cage. i am not a moralist to judge other people for their petty sins: they will get what is due them on their judgment day--and i was much pleased by the cleverness of the laughing beasts. they do not appear to have much faith in _love_ for one's _fellow beings_ and if i should rummage about among their drawings, i would probably find a pretty good sketch of the ass wondergood. i like that. i find relief in communion with my little, pleasant sinners, from the babbling of the great and disagreeable saints...whose hands are covered with blood. then toppi asked me: "and how much does he want?" "he wants all!" toppi said with determination: "don't you give him all. he promised to make me a prelate, but, all the same, don't you give him all. one should save his money." every day i have unpleasant experiences with toppi: people are constantly foisting counterfeit coin on him. when they first gave him some, he was greatly perturbed and was impressed with what i said to him. "you really astonish me, toppi," i said, "it is ridiculous for an old devil like you to accept counterfeit money from human beings, and allow yourself to be fooled. you ought to be ashamed of yourself, toppi. i fear you will make a beggar of me." now, however, toppi, entangled in the mesh of the counterfeit and the genuine, seeks to preserve both the one and the other: he is quite clever in money matters and the cardinal tried in vain to bribe him. toppi--a prelate!... but the shaven monkey does really want my three billions. apparently the belly of the holy see is rumbling with hunger. i gazed long at the well executed caricature of the cardinal and the longer i gazed, the less i liked it: no, there was something missing. the artist had sensed the ridiculous pretty well, but i do not see that fire of spite and malice which is in constant play beneath the gray ashes of terror. the bestial and the human is here, but it is not molded into that _extraordinary_ mask which, now that a long distance separates me from the cardinal and i no longer hear his heavy laughter, is beginning to exercise a most disagreeable influence over me. or is it because the extraordinary is inexpressible through pencil? in reality he is a cheap rascal, no better than a plain pickpocket, and told me nothing new: he is human enough and wise enough to cultivate that contemptuous laughter of his at the expense of the rational. but he revealed _himself_ to me and do not take offense at my american rudeness, dear reader: somewhere behind his broad shoulders, cringing with terror, there gleamed also your dear countenance. it was like a dream, you understand: it was as if some one were strangling you, and you, in stifled voice, cried to heaven: murder! police! ah, you do not know that _third_, which is neither life nor death, and i know _who_ it was that was strangling you with his bony fingers! but do i know? oh, laugh at him who is laughing at you, comrade. i fear your turn is coming to have some fun at my expense. do i know? i came to you from the innermost depths, merry and serene, blessed in the consciousness of my immortality.... and i am already hesitating. i am already trembling before this shaven monkey's face which dares to express its own low horror in such audaciously grand style: ah, i have not even sold my immortality: i have simply crushed it in my sleep, as does a foolish mother her newborn babe. it has simply faded beneath your sun and rains. it has become a transparent cloth without design, unfit to cover the nakedness of a respectable gentleman! this reeking wondergood swamp in which i am submerged to my eyes, envelops me with mire, befogs my consciousness and stifles me with the unbearable odors of decay. when do you usually begin to decay, my friend: on the second, the third day or does it depend upon the climate? i am already in the process of decay, and i am nauseated by the odor of my entrails. or are you so used to the work of the _worms_ that you take it for the elevation of thought and inspiration? my god, i forgot that i may have some fair readers, too! i most humbly beg your pardon, worthy folk, for this uncalled for discussion of odors. i am a most unpleasant conversationalist, milady, and as a perfumer i am worse...no, still worse: i am a disgusting mixture of satan and an american bear, and i know not how to appreciate your good taste.... no, i am still satan! i still know that i am immortal and when my will shall command me i will strangle myself with my own bony fingers. but if i _should forget_? then i shall distribute my wealth among the poor and with you, my friend, shall crawl up to the old shaven monkey. i shall cling with my american face to his soft slipper, emitting blessings. i shall weep. i shall rave with horror: "save me from death!" and the old monkey, brushing the hair from his face, reclining comfortably, gleaming with a holy light, illuminating all about it--and itself trembling with fear and horror--will hastily continue to fool the world, the world which so loves to be fooled! but i am jesting. i wish to be serious now. i like cardinal x. and i shall permit him to begild himself with my gold. i am weary. i must sleep. my bed and wondergood await me. i shall extinguish the light and in the darkness i shall listen for a moment to the clicking of the counting machine within my breast. and then will come the great pianist, a drunken genius, and begin drumming upon the black keys of my brain. he knows everything and has forgotten everything, this ingenious drunkard, and confuses the most inspiring landscapes with a swamp. that is--a dream. ii february . rome, villa orsini. magnus was not at home. i was received by maria. a glorious peace has suddenly descended upon me. in wondrous calm i breathe at this moment. like a schooner, its sails lowered, i doze in the midday heat of the slumbering ocean. not a stir. not a ripple. i fear to move or to open wide my eyes, dazzled by the rays of the sun. i breathe silently, and i would not rouse the slightest wave upon the boundless smoothness of the sea. and quietly i lay down my pen. february . villa orsini. thomas magnus was not at home and, to my great surprise, i was received by maria. i do not suppose you would be interested in how i greeted her and what i mumbled in the first few moments of our meeting. i can only say that i mumbled and that i felt a strong impulse to laugh. i could not lift my eyes to gaze upon maria until my thoughts cast off their soiled garb and donned clean attire. as you see, i did not lose consciousness altogether! but in vain did i take these precautions: _that_ torture did not follow. maria's gaze was clear and simple and it contained neither searching, penetrating fire nor fatal forgiveness. it was calm and clear, like the sky of the campagna and--i do not know how it happened--it penetrated my entire being. she met me in the garden. we sat down by the gate, from which vantage point we had a good view of the campagna. when you gaze at the campagna you cannot prattle nonsense. no, it was she who gazed at the campagna and i gazed into her eyes--clear to the seventh sky, where you end the count of your heavens. we were silent or--if you regard the following as conversation--we spoke: "are those mountains?" "yes, those are the mountains of albania. and there--is tivoli." she picked out little white houses in the distance and pointed them out to me and i felt a peculiar calm and joy in maria's gaze. the suspicious resemblance of maria to the madonna no longer troubled me: how can i possibly be troubled by the fact that you resemble _yourself_? and came a moment when a great peace of mind descended upon _me_. i have no words of comparison whereby to reveal to you that great and bright calm.... i am forever conjuring up before me that accursed schooner with its lowered sails, on which i never really sailed, for i am afraid of seasickness! or is it because on this night of my loneliness, my road is being illuminated by the _star of the seas_? well, yes, i was a schooner, if you so desire it, and if this is not agreeable to you i was _all_. besides i was _nothing_. you see what nonsense emerges out of all this talk when wondergood begins to seek words and comparisons. i was so calm that i even soon began to gaze into maria's eyes: i simply _believed_ them. this is deeper than mere gazing. when necessary i shall find those eyes again. in the meantime i shall remain a schooner with sails lowered. i shall be _all_ and i shall be _nothing_. only once did a slight breeze stir my sails, but only for a moment: that was when maria pointed out the tiberian road to me, cutting the green hills like a white thread, and asked whether i had ever traversed it before. "yes, occasionally, signorina." "i often gaze upon this road and think that it must be extremely pleasant to traverse it by automobile." "have you a swift car, signor?" "oh, yes, signorina, very swift! but those," i continued in gentle reproach, "who are themselves limitless distances and endlessness are in no need of any movement." maria and an automobile! a winged angel entering a trolley car for the sake of speed! a swallow riding on a turtle! an arrow on the humpy back of a hod carrier! ah, all comparisons lie: why speak of swallows and arrows, why speak of any movement for maria, who embraces all distances! but it is only now that i thought of the trolley and the turtle. at that time i felt so calm and peaceful, i was deep in such bliss that i could think of nothing except that countenance of eternity and undying light! a great calm came upon me on that day and nothing could disturb my endless bliss. it was not long before thomas magnus returned, and a flying fish, gleaming for a moment above the ocean, could no more disturb its blue smoothness than did magnus disturb me. i _received_ him into my heart. i swallowed him calmly and felt no heavier burden in my stomach than a whale does after swallowing a herring. it was gratifying to find magnus hospitable and merry. he pressed my hand and his eyes were bright and kind. even his face seemed less pale and not as weary as usual. i was invited to breakfast...lest it worry you, let me say right now that i remained until late in the evening. when maria had retired i told magnus of the visit of cardinal x. his merry face darkened slightly and in his eyes appeared his former hostile flame. "cardinal x.? he _came_ to see you?" i narrated to him in detail my conversation with "the shaven monkey," and remarked that he had impressed me as a scoundrel of no small caliber. magnus frowned and said sternly: "you laugh in vain, mr. wondergood. i have long known cardinal x. and...i have been keeping a close eye on him. he is evil, cruel and dangerous. despite his ridiculous exterior, he is as cunning, merciless and revengeful as satan!" and you, too, magnus! like satan! this blue-faced, shaven orang-outang, this caressing gorilla, this monkey cavorting before a looking-glass! but i have exhausted my capacity for insult. magnus' remark fell like a stone to the bottom of my bliss. i listened further: "his flirting with the socialists, his jokes at the expense of galileo are all lies. just as the enemies of cromwell hanged him after his death, so would cardinal x. burn the bones of galileo with immense satisfaction: to this day he regards the movement of the earth as a personal affront. it is an old school, mr. wondergood; he will stop at nothing to overcome obstacles, be it poison or murder, which he will take care to attribute to the misfortune of accident. you smile but i cannot discuss the vatican smilingly, not so long as it contains such...and it will always produce some one like cardinal x. look out, mr. wondergood: you have landed within the sphere of his vision and interests, and, let me assure you, that scores of eyes are now watching you...perhaps me, too. be on your guard, my friend!" magnus was quite excited. fervently i shook his hand: "ah, magnus!... but when will you agree to help me?" "but you know that i do not like human beings. it is _you_ who loves them mr. wondergood, not i." a gleam of irony appeared in his eyes. "the cardinal says that it is not at all necessary to love people in order to be happy.... the contrary, he says!" "and who told you that i want to make people happy? again, it is _you_ who wants to do that, not i. hand over your billions to cardinal x. his recipe for happiness is not worse than other patent medicines. to be sure, his recipe has one disadvantage: while dispensing _happiness_ it destroys _people_...but is that important? you are too much of a business man, mr. wondergood, and i see that you are not sufficiently familiar with the world of our inventors of the best means for the happiness of mankind: these means are more numerous than the so-called best tonics for the growth of hair. i myself was a dreamer at one time and invented one or two in my youth...but i was short on chemistry and badly singed my hair in an explosion. i am very glad i did not come across your billions in _those_ days. i am joking, mr. wondergood, but if you wish to be serious, here is my answer: keep on growing and multiplying your hogs, make four of your three billions, continue selling your conserves, provided they are not too rotten, and cease worrying about the happiness of mankind. as long as the world likes good ham it will not deny you its love and admiration!" "and how about those who have no means to buy ham?" "what do you care about them? it is their belly--pardon me for the expression--that is rumbling with hunger, not yours. i congratulate you upon your new home: i know the villa orsini very well. it is a magnificent relic of old rome." i balked at the prospect of another lecture on my palace! yes, magnus had again shoved me aside. he did it brusquely and roughly. but his voice lacked sternness and he gazed at me softly and kindly. well, what of it? to the devil with humanity, its happiness and its ham! i shall try later to bore an entrance into magnus' brain. in the meantime leave me alone with my great peace and...maria. boundless peace and...satan!--isn't that a splendid touch in my play? and what kind of a liar is he who can fool only others? to lie to oneself and believe it--that is an art! after breakfast all _three_ of us walked over the downy hills and slopes of the campagna. it was still early spring and only little white flowers gently brightened the young, green earth. a soft breeze diffused the scents of the season, while little houses gleamed in distant albano. maria walked in front of us, stopping now and then and casting her heavenly eyes upon everything they could envisage. when i return to rome i shall order my brush-pusher to paint madonna thus: on a carpet of soft green and little white flowers. magnus was so frank and merry that i again drew his attention to maria's resemblance to the madonna and told him of the miserable brush-pushers in search of a model. he laughed, agreed with me in my opinion of the aforementioned resemblance, and grew wistful. "it is a _fatal_ resemblance, mr. wondergood. you remember that heavy moment when i spoke to you of _blood_? already there is blood at the feet of maria...the blood of one noble youth whose memory maria and i cherish. there are fatal faces, there are fatal _resemblances_ which confuse our souls and lead to the abyss of self destruction. i am the father of maria, and yet i myself hardly dare to touch her brow with my lips. what insurmountable barriers does love raise for itself when it dares to lift its eyes upon maria?" this was the only moment of that happy day when my ocean became overcast with heavy clouds, as tangled as the beard of "mad king lear," while a wild wind shook the sails of my schooner. but i lifted my eyes to maria, i met her gaze. it was bright and calm, like the sky above us--and the wild wind disappeared without trace, bearing away with it fragments of the darkness. i do not know whether you understand these sea comparisons, which i consider quite inadequate. let me explain: i again grew quite calm. what is that noble roman youth to me, who himself unable to find _comparisons_ was hurled over the head of his pegasus? i am a white-winged schooner and beneath me is an entire ocean, and was it not written of her: the _incomparable_? the day was long and quiet and i was charmed with the precision with which the sun rolled down from its height to the rim of the earth, with the measured pace with which the stars covered the heavens, the large stars first, then the little ones, until the whole sky sparkled and gleamed. slowly grew the darkness. then came the rosy moon, at first somewhat rusty, then brilliant, and swam majestically over the road made free and warm by the sun. but more than anything else did i and magnus feel charmed when we sat in the half-darkened room and heard maria: she played the harp and sang. and listening to the strains of the harp i realized why man likes music produced by taut strings: i was myself a taut string and even when the finger no longer touched me, the sound continued to vibrate and died so slowly that i can still hear it in the depths of my soul. and suddenly i saw that the entire air was filled with taut and trembling strings: they extend from star to star, scatter themselves over the earth and penetrate my heart...like a network of telephone wires through a central station,--if you want more simple comparisons. and there was _something else_ i understood when i heard _maria's_ voice.... no, you are simply an animal, wondergood! when i recall your loud complaints against love and its songs, cursed with the curse of monotony--is that not your own expression?--i feel like sending you off to a barn. you are a dull and dirty animal and i am ashamed that for a whole hour i listened to your silly bellowing. you may hold words in contempt, you may curse your embraces, but do not touch love, my friend: only through love has it been given to you to obtain a glimpse into eternity! away, my friend! leave satan to himself, he who in the very blackest depths of man has suddenly come upon new and unexpected flames. away! you must not see the _joy_ and _astonishment_ of satan! the hour was late. the moon indicated midnight when i left magnus and ordered the chauffeur to drive by way of the numentinian road: i feared lest this great calm might slip away from me, and i wanted to overtake it in the depths of the campagna. but the speed of the car broke the silence and i left my machine. it went to sleep at once beneath the light of the moon over its own shadow and looked like a huge, gray stone barring the road. for the last time its lights gleamed upon me and it became transformed into something invisible. i was left alone with my shadow. we walked along the white road, i and my shadow, stopping occasionally and then again resuming our march. i sat down on a stone along the road and the black shadow hid behind my back. and here a great quiet descended upon the earth, upon the world. upon my chilled brow i felt the cool touch of the moon's kiss. march . rome, villa orsini. i pass my days in deep solitude. my earthly existence is beginning to trouble me. with every hour i seem to _forget_ what i have left behind the wall of _human_ things. my _eyesight_ is weakening. i can hardly see behind that wall. the shadows behind it scarcely move and i can no longer distinguish their outline. with every second my sense of _hearing_ grows duller. i hear the quiet squeak of a mouse, fussing beneath the floor but i am deaf to the thunders rolling above my head. the silence of delusion envelops me and i desperately strain my ears to catch the voices of frankness. i left them behind that impenetrable wall. with each moment _truth_ flees from me. in vain my words try to overtake it: they merely shoot by. in vain i seek to surround it in the tight embraces of my thoughts and rivet it with chains: the prison disappears like air and my embraces envelop nothing but emptiness. only yesterday it seemed to me that i had caught my prey. i imprisoned it and fastened it to the wall with a heavy chain, but when i came to view it in the morning--i found nothing but a shackled skeleton. the rusty chains dangled loosely from its neck while the skull was nodding to me in brazen laughter. you see, i am again seeking comparisons, only to have the _truth_ escape me! but what can i do when i have left all my weapons at _home_ and must resort to your poor arsenal? let god himself don this human form and he will immediately begin to speak to you in exquisite french or yiddish and he will be unable to say _more_ than it is possible to say in exquisite french or yiddish. god! and i am only satan, a modest, careless, human devil! of course, it was careless of me. but when i looked upon _your human_ life from _beyond_...no, wait: you and i have just been caught in a lie, old man! when i said from _beyond_ you understood at once it must have been very far away. yes? you may have already determined, perhaps, the approximate number of miles. have you not at your disposal a limitless number of zeros? ah, it is not true. my "_beyond_" is as close as your "_here_," and is no further away than _this_ very spot. you see what nonsense, what a lie you and i are pirouetting about! cast away your meter and your scales and only listen as if behind your back there were no ticking of a clock and in your breast there were no counting machine. and so: when i looked upon your life from _beyond_ it appeared to me a great and merry game of immortal fragments. do you know what a puppets' show is? when one doll breaks, its place is taken by another, but the play goes on. the music is not silenced, the auditors continue to applaud and it is all very interesting. does the spectator concern himself about the fate of the fragments, thrust upon the scrap heap? he simply looks on in enjoyment. so it was with me, too. i heard the beat of the drums, and watched the antics of the clowns. and i so love immortal play that i felt like becoming an actor myself. ah, i did not know then that it is not a _play_ at all. and that the scrap heap was terrible when one becomes a puppet himself and that the broken fragments reeked with blood. you deceived me, my friend! but you are astonished. you knit your brow in contempt and ask: who is this satan who does not _know_ such _simple_ things? you are accustomed to respect the devil. you listen to the commonest dog as if he were speaking ex cathedra. you have surrendered to me your last dollar as if i were a professor of white and black magic and suddenly i reveal myself an ignoramus in the most elementary matters! i understand your disappointment. i myself have grown to respect mediums and cards. i am ashamed to confess that i cannot perform a single trick or kill a bedbug by simply casting my eye upon it, but even with my finger. but what matters most to me is truth: yes, i did not know your _simplest_ things! apparently the blame for this is for that _divide_ which separates us. just as you do not know _my_ real name and cannot pronounce a simple thing like that, so i did not know _yours_, my earthly shadow, and only now, in great ecstasy do i begin to grasp the wealth that is in you. think of it: such a simple matter as counting i had to learn from wondergood. i would not even be able to button my attire if it were not for the experienced and dexterous fingers of that fine chap wondergood! now i am human, like you. the limited sensation of my being i regard as my _knowledge_ and with respect i now touch my own nose, when necessity arises: it is not merely a nose--it is an axiom! i am now myself a struggling doll in a theater of marionettes. my porcelain head moves to the right and to the left. my hands move up and down. i am merry, i am gay. i am at play. i know everything...except: whose hand it is that pulls the string behind me. and in the distance i can see the scrap heap from which protrude two little feet clad in ball slippers.... no, this is not the _play_ of the _immortal_ that i sought. it no more resembles merriment than do the convulsions of an epileptic a good negro dance! here any one is what he is and here every one seeks not to be what he is. and it is this endless process of fraud that i mistook for a merry theater: what a mistake, how silly it was of "almighty, immortal"...satan! here every one is dragging every one else to court: the living are dragging the dead, the dead--the living. the history of the former is the history of the latter. and god, too, is history! and this endless nonsense, this dirty stream of false witnesses, of perjurers, of false judges and false scoundrels i mistook for the _play_ of immortals! or have i landed in the _wrong_ place? tell me, stranger: whither does _this_ road lead? you are pale. your trembling finger points in the direction of...ah, the scrap heap! yesterday, i questioned toppi about his former life, the first time he donned the human form: i wanted to know how a doll feels when its head is cracking and the thread which moves it is severed. we lit our pipes and with steins of beer before us, like two good germans, we ventured into the realm of philosophy. it developed, however, that this numbskull has _forgotten_ everything and my questions only confused him. "is it possible that you have really forgotten everything, toppi!" "wait till you die and you will learn all about it yourself. i do not like to think of it. what good is it?" "then it is not good?" "and have you ever heard of any one praising it?" "quite true. no one has yet showered praises upon it." "and no one will, i know!" we sat silent. "and do you remember, toppi, whence you have come?" "from illinois,--the same place you come from." "no, i am speaking of _something else_. do you remember whence you came? do you recollect your real name?" toppi looked at me strangely, paled slightly and proceeded to clean his pipe. then he arose and without lifting his eyes, said: "i beg you not to speak to me _thus_, mr. wondergood. i am an honest citizen of the united states and i do not understand your insinuations." but he remembers. not in vain did he grow pale. he is seeking to forget and will forget soon enough! this double play of earth and heaven is too much for him and he has surrendered entirely to the earth! there will come a time when he will take me off to an insane asylum or betray me to cardinal x. if i dare to speak to him of satan. "i respect you, toppi. you are quite a man," i said and kissed his brow: i always kiss the brow of people i love. again i departed for the green campagna desert: i follow the best models: when i am ill at ease i go into the desert. there i called for satan and cursed his name but he would not answer me. i lay there long in the dust, pleading, when from somewhere in the depths of the desert i heard the muffled tread of feet, and a bright light helped me to arise. and again i saw the eden i had left behind, its green tents and unfading sunrise, its quiet lights upon the placid waters. and again i _heard_ the silent murmurs of lips born of immaculate conception while toward my eyes i saw approaching truth. and i stretched out my hands to her and pleaded: give me back my liberty!-- "_maria!_" who called: maria? satan again departed, the lights upon the placid waters were extinguished and truth, frightened, disappeared--and again i sit upon the earth wearing my human form and gazing dully upon the painted world. and on my knees rested my shackled hands. "maria!" ...it is painful for me to admit that all this is really an invention: the coming of satan with his "light and ringing step," the gardens of eden and my shackled hands. but i needed your attention and i could not get it without these gardens of eden and these chains, the two extremes of your life. the gardens of eden--how beautiful! chains--how terrible! moreover, all this talk is much more entertaining than merely squatting on a hill, cigar in one's _free_ hand, thinking lazily and yawning while awaiting the arrival of the chauffeur. and as far as _maria_ is concerned, i brought her into the situation because from afar i could see the black cypress trees above the magnus home. an involuntary association of ideas...you understand. can a man with such sight really see satan? can a person of such dull _ear_ hear the so-called "murmurs" born of immaculate conception? nonsense! and, please, i beg of you, call me just wondergood. call me just wondergood until the day when i crack my skull open with that plaything which opens the _most narrow_ door into _limitless_ space. call me just henry wondergood, of illinois: you will find that i will respond promptly and obligingly. but if, some day, you should find my head crushed, examine carefully its _fragments_: there, in red ink will be engraved the proud name of satan! bend thy head, in reverence and bow to him--but do not do me the honor of accompanying my fragments to the scrap heap: one should never bow so respectfully to chains cast off! march , . rome, villa orsini. last night i had an important conversation with thomas magnus. when maria had retired i began as usual to prepare to return home but magnus detained me. "why go, mr. wondergood? stay here for the night. stay here and listen to the barking of mars!" for several days dense clouds had been gathering over rome and a heavy rain had been beating down upon its walls and ruins. this morning i read in a newspaper a very portentous weather bulletin: _cielo nuvolo il vento forte e mare molto agitato._ toward evening the threat turned into a storm and the enraged sea hurled across a range of ninety miles its moist odors upon the walls of rome. and the real roman sea, the billowy campagna, sang forth with all the voices of the tempest, like the ocean, and at moments it seemed that its immovable hills, its ancient waves, long evaporated by the sun, had once more come to life and moved forward upon the city walls. mad mars, this creator of terror and tempest, flew like an arrow across its wide spaces, crushed the head of every blade of grass to the ground, sighed and panted and hurled heavy gusts of wind into the whining cypress trees. occasionally he would seize and hurl the nearest objects he could lay his hands upon: the brick roofs of the houses shook beneath his blows and their stone walls roared as if inside the very stones the imprisoned wind was gasping and seeking an escape. we listened to the storm all evening. maria was calm but magnus was visibly nervous, constantly rubbed his white hands and listened intently to the antics of the wind: to its murderous whistle, its roar and its signs, its laughter and its groans...the wild-haired artist was cunning enough to be slayer and victim, to strangle and to plead for mercy at one and the same time! if magnus had the moving ears of an animal, they would have remained immovable. his thin nose trembled, his dim eyes grew dark, as if they reflected the shadows of the clouds, his thin lips were twisted into a quick and strange smile. i, too, was quite excited: it was the first time since i became human i had heard such a storm and it raised in me a white terror: almost with the horror of a child i avoided the windows, beyond which lay the night. why does it not come here, i thought: can the window pane possibly keep it out if it should wish to break through?... some one knocked at the iron gates several times, the gates at which i and toppi once knocked for admission. "that is my chauffeur, who has come to fetch me," said i: "we must admit him." magnus glanced at me from the corner of his eye and remarked sadly: "there is no road on that side of the house. there is nothing but field there. that is mad mars who is begging for admittance." and as if he had actually heard his words, mars broke out into laughter and disappeared whistling. but the knocking was soon resumed. it seemed as if some one were tearing off the iron gates and several voices, shouting and interrupting each other, were anxiously speaking; an infant was heard weeping. "those must be people who have lost their way...you hear--an infant! we must open the gates." "well, we'll see," said magnus angrily. "i will go with you, magnus." "sit still, wondergood. this friend of mine, here, is quite enough...." he quickly drew _that_ revolver from the table drawer and with a peculiar expression of love and even gentleness he grasped it in his broad hand and carefully hid it in his pocket. he walked out and we could hear the cry that met him at the gate. on that evening i somehow avoided maria's eyes and i felt quite ill at ease when we were left alone. and suddenly i felt like sinking to the floor, and kneeling before her so that her dress might touch my face: i felt as if i had hair on my back, that sparks would at any moment begin to fly if some one were to touch it and that this would relieve me. thus, in my mind, i moved closer and closer to her, when magnus returned and silently put the revolver back into the drawer. the voices at the door had ceased and the knocking, too. "who was that?"...asked maria. magnus angrily shook off the drops of rain upon his coat. "crazy mars. who else did you expect?" "but i thought i heard you speak to him?" i jested, trying to conceal the shiver produced by the cold brought in by magnus. "yes, i told him it was not polite--to drag about with him such suspicious company. he excused himself and said he would come no more," magnus laughed and added: "i am convinced that all the murderers of rome and the campagna are to-night threatening to ambush people and hugging their stilettos as if they were their sweethearts...." again came a muffled and timid knock. "again!" cried magnus, angrily, as if mad mars had really promised to knock no more. but the knock was followed by the ring of a bell: it was my chauffeur. maria retired, while i, as i have already said, had been invited by magnus to remain overnight, to which i agreed, after some hesitation: i was not at all taken by magnus and his revolver, and still less was i attracted by the silly darkness. the kind host himself went out to dismiss the chauffeur. through the window i could see the bright lights of the lanterns of the machine and for a moment i yearned to return home to my pleasant sinners, who were probably imbibing their wine at that moment in expectation of my return.... ah, i have long since abandoned philanthropy and am now leading the life of a drunkard and a gambler. and again, as on that first night, the quiet little white house, this _soul_ of maria, looked terrible and suspicious: this revolver, these stains of _blood_ upon the white hands...and, maybe there are more stains like these here. but it was too late to change my mind. the machine had gone and magnus, by the light, had not a _blue_, but a very black and beautiful beard and his eyes were smiling pleasantly. in his broad hand he carried not a weapon, but two bottles of wine, and from afar he shouted merrily: "on a night like this there is but one thing to do, to drink wine. even mars, when i spoke to him, looked drunk to me...the rogue! your glass, mr. wondergood!" but when the glasses had been filled, this merry drunkard hardly touched the wine and sitting deep in his chair asked me to drink and to talk. without particular enthusiasm, listening to the noise of the wind and thinking about the length of the night before us, i told magnus of the new and insistent visits of cardinal x. it seemed to me that the cardinal had actually put spies on my trail and what is more strange: he has managed to gain quite an influence over the unbribable toppi. toppi is still the same devoted friend of mine but he seems to have grown sad, goes to confessional every day and is trying to persuade me to accept catholicism. magnus listened calmly to my story and with still greater reluctance i told him of the many unsuccessful efforts to open my purse: of the endless petitions, badly written, in which the truth appears to be falsehood because of the boresome monotony of tears, bows and naïve flattery; of crazy inventors, of all sorts of people with hasty projects, gentlemen who seek to utilize as quickly as possible their temporary absence from jail--of all this hungry mass of humanity aroused by the smell of _weakly_ protected billions. my secretaries--there are six of them now--hardly manage to handle all this mess of tears on paper, and the madly babbling fools who fill the doors of my palace. "i fear that i will have to build me an underground exit: they are watching me even at nights. they are aiming at me with picks and shovels, as if they were in the klondike. the nonsense published by these accursed newspapers about the billions i am ready to give away to every fool displaying a wound in his leg, or an empty pocket, has driven them out of their senses. i believe that some night they will divide me into portions and eat me. they are organizing regular pilgrimages to my palace and come with huge bags. my ladies, who regard me as their property, have found for me a little dante inferno, where we take daily walks in company with the society that storms my place. yesterday we examined an old witch whose entire worth consists in the fact that she has outlived her husband, her children and her grandchildren, and is now in need of snuff. and some angry old man refused to be consoled and even would not take any money until all of us had smelled the old putrid wound in his foot. it was indeed a horrible odor. this cross old fellow is the pride of my ladies, and like all favorites, he is capricious, and temperamental. and...are you tired of listening to me, magnus. i could tell you of a whole flock of ragged fathers, hungry children, green and rotten like certain kinds of cheese, of noble geniuses who despise me like a negro, of clever drunkards with merry, red noses.... my ladies are not very keen on drunkards, but i love them better than any other kind of goods. and how do you feel about it, signor magnus?" magnus was silent. i too was tired of talking. mad mars alone continued his antics: he was now ensconced upon the roof, trying to bite a hole in the center, and crushing the tiles as he would a lump of sugar. magnus broke the silence: "the newspapers seem to have little to say about you recently. what is the matter?" "i pay the interviewers not to write anything. at first i drove them away but they began interviewing my horses and now i pay them for their silence by the line. have you a customer for my villa, magnus? i shall sell it together with the artists and the rest of its paraphernalia." we again grew silent and paced up and down the room: magnus rose first and then sat down. i followed and sat down too. in addition, i drank two more glasses of wine while magnus drank none.... his nose is never red. suddenly he said with determination: "do not drink any more wine, wondergood." "oh, very well. i want no more wine. is that all?" magnus continued to question me at long intervals. his voice was sharp and stern, while mine was...melodious, i would say. "there has been a great change in you, wondergood." "quite possible, thank you, magnus." "there used to be more life in you. now you rarely jest. you have become very morose, wondergood." "oh!" "you have even grown thin and your brow is sallow. is it true that you get drunk every night in the company of your...friends?" "it seems so." "...that you play cards, squander your gold, and that recently some one had been nearly murdered at your table?" "i fear that is true. i recollect that one gentleman actually tried to pierce another gentleman with his fork. and how do you know all about that?" he replied sternly and significantly: "toppi was here yesterday. he wanted to see...maria but i myself received him. with all due respect to you, wondergood, i must say that your secretary is unusually stupid." i acquiesced coldly. "you are quite right. you should have driven him out." i must say for my part, that my last two glasses of wine evaporated from me at the mention of _maria's_ name, and our attempted conversation was marked by continued evaporation of the wine i drank, like perfume out of a bottle. i have always regarded wine as unreliable matter. we found ourselves again listening to the storm and i remarked: "the wind seems to be growing more violent, signor magnus." "yes, the wind seems to be growing more violent, mr. wondergood. but you must admit that i warned you beforehand, mr. wondergood." "of what did you warn me beforehand, signor magnus?" he seized his knees with his white hands and directed upon me the gaze of a snake charmer.... ah, he did not know that i myself had extracted my poisoned teeth and was quite harmless, like a mummy in a museum! finally, he realized that there was no use beating about the bush, and came straight to the point: "i warned you in regard to _maria_," he said slowly, with peculiar insinuation. "you remember that i did not desire your acquaintance and expressed it plainly enough? you have not forgotten _what_ i told you about maria, of her fatal influence upon the soul? but you were bold and insistent and i yielded. and now you ask us--me and my daughter--to view the highly exhilarating spectacle of a gentleman in the process of disintegration, one who asks nothing, who reproaches no one, but can find no solace until every one has smelled his wound.... i do not want to repeat your expression, mr. wondergood. it has a bad odor. yes, sir, you have spoken quite frankly of your...neighbors and i am sincerely glad you have finally abandoned this cheap play at love and humanity.... you have so many other pastimes! i confess, however, that i am not at all overjoyed at your intention of presenting to _us_ the _sediment_ of a gentleman. it seems to me, sir, that you made a mistake in leaving america and your...canning business: dealing with people requires quite a different sort of ability." he laughed! he was almost driving me out, this little man, and i, who write my "i" in a super-capital, i listened to him humbly and meekly. it was divinely ridiculous! here is another detail for those who love the ridiculous: before his tirade began my eyes and the cigar between my teeth were quite bravely and nonchalantly directed toward the ceiling, but they changed their attitude before he had finished.... to this very moment i feel the taste of that miserable dangling, extinguished cigar. i was choking with laughter...that is i did not yet know whether to choke with laughter or with wrath. or, without choking at all, to ask him for an umbrella and leave. ah, he was at _home_, he was on his _own_ ground, this angry, black bearded man. he knew how to manage himself in this situation and he sang a _solo_, not a _duet_, like the inseparable satan of eternity and wondergood of illinois! "sir!" i said with dignity: "there seems to be a sad misunderstanding here. you see before you satan in _human form_...you understand? he went out for an evening stroll and was lost in the forest...in the forest, sir, in the forest! won't you be good enough, sir, to direct him to the nearest road to eternity? ah, ah! thank you. _so_ i thought myself. farewell!" of course, i really did not say that. i was _silent_ and gave the floor to wondergood. and this is what that respectable gentleman said, dropping his wet, dead cigar: "the devil take it! you are quite right, magnus. thank you, old man. yes, you warned me quite honestly, but i preferred to play a lone hand. now i am a bankrupt and at your mercy. i shall have no objection if you should order the removal of the _sediment_ of the gentleman." i thought that without waiting for a stretcher, magnus would simply throw the sediment out of the window, but his generosity proved quite surprising: he looked at me with pity and even stretched out his hand. "you are suffering very much, mr. wondergood?"--a question quite difficult to answer for the celebrated _duet_! i blinked and shrugged my shoulders. this appeared to satisfy magnus and for a few moments we were both silent. i do not know of what magnus was thinking. i thought of nothing: i simply examined with great interest, the walls, the ceiling, books, pictures--all the furnishings of this human habitation. i was particularly absorbed in the electric light upon which i fixed my attention: why does _it_ burn and give light? "i am waiting for your answer, mr. wondergood." so he was really expecting me to reply? very well. "it's very simple, magnus...you warned me, i admit. to-morrow toppi will pack my trunks and i shall go back to america to resume my...business." "and the cardinal?" "what cardinal? ah, yes!... cardinal x. and my billions. i remember. but--don't gaze at me in such astonishment, magnus. i am sick of it." "what are you sick of, mr. wondergood?" "_it._ six secretaries. brainless old women, snuff, and my dante inferno, where they take me for my walks. don't look at me so sternly, magnus. probably one could have made better wine out of my billions, but i managed to produce only sour beer. why did you refuse to help me? of course, you hate human beings, i forgot." "but you _love_ them?" "what shall i say, magnus? no, i am rather indifferent to them. don't look at me so...pityingly. by god, it isn't worth it! yes, i am indifferent to them. there are, there were and there will be so many of them that it isn't really worth while...." "so i am to conclude that you _lied_?" "look not at me but at my packed trunks. no, i did not lie, not entirely. you know, i wanted to do something interesting for the sake of amusement and so i let loose this...this emotion...." "so it was only _play_?..." i blinked again and shrugged my shoulders. i like this method of reply to complex questions. and _this_ face of signor thomas magnus appealed to me, too; his long, oval face recompensed me slightly for my theatrical failures and...maria. i must add that by this time there was a fresh cigar in my mouth. "you said that in your past there are some dark pages.... what's the trouble, mr. wondergood?" "oh! it was a slight exaggeration. nothing in particular, magnus. i beg your pardon for disturbing you needlessly, but at that time i thought i should have spoken thus for the sake of style...." "style?" "yes, and the laws of contrast. the present is always brighter with a dark past as a background...you understand? but i have already told you, magnus, that my prank had little result. in the place i come from they have quite a mistaken conception of the pleasures of the game here. i shall have to disabuse them when i get back. for a moment i was taken in by the old monkey, but its method of fleecing people is rather ancient and too certain...like a counting house. i prefer an element of risk." "fleecing people?" "don't we despise them, magnus? and if the game has failed, let us not at least deny ourselves the pleasure of speaking frankly. i am very glad. but i am tired of this prattle and, with your permission, i will take another glass of wine." there was not even the resemblance of a smile on thomas magnus' face. i mention the smile for the sake of...style. we passed the next half hour in silence, broken only by the shrieks and yells of mad mars and the even pacing of magnus. with his hands behind him and disregarding me entirely he paced the room with even step: eight steps forward, eight steps backward. apparently he must have been in jail at one time and for quite a while: for he had the knack of the experienced prisoner of creating distances out of a few meters. i permitted myself to yawn slightly and thus drew the attention of my host back to myself. but magnus kept quiet for another moment, until the _following words_ rang out through the air and well nigh hurled me out of my seat: "but _maria_ loves you. of course, you do not know that?" i arose. "yes, that is the truth: maria loves you. i did not expect this misfortune. i failed to kill you, mr. wondergood. i should have done that at the very beginning and now i do not know what to do with you. what do you think about it?" i stretched and... * * * * * ...maria loves _me_! i once witnessed in philadelphia an unsuccessful electrocution of a prisoner. i saw at "la scala" in milan my colleague mephisto _cringing_ and hopping all over the stage when the supers moved upon him with their crosses--and my silent reply to magnus was an artistic improvisation of both the first and the second trick: ah, at that moment i could think of nothing better to imitate! i swear by eternal salvation that never before had i been permeated by so many deadly currents, never did i drink such bitter wine, never was my soul seized with such uncontrollable _laughter_! now i no longer laugh or cringe, like a cheap actor. i am alone and only my own seriousness can hear and see me. but in that moment of triumph i needed all my strength to control my laughter so that i might not deal ringing blows to the face of this stern and honest man hurling the madonna into the embraces of...the devil. do you really think so? no? or are you merely thinking of wondergood, the american, with his goatee and wet cigar between his gold teeth! hatred and contempt, love and anguish, wrath and laughter,--these filled to the brim the cup presented to me...no, still worse, still more bitter, still more deadly! what do i care about the deceived magnus or the stupidity of his eyes and brain? but how could the pure eyes of _maria_ have been deceived? or am i really such a clever don juan that i can turn the head of an innocent and trusting girl by a few simple, silent meetings? madonna, where art thou? or, has she discovered a resemblance between myself and one of her saints, like toppi's. but i do not carry with me a traveling prayer book! madonna, where art thou? are thy lips stretching out to mine? madonna, where art thou? or?... and yet i cringed like an actor. i sought to stifle in respectful mumbling my hatred and my contempt when this new "_or_" suddenly filled me with new confusion and such love...ah, such love! "_or_," thought i, "has _thy_ immortality, madonna, echoed the immortality of satan and is it now stretching forth this gentle hand to it from the realms of eternity? thou, who art _divine_, hast thou recognized a friend in him who has become _human_? thou, who art _above_, dost thou pity him who is _below_? oh, madonna, lay thy hand upon my dark head that i may recognize thee by thy touch!..." but hear what further transpired that night. * * * * * "i know not why maria has fallen in love with you. that is a secret of her soul, too much for my understanding. no, i do not know, but i bow to her will as to her frankness. what are my human eyes before her all-penetrating gaze, mr. wondergood!..." (the latter, too, was saying the same thing.) "a moment ago, in a fit of excitement," continued magnus, "i said something about murder and death.... no, mr. wondergood, you may rest secure forever: the chosen one of maria enjoys complete immunity as far as i am concerned. he is protected by more than the law--her pure love is his armor. of course, i shall have to ask you to leave us at once. and i believe in your honest intention, wondergood, to place the ocean between us...." "but...." magnus moved forward towards me and shouted angrily: "not another word!... i cannot kill you but if you dare to mention the word 'marriage,' i!..." he slowly dropped his uplifted hand, and continued calmly: "i see that i will have to beg your pardon again for my fit of passion, but it is better than _falsehood_, examples of which we have had from you. do not defend yourself, wondergood. it is quite unnecessary. and of marriage let _me_ speak: it will ring less insulting to maria than it would from your lips. it is quite unthinkable. remember that. i am a sober realist: i see nothing but mere coincidence in _that fatal_ resemblance of maria and i am not at all taken aback by the thought that my daughter, with all her unusual qualities, may some day become a wife and mother.... my categorical opposition to this marriage was simply another means of warning you. yes, i am accustomed to look soberly upon things, mr. wondergood. it is not you who is destined to be maria's life partner! you do not know me at all and now i am compelled to raise slightly the curtain behind which i am hiding these many years: my idleness is merely rest. i am not at all a peaceful villager or a book philosopher. i am a man of struggle. i am a warrior on the battlefield of life! and my maria will be the gift only of a hero, if--if i should ever find a hero." i said: "you may rest assured, signor magnus, that i will not permit myself to utter a single word in regard to signorina maria. you know that i am not a hero. but i should think it permissible to ask of you: how am i to reconcile your present remarks with your former _contempt_ for man? i recollect that you spoke seriously of gallows and prisons." magnus laughed loudly: "and do you remember what you said about your _love_ for man? ah, my dear wondergood: i would be a bad warrior and politician if my education did not embrace the art of lying a little. we were both playing, that's all!" "you played better," i admitted quite gloomily. "and you played very badly, my friend,--do not be offended. but what am i to do when there suddenly appears before me a gentleman all loaded with gold like...." "like an ass. continue." "and begins to reveal to me his love for humanity, while his confidence in his success is equal only to the quantity of the dollars in his pocket? the main fault of your play, mr. wondergood, is that you are too eager for success and seek immediate results. this makes the spectator cold and less credulous. to be sure, i really did not think you were merely acting--the worst play is better than sincere assininity--and i must again crave your pardon: you seemed to me just one of those foolish yankees who really take their own bombastic and contemptible tirades seriously and...you understand?" "quite fully. i beg you to continue." "only one phrase of yours,--something about war and revolution purchasable with your billions--seemed to me to possess a modicum of interest, but the rest of the drivel proved that that, too, was a mere slip of the tongue, an accidental excerpt of some one else's text. your newspaper triumphs, your flippancy in serious matters--remember cardinal x!--your cheap philanthropy are of a quite different tone.... no, mr. wondergood, you are not fit for serious drama! and your prattling to-day, despite its cynicism, made a better impression than your flamboyant circus pathos. i say frankly: were it not for _maria_ i would gladly have had a good laugh at your expense, and, without the slightest compunction would have raised the farewell cup!" "just one correction, magnus: i earnestly desired that you should take part...." "in what? in your play? yes, your play lacked the _creative factor_ and you earnestly desired to saddle me with your poverty of spirit. just as you hire your artists to paint and decorate your palaces so you wanted to hire my will and my imagination, my power and my love!" "but your hatred for man...." up to this point magnus had maintained his tone of irony and subtle ridicule: my remark, however, seemed to change him entirely. he grew pale, his white hands moved convulsively over his body as if they were searching for a weapon, and his face became threatening and even horrible. as if fearing the power of his own voice, he lowered it almost to a whisper; as if fearing that his words would break their leash and run off at a wild pace, he tried desperately to hold them in check and in order. "hatred? be silent, sir. or have you no conscience at all or any common sense? my contempt! my hatred! they were my reply, not to your theatrical _love_, but to your sincere and dead indifference. you were insulting _me_ as a human being by your indifference: you were insulting life by your indifference. it was in your voice, it gleamed savagely out of your eyes, and more than once was i seized by terror...terror, sir!--when i pierced deeper the mysterious emptiness of your pupils. if your past has no dark pages, which, as you say, you merely added for the sake of style, then there is something worse than that in it: there are _white_ pages in it. and i cannot read them!..." "oh, oh!" "when i look at your eternal cigar, and see your self-satisfied but handsome and energetic face; when i view your unassuming manner, in which the simplicity of the grog shop is elevated to the heights of puritanism, i fully understand your naïve game. but i need only meet the pupil of your eye...or its _white_ rim and i am immediately hurled into a void, i am seized with alarm and i no longer see either your cigar or your gold teeth and i am ready to exclaim: who are you that you dare to bear yourself with such indifference?" the situation was becoming interesting. _madonna_ loves me and this creature is about ready to utter my name at any moment! is he the son of my father? how could he unravel the great mystery of my boundless indifference: i tried so carefully to conceal it, even from you! "here! here!" shouted magnus, in great excitement, "again there are two little tears in your eyes, as i have noticed before. they are a _lie_, wondergood! there is no source of tears behind them. they have fallen from somewhere above, from the clouds, like dew. rather laugh: behind your laughter i see merely a bad man, but behind your tears there are _white_ pages, white pages!... or has maria read them?" without taking his eyes off me, as if fearing that i might run away, magnus paced the room, finally seating himself opposite me. his face grew dim and his voice seemed tired, when he said: "but it seems to me that i am exciting myself in vain...." "do not forget, magnus, that to-day i myself spoke to you of indifference." he waved his hand wearily and carelessly. "yes, you did speak. but there is something else involved here, wondergood. there is nothing insulting in the indifference, but in the other...i sensed it immediately upon your appearance with your billions. i do not know whether you will understand what i mean, but i immediately felt like shouting of hatred and to demand gallows and blood. the gallows is a gloomy thing but the curious jostling about the gallows, mr. wondergood, are quite unbearable! i do not know what they think of our game here in the 'place' you come from, but we pay for it with our lives, and when there suddenly appears before us some curious gentleman in a top hat, cigar in mouth, one feels, you understand, like seizing him by the back of his neck and...he never stays to the end of the performance, anyway. have you, too, mr. wondergood, dropped in on us for a brief visit?" with what a long sigh i uttered the name of _maria_!... and i no longer played, i no longer lied, when i replied to this gloomy man: "yes, i have dropped in on you for a brief visit, signor magnus. you have guessed right. for certain very valid reasons i can reveal nothing to you of the _white_ pages of my life, the existence of which behind my leather binding you have likewise guessed. but on one of them was written: _death-departure_. that was not a top hat in the hands of the curious visitor, but a revolver...you understand: i look on as long as it is interesting and after that i make my bow and depart. let me put it clearer and simpler, out of deference to your realism: in a few days, perhaps to-morrow, i depart for the other world.... no, that is not clear enough: in a few days or to-morrow i shall shoot myself, kill myself with a revolver. i at first planned to aim at my heart but have decided that the brain would be more reliable. i have planned all this long ago, at the very beginning...of my appearance before you, and was it not in this _readiness_ of mine to depart that you have detected 'inhuman' indifference? isn't it true that when one eye is directed upon the _other_ world, it is hardly possible to maintain any particularly bright flame in the eye directed upon _this_ world?... i refer to the kind of flame i see in your eyes. o! you have wonderful eyes, signor magnus." magnus remained silent for a few moments and then said: "and maria?" "permit me to reply. i prize signorina maria too highly not to regard her _love_ for me as a fatal mistake." "but you wanted that love?" "it is very difficult for me to answer that question. at first, perhaps--when i indulged in dreams for a while--but the more i perceived this fatal resemblance...." "that is mere resemblance," magnus hastened to assure me: "but you mustn't be a child, wondergood! maria's soul is lofty and beautiful, but she is human, made of flesh and bone. she probably has her own little sins, too...." "and how about my top hat, magnus? how about my _free_ departure? i need only buy a seat to gaze upon maria and her fatal resemblance--admitting that it is only resemblance!--but how must i pay for _love_?" magnus said sternly: "only with your life." "you see: only with my life! how, then, did you expect me to desire such love?" "but you have miscalculated: she already loves you." "oh, if the signorina maria really loves me then my _death_ can be no obstacle: however, i do not make myself clear. i wanted to say that my departure...no, i had better say nothing. in short, signor magnus: would you agree to have me place my billions at your disposal _now_?" he looked at me quickly: "now?" "yes, now, when we are no longer playing: i at love and you at hatred. now, when i am about to disappear entirely, taking with me the 'sediment' of a gentlemen? let me make it quite clear: would you like to be my heir?" magnus frowned and looked at me in anger: apparently he took my words for ridicule. but i was calm and serious. it seemed to me that his large, white hands were trembling slightly. he turned away for a moment and then, whirling about quickly, he shouted loudly: "no! again you want.... no!" he stamped his foot and cried once more: "no!" his hands were trembling. his breathing was heavy and irregular. there followed a long silence, the wailing of the tempest, the whistling and murmur of the wind. and again, great calm, great, dead, all embracing peace descended upon me. everything was turned _within_ me. i still could hear the earthly demons of the storm, but _their_ voices sounded far away and dull. i saw before me a _man_ and he was strange and cold to me, like a stone statue. one after another there floated by me all the days of my human existence. there was the gleam of faces, the weak sound of voices and curious laughter. and then, again all was silent. i turned my gaze to the other side--and there i was met by dumbness. it was as if i were immured between two dumb, stone walls: behind one was _their_ human life, which i had abandoned, and behind the other, in silence and in darkness, stretched forth the world of eternal and real being. its silence was resounding, its darkness was gleaming, eternal, joyous life beat constantly like breakers, upon the hard rocks of the impenetrable wall. but deaf was my consciousness and silent my thought. from beneath the weak legs of thought there came _memory_--and it hung suspended in the void, immovable, paralyzed for the moment. _what_ did i leave behind the wall of my unconsciousness? thought made no reply. it was motionless, empty and silent. two silences surrounded me, two darknesses enveloped me. two walls were burying me, and behind one, in the pale movement of shadows, passed their human life, while behind the other,--in silence and in darkness stretched forth the world of my real, eternal being. whence shall i hear the call? whither can i take a step? and at that moment i suddenly heard the voice of a man, strange and distant. it grew closer and closer, there was a gentle ring in it. it was magnus speaking. with great effort and concentration, i tried to catch the words and this was what i heard: "and wouldn't you rather continue living, wondergood?" march . rome, palazzo orsini. it is three days now that magnus and maria are living in my palazzo in rome. it is empty and silent and really seems huge. last night, worn by insomnia, i wandered about its halls and stairways, over rooms i had never seen before and their number astonished me. maria's _soul_ has expelled from it all that was frivolous and impure and only the saintly toppi moves through its emptiness, like the pendulum of a church clock. ah, how saintly he looks. if not for his broad back, the broad folds of his coat, and the odor of fur in his head, i myself would take him for one of the saints who have honored me with their acquaintance. i rarely see my guests. i am turning my entire estate into cash and magnus and toppi and all the secretaries are busy with this work from morning to night; our telegraph is constantly buzzing. magnus has little to say to me. he only talks business. maria...it seems as if i were avoiding her. i can see her through my window walking in the garden, and this is quite enough for me, for her _soul_ is here and every atom of the air is filled with her breath. and, as i have already remarked, i suffer with insomnia. as you see, my friend, i have remained among the _living_, a dead hand could not possibly write even the dead words i am not setting down. let us forget the past, as sweethearts would who have just settled their differences. let us be friends, you and i. give me your hand, my friend! i vow by eternal salvation that never again will i chase you hence or laugh at you: if i have lost the wisdom of the snake i have acquired the gentleness of the dove. i am rather sorry that i have driven away my painters and my interviewers: i have no one to inquire whom i _resemble_ with my radiant countenance? i personally feel that i remind one of a powdered darkey, who is afraid to rub the powder off with his sleeve and thus reveal his black skin...ah, i still have a black skin! yes, i have remained _alive_ but i know not yet how far i shall succeed in keeping up this state: have you any idea how hard are the transitions from a nomad to a settled life? i was a redskin, a carefree nomad, who folds up and casts off all that is human, as he would a tent. now i am laying a granite foundation for an earthly home and i, having little faith, am cold and trembling. will it be warm when the white snow covers my new home? what do you think, my friend, is the best heating system? i promised thomas magnus that night that i would not kill myself. we sealed this agreement with a warm handshake. we did not open our veins nor seal the pact with our blood. we simply said "yes" and that was quite sufficient: as you know only human beings break agreements. devils always keep them.... you need only recall your horny, hairy heroes and their spartan honesty. fortunately (let us call it 'fortunate') we had set no...date. i swear by eternal salvation, i would be a poor king and ruler if, when building a palace, i did not leave for myself a secret exit, a little door, a modest loophole through which wise kings disappear when their foolish subjects rise and break into versailles. i will not kill myself to-morrow. perhaps i shall wait quite a while. i will not kill myself: of the two walls i have chosen the lower one and i am quite human now, even as you my friend. my earthly experiment is not very thrilling as yet, but who knows?--this human life may unexpectedly grow quite attractive! has not toppi lived to grow gray and to a peaceful end? why should not i, traversing all the ages of man, like the seasons of the year, grow to be a gray old sage, a wise guide and teacher, the bearer of the covenant and arterio sclerosis? ah, this ridiculous sclerosis, these ills of old age--it is only now that they begin to seem terrible to me, but, can i not get used to them and even grow to love them? every one says it is easy to get used to life. well, i, too, will try to get used to it. everything here is so well ordered that after rain comes sunshine and dries him who is wet, if he has not been in too great a hurry to die. everything here is so well ordered that there is not a single disease for which there is no cure. this is so good! one may be ill all the time, provided there is a drug store nearby! at any rate, i have my little door, my secret exit, my narrow, wet, dark corridor, beyond which are the stars and all the breadth of my illimitable space! my friend, i want to be frank with you: there is a certain characteristic of insubordination in me, and it is that i fear. what is a cough or a catarrh of the stomach? but it is possible that i may suddenly refuse to cough, for no reason at all, or for some trivial cause, and run off! i like you at this moment. i am quite ready to conclude a long and fast alliance with you, but _something_ may suddenly gleam across your dear face which...no, it is quite impossible to do without a little secret door for him who is so capricious and insubordinate! unfortunately, i am proud, too,--an old and well known vice of satan! like a fish struck in the head, i am dazed by my human existence. a fatal unconsciousness is driving me into your life, but of one thing i am quite certain: i am of the race of the _free_. i am of the tribe of the _rulers_. i come from those who transform their will into laws. conquered kings are taken into captivity but conquered kings never become slaves. and when i shall perceive, above my head, the whip of a dirty guard and my fettered hands are helpless to avert the blow...well: shall i remain living with welts upon my back? shall i bargain with my judges about another blow of the whip? shall i kiss the hand of the executioner? or shall i send to the druggist for an eye lotion? no, let not magnus misjudge me for a little slip in our agreement: i will live only as long as i want to live. all the blessings of the human existence, which he offered me on that night, when satan was tempted by man, will not strike the weapon from my hand: in it alone is the assurance of my liberty! oh, man, what are all your kingdoms and dukedoms, your knowledge and your nobility, your gold and your freedom beside this little, free movement of the finger which, in a moment carries you up to the throne of thrones!... _maria!_ yes, i am afraid of her. the look in her eye is so clear and commanding, the light of her love is so mighty, enchanting and beautiful that i am all atremble and everything in me is quivering and urging me to immediate flight. with hitherto unknown happiness, with veiled promises, with singing dreams she tempts me! shall i cry: away!--or shall i bend mine to her will and follow her? where? i do not know. or are there other worlds beside those i know or have forgotten? whence comes this motionless light behind my back? it is growing ever broader and brighter. its warm touch heats my soul, so that its polar ice crumbles and melts. but i am afraid to look back. i may see sodom on fire and if i look i may turn into stone. or is it a new sun, which i have not yet seen upon this earth that is rising behind my back, and i, like a fool, am fleeing from it and baring my back instead of my breast to it, the low, dumb neck of a frightened animal, instead of my lofty brow? maria! will you give me my revolver? i paid ten dollars for it, together with the holster. to you i will not give it for a kingdom! only do not look at me, oh, queen...otherwise, otherwise i will give you everything: the revolver and the holster and satan himself! march . rome, palazzo orsini. it is the fifth night that i do not sleep. when the last light is turned out in my silent palazzo, i quietly descend the stairs, quietly order a machine--somehow or other even the noise of my own steps and voice disturb me, and i go for the night into the campagna. there, leaving the automobile on the road, i wander about until day-break or sit immovable upon some dark ruins. i cannot be seen at all and the rare passersby, perhaps some peasants from albano, converse quite loudly and without restraint. i like to remain unseen. it reminds me of something i have forgotten. once, as i sat down on a stone, i disturbed a lizzard. it may have been that it lightly moved the grass beneath my feet and disappeared. perhaps it was a snake? i do not know. but i wanted desperately to become a lizzard or a snake, concealed beneath a stone: i am troubled by my large stature, by the size of my feet and arms: they make it very difficult to become invisible. i likewise refrain from looking at my face in the mirror: it is painful to think i have a face, which all can see. why did i fear darkness so much at the beginning? it is so easy to conceal oneself in it. apparently all animals experience such subtle shame, fear and worriment and seek seclusion when they are changing their skin or hide. so, i am changing my skin? ah, it is the same, worthless prattle! the whole trouble is that i have failed to escape _maria's_ gaze and am, apparently preparing to close the last door, the door i guarded so well. but i am ashamed! i swear by eternal salvation, i feel ashamed, like a girl before the altar. i am almost blushing. blushing satan...no, quiet, quiet: _he_ is not here! quiet!... magnus told her everything. she did not reiterate that she loves me but looked at me and said: "promise _me_, you will not kill yourself." the _rest_ was in her gaze. you remember how bright it is? but do not think that i hastily agreed. like a salamander in the fire, i quickly changed colors. i shall not repeat to you all the flaming phrases i uttered: i have forgotten them. but you remember how bright and serene maria's gaze is? i kissed her hand and said humbly: "madam! i do not ask you for forty days and a desert for contemplation: the desert i will find myself and a week is quite enough for me to think the matter over. but do give me a week and...please, don't look at me any more...otherwise...." no, that wasn't what i said. i said it in other words, but it's all the same. i am now changing my skin. it hurts me. i am frightened and ashamed because any crow might see me and come to pick my flesh. what use is there in the fact that there is a revolver in my pocket? it is only when you learn to hit yourself that you can hit a crow: crows know that and consequently do not fear tragically bulging pockets. having become human and descended from above i have become but half a man. i entered upon this human existence as if into a strange element, but i have not lost myself in it entirely: i still cling with one hand to my heaven and my eyes are still above the surface. but she commands me to accept man in his entirety: only he is a _man_ who has said: never shall i kill myself, never shall i leave life of my own free will. and what about the whip? these cursed cuts upon my back? pride? oh, maria, maria, how terribly you tempt me! i look into the past of this earth and serious myriads of tragic shadows floating slowly over climes and ages! their hands stretch hopelessly into space, their bony ribs tear through the lean, thin skin, their eyes are filled with tears, and their sighs have dried up their throats. i see blood and madness, violence and falsehood, i hear their oaths, which they constantly betray, their prayers to god, in which, with every word of mercy and forgiveness, they curse their own earth. wherever i look, i see the earth smoking in convulsion; no matter in which direction i strain my ear, i hear everywhere unceasing moans: or is the womb of the earth itself filled with moaning? i see a myriad cups about me, but no matter which of them my lips may touch, i find it filled with rust and vinegar: or has man no other drink? and this is _man_? i knew _them_ before. i have seen _them_ before. but i looked upon them as augustus did from his box upon the galaxy of his victims: ave, cæsar! these who are about to die salute you. and i looked upon them with the eyes of an eagle and my wise, belaureled head did not disdain to take notice of their groaning cries even with so much as a nod: they came and disappeared, they marched on in endless procession--and endless was the indifference of my cæsar-like gaze. and now...is it really i who walks on so hastily, playing with the sand of the arena? and am i this dirty, emaciated, hungry slave who lifts his convict face into the air, yelling hoarsely into the indifferent eyes of fate: "ave, cæsar! ave, cæsar!" i feel a sharp whip upon my back and with a cry of pain i fall to the ground. is it some _master_ who is beating me? no, it is another _slave_, who has been ordered to whip a _slave_: very soon his knout will be in my hand and his back will be covered with blood and he will be chewing the sand, the sand which now grates between my teeth. oh, maria, maria, how terribly you tempt me! iii march rome. buy the blackest paint available, take the largest brush you can find and, with a broad line, divide my life into yesterday and to-day. take the staff of moses and divide the stream of time and dry it up clear down to its bed--then only will you sense my _to-day_. _ave, cæsar, moriturus te salutat!_ april , rome. pallazzo orsini. i do not want to lie. there is not yet in me, oh man, any love for you, and if you have hastened to open your arms to me, please close them: the time has not yet come for passionate embraces. later, at some other date, we shall embrace, but meanwhile, let us be cold and restrained, like two gentlemen in misfortune. i cannot say that my respect for you has grown to any extent, although your life and your fate have become my life and my fate: let the facts suffice that i have voluntarily placed my neck beneath the yoke and that one and the same whip are furrowing our backs. yes, that is quite sufficient for the present. you have observed that i no longer use a super-capital in writing the word "i"?--i have thrown it out together with the revolver. this is a sign of submission and equality. you understand? like a king, i have taken the oath of allegiance to your constitution. but i shall not, like a king, betray this vow: i have preserved from my former life a respect for contracts. i swear i will be true to your comrades-at-hard-labor and will not make any attempt to escape alone! for the last few nights, before i took this decision, i thought much upon _our_ life. it is wretched. don't you think so? it is difficult and humiliating to be this little thing called man, the cunning and avaricious little worm that crawls, hastily multiplies itself and lies, turning away its head from the final blow--the worm that no matter how much it lies, will perish just the same at the appointed hour. but i will be a worm. let me, too, beget children, let the unthinking foot also crush my unthinking head at the appointed hour--i meekly accept all consequences. we are both of us humiliated, comrade, and in this alone there is some consolation: you will listen to my complaints and i--to yours. and if the matter should ultimately reach the state of litigation, why the witnesses will all be ready! that is well: when one kills in the public square there are always eyewitnesses. i will lie, if necessary. i will not lie in that free play of lying with which even prophets lie, but in that enforced manner of lying employed by the rabbit, which compels him to hide his ears, to be gray in summer and white in winter. what can one do when behind every tree a hunter with a rifle is concealed! this lying may appear to be ignoble from one point of view and may well call forth condemnation upon us, but you and i must live, my friend. let _bystanders_ accuse us to their heart's content, but, when necessary, we will lie like wolves, too! we will spring forward, suddenly, and seize the enemy by the throat: one must live, brother, one must live, and are we to be held responsible for the fact that there is such great lure and such fine taste in blood! in reality neither you nor i are proud of our lying, of our cowardice or of our cruelty, and our bloodthirstiness is certainly not a matter of conviction. but however hideous our life may be, it is still more miserable. do you agree with that? i do not love you yet, oh man, but on these nights i have been more than once on the verge of tears when i thought of your suffering, of your tortured body, and of your soul, relinquished to eternal crucifixion. it is well for a wolf to be a wolf. it is well for a rabbit to be a rabbit. but you, man, contain both god and satan--and, oh, how terrible is the imprisonment of both in that narrow and dark cell of yours! can god be a wolf, tearing throats and drinking blood! can satan be a rabbit, hiding his ears behind his humped back! no, that is intolerable. i agree with you. that fills life with eternal confusion and pain and the sorrow of the soul becomes boundless. think of it: of three children that you beget, one becomes a murderer, the other the victim and the third, the judge and executioner. and each day the murderers are murdered and still they continue to be born; and each day the murderers kill conscience and conscience kills the murderers. and all are alive: the murderers and conscience. oh, what a fog we live in! give heed to all the _words_ spoken by man from the day of his birth and you will think: this is god! look at all the _deeds_ of man from his very first day and you will exclaim in disgust: this is a beast! thus does man struggle with himself for thousands of years and the sorrow of his soul is boundless and the suffering of his mind is terrible and horrible, while the _final_ judge is slow about his coming.... but he will never come. i say this to you: we are forever alone with our life. but i accept this, too. not yet has the earth endowed me with my name and i know not who i am: cain or abel? but i accept the sacrifice as i do murder. i am everywhere with you and everywhere i follow you, man. let us weep together in the desert, knowing that no one will give heed to us...or perhaps some one will? you see: you and i are beginning to have faith in some one's ear and soon i will begin to believe in a triangular eye...it is really impossible that such a concert should have no hearer, that such a spectacle should be wasted on the desert air! i think of the fact that no one has yet beaten me, and i am afraid. what will become of my soul when some one's grubby hand strikes me on the face.... what will become of me! for i know that no earthly revenge could return my face to me. and what will then become of my soul? i swear i will become reconciled even to this. everywhere with you and after you, man. what is my face when you struck the face of your own christ and spat into his eyes? everywhere with you! and if necessary, i myself will strike at christ with the hand with which i now write: i go with you to all ends, man. they beat us and they will continue to beat us. we beat christ and will still beat him.... ah, bitter is our life, almost unbearable! only a while ago, i rejected your embraces. i said they were premature. but now i say: let us embrace more firmly, brother, let us cling closely to each other--it is so painful, so terrible to be alone in this life when all exits from it are closed. and i know not yet wherein there is more pride and liberty: in going away voluntarily, whenever one wishes, or in accepting, without resistance, the hand of the executioner? in calmly placing one's hands upon his breast, putting one foot forward and, with head proudly bent backward, to wait calmly: "do thy duty, executioner!" or: "soldiers, here's my breast: fire!" there is something plastic in this pose and it pleases me. but still more am i pleased with the fact that once again my greater ego is rising within me at the striking of this pose. of course, the executioner will not fail to do his duty and the soldiers will not lower their rifles, but the important thing is the line, the _moment_, when before my very death itself i shall suddenly find myself immortal and broader than life itself. it is strange, but with one turn of the head, with one phrase, expressed or conceived at the proper moment, i could, so to speak, halt the function of my very spirit and the entire operation would be performed outside of me. and when death shall have finally performed its rôle of redeemer, its darkness would not eclipse the light, for the latter will have first separated itself from me and scattered into space, in order to reassemble somewhere and blaze forth again...but where? strange, strange.... i sought to escape from men--and found myself at that wall of unconsciousness known only to satan! how important, indeed, is the pose! i must make note of that. but will the pose be as convincing and will it not lose in plasticity if instead of death, the executioner and the firing squad i should be compelled to say something else...well, something like: "here's my face: strike!" i do not know why i am so concerned about my face, but it does concern me greatly. i confess, man, that it worries me very much indeed. no, a mere trifle. i will simply subdue my spirit. let them beat me! when the spirit is crushed the operation is no more painful or humiliating than it would be if i were to beat my overcoat on its hanger.... ...but i have forgotten that i am not alone and being in your company have fallen into impolite meditation. for a half hour i have been silent over this sheet of paper and it seemed all the time as if i had been talking and quite excitedly! i forgot that it is not enough to think, that one must also speak! what a shame it is, man, that for the exchange of thoughts we must resort to the service of such a poor and stealthy broker as the word--he steals all that is precious and defiles the best thoughts with the chatter of the market place. in truth, this pains me much more than death or the beating. i am terrified by the necessity of _silence_ when i come upon the _extraordinary_, which is inexpressible. like a rivulet i run and advance only as far as the ocean: in the depths of the latter is the end of my murmuring. within me, however, motionless and omnipresent, rocking to and fro, is the ocean. it only hurls noise and surf upon the earth, but its depths are dumb and motionless and quite without any purpose are the ships sailing on its surface. how shall i describe it? before i resolved to enroll myself as an earthly slave i did not speak to maria or to magnus.... why should i speak to maria when her beckoning is _clear_, like her gaze? but having become a slave i went to magnus to complain and to seek advice--apparently the human begins thus. magnus heard me in silence and, as it seemed to me, with some inner excitement. he works day and night, virtually knowing no rest, and the complicated business of the liquidation of my property is moving forward as rapidly in his hands as if he had been engaged in such work all his life. i like his heroic gestures and his contempt for details: when he cannot unravel a situation he hurls millions out of the window with the grace of a grandee. but he is weary and his eyes seem larger and darker on the background of his dim face. only now have i learned from maria that he is tortured by frequent headaches. my complaints against life, i fear, have failed to arouse any particular sympathy on his part: no matter what the accusations i brought against man and the life he leads, magnus would reply impatiently: "yes, yes, wondergood. that is what being a man means. your misfortune is that you discovered this rather late and are now quite unnecessarily aroused. when you shall have _experienced_ at least a part of that which now terrifies you, you will speak in quite a different tone. however, i am glad that you have dropped your _indifference_: you have become, much more nervous and energetic. but whence comes this immeasurable terror in your eyes? collect yourself, wondergood!" i laughed. "thank you. i am quite collected. apparently it is the _slave_, in expectation of the whip, who peers at you from within my eye. have patience, magnus. i am not quite acclimated to the situation. tell me, shall i or shall i not be compelled to commit...murder?" "quite possibly." "and can you tell me _how_ this happens?" both of us looked simultaneously at his white hands and magnus replied somewhat ironically: "no, i will not tell you that. but if you wish i will tell you something else: i will tell you what it means to accept man to the _very end_--it is this that is really worrying you, is it not?" and with much coolness and a sort of secret impatience, as if another thought were devouring his attention, he told me briefly of a certain unwilling and terrible murderer. i do not know whether he was telling me a fact or a dark tale created for my personal benefit, but this was the story: it happened long ago. a certain russian, a political exile, a man of wide education yet deeply religious, as often happens in russia, escaped from _katorga_, and after long and painful wandering over the siberian forests, he found refuge with some non-conformist sectarians. huge, wooden, fresh huts in a thick forest, surrounded by tall fences; great bearded people, large ugly dogs--something on that order. and in his very presence, soon after his arrival, there was to be performed a monstrous crime: these insane mystics, under the influence of some wild religious fanaticism, were to sacrifice an innocent _lamb_, i.e., upon a home-made altar, to the accompaniment of hymns, they were to kill a child. magnus did not relate all the painful details, limiting himself solely to the fact that it was a seven year old boy, in a new shirt, and that his young mother witnessed the ceremony. all the reasonable arguments, all the objections of the exile that they were about to perform a great sacrilege, that not the mercy of the lord awaited them but the terrible tortures of hell, proved powerless to overcome the fierce and dull stubbornness of the fanatics. he fell upon his knees, begged, wept and tried to seize the knife--at that moment the victim, stripped, was already on the table while the _mother_ was trying desperately to control her tears and cries--but he only succeeded in rousing the mad anger of the fanatics: they threatened to kill him, too.... magnus looked at me and said slowly with a peculiar calm: "and how would you have acted in that case, mr. wondergood?" "well, i would have fought until i was killed?" "yes! he did better. he offered his services and with his _own_ hand, with appropriate song, he cut the boy's throat. you are astonished? but he said: 'better for me to take this terrible sin and punishment upon myself than to surrender into the arms of hell these innocent fools.' of course, such things happen only with russians and, it seems to me, he himself was somewhat deranged. he died eventually in an insane asylum." following a period of silence, i asked: "and how would you have acted, magnus?" and with still greater coolness, he replied: "really, i do not know. it would have depended on the moment. it is quite possible i would have left those beasts, but it is also possible that i too...human madness is extremely contagious, mr. wondergood!" "do you call it only madness?" "i said: human madness. but it is you who are concerned in this, wondergood: _how_ do you like it? i am off to work. in the meantime, devote yourself to discerning the _boundary_ of the human, which you are now willing to accept in its entirety, and then tell me about it. you have not changed your intention, i hope, of remaining with _us_?" he laughed and went away, patronizingly polite. and i remained to think. and so i think: where is the boundary? i confess that i have begun to fear magnus somewhat...or is this fear one of the gifts of my complete human existence? but when he speaks to me in this fashion i become animated with a strange confusion, my eyes move timidly, my will is bent, as if too great and strange a load had been put upon it. think, man: i shake his big hand with _reverence_ and find _joy_ in his caress! this is not true of me before, but now, in every conversation, i perceive that this man can go _further_ than i in everything. i fear i _hate_ him. if i have not yet experienced love, i know not hatred either, and it will be strange indeed if i should be compelled to begin by hating the _father_ of maria!... in what a fog we do live, man! i have just merely mentioned the name of maria, her clear gaze has only touched my soul and already my hatred of magnus is extinguished (or did i only conjure it up?) and extinguished also is my fear of man and life (or did i merely invent it?) and great joy, great peace has descended upon me. it is as if i were again a white schooner on the glassy ocean; as if i held all answers in my hand and were merely too lazy to open it and read therein, as if _immortality_ had returned to me...ah, i can speak no more, oh, man! let me press your hand? april , . the good toppi approves _all_ my actions. he amuses me greatly, this good toppi. as i expected, he has _completely_ forgotten his true origin: he regards all my reminders of our past as jests. sometimes he laughs but more often he frowns as if he were hurt, for he is religious and considers it an insult to be compared with a "horny" devil, even in jest: he himself is now convinced that devils have horns. his americanism, at first pale and weak, like a pencil sketch, has now become filled with color, and i, myself, am ready to believe all the nonsense given out by toppi as his life--it is so sincere and convincing. according to _him_, he has been in my service about fifteen years and particularly amusing it is to hear his stories of his youth. apparently he, too, has been touched by the charms of _maria_: my decision to surrender all my money to her father astonished him much less than i expected. he merely chewed his cigar for a moment and asked: "and what will he do with your money?" "i do not know, toppi." he raised his brow and frowned: "you are joking, mr. wondergood?" "you see, toppi: just now we, i.e., magnus is occupied in converting my estate into gold and jamming it into banks, in his name, of course. you understand?" "how can i fail to understand, mr. wondergood?" "these are all preliminary, essential steps. what may happen further...i do not know yet." "oh, you are jesting again?" "you must remember, old man, that i myself did not know what to do with my money. it is not money that i need but new activity. you understand? but magnus _knows_. i do not know yet what his plans are but it is what magnus said that is important to me: 'i will compel you to work, wondergood!' oh, magnus is a great man. you will see that for yourself, toppi!" toppi frowned again and replied: "you are master of your money, mr. wondergood." "ah, you have forgotten everything, toppi! don't you remember about that _play_? that i wanted to play?" "yes, you did say something about it. but i thought you were joking." "no, i was not joking. i was only mistaken. they do play here but this is not a theater. it is a gambling house and so i gave all my money to magnus: let him break the bank. you understand? he is the banker, he will manage the game and i shall simply do the betting.... quite a life, eh?" apparently the old fool understood nothing. he kept raising and lowering his eyebrows and again inquired: "and how soon may we expect your betrothal to signorina maria?" "i do not know yet, toppi. but that is not the thing. i see you are dissatisfied. you do not trust magnus?" "oh, signor magnus is a worthy man. but one thing i do fear, mr. wondergood, if you will permit me to be frank: he is a man who does not believe. this seems strange to me: how can the father of signorina maria be a non-believer? is that not so? permit me to ask: do you intend to give anything to his eminence?" "that depends now on magnus." "oh! on signor magnus? so, so. and do you know that his eminence has already been to see signor magnus? he was here a few days ago and spent several hours in this study. you were not at home at that time." "no, i do not know. we have not spoken about that, but have no fear: we will find _something_ for the cardinal. confess, old man: you are quite enchanted with that old monkey?" toppi glanced at me sharply and sighed. then he lapsed into thought...and strange as it may seem--something akin to a monkey appeared in his countenance, as in the cardinal's. later, from somewhere deep within him, there appeared a smile. it illumined his hanging nose, rose to his eyes and blazed forth within them in two bright, little flames, not devoid of wanton malice. i looked at him in astonishment and even with joy: yes that was my old toppi, risen from his human grave.... i am convinced that his hair again has the smell of fur instead of oil! gently i kissed his brow--old habits cannot be rooted out--and exclaimed: "you are enchanting, toppi! but _what_ was it that gave you such joy?" "i waited to see whether he would show maria to the cardinal?" "well?" "he did not!" "well?" but toppi remained silent. and as it had come so did the smile disappear, slowly: at first the hanging nose grew pale and became quite indistinct, then all at once the flames within his eyes went out--and again the old dejection, sourness and odor of church hypocrisy buried him who had been resurrected for a moment. it would have been useless to trouble the ashes with further questions. this happened yesterday. a warm rain fell during the day but it cleared up towards evening and magnus, weary and apparently suffering with headache, suggested that we take a ride into the campagna. we left our chauffeur behind, a practice peculiar to all our intimate trips. his duties were performed by magnus, with extraordinary skill and daring. on this occasion, his usual daring reached the point of audacity: despite the ever-thickening twilight and the muddy road, magnus drove the automobile at such mad speed that more than once did i look up at his broad, motionless back. but that was only at first: the presence of maria, whom i supported with my arm (i do not dare say embraced!) soon brought me to the loss of all my senses. i cannot describe it all to you--so that you would really feel it--the aromatic air of the campagna, which caressed my face, the magnificence and charm of our arrow-like speed, my virtual loss of all sensation of material weight, of the complete disappearance of _body_, when i felt myself a speeding thought, a flying gaze.... but still less can i tell you of _maria_. her madonna gaze whitened in the twilight, like marble; like the mysterious silence and perfect beauty of marble was her gentle, sweet and wise silence. i barely touched her slender, supple figure, but if i had been embracing within the hollow of my hand the entire firmness of earth and sky i could not have felt a more complete mastery of the _whole world_! do you know what a line is in measurement? not much,--is that not so? and it was only by the measure of a line that maria bent her divine form to me--no, no more than that! but what would you say, man, if the _sun_, coming down from its course just one line were to come closer to you by that distance? would you not consider it a _miracle_? my existence seemed unbounded, like the universe, which knows neither your time nor distance. for a moment there gleamed before me the wall of my unconsciousness, that unconquerable barrier against which the spirit of him who has donned the human form beats in vain,--and as quickly did it disappear: it was swallowed, without sound or conflict, by the waves of my new sea. even higher they rose, enshrouding the world. there was no longer anything to remember for me or to know: my new human soul remembered all and commanded all. i am a man! what gave me the idea that i hate magnus? i looked at this motionless, erect and firm human back and thought that behind it a heart was beating. i thought of how painful and terrible it was for it to remain firm and erect and of how much pain and suffering had already fallen to the lot of this human creature, no matter how proud it might appear or dejected. and suddenly i realized to the extent of pain and tears, how much i loved magnus, this very same magnus! he speeds so wildly and has no fear! and the very moment i sensed this, maria's eyes turned upon me.... ah, they are as bright at night as they are by day! but at that moment there was a troubled look within them. they were asking: why these tears? what could i say in reply with the aid of weak words! i silently took maria's hand and pressed it to my lips. and without taking her gaze off me, shining in cold, marble luster, she quietly withdrew her hand--and i became confused--and again gave it to me, taking off her glove. will you permit me to discontinue, man? i do not know who you are, you who are reading these lines, and i rather fear you...your swift and daring imagination. moreover, a gentleman feels ill at ease in speaking of his success with the ladies. besides, it was time to return: on the hills the lights of tivoli were already gleaming and magnus reduced his speed. we were moving quite slowly on the return trip and magnus, grown merry, wiping his brow with his handkerchief, now and then addressed brief remarks to us. there is one thing i will not conceal: her unquestionable womanliness emphasizes the completeness of my transformation. as we walked up the broad stairs of my palazzo, amid its princely wealth and beauty, i suddenly thought: "why not send all this adventure to the devil? why not simply wed and live like a prince in this palace? there will be freedom, children, laughter, just earthly happiness and love." and again i looked at magnus. he seemed strange to me: "i will take your money!" then i saw the stern gaze of my maria--and the contradiction between her love and this plan of simple, modest happiness was so great and emphatic that my thought did not even require an answer. i now recollect this thought accidentally as a curiosity of "toppism." let me call it "toppism" in honor of my perfect toppi. the evening was charming. at magnus' request, maria sang. you cannot imagine the reverence with which toppi listened to her singing! he dared not utter a word to maria, but on leaving he shook my hand long and with particular warmth. then, similarly, he shook the hand of magnus. i also rose to retire. "do you intend to do some work yet, magnus?" "no. don't you want to go to sleep, wondergood? come to my room. we'll chat a bit. incidentally, there is a paper for you to sign. do you want any wine?" "oh, with pleasure, magnus. i love conversation at night." we drank the wine. magnus, whistling something out of tune, silently walked the carpet, while i, as usual, reclined in a chair. the palazzo was all silence, like a sarcophagus, and this reminded me of that stirring night when mad mars raved behind the wall. suddenly, magnus exclaimed loudly, without hesitation: "the affair is progressing splendidly." "so?" "in two weeks everything will be completed. your swollen, scattered wealth, in which one can be lost as in a wood, will be transformed into a clear, concise and exact sack of gold...to be more correct--into a mountain. do you know the exact estimate of your money, wondergood?" "oh, don't, magnus. i don't want to know it. moreover, it's your money." magnus looked at me quickly and said sharply: "no, it's yours." i shrugged my shoulders. i did not want to argue. it was so quiet and i so enjoyed watching this strong man silently pacing to and fro. i still remembered his motionless, stern back, behind which i could clearly see his heart. he continued, after a pause: "do you know, wondergood, that the cardinal has been here?" "the old monkey? yes, i know. what did he want?" "the same thing. he wanted to see you but i did not feel like taking you away from your thoughts." "thanks. did you drive him out?" magnus replied angrily: "i am sorry to say,--no. don't put on airs, wondergood: i have already told you that we must be careful of him as long as we remain here. but you are quite right. he is an old, shaven, useless, evil, gluttonous, cowardly monkey!" "ah, ah! then why not show him the door?" "impossible." "i believe you, magnus. and what does this king i hear about want, he who is to visit us some of these days?" "ex-king. probably the same thing. you should receive him yourself, of course." "but only in your presence. otherwise i refuse. you must understand, my friend, that from that memorable night on i have been merely your disciple. you find it impossible to drive out the old monkey? very well, let him remain. you say we must receive some ex-king? very well, receive him. but i would rather be hanged on the first lamppost than to do so without knowing your reason." "you are jesting again, wondergood." "no, i am _quite_ serious, magnus. but i swear by eternal salvation that i know not what we are doing or intend to do. i am not reproaching you. i am not even questioning you: as i have already told you, i trust you and am ready to follow your directions. that you may not again reproach me with levity and impracticability, i may add a little business detail: maria and her love are my hostages. moreover, i do not yet know to what you intend to devote your energy, of whose boundlessness i am becoming more convinced each day; what plans and ends your experience and mind have set before you. but of one thing i have no doubt: they will be huge plans, great objects. and i, too, shall always find something to do beside you...at any rate this will be much better than my brainless old women and six secretaries. why do you refuse to believe in my modesty, as i believe in your...genius. imagine that i am come from some other planet, from mars, for instance, and wish in the most serious manner possible, to pass through the experience of a _man_.... it is all very simple, magnus!" magnus frowned at me for a few moments and suddenly broke into laughter: "you certainly are a pilgrim from some other planet, wondergood!... and what if i should devote your gold to doing evil?" "why? is that so very interesting?" "hm!... you think _that is_ not interesting?" "yes, and so do you. you are too big a man to do little evil, just as billions constitute too much money, while honestly as far as great evil is concerned, i know not yet what _great evil_ is? perhaps it is really _great good_? in my recent contemplations, there...came to me a strange thought: who is of greater _use_ to man--he who hates or he who loves him? you see, magnus, how ignorant i still am of human affairs and...how ready i am for almost anything." without laughter and, with what seemed to me, extreme curiosity, magnus measured me with his eyes, as if he were deciding the question: is this a fool i see before me, or the foremost sage of america? judging by his subsequent question he was nearer the second opinion: "so, if i have correctly understood your words, you are afraid of _nothing_, mr. wondergood?" "i think _not_." "and murder...many murders?" "you remember the point you made in your story about the boy of the _boundary_ of the human? in order that there may be no mistake, i have moved it forward several kilometers. will that be enough?" something like respect arose in magnus' eyes...the devil take him, though, he really considers me a clod! continuing to pace the room, he looked at me curiously several times, as if he were trying to recall and verify my remark. then, with a quick movement, he touched my shoulders: "you have an active mind, wondergood. it is a pity i did not come to know you before." "why?" "just so. i am interested to know how you will speak to the king: he will probably suggest something very evil to you. and great evil is great good. is that not so?" he again broke into laughter and shook his head in a friendly fashion. "i don't think so. the chances are he will propose something very silly." "hm!... and is that not great wisdom?" he laughed again but frowned suddenly and added seriously: "do not feel hurt, wondergood. i liked what you said very much and it is well you do not put any questions to me at this time: i could not answer them just now. but there is something i can say even now...in general terms, of course. are you listening?" "i am all attention." magnus seated himself opposite me and, taking a sip of wine, asked with strange seriousness: "how do you regard explosives?" "with great respect." "yes? that is cold praise, but, i dare say, they don't deserve much more. yet, there was a time when i worshiped dynamite as i do frankness...this scar on my brow is the result of my youthful enthusiasm. since then i have made great strides in chemistry--and other things--and this has cooled my zeal. the drawback of every explosive, beginning with powder, is that the explosion is confined to a limited space and strikes only the things near at hand: it might do for war, of course, but it is quite inadequate where bigger things are concerned. besides, being a thing of material limitations, dynamite or powder demands a constantly guiding hand: in itself, it is dumb, blind and deaf, like a mole. to be sure, in whitehead's mine we find an attempt to create consciousness, giving the shell the power to correct, so to speak, certain mistakes and to maintain a certain aim, but that is only a pitiful parody on eyesight...." "and you want your 'dynamite' to have consciousness, will and eyes?" "you are right. that is what i want. and my new _dynamite_ does have these attributes: will, consciousness, eyes." "and what is your aim? but this sounds...terrible." magnus smiled faintly. "terrible? i fear your terror will turn to laughter when i give you the name of my dynamite. it is _man_. have you never looked at man from this point of view, wondergood?" "i confess,--no. does dynamite, too, belong to the domain of psychology? this is all very ridiculous." "chemistry, psychology!" cried magnus, angrily: "that is all because knowledge has been subdivided into so many different subjects, just as a hand with ten fingers is now a rarity. you and your toppi--all of us are explosive shells, some loaded and ready, others still to be loaded. and the crux of the matter lies, you understand, in how to load the shell and, what is still more important: how to explode it. you know, of course, that the method of exploding various preparations depends upon their respective compositions?" i am not going to repeat here the lecture on explosives given me by magnus with great zeal and enthusiasm: it was the first time i had seen him in such a state of excitement. despite the absorbing interest of the subject, as my friends the journalists would say, i heard only half the things he was saying and concentrated most of my attention on his skull, the skull which contained such wide and dangerous knowledge. whether it was due to the conviction carried in magnus' words, or to pure weariness--i know not which--this round skull, blazing with the flames of his eyes, gradually assumed the character of a real, explosive shell, of a bomb, with the fuse lit for action.... i trembled when magnus carelessly threw upon the table a heavy object resembling a cake of grayish-yellow soap, and exclaimed involuntarily: "what's that?" "it looks like soap or wax. but it has the force of a devil. one half of this would be enough to blow st. peter's into bits. it is a capricious devil. you may kick it about or chop it into pieces, you may burn it in your stove, it will remain ever silent: a dynamite shell may tear it apart yet it will not rouse its wrath. i may throw it into the street, beneath the hoofs of horses; the dogs may bite at it and children may play with it--and still it remains indifferent. but i need only apply a current of high pressure to it--and the force of the explosion will be monstrous, limitless. a strong but silly devil!" with equal carelessness, bordering almost upon contempt, magnus threw his devil back into the table drawer and looked at me sternly. my eyebrows twitched slightly: "i see you know your subject to perfection, and i rather like this capricious devil of yours. but i would like to hear you discuss _man_." magnus laughed: "and was it not of him i have just spoken? is not the history of this piece of soap the history of your _man_, who can be beaten, burned, hacked to bits, hurled beneath the hoofs of horses, thrown to the dogs, torn into shreds--without rousing his consuming wrath or even his anger? but prick him with _something_--and the explosion will be terrible...as you will learn, mr. wondergood." he laughed again and rubbed his white hands with pleasure: he scarcely remembered at that moment that human blood was already upon them. and is it really necessary for _man_ to remember that? after a pause commensurate with the respect due to the subject, i asked: "and do you know how to make a _man_ explode?" "certainly." "and would you consider it permissible to give me this information?" "unfortunately it is not so easy or convenient because the current of high pressure would require too much elucidation, dear wondergood." "can't you put it briefly?" "oh, briefly. well, it is necessary to promise man some _miracle_." "is that all?" "that is all." "lies once more? the old monkey?" "yes, lies again. but not the old monkey. it is not that i have in mind. neither crusades nor immortality in heaven. this is the period of other miracles and other wonders. he promised resurrection to the dead. i promise resurrection to the living. his followers were the dead. mine...ours--are the living." "but the dead _did not arise_. how about the living?" "who _knows_? _we must make an experiment._ i cannot yet confide in you the business end of the enterprise but i warn you: the experiment must be conducted on a very large scale. you are not afraid, mr. wondergood?" i shrugged my shoulders indicating nothing definite. what could i answer? this gentleman carrying upon his shoulders a bomb instead of a head again split me into two halves, of which _man_, alas, was the lesser one. as wondergood, i confess without shame, i felt cruel fear and even pain: just as if the monstrous explosion had already touched my bones and were now breaking them...ah, but where is my endless happiness with maria, where the boundless peace of mind, where the devil is that white schooner? no, as great immortal curiosity, as the genius of _play_ and eternal movement, as the rapacious gaze of unclosing eyes i felt--i confess this, too, without shame--great joy, bordering upon ecstasy! and with a shiver of delight i mumbled: "what a pity i did not know that before." "why a pity?" "oh, just so. do not forget that i am come from another planet and am only now getting acquainted with man. so what shall we do with this--planet--magnus?" he laughed again: "you are a strange fellow, wondergood! with this planet? we will give it a little holiday. but enough jesting. i do not like it!" he frowned angrily and looked at me sternly, like an old professor...the manner of this gentleman was not distinguished by flippancy. when it seemed to him that i had grown sufficiently serious he shook his head in approval and asked: "do you know, wondergood, that the whole of europe is now in a very uneasy state?" "war?" "possibly war. everybody is secretly expecting it. _but_ war precedes the belief in the kingdom of _miracles_. you understand: we have lived too long in simple faith in the multiplication table, _we_ are tired of the multiplication table, _we_ are filled with ennui and anxiety on this straight road whose mire is lost in infinity. just now all of us are demanding some miracle and soon the day will come when we will demand the miracle immediately! it is not i alone who wants _an experiment on a large scale_--the whole world is preparing it...ah, wondergood, in truth, life would not be worth the candle if it were not for these highly interesting moments! highly interesting!" he greedily rubbed his hands. "you are pleased?" "as a chemist, i am in ecstasy. my shells are already loaded, without being themselves conscious of the fact, but they will know it well enough when i apply the torch. can you imagine the sight when _my_ dynamite will begin to explode, its consciousness, its will, its eyes directed straight upon its goal?" "and blood? perhaps my reminder is out of place but i remember an occasion when you spoke of _blood_ with much excitement." magnus fixed his long gaze upon me: something akin to suffering appeared in his eyes: but this was not the prick of conscience or pity--it was the emotion of a mature and wise man whose thoughts had been interrupted by the foolish question of a child: "blood," he said, "what blood?" i recalled to him his words on that occasion and told him of my strange and extremely unpleasant dream about the bottles, filled with blood instead of wine, and so easily broken. weary, with his eyes closed, he listened to my tale and sighed heavily. "blood!"--he murmured: "blood! that's nonsense. i told you many trite things on that occasion, wondergood, and it is not worth while to recall them. however, if _this_ gives you fear, it is not too late." i replied resolutely: "i fear _nothing_. as i have already said, i shall follow you everywhere. it is _my_ blood that is protesting--you understand?--not my consciousness or will. apparently i shall be the first to be fooled by you: i, too, seek a miracle. is not your _maria_ a miracle? i have been repeating the multiplication table night and day and i have grown to hate it like the bars of a prison. from the point of view of your chemistry, i am quite loaded and i ask but one thing: blow me up as quickly as possible!" magnus agreed sternly: "very well. in about two weeks. are you satisfied?" "thank you. i hope that signorina maria will then become my wife?" magnus laughed. "madonna?" "oh, i don't understand your smile...and, i must say, my hope is altogether in conformity with the regard i bear for your daughter, signor magnus." "don't excite yourself, wondergood. my smile was not about maria but about your faith in miracles. you are a splendid fellow, wondergood. i am beginning to love you like a son. in two weeks you will receive everything and then we shall conclude a new and strong pact. your hand, comrade!" for the first time he shook my hand in a strong, comradely fashion. i would have kissed him if there had been a simple human head instead of a bomb upon his shoulders. but to touch a bomb! not even in the face of my utmost respect for him! that was the first night that i slept like one slain and the stone walls of the palace did not press upon me. the walls were brushed by the explosive power of magnus' speech, while the roof melted away beneath the starry coverlet of maria: my soul departed into the realms of her calm love and refuge. the mountain tivoli and its fires--that was what i saw as i fell into slumber. april , rome. before knocking at my door, his majesty, the ex-king e. had knocked at no small number of entrances in europe. true to the example of his apostolic ancestors, who believed in the gold of israel, he particularly liked to approach jewish bankers; i believe that the honor done me by his visit was based upon his firm conviction that i was a jew. although his majesty was visiting rome incognito, i, warned of his visit, met him at the foot of the stairs and bowed low to him--i think that is the requirement of etiquette. then, also in accordance with etiquette, we introduced ourselves, he--his adjutant, i--thomas magnus. i confess i had not a very flattering opinion of the former king and that is why he astonished me all the more with his high opinion of himself. he gave me his hand politely but with such haughty indifference, he looked at me with such complete self-confidence, as if he were gazing at a being of a lower order, he walked ahead of me so naturally, sat down without invitation, gazed upon the walls and furniture in such frankly royal manner, that my entire uneasiness due to my unfamiliarity with etiquette disappeared immediately. it was only necessary to follow this fellow, who appeared to know everything so well. in appearance he was quite a young man, with fresh complexion and magnificent coiffure, somewhat worn out but sufficiently well-preserved, with colorless eyes and a calm, brazenly protruding lower lip. his hands were beautiful. he did not try to conceal that he was bored by my american face, which appeared jewish to him, and by the necessity of asking me for money: he yawned slightly after seating himself and said: "sit down, gentlemen." and with a slight command of the hand he ordered the adjutant to state the nature of his proposal. he paid no attention to magnus at all, and while the fat, red and obliging adjutant was stealthily narrating the story of the "misunderstanding" which caused the departure of his majesty from his country--his majesty was nonchalantly examining his feet. finally, he interrupted his representative's speech with the impatient remark: "briefer, marquis. mr.... wondergood is as well familiar with this history as we are. in a word, these fools kicked me out. how do you regard it, dear wondergood?" "how do i regard it?" i bowed low: "i am glad to be of service to your majesty." "well, yes, that's what they all say. but will you give me any money? continue, marquis." the marquis, smiling gently at me and magnus (despite his obesity he looked quite hungry) continued to weave his thin flimsy web about the misunderstanding, until the bored king again interrupted him: "you understand: these fools thought that i was responsible for all their misfortunes. wasn't that silly, mr. wondergood? and now they are worse off than ever and they write: 'come back, for god's sake. we are perishing!' read the letters, marquis." at first the king spoke with a trace of excitement but apparently any effort soon wearied him. the marquis obediently took a packet of papers from the portfolio and tortured us with the complaints of the orphaned subjects, begging their lord to return. i looked at the king: he was no less bored than we were. it was so clear to him that the people could not exist without him that all confirmations of this seemed superfluous.... and i felt so strange: whence does this miserable man get so much happy confidence? there was no doubt that this bird, unable to find a crumb for himself, sincerely believed in the peculiar qualities of his personage, capable of bestowing upon a whole people marvelous benefactions. stupidity? training? habit? at that moment the marquis was reading the plea of some correspondent, in which, through the web of official mediocrity and the lies of swollen phrases, gleamed the very same confidence and sincere call. was that, too, stupidity and habit? "and so forth, and so forth," interrupted the king listlessly: "that will do, marquis, you may close your portfolio. well, what you think of it, dear mr. wondergood?" "i will be bold enough to say to your majesty that i am a representative of an old, democratic republic and...." "stop, wondergood! republic, democracy! that's nonsense. you know well enough yourself that a king is a necessity. you, in america, will have a king, too, some day. how can you get along without a king: who will be responsible for them before god? no, that's foolish." this creature was actually getting ready to answer for the people before god! and he continued with the same calm audacity: "the king can do everything. and what can a president do? nothing. do you understand, wondergood--_nothing!_ why, then, do you want a president who can do nothing?"--he deigned to twist his lower lip into a sarcastic smile.--"it is all nonsense, invented by the newspapers. would you, for example, take your president seriously, mr. wondergood?" "but representative government...." "fi! excuse me, mr. wondergood (he recalled my name with great difficulty) but what fool will pay any attention to the representatives of the people? citizen a will pay heed to citizen b and citizen b will pay heed to citizen a--is that not so? but who will compel their obedience if both of them are wise? no, i, too, have studied logic, mr. wondergood and you will permit me to indulge in a laugh!" he laughed slightly and said with his usual gesture: "continue, marquis.... no, let me do it. the king can do _everything_, wondergood, you understand?" "but the law...." "ah, this fellow, too, speaks of law. do you hear, marquis? no, i really can't understand what you want this law for! that all may suffer equitably! however, if you are so keen on having law, law you shall have. but who will give it to you, if not i?" "but the representatives of the people...." the king directed his colorless eyes upon me, almost in despair: "ah, again citizen a and b! but can't you understand, dear wondergood? what kind of a law is it if they themselves make it? what wise man will agree to obey it? no, that's nonsense. is it possible that you yourself obey this law, wondergood?" "not only i, your majesty, but the whole of america...." his eyes measured me with sympathy. "pardon me, but i don't believe it. the whole of america! well, in that case they simply don't understand what law is--do you hear, marquis, the whole of america! but that's not the thing. i must return, wondergood. you've heard what the poor devils write?" "i am happy to see that the road is open for you, my lord." "open? you think so? hm! no, i need money. some write and others don't, you understand?" "perhaps they don't know how to write, my lord?" "they? oh! you should have seen what they wrote against me. i was quite flustered. what they need is the firing squad." "all of them?" "why all of them? some of them will be enough. the rest of them will simply be scared to death. you understand, wondergood, they have simply stolen my power from me and now, of course, will simply refuse to return it. you can't expect me to see to it that no one robs me. and these gentlemen,"--he indicated the blushing marquis--"to my sorrow did not manage to guard my interests." the marquis mumbled confusedly: "sire!" "now, now, i know your devotion, but you were asleep at the switch just the same? and now there is so much trouble, so much trouble!"--he sighed lightly. "did not cardinal x. tell you i needed money, mr. wondergood? he promised to. of course i will return it all and...however, you should take this matter up with the marquis. i have heard that you love people very much, mr. wondergood?" a faint smile flitted over the dim face of magnus. i bowed slightly. "the cardinal told me so. that is very praiseworthy, mr. wondergood. but if you do love people you will certainly give me money. i don't doubt that in the least. they must have a king. the newspapers are merely prattling nonsense. why do they have a king in germany, a king in england, a king in italy, and a hundred other kings? and don't we need a king too?" the adjutant mumbled: "a misunderstanding...." "of course a misunderstanding. the marquis is quite right. the newspapers call it a revolution, but believe me, i know my people; it is simply a misunderstanding. they are now weeping themselves. how can they get along without a king? there would be no kings at all then. you understand? what nonsense! they now talk of no god, too. no, we must do a little shooting, a little shooting!" he rose quickly and this time shook my hand with a patronizing smile and bowed to magnus. "good-by, good-by, my dear wondergood. you have a magnificent figure.... oh, what a splendid fellow! the marquis will drop in to see you one of these days. there was something more i wanted to say. oh, yes: i hope that you in america will have a king, too, in the near future...that is very essential, my friend. moreover, that's bound to be the end! au revoir!" we escorted his majesty with the same ceremony. the marquis followed and his bowed head, divided into two halves by the part in his reddish hair, and his red face bore the expression of hunger and constant failure.... ah, he has so frequently and so fruitlessly orated about that 'misunderstanding'! the king, apparently, also recalled at that moment his vain knocking about at other thresholds: his bloodless face again filled with grayish ennui and in reply to my parting bow, he opened wide his eyes, as if in astonishment, with the expression: what more does this fool want? ah, yes, he has money. and lazily he asked: "and so, you'll not forget, mr....friend!" and his automobile was magnificent and just as magnificent was the huge chauffeur, resembling a gendarme, attired for the new rôle. when we had reascended the stairs (our respectful lackeys meanwhile gazing upon me as on a royal personage) and entered our apartments, magnus fell into a long, ironic silence. i asked: "how old is this creature?" "didn't you know, wondergood? that's bad. he is years old. perhaps less." "did the cardinal really speak of him and ask you to give him money?" "yes,--from what you may have left after the cardinal's wants are attended to." "that is probably due to the fact that the monarchist form of government is also in vogue in heaven. can you conceive of a republic of saints and the administration of the world on the basis of popular representation? think of it: even devils will then receive the vote. a king is most necessary, wondergood. believe me." "nonsense! this is not worthy even of a jest." "i am not jesting. you are mistaken. and pardon me for being so direct, my friend: in his discussion about kings _he_ was above you, this time. you saw only a creature, a countenance of purely material limitations and ridiculous. _he_ conceived himself to be a symbol. that is why he is so calm and there is no doubt that he will return to his beloved people." "and will do a little shooting." "and will do a little shooting. and will throw a little scare into them. ah, wondergood, how stubborn you are in your refusal to part with the multiplication table! your republic is a simple table, while a king--do you realize it?--is a _miracle_! what can there be simpler, sillier and more hopeless than a million bearded men, governing themselves,--and how wonderful, how miraculous when this million of bearded fellows are governed by a creature! that is a miracle! and what possibilities it gives rise to! it seemed very funny to me when you spoke with so much warmth about the law, this dream of the devil. a king is necessary for the precise purpose of _breaking_ the law, in order that the _will_ may be _above_ the law!" "but laws change, magnus." "to change is only to submit to necessity and to new law, which was unknown to you before. only by breaking the law do you elevate the _will_. prove to me that god himself is subject to his own laws, i.e., to put it simply, that he cannot perform miracles, and to-morrow your shaven monkey will share the fate of loneliness and all the churches will be turned into horse stables. the miracle, wondergood, the miracle--that is what holds human beings on this cursed earth!" magnus emphasized these words by banging the table with his fist. his face was gloomy. in his dark eyes there flickered unusual excitement. speaking as if he were threatening some one, he continued: "_he_ believes in miracles and i envy him. he is insignificant, he is really what you might call a creature, but he believes in miracles. and he has already been a king and will be a king again! and we!..." he waved his hand contemptuously and began to pace the carpet like an angry captain on the deck of _his_ vessel. with much respect i gazed upon his heavy, explosive head and blazing eyes: for the first time i realized what _satanic_ ambitions there were concealed in this strange gentlemen. "and we!" magnus noticed my gaze and shouted angrily: "why do you look at me like that, wondergood? it's silly! you are thinking of my ambition? that's foolish, wondergood! would not _you_, a gentleman of illinois, also like to be...well, at least, emperor of _russia_, where the _will_ is still above the law?" "and on what particular throne have you your eye, magnus?" i replied, no longer concealing my irony. "if you are pleased to think of me so flatteringly, wondergood, i will tell you that i _aim_ much higher. nonsense, my friend! only bloodless moralists have never dreamt of a crown, just as only eunuchs have never tempted themselves with the thought of woman. nonsense! but i do not seek a throne--not even the russian throne: it is too cramping." "but there is another throne, signor magnus: the throne of god." "but why only the throne of god? and have you forgotten satan's, mr. wondergood?" and this he said to me...or did the whole street know that my throne was vacant? i bowed my head respectfully and said: "permit me to be the first to greet you...your majesty." magnus turned on me in wild wrath, gnashing his teeth, like a dog over a contested bone. and this angry atom wants to be satan! this handful of earth, hardly enough for one whiff for the devil, is dreaming to be crowned with my crown! i bowed my head still lower and dropped my eyes: i felt the gleaming flame of contempt and divine laughter blazing forth within them. i realized that it must not be given to my honored ward to know this _laughter_. i do not know how long we remained silent, but when our eyes met again they were clear, pure and innocent, like two bright rays in the shade. magnus was the first to speak: "and so?" he said. "and so?" i replied. "will you order money for the king?" "the money is at your disposal, my dear friend." magnus looked at me thoughtfully. "it's not worth while," he decided. "this miracle is old stuff. it requires too many police to compel belief. we shall perform a better miracle." "oh, undoubtedly. we shall contrive a better device. in two weeks?" "yes, about that!" replied magnus cordially. we shook hands warmly in parting and in about two hours the gracious king sent each of us a decoration: some sort of a star for me and something else for magnus. i rather pitied the poor idiot who continued to play his lone hand. april , rome. maria is somewhat indisposed and i hardly see her. magnus informed me of her illness--and lied about it: for some reason he does not want me to see her. does he fear anything? again cardinal x. called on him in my absence. nothing is being said to me about the "miracle." but i am patient,--and i wait. at first this was rather boresome but recently i have found a new pastime and now i am quite content. it is the roman museums, where i spend my mornings, like a conscientious american who has just learned to distinguish between a painting and a piece of sculpture. but i have no baedecker with me and i am strangely happy that i don't understand a thing about it all: marble and painting. i merely like it. i like the odor of the sea in the museums. why the sea?--i do not know: the sea is far away and i rather expected the odor of decay. and it is so spacious here--much more spacious than the campagna. in the campagna i see only space, over which run trains and automobiles. here i swim in time. there is so much time here! then, too, i rather like the fact that here they preserve with great care a chip of a marble foot or a stony sole with a bit of the heel. like an ass from illinois, i simply cannot understand what value there is in this, but i already believe that it is valuable and i am touched by your careful thrift, little man! preserve it! go on breaking the feet of live men. that is nothing. but these you must preserve. it is good, indeed, when living, dying, ever changing men, for the space of years, take such good care of a chip of marble foot. when i enter the narrow museum from the roman street, where every stone is drowned in the light of the april sun, its transparent and even shadow seems to me a peculiar light, more durable than the expensive rays of the sun. as far as i _recollect_ it is thus that eternity doth shine. and these marbles! they have swallowed as much sunlight as an englishman whiskey before they were driven into this place that they do not fear night at all.... and i, too, do not fear the night when i am near them. take care of them, man! if _this_ is what you call art, what an ass you are, wondergood. of course, you are cultured, you look upon art with reverence as upon religion and you have understood as much of it as that ass did on which the messiah entered jerusalem. and what if there should be a fire? yesterday this thought troubled me all day and i went with it to magnus. but he seems extremely occupied with something and could not, at first, understand what i was driving at. "what's the trouble, wondergood? you want to insure the vatican--or something else? make it clearer?" "oh! to insure!" i exclaimed in anger: "you are a barbarian, thomas magnus!" at last he understood. smiling cordially, he stretched, yawned and laid some paper before me. "you really are a gentleman from mars, dear wondergood. don't contradict, and sign this paper. it is the last one." "i will sign, but under one condition. your explosion must not touch the vatican." he laughed again: "would you be sorry? then you had better not sign. in general, if you are sorry about anything--about anything at all--it would be better for us to part before it is too late. there is no room for pity in my game and my play is not for sentimental american girls." "if you please...." i signed the paper and threw it aside. "but it seems as if you have earnestly entered upon the duties of satan, dear magnus!" "and does satan have duties? poor satan! then i don't want to be satan!" "neither duties nor obligations?" "neither duties nor obligations." "and what then?" he glanced at me quickly with his gleaming eyes and replied with one short word, which cut the air before my face: "_will._" "and...the current of high pressure?" magnus smiled patronizingly: "i am very glad that you remember my words so well, wondergood. they may be of use to you some day." cursed dog. i felt so much like striking him that i--bowed particularly low and politely. but he restrained me with a gracious gesture, pointing to a chair: "where are you going, wondergood? sit down. we have seen so little of each other of late. how is your health?" "fine, thank you. and how is the health of signorina maria?" "not particularly good. but it's a trifle. a few more days of waiting and you.... so you like the museums, wondergood? there was a time when i, too, gave them much time and feeling. yes, i remember, i remember.... don't you find, wondergood, that man, in mass, is a repulsive being?" i raised my eyes in astonishment: "i do not quite understand this change of subject, magnus. on the contrary, the museums have revealed to me a new and more attractive side of man...." he laughed. "love for mankind?... well, well, do not take offense at the jest, wondergood. you see: everything that man does in crayon is wonderful--but repulsive in painting. take the sketch of christianity, with its sermon on the mount, its lilies and its ears of corn, how marvelous it is! and how ugly is its picture with its sextons, its funeral pyres and its cardinal x.! a genius begins the work and an idiot, an animal, completes it. the pure and fresh wave of the ocean tide strikes the dirty shore--and returns dirty, bearing back with it corks and shells. the beginning of love, the beginning of the roman empire and the great revolution--how good are all beginnings! and their end? and even if a man here and there has managed to die as beautifully as he was born, the masses, the masses, wondergood, invariably end the liturgy in shamelessness!" "oh, but what about the causes, magnus?" "the causes? apparently we find concealed here the very _substance_ of man, of animal, evil and limited in the mass, inclined to madness, easily inoculated with all sorts of disease and crowning the widest possible road with a standstill. and that is why art is so much above man!" "i do not understand." "_what_ is there incomprehensible about it? in art it is the genius who begins and the genius completes. you understand: the genius! the fool, the imitator or the critic is quite powerless to change or mar the paintings of velasquez, the sculpture of angelo or the verse of homer. he can destroy, smash, break, burn or deface, but he is quite powerless to bring them down to his own level--and that is why he so detests real art. you understand, wondergood? his paw is helpless!" magnus waved his white hand and laughed. "but why does he guard and protect it so assiduously?" "it is not _he_ who guards and protects. this is done by a special species of _faithful watchmen_"--magnus laughed again: "and did you observe how uncomfortable they feel in the museum?" "who--they?" "well, those who came to view the things! but the most ridiculous phase of the whole business is not that the fool is a fool but that the genius unswervedly worships the fool as a neighbor and fellow being and anxiously seeks his devastating love. as if he were a savage himself, the genius does not understand that _his_ true neighbor is a genius similar to himself and he is eternally opening his embraces to the near--human...who eagerly crawls into them in order to abstract the watch from his vest pocket! yes, my dear wondergood, it is a most laughable point and i fear...." he lapsed into thought, fixing his eyes upon the floor: thus apparently do human beings gaze into the depths of their own graves. and i understood just what this genius feared, and once again i bowed before the satanic mind which in all the world recognized only itself and its own will. here was a god who would not share his power with olympus! and what a contempt for mankind! and what open contempt for me! here was a grain of earth that could make the devil himself sneeze! and do you know how i concluded that evening? i took my pious toppi by the neck and threatened to shoot him if he did not get drunk with me. and drunk we did get! we began in some dirty little café and continued in some night taverns where i generously filled some black-eyed bandits with liquor, mandolin players and singers, who sang to me of maria: i drank like a farm hand who had just arrived in the city after a year of sober labor. away with the museums! i remember that i shouted much and waved my hands--but never did i love my _maria_ so tenderly, so sweetly and so painfully as in that smoke of drink, permeated with the odor of wine, oranges and some burning fat, in this wide circle of black bearded stealthy faces and rapaciously gleaming eyes, amid the melodious strains of mandolins which opened for me the very vestibules of heaven and hell! i vaguely remember some very accommodating but pompous murderers, whom i kissed and forgave in the name of maria. i remember that i proposed that all of us go to drink in the coliseum, in the very place where martyrs used to die but i do not know why we did not do it--i believe there were technical difficulties. and how splendid toppi was! at first he drank long and silently, like an archbishop. then he suddenly began to perform interesting feats. he put a bottle of chianti on his nose, the wine running all over him. he tried to perform some tricks with cards but was immediately caught by the affable bandits who brilliantly repeated the same trick. he walked on all fours and sang some religious verses through his nose. he cried and suddenly announced frankly that he was a devil. we walked home staggering along the street, bumping into walls and lampposts and hilariously enjoying ourselves like two students. toppi tried to pick a quarrel with some policemen, but, touched by their politeness, he ended by conferring his stern blessing upon them, saying gloomily: "go and sin no more." then he confessed with tears that he was in love with a certain signorina, that his love was requited and that he must therefore resign his spiritual calling. saying this, he lay down upon a stony threshold and fell into a stubborn sleep. and thus i left him. maria, maria, how you tempt me! not once have i touched your lips. yesterday i kissed only red wine...but whence come these burning traces on my lips? but yesterday i stood upon my knees, madonna, and covered you with flowers: but yesterday i timidly laid hands upon the hem of your garment, and to-day you are only a woman and i want you. my hands are trembling. the obstacles, the halls, the paces and the thresholds separating us drive me mad. i want you! i did not recognize my own eyes in the mirror: there is a thick shadow upon them. i breathe heavily and irregularly, and all day long my thoughts are wandering lustfully about your naked breast. i have forgotten everything. in whose power am i? it bends me like soft, heated iron. i am deafened, i am blinded by my own heat and sparks. what do you do, man, when _that_ happens to you? do you simply go and take the woman? do you violate her? think: it is night now and maria is so close by. i can approach her room without a sound...and i want to hear her cries! but suppose magnus bars the road for me? i will kill magnus. nonsense. no, tell me, in whose power am i? you ought to know that man? to-day, just before evening, as i was seeking to escape from myself and maria, i wandered about the streets, but it was worse there: everywhere i saw men and women, men and women. as if i had never seen them before! they all appeared naked to me. i stood long at monte-picio and tried to grasp what a sunset was but could not: before me there passed by in endless procession those men and women, gazing into each other's eyes. tell me--what is woman? i saw one--very beautiful--in an automobile. the sunset threw a rosy glow upon her pale face and in her ears there glistened two diamond sparks. she gazed upon the sunset and the sunset gazed on her, but i could not endure it: sorrow and love gripped my heart, as if i were dying. there behind her were trees, green, almost black. maria! maria! april , isle of capri. perfect calm reigned upon the sea. from a high precipice i gazed long upon a little schooner, motionless in the blue expanse. its white sails were rigidly still and it seemed as happy as on that memorable day. and, again, great calm descended upon me, while the holy name of _maria_ resounded purely and peacefully, like the sabbath bells on the distant shore. there i lay upon the grass, my face toward the sky. the good earth warmed my back, while my eyes were pierced with warm light, as if i had thrust my face into the sun. not more than three paces away there lay an abyss, a steep precipice, a dizzying wall, and it was delightful to imbibe the odor of grass and the spring flowers of capri. there was also the odor of toppi, who was lying beside me: when he is heated by the sun he emits the smell of fur. he was all sunburned, just as if he had been smeared with coal. in general, he is a very amiable old devil. the place where we lay is called anacapri and constitutes the elevated part of the island. the sun had already set when we began our trip downward and a half moon had risen in the sky. but there was the same quiet and warmth and from somewhere came the strains of mandolins in love, calling to maria. maria everywhere! but my love breathed with great calm, bathed in the pure moonlight rays, like the little white houses below. in such a house, at one time, did maria live, and into just such a house i will take her in about four days. a high wall along which the road ran, concealed the moon from us and here we beheld the statue of an old madonna, standing in a niche, high above the road and the surrounding bushes. before her burned with a weak flame the light of an image-lamp, and she seemed so alive in her watchful silence that my heart grew cold with sweet terror. toppi bowed his head and mumbled a prayer, while i removed my hat and thought: how high above this earthly vessel, filled with moonlit twilight and mysterious charms, you stand. thus does _maria_ stand above my soul.... enough! here again the extraordinary begins and i must pause. we shall soon drink some champagne and then we shall go to the café. i understand they expect some mandolin players from naples there to-day. toppi would rather be shot than follow me: his conscience troubles him to this day. but it is good that i will be alone. april --rome, palazzo orsini. ...night. my palace is dead and silent, as if it were one of the ruins of ancient rome. beyond the large window lies the garden: it is transparent and white with the rays of the moon and the vaporous pole of the fountain resembles a headless vision in a silver veil. its splash is scarcely heard through the thick window-pane--as if it were the sleepy mumbling of the night guard. yes, this is all beautiful and...how do you put it?--it breathes with love. of course, it would be good to walk beside maria over the blue sand of the garden path and to trample upon her shadow. but i am disturbed and my disquiet is wider than love. in my attempts to walk lightly i wander about the room, lean against the wall, recline in silence in the corners, and all the time i seem to hear something. something far away, a thousand kilometers from here. or is this all lodged in my memory--that which i strain my ear to catch? and the thousand kilometers--are they the thousand years of my life? you would be astonished if you saw how i was dressed. my fine american costume had suddenly become unbearably heavy, so i put on my bathing suit. this made me appear thin, tall and wiry. i tried to test my nimbleness by crawling about the floor, suddenly changing the direction, like a noiseless bat. but it is not i who am restless. it is my muscles that are filled with this unrest, and i know not what they want. then i began to feel cold. i dressed and sat down to write. i drank some wine and drew down the curtains to shut the white garden from my eyes. then i examined and fixed my browning. i intend to take it with me to-morrow for a friendly chat with magnus. you see, thomas magnus has some _collaborators_. that is what he calls those gentlemen unknown to me who respectfully get out of my way when we meet, but never greet me, as if we were meeting in the street and not in my house. there were two of them when i went to capri. now they are six, according to what toppi tells me, and they live here. toppi does not like them. neither do i. they seem to have no _faces_. i could not see them. i happened to think of that just now when i tried to recall them. "these are my assistants," magnus told me to-day without trying in the least to conceal his ridicule. "well, i must say, magnus, they have had bad training. they never greet me when we meet." "on the contrary, dear wondergood! they are very well-mannered. they simply cannot bring themselves to greet you without a proper introduction. they are...extremely correct people. however, you will learn all to-morrow. don't frown. be patient, wondergood! just one more night!" "how is signorina maria's health?" "_to-morrow_ she will be well." he placed his hand upon my shoulder and brought his dark, evil, brazen eyes closer to my face: "the passion of love, eh?" i shook off his hand and shouted: "signor magnus! i...." "you?"--he frowned at me and calmly turned his back upon me: "till to-morrow, mr. wondergood!" that is why i loaded my revolver. in the evening i was handed a letter from magnus: he begged my pardon, said his conduct was due to unusual excitement and he sincerely sought my friendship and confidence. he also agreed that his _collaborators_ are really ill-mannered folk. i gazed long upon these hasty illegible lines and felt like taking with me, not my revolver, but a cannon. one more night, but how long it is! _there is danger facing me._ i feel it and my muscles _know_ it, too. do you think that i am merely afraid? i swear by eternal salvation--no! i know not where my fear has disappeared, but only a short while ago i was afraid of everything: of darkness, death and the most inconsequential pain. and now i fear nothing. i only feel strange...is that how you put it: strange? here i am on your earth, man, and i am thinking of another person who is dangerous to me and i myself am--man. and there is the moon and the fountain. and there is maria, whom i love. and here is a glass and wine. and this is--my and your life. or did i simply imagine that i was satan once? i see _it_ is all an invention, the fountain and maria and my very thoughts on the man--magnus, but the _real_ my mind can neither unravel nor understand. i assiduously examine my memory and it is silent, like a closed book, and i have no power to open this enchanted volume, concealing the whole past of my being. straining my eyesight, i gaze into the bright and distant depth from which i came upon this pasteboard earth--but i see nothing in the painful ebb and flow of the boundless fog. there, behind the fog, is my country, but it seems--it seems i have quite forgotten the road. i have again returned to wondergood's bad habit of getting drunk alone and i am slightly drunk now. no matter. it is the last time. i have just seen something after which i wish to see nothing else. i felt like taking a look at the white garden and to imagine how it would feel to walk beside maria over the path of blue sand. i turned off the light in the room and opened wide the draperies. and the white garden arose before me, like a dream, and--think of it!--over the path of blue sand there walked a man and a woman--and the woman was maria! they walked quietly, trampling upon their own shadows, and the man embraced her. the little counting machine in my breast beat madly, fell to the floor and broke, when, finally, i recognized the man--it was magnus, only magnus, dear magnus, the father. may he be cursed with his fatherly embraces! ah, how my love for _maria_ surged up again within me! i fell on my knees before the window and stretched out my hands to her.... to be sure, i had already seen something of that kind in the theater, but it's all the same to me: i stretched out my hands--was i not alone and drunk! why should i not do what i want to do? madonna! then i suddenly drew down the curtain! quietly, like a web, like a handful of moonlight, i will take this vision and weave it into night dreams. quietly!... quietly!... iv may , .--italy. had i at my disposal, not the pitiful word but a strong orchestra, i would compel all the brass trumpets to roar. i would raise their blazing mouths to the sky and would compel them to rave incessantly in a blazen, screeching voice which would make one's hair stand on end and scatter the clouds in terror. i do not want the lying violins. hateful to me is the gentle murmur of false strings beneath the fingers of liars and scoundrels. breath! breath! my gullet is like a brass horn. my breath--a hurricane, driving forward into every narrow cleft. and all of me rings, kicks and grates like a heap of iron in the face of the wind. oh, it is not always the mighty, wrathful roar of brass trumpets. frequently, very frequently it is the pitiful wail of burned, rusty iron, crawling along lonely, like the winter, the whistle of bent twigs, which drives thought cold and fills the heart with the rust of gloom and homelessness. everything that fire can touch has burned up within me. was it i who wanted to play? was it i who yearned for the game? then--look upon this monstrous ruin of the theater wrecked by the flames: all the actors, too, have lost their lives therein.. ah, all the actors, too, have perished, and brazen truth peers now through the beggarly holes of its empty windows. by my throne,--what was that love i prattled of when i donned this human form? to whom was it that i opened my embraces? was it you...comrade? by my throne!--if i was love but _for a single moment_, henceforth i am hate and _eternally_ thus i remain. let us halt at this point to-day, dear comrade. it has been quite some time since i moved my pen upon this paper and i must now grow accustomed anew to your dull and shallow face, smeared o'er with the red of your cheeks. i seem to have forgotten how to speak the language of respectable people who have just received a trouncing. get thee hence, my friend. to-day i am a brass trumpet. tickle not my throat, little worm. leave me. may , italy. it was a month ago that thomas magnus _blew_ me up. yes, it is true. he really blew me up and it was a month ago, in the holy city of rome, in the palazzo orsini, when i still belonged to the billionaire henry wondergood--do you remember that genial american, with his cigar and patent gold teeth? alas! he is no longer with us. he died suddenly and you will do well if you order a requiem mass for him: his illinois soul is in need of your prayers. let us return, however, to his last hours. i shall try to be exact in my recollections and give you not only the emotions but also the words of that evening--it was evening, when the moon was shining brightly. perhaps i shall not give you quite the words spoken but, at any rate, they will be the words i heard and stored away in my memory.... if you were ever whipped, worthy comrade, then you know how difficult it was for you to count all the blows of the whip. a change of gravity! you understand? oh, you understand everything. and so let us receive the last breath of henry wondergood, blown up by the culprit thomas magnus and buried by..._maria_. i remember: i awoke on the morning after that _stormy_ evening, calm and even gay. apparently it was the effect of the sun, shining into that same, broad window through which, at night, there streamed that unwelcome and too highly significant moonlight. you understand: now the moon and now the sun? oh, you understand everything. it is probably for the very same reason i acquired my touching faith in the integrity of magnus and awaited toward evening that cloudless bliss. this expectation was all the greater because his collaborators...you remember his collaborators?--had begun to _greet_ and _bow_ to me. what is a greeting?--ah, how much it means to the faith of man! you know my good manners and, therefore, will believe me when i say that i was cold and restrained like a gentleman who has just received a legacy. but if you had put your ear to my belly you would have heard violins playing within. something about love, you understand. oh, you understand everything. and thus, with these violins did i come to magnus in the evening when the moon was shining brightly. magnus was alone. we were long silent and this indicated that an interesting conversation awaited me. finally i said: "how is the signorina's health?"... but he interrupted me: "we are facing a very difficult talk, wondergood? does that disturb you?" "oh, no, not at all." "do you want wine? well, never mind. i shall drink a little but you need not. yes, wondergood?" he laughed as he poured out the wine and here i noticed with astonishment that he himself was _very_ excited: his large, white, hangman's hands were quite noticeably trembling. i do not know exactly just when my violins ceased--i think it was at that very moment. magnus gulped down two glasses of wine--he had intended to take only a little--and, sitting down, continued: "no, you ought not to drink, wondergood. i need all your _senses_, undimmed by anything...you didn't drink anything to-day? no? that's good. your _senses_ must be clear and sober. one must not take anesthetics in such cases as...as...." "as vivisection?" he shook his head seriously in affirmation. "yes, vivisection. you have caught my idea marvelously. yes, in cases of vivisection of the soul. for instance, when a loving mother is informed of the death of her son or...a rich man that he has become penniless. but the senses, what can we do with the senses, we cannot hold them in leash all our life! you understand, wondergood? in the long run, i am not in the least so cruel a man as i occasionally seem even to myself and the _pain_ of others frequently arouses in me an unpleasant, responsive trembling. that is not good. a surgeon's hand must be firm." he looked at his fingers: they no longer trembled. he continued with a smile: "however, wine helps some. dear wondergood, i swear by eternal salvation, by which you love so to swear, that it is extremely unpleasant for me to cause you this little...pain. keep your senses, wondergood! your senses, your senses! your hand, my friend?" i gave him my hand and magnus enveloped my palm and fingers and held them long in his own paw, strained, permeated with some kind of electric currents. then he let them go, sighing with relief. "that's it. just so. courage, wondergood!" i shrugged my shoulders, lit a cigar and asked: "your illustration of the _very_ wealthy man who has suddenly become a beggar,--does that concern me? am i penniless?" magnus answered slowly as he gazed straight into my eyes: "if you wish to put it that way--yes. you have nothing left. absolutely nothing. and this palace, too, is already sold. to-morrow the new owners take possession." "oh, that is interesting. and where are my billions?" "i have them. they are mine. i am a very wealthy man, wondergood." i moved my cigar to the other corner of my mouth and asked: "and you are ready, of course, to give me a helping hand? you are a contemptible scoundrel, thomas magnus." "if that's what you call me--yes. something on that order." "and a liar!" "perhaps. in general, dear wondergood, it is very necessary for you to change your outlook on life and man. you are too much of an idealist." "and you"--i rose from my chair--"for you it is necessary to change your fellow conversationalist. permit me to bid you good-by and to send a police commissary in my place." magnus laughed. "nonsense, wondergood! everything has been done within the law. you, yourself, have handed over everything to me. this will surprise no one...with your love for humanity. of course, you can proclaim yourself insane. you understand?--and then, perhaps, i may get to the penitentiary. but you--you will land in an insane asylum. you would hardly like that, dear friend. police! well, go on talking. it will relieve the first effects of the blow." i think it was really difficult for me to conceal my excitement. i hurled my cigar angrily into the fireplace, while my eye carefully measured both the window and magnus...no, this carcass was too big to play ball with. at that moment the loss of my wealth had not yet fully impressed itself upon my mind and it was that which maddened me as much as the brazen tone of magnus and the patronizing manner of the old scoundrel. in addition, i dimly sensed something portentous of evil and sorrow, like a threat: as if some real danger were lurking not in front of me but behind my back. "what is this all about?" i shouted, stamping my foot. "what is this all about?" replied magnus, like an echo. "yes, i really cannot understand why you are so excited, wondergood. you have so frequently offered me this money and even forced it upon me and now, when the money is in my hands, you want to call the police! of course," magnus smiled--"there is a slight distinction here: in placing your money so magnanimously at my _disposal_, you still remained its master and the master of the situation, while now...you understand, old friend: now i can simply drive you out of this house!" i looked at magnus significantly. he replied with no less a significant shrug of the shoulders and cried angrily: "stop your nonsense. i am stronger than you are. do not try to be more of a fool than is absolutely necessitated by the situation." "you are an unusually brazen scoundrel, signor magnus!" "again! how these sentimental souls do seek consolation in words! take a cigar and listen to me. i have long needed money, a great deal of money. in my past, which i need not disclose to you, i have suffered certain...failures. they irritated me considerably. fools and sentimental souls, you understand? my energy was imprisoned under lock and key, like a bird in a cage. for three years i sat in this cursed cage, awaiting my chance...." "and all that--in the beautiful campagna?" "yes, in the beautiful campagna...and i had already begun to lose hope, when you appeared. i find it difficult to express myself at this point...." "be as direct as you can. have no compunctions." "you seemed very strange with all this love of yours for men and your _play_, as you finally termed it, and, my friend, for a long time i had grave doubts as to what you really were: an extraordinary fool or just a scoundrel, like myself. you see, such extraordinary asses appear so seldom that even i had my doubts. you are not angry?" "oh, not at all." "you forced money upon me and i thought: a trap! however you made your moves quickly and certain precautions on my part...." "pardon me for interrupting. so, those books of yours, your solitary contemplation of life, that little white house and everything was all a lie? and murder--do you remember all that drivel about hands steeped in blood?" "yes, i did kill. that is true. and i have pondered much upon life, while awaiting you, but the rest, of course, was falsehood. very base falsehood, but you were so credulous...." "and.. maria?" i confess that i had hardly uttered this name when i felt something clutching at my throat. magnus looked at me sharply and said gloomily: "we will discuss maria, too. but how excited you are! even your nails have turned blue. perhaps you'll have some wine? well, never mind. have patience. i shall continue. when you began your affair with maria...of course with my slight assistance...i finally concluded that you were...." "an extraordinary ass?" magnus raised his hand in a consoling gesture: "oh, no! you seemed to me to be that at the beginning. i will tell you quite truthfully, as i do everything i am telling you now: you are not a fool at all, wondergood. i have grown to know you more intimately. it doesn't matter that you have so naïvely surrendered your billions to me...many wise men have been fooled before by clever...scoundrels! your misfortune is quite another thing." i had the strength to smile: "my love for human beings?" "no, my friend: your contempt for human beings! your _contempt_ and at the same time your naïve faith in them arising from it. you regard human beings so far below you, you are so convinced of their fatal powerlessness that you do not fear them at all and are quite ready to pat the rattlesnake's head: such a nice little rattlesnake! one should fear people, comrade! i know your _game_, but at times you were quite sincere in your prattle about man, you even pitied him, but from an elevation or from a sidetrack--i know not which. oh, if you could only hate people i would take you along with me with pleasure. but you are an egotist, a terrible egotist, wondergood, and i am even beginning to shed my regrets for having robbed you, when i think of that! whence comes this base contempt of yours?" "i am still only learning to be a man." "well, go on learning. but why do you call your professor a scoundrel: for i am your professor, wondergood!" "to the devil with this prattle. so...you do not intend to take me along with you?" "no, my friend, i do not." "so. only my billions. very well, but what about your plan: to blow up the earth or something of that kind? or did you lie on this point, too? i cannot believe that you simply intend to open...a money changer's bureau or become some ragged king!" magnus looked at me gloomily. there was even a gleam of sympathy in his eyes as he replied slowly: "no, on that point i did not lie. but you won't do for me. you would always be hanging on to my coat tails. just now you shouted: liar, scoundrel, thief.... it's strange, but you are yet only learning to be a man and you have already imbibed so much pettiness. when i shall raise my hand to strike some one, your contempt will begin to whine: don't strike, leave him alone, have pity. oh, if you could only hate! no, you are a terrible egotist, old man." i shouted: "the devil take you with your harping on this egotism! i am not in the least more stupid than you, you beast, and i cannot understand what you find so saintly in hatred!" magnus frowned: "first of all: don't shout or i'll throw you out. do you hear? yes, perhaps you are no more stupid than i am, but man's business is not your business. do you realize that, you beast? in blowing up things, i only intend to do business and you want to be the ruler of another's plant. let them steal and break down the machinery and you--you will be concerned only about your salary and the respect due you? and i--i won't stand that! all this,"--he swept the room with a broad gesture--"is my plant, _mine_, do you hear, and it is i who will be robbed. i will be robbed and injured. and i hate those who rob me. what would you have done, in the long run, with your billions, if i had not taken them from you? built conservatories and raised heirs--for the perpetuation of your kind? private yachts and diamonds for your wife? and i...give me all the gold on earth and i will throw it all into the flames of my hatred. and all because i have been insulted! when you see a hunchback you throw him a lire. so that he may continue to bear his hump, yes? and i want to destroy him, to kill him, to burn him like a crooked log. to whom do you appeal when you are fooled or when a dog bites your finger? to your wife, the police, public opinion? but suppose the wife, with the aid of your butler, plants horns on your head or public opinion fails to understand you and instead of pitying you prefers to give you a thrashing--then do you make your appeal to god? but i, i go to no one. i plead before no one, but neither do i forgive. you understand? i do not forgive! only egotists forgive! i consider myself personally insulted!" i heard him in silence. perhaps it was because i was so close to the fireplace, gazing into the fire and listening to magnus's words, each new word intermingled with a fresh blaze of a burning log; no sooner would the glowing red mass fall apart than the words, too, would break up into particles, like hot coals. my head was not at all clear and, under the influence of these burning, flaming, flying words i fell into a strange, dark drowsiness. but this was what my memory retained: "oh, if you could only hate! if you were not so cowardly and weak of soul! i would take you with me and would let you behold a fire which would forever dry your miserable tears and burn your sentimental dreams to ashes! do you hear the song of the fools of the world? they are merely loading the cannons. the wise man need only apply the fire to the fuse, you understand? could you behold calmly the sight of a blissful sheep and hungry snake lying together, separated only by a thin partition? i could not! i would drill just a little opening, a little opening...the rest they would do themselves. do you know that from the union of truth and falsehood comes an explosion? i want to unite. i shall do nothing myself: i shall only _complete_ what they have begun. do you hear how merrily they sing? i will make them dance, too! come with me, comrade! you sought some sort of a play--let me give you an extraordinary spectacle! we shall bring the whole earth into action and millions of marionettes will begin to caper obediently at our command: you know not yet how talented and obliging they are. it will be a splendid play and will give you much pleasure and amusement...." a large log fell apart and split into many sparks and hot cinders. the flame subsided, growing morose and red. a silent heat emanated from the dimmed, smoke-smeared hearth. it burned my face and suddenly there arose before me my puppets' show. the heat and fire had conjured up a mirage. i seemed to hear the crash of drums and the gay ring of cymbals, while the merry clown turned on his head at the sight of the broken skulls of the dolls. the broken heads continued to pile up. then i saw the scrap heap, with two motionless little legs protruding from the heap of rubbish. they wore rose slippers. and the drums continued beating: tump-tump-tump. and i said pensively: "i think it will hurt them." and behind my back rang out the contemptuous and indifferent reply: "quite possibly." "tump-tump-tump...." "it is all the same to you, wondergood, but i cannot! can't you see: i cannot permit every miserable biped to call himself a man. there are too many of them, already. they multiply like rabbits, under the stimulus of physicians and laws. death, deceived, cannot handle them all. it is confused and seems to have lost its dignity and moral authority. it is wasting its time in dancing halls. i hate them. it has become repulsive to me to walk upon this earth, fallen into the power of a strange, strange species. we must suspend the law, at least temporarily, and let death have its fling. however, they themselves will see to this. no, not i, but they, will do it. think not that i am particularly cruel, no--i am only logical. i am only the conclusion, the symbol of equality, the sum total, the line beneath the column of figures. you may call it ergo, magnus, ergo! they say: 'two and two' and i reply: 'four.' exactly four. imagine that the world has suddenly grown cold and immovable for a moment and you behold some such picture: here is a free and careless head and above it--a suspended axe. here is a mass of powder and here a spark about to fall upon it. but it has stopped and does not fall. here is a heavy structure, set upon a single, undermined foundation. but everything has grown rigid and the foundation holds. here is a breast and here a hand aiming a bullet at it. have i prepared all this? i merely touch the lever and press it down. the axe falls upon the laughing head and crushes it. the spark falls into the powder--all is off! the building crashes to the ground. the bullet pierces the ready breast. and i--i have merely touched the lever, i, magnus ergo! think: would i be able to kill had i at my disposal only violins or other musical instruments?" i laughed: "only violins!" magnus replied with laughter: his voice was hoarse and heavy: "but they have other instruments, too! and i will use these instruments. see how simple and interesting all this is?" "and what further, magnus ergo?" "how do i know what's to follow? i see only _this_ page and solve only _this_ problem. i know not what the next page contains." "perhaps it contains the same thing?" "perhaps it does. and perhaps this is the final page...well, what of that: the sum total remains as is necessary." "you spoke on one occasion about _miracles_?" "yes, that is my lever. you remember what i told you _about my_ explosive? i promise rabbits to make lions of them.... you see, a rabbit cannot stand brains. give a rabbit brains and he will hang himself. melancholy will drive him to suicide. brains implies logic and what can _logic_ promise to a rabbit? nothing but a sorry fate on a restaurant menu. what one must promise a rabbit is either immortality for a cheap price, as does cardinal x. or--heaven on earth. you will see what energy, what daring, etc., my rabbit will develop when i paint before him on the wall heavenly powers and gardens of eden!" "on the wall?" "yes,--on a stone wall. he will storm it with all the power of his species! and who knows...who knows...perhaps this mass may really break through this stone wall?" magnus lapsed into thought. i drew away from the now extinguished fire and looked upon the explosive head of my repulsive friend.... something naïve, like two little wrinkles, almost like those of a child, lay upon his stony brow. i burst into laughter and shouted: "thomas magnus! thomas ergo! do you believe?" without raising his head, as if he had not heard my laughter, he lifted his eyes and replied pensively: "we must try." _but_ i continued to laugh: deep, wild--apparently human--laughing malice began to rise within me: "thomas magnus! magnus rabbit! do you believe?" he thumped the table with his fist and roared in a wild transport: "be quiet! i tell you: we must try. how do i know? i have never yet been on mars nor seen this earth inside-out. be silent, accursed egotist! you know nothing of our affairs. ah, if only you could hate!..." "i hate already." magnus suddenly laughed and grew strangely calm. he sat down and scrutinizing me from all possible angles, as if he did not believe me, he burst out: "you? hate? whom?" "you." he looked me over as carefully again and shook his head in doubt: "is that true, wondergood?" "if they are rabbits, you are the most repulsive of them all, because you are a mixture of rabbit and...satan. you are a coward! the fact that you are a crook, a thief, a liar, a murderer is not important. but you are a coward! that is important. i expected something more of you. i hoped your mind would lift you above the greatest crime, but you lift crime itself into some base philanthropy. you are as much of a lackey as the others. the only difference between you and them is that you have a perverted idea of service!" magnus sighed. "no, that's not it. you understand nothing, wondergood." "and what you lack is daring, my friend. if you are magnus ergo...what audacity: magnus ergo!--then why don't you go the limit? then, i, too, would follow you...perhaps!" "will you really come?" "and why should i not come? let me be contempt, and you--hatred. we can go together. do not fear lest i hang on to your coat tails. you have revealed much to me, my dear putridity, and i shall not seize your hand even though you raise it against yourself." "will you betray me?" "and you will kill me. is that not enough?" but magnus shook his head doubtfully and said: "you will betray me. i am a living human being, while you smell like a corpse. i do not want to have contempt for _myself_. if i do, i perish. don't you dare to look at me! look upon the others!" i laughed. "very well. i shall not look at _you_. i will look at the rest. i will make it easier for you with my contempt." magnus fell into prolonged thought. then he looked again at me piercingly and quietly asked: "and maria?..." oh, cursed wretch! again he hurled my heart upon the floor! i looked at him wildly, like one aroused at night by fire. and three big waves swept my breast. with the first wave rose the silent violins...ah, how they wailed, just as if the musician played not upon strings but upon my veins! then in a huge wave with foamy surf there rolled by all the images, thoughts and emotions of my recent, beloved human state: think of it: everything was there! even the lizzard that hissed at my feet that evening beneath the moonlight. i recalled even the little lizzard! and with the third wave there was rolled out quietly upon the shore the holy name: _maria_. and just as quietly it receded, leaving behind a delicate lace of foam, and from beyond the sea burst forth the rays of the sun, and for a moment, for one, little moment, i again became a white schooner, with sails lowered. where were the stars while awaiting the word of the lord of the universe to break forth in all their brilliance? madonna! magnus recalled me quietly. "where are you going? she is not there. what do you want?" "pardon me, dear magnus, but i would like to see the signorina maria. only for a moment. i don't feel quite well. there is something revolving in my eyes and head. are you smiling, dear magnus, or does it only seem so to me? i have been gazing into the fire too long and i can hardly discern the objects before me. did you say: maria? yes, i would like to see her. then we shall continue our interesting conversation. you will remind me just where we stopped, but meanwhile i would be extremely obliged to you, if we were...to take a little drive into the campagna. it is so sweet there. and signorina maria...." "sit down. you will see her presently." but i continued to weave my nonsense--what in the devil had happened to my head! i prattled on for a considerable period and now the whole thing seems so ridiculous: once or twice i pressed the heavy, motionless hand of thomas magnus: apparently he must have looked like my father at that moment. finally, i subsided, partially regained my senses but, in obedience to magnus' command, remained in my chair and prepared to listen. "can you listen now? you are quite excited, old man. remember: the senses, the senses!" "yes, now i can go on. i...remember everything. continue, old friend. i am all attention." yes, i recollected everything but it was quite immaterial to me just what magnus said or what he might say: i was awaiting maria. that is how strong my love was! turning aside for some reason and beating time with his fingers on the table, magnus said slowly and rather reluctantly: "listen, wondergood. in reality, it would be much more convenient for me to throw you out into the street, you and your idiotic toppi. you wanted to experience _all_ human life and i would have viewed with pleasure any efforts on your part to earn your own bread. you are apparently no longer used to this? it would also have been very interesting to know what would become of your grandiose contempt when.... but i am not angry. strange to say, i even nurse a feeling of thankfulness for your...billions. and i am rather hopeful. yes, i still have a little hope that some day you may really grow to be a man. and while this may prove an impediment to me, i am ready to take you with me, but only--after a certain test. are you still anxious to have...maria?" "yes." "very well." magnus rose with effort and moved toward the door. but he halted for a moment and turned toward me and--surprising as it was on the part of this scoundrel--he kissed my brow. "sit down, old man. i will call her immediately. the servants are all out to-day." he uttered the last sentence as he knocked feebly at the door. the head of one of his _aides_ appeared for a moment and immediately withdrew. with apparently the same effort magnus returned to his place and said with a sigh: "she will be here at once." we were silent. i fixed my eyes upon the tall door and it opened wide. _maria_ entered. with a quick step i moved to greet her and bowed low. magnus shouted: "don't kiss that hand!" may . i could not continue these notes yesterday. do not laugh! this mere combination of words: do not kiss that hand!--seemed to me the most terrible utterance the human tongue was capable of. it acted upon me like a magic curse. when i recall those words now they _interrupt_ everything i do and befog my whole being, transporting me into a new state. if i happen to be speaking i grow silent, as if suddenly stricken dumb. if i happen to be walking, i halt. if standing, i run. if i happen to be asleep, no matter how deep my slumber, i awake and cannot fall asleep again. very simple, extremely simple words: do not kiss that hand! and now listen to what happened further: and so: i bowed over _maria's_ hand. but so strange and sudden was magnus' cry, so great was the command in his hoarse voice, that it was impossible to disobey. it was as if he had stopped a blind man on the edge of a precipice! _but_ i failed to grasp his meaning and raised my head in perplexity, still holding maria's hand in mine, and looked at magnus. he was breathing heavily, as if he had actually witnessed my fall into the abyss--and in reply to my questioning look, he said in a stifled tone: "let her hand alone. maria get away from him." maria released her hand and stepped aside, at a distance from me. still perplexed i watched her, standing alone! i tried to grasp the situation. for a brief moment it seemed even extremely ludicrous and reminded me of a scene in a comedy, in which the angry father comes unexpectedly upon the sweethearts, but my silly laughter died away immediately and in obedient expectation i raised my eyes to magnus. magnus hesitated. rising with an effort, he twice paced the length of the room and halting before me, with his hands clasped behind him, said: "with all your eccentricities, you're a decent man, wondergood. i have _robbed_ you (that was how he put it) but i can no longer permit you to kiss the hand of this woman. listen! listen! i have already told you you must change your outlook upon men. i know it is very difficult and i sympathize with you, but it is essential that you do it, old friend. listen! listen! i misled you: maria is not my daughter...i have no children. neither is she a...madonna. she is my mistress and she was that as recently as last night...." now i understand that magnus was merciful in his own way and was intentionally submerging me slowly into darkness. but at that time i did not realize this and _slowly_ stifling, my breath gradually dying, i lost consciousness. and when with magnus' last words the light fled from me and impenetrable night enveloped my being, i whipped out my revolver and fired at magnus several times in succession. i do not know how many shots i fired. i remember only a series of laughing, flickering flames and the movements of my hand, pushing the weapon forward. i cannot remember at all how and when his _aides_ rushed in and disarmed me. when i regained my senses this was the picture i saw: the _aides_ were gone. i was sitting deep in my chair before the dark fireplace, my hair was wet, while above my left eyebrow there was a bandage soaked in blood. my collar was gone and my shirt was torn, my left sleeve was almost entirely torn off, so that i had to keep jerking it up constantly. maria stood on the same spot, in the same pose, as if she had not moved at all during the struggle. i was surprised to see toppi, who sat in a corner and gazed at me strangely. at the table, with his back to me, stood magnus. he was pouring out some wine for himself. when i heaved a particularly deep sigh, magnus turned quickly and said in a strangely familiar tone: "do you want some wine, wondergood? you may have a glass now. here, drink.... you see you failed to hit me. i do not know whether to be glad or not, but i am alive. to your health, old man!" i touched my brow with my finger and mumbled: "blood...." "a mere trifle, just a little scratch. it won't matter. don't touch it." "it smells." "with powder? yes, that'll soon pass, too. toppi is here. do you see him? he asked permission to stay here. you won't object if your secretary remains while we continue our conversation? he is extremely devoted to you." i looked at toppi and smiled. toppi made a grimace and sighed gently: "mr. wondergood! it is i, your toppi." and he burst into tears. this old devil, still emitting the odor of fur, this old clown in black, this sexton with hanging nose, this seducer of little girls--burst into tears! but still worse was it when, blinking my eyes, i, too, began to weep, i, "the wise, immortal, almighty!" thus we both wept, two deceived devils who happened to drop in upon this earth, and human beings--i am happy to give them their due!--looked on with deep sympathy for our tears. weeping and laughing at the same time, i asked: "it's difficult to be a man, toppi?" and toppi, sobbing, replied obediently: "very difficult, mr. wondergood." but here i happened to look at maria and my sentimental tears immediately dried. in general, that evening is memorable for the sudden and ludicrous transformations of my moods. you probably know them, old man? now i wept and beat the lyre, like a weeping post, now i became permeated with a stony calm and a sense of unconquerable power, or i began to chatter nonsense, like a parrot scared to death by a dog, and kept up my chatter, louder, sillier and more and more unbearable, until a new mood bore me off into a deep and inexpressible sadness. magnus caught my look at maria and smiled involuntarily. i adjusted the collar of my torn shirt and said _dryly_: "i do not know whether to be glad or sorry that i failed to kill you, old friend. i am quite calm now, however, and would like you to tell me everything about...that woman. but as you are a liar, let me question her first. signorina maria, you were my bride? and in a few days i hoped to call you my wife. but tell me the truth: are you really...this man's mistress?" "yes, signor." "and...how long?" "five years, signor." "and how old are you now." "nineteen, signor." "that means you were fourteen.... now you may continue, magnus." "oh, my god!" (it was toppi who exclaimed.) "sit down, maria.--as you see, wondergood,"--began magnus in a dry and calm tone, as if he were demonstrating not himself but some sort of a chemical compound--"this mistress of mine is quite an extraordinary phenomenon. with all her unusual resemblance to the madonna, capable of deceiving men better versed than you or i in religion, with all her really unearthly beauty, chastity and charm--she is a licentious and quite shameless creature, ready to sell herself from head to foot...." "magnus!" "calm yourself. you see how she listens to me? even your old toppi is cringing and blushing while she--her gaze is clear and all her features are filled with placid harmony...did you notice how clear maria's gaze is? do you hear me?" "yes, certainly." "would you like wine or an orange? take it. there it is on the table. incidentally, observe her graceful walk: she seems to be always stepping lightly as if on flowers or clouds. what extraordinary beauty and litheness! as an old lover of hers, i may also add the following detail which you have not learned yet: she herself, her body, has the fragrance of some flowers. now as to her spiritual qualities, as the psychologists put it. if i were to speak of them in ordinary language, i would say she was as stupid as a goose,--quite a hopeless fool. but she is cunning. and a liar. very avaricious as regards money but she likes it only in gold. everything she told you she learned from me, memorizing the more difficult lines...and i had quite a task in teaching her. but i feared all the time that, despite your love, you would be struck by her apparent lack of brains and that is why i kept her from you the last few days." toppi sobbed: "oh, god! madonna!" "does this astonish you, mr. toppi?"--magnus asked, turning his head. "i dare say you are not alone. do you remember, wondergood, what i told you about maria's _fatal_ resemblance, which drove one young man to suicide. i did not lie to you altogether: the youth actually did kill himself when he realized who maria really was. he was pure of soul. he loved as you do and as you he could not bear--how do you put it?--the wreck of his ideal." magnus laughed: "do you remember giovanni, maria?" "slightly." "do you hear, wondergood?" asked magnus, laughing. "that is exactly the tone in which she would have spoken of me a week hence if you had killed me to-day. have another orange, maria.... but if i were to speak of maria in extraordinary language--she is not at all stupid. she simply doesn't happen to have what is called a soul. i have frequently tried to look deep into her heart and thoughts and i have always ended in vertigo, as if i had been hurled to the edge of an abyss: there was _nothing_ there. emptiness. you have probably observed, wondergood, or you, mr. toppi, that ice is not as cold as the brow of a _dead_ man? and no matter what emptiness familiar to you you may imagine, my friends, it cannot be compared with that absolute vacuum which forms the kernel of my beautiful, light-giving star. star of the seas?--that was what you once called her, wondergood, was it not?" magnus laughed again and gulped down a glass of wine. he drank a great deal that evening. "will you have some wine, mr. toppi? no? well, suit yourself. i'll take some. so that is why, mr. wondergood, i did not want you to kiss the hand of that creature. don't turn your eyes away, old friend. imagine you are in a museum and look straight at her, bravely. did you wish to say something, toppi?" "yes, signor magnus. pardon me, mr. wondergood, but i would like to ask your permission to leave. as a gentleman, although not much of that, i...cannot remain...at...." magnus narrowed his eyes derisively: "at such a scene?" "yes, at such a scene, when one gentleman, with the silent approval of another gentleman, insults a woman like _that_," exclaimed toppi, extremely irritated, and rose. magnus, just as ironically, turned to me: "and what do you say, wondergood? shall we release this little, extremely little, gentleman?" "stay, toppi." toppi sat down obediently. from the moment magnus resumed, i, for the first time, regained my breath and looked at maria. what shall i say to you? it was _maria_. and here i understood a little _what_ happens in one's brain when one begins to go mad. "may i continue?" asked magnus. "however, i have little to add. yes, i took her when she was fourteen or fifteen years old. she herself does not know how old she really is, but i was not her first lover...nor the tenth. i could never learn her past exactly. she either lies cunningly or is actually devoid of memory. but even the most subtle questioning, which even a most expert criminal could not dodge, neither bribes nor gifts, nor threats--and she is extremely cowardly!--could compel her to reveal herself. she does not 'remember.' that's all. but her deep licentiousness, enough to shame the sultan himself, her extraordinary experience and daring in ars amandi confirms my suspicion that she received her training in a lupanaria or...or at the court of some nero. i do not know how old she is and she seems to change constantly. why should i not say that she is or years old? maria...you can do everything and you know everything?" i did not look at that woman. but in her answer there was a slight displeasure: "don't talk nonsense. what will mr. wondergood think of me?" magnus broke into loud laughter and struck the table with his glass: "do you hear, wondergood? she covets your good opinion. and if i should command her to undress at once in your presence...." "oh, my god! my god!"--sobbed toppi and covered his face with his hands. i glanced quickly into magnus' eyes--and remained rigid in the terrible enchantment of his gaze. his face was laughing. this pale mask of his was still lined with traces of faint laughter but the eyes were dim and inscrutable. directed upon me, they stared off somewhere into the distance and were horrible in their expression of dark and _empty_ madness: only the empty orbits of a skull could gaze so threateningly and in such wrath. and again darkness filled my head and when i regained my senses magnus had already turned and calmly sipped his wine. without changing his position, he raised his glass to the light, smelled the wine, sipped some more of it and said as calmly as before: "and so, wondergood, my friend. now you know about all there is to know of maria or the madonna, as you called her, and i ask you: will you take her or not? i give her away. take her. if you say yes, she will be in your bedroom to-day and...i swear by eternal salvation, you will pass a very pleasant night. well, what do you say?" "yesterday, you, and to-day, i?" "yesterday i,--to-day, you." he smiled: "what kind of man are you, wondergood, to speak of such trifles. or aren't you used to having some one else warm your bed? take her. she is a fine girl." "whom are you torturing, magnus:--me or yourself?" magnus looked at me ironically: "what a wise boy! of course, myself! you are a very clever american, mr. wondergood, and i wonder why your career has been so mediocre. go to bed, dear children. good night. what are you looking at, wondergood: do you find the hour too early? if so, take her out for a walk in the garden. when you see maria beneath the moonlight, magnuses will be unable to prove that this heavenly maiden is the same creature who...." i flared up: "you are a disgusting scoundrel and liar, thomas magnus! if she has received her training in a lupanaria, then you, my worthy signor, must have received your higher education in the penitentiary. whence comes that aroma which permeates so thoroughly your gentlemanly jokes and witticisms. the sight of your pale face is beginning to nauseate me. after enticing a woman in the fashion of a petty, common hero...." magnus struck the table with his fist. his bloodshot eyes were aflame. "silence! you are an inconceivable ass, wondergood! don't you understand that i myself, like you, was deceived by her? who, meeting _madonna_, can escape deception? oh devil! what are the sufferings of your little, shallow american soul in comparison with the pangs of mine? oh devil! witticism, jests, gentlemen and ladies, asses and tigers, gods and devils! can't you see: this is not a woman, this is--an eagle who daily plucks my liver! my suffering begins in the morning. each morning, oblivious to what passed the day before, i see madonna before me and believe. i think: what happened to me yesterday? apparently, i must be mistaken or did i miss anything? it is impossible that this clear gaze, this divine walk, this pure countenance of madonna should belong to a prostitute. it is your soul that is vile, thomas magnus: she is as pure as a host. and there were occasions when, on my knees, i actually begged forgiveness of this creature! can you imagine it: on my knees! then it was that i was really a scoundrel, wondergood. i idealized her, endowed her with my thoughts and feelings and was overjoyed, like an idiot. i almost wept with felicity when she mumblingly repeated what i would say. like a high priest i painted my idol and then knelt before it in intoxication! but the truth proved stronger at last. with each moment, with each hour, falsehood slipped off her body, so that, toward night, i even beat her. i beat her and wept. i beat her cruelly as does a procurer his mistress. and then came night with its babylonian licentiousness, the sleep of the dead and--oblivion. and then morning again. and again madonna. and again...oh, devil! over night my faith again grew, as did the liver of prometheus, and like a bird of prey she tortured me all day. i, too, am human, wondergood!" shivering as if with cold, magnus began to pace the room rapidly, gazed into the dark fireplace and approached maria. maria lifted her clear gaze to him, as if in question, while magnus stroked her head carefully and gently, as he would that of a parrot or a cat: "what a little head! what a sweet, little head.... wondergood! come, caress it!" i drew up my torn sleeve and asked ironically: "and it is this bird of prey that you now wish to give to me? have you exhausted your feed? you want my liver, too, in addition to my billions?" but magnus had already calmed himself. subduing his excitement and the drunkenness which had imperceptibly come upon him, he returned to his place without haste and ordered politely: "i will answer you in a moment, mr. wondergood. please withdraw to your room maria. i have something to say to mr. wondergood. and i would ask you, too, my honorable mr. toppi, to depart. you may join my friends in the salon." "if mr. wondergood will so command...." replied toppi, dryly, without rising. i nodded and, without looking at magnus, my secretary obediently made his exit. maria, too, left the room. to tell the truth, i again felt like clinging to his vest and weeping in the first few moments of my tête-à-tête with magnus: after all, this thief was my friend! but i satisfied myself with merely swallowing my tears. then followed a moment of brief desperation at the _departure_ of maria. and slowly, as if from the realm of remote recollection, blind and wild anger and the need of beating and destroying began to fill my heart. let me add, too, that i was extremely provoked by my torn sleeve that kept slipping constantly: it was necessary for me to be stern and austere and this made me seem ridiculous...ah, on what trifles does the result of the greatest events depend on this earth! i lighted a cigar and with studied gruffness hurled into the calm and hateful face of magnus: "now, you! enough of comedy and charlatanism. tell me what you want. so you want me to surrender to that bird of prey of yours?" magnus replied calmly, although his eyes were burning with anger: "yes. that is the trial i wanted to subject you to, wondergood. i fear that i have succumbed slightly to the emotion of useless and vain revenge and spoke more heatedly than was necessary in maria's presence. the thing is, wondergood, that all that i have so picturesquely described to you, all this passion and despair and all these sufferings of...prometheus really belong to the past. i now look upon maria without pain and even with a certain amount of pleasure, as upon a beautiful and useful little beast...useful for domestic considerations. you understand? what after all, is the liver of prometheus? it is all nonsense! in reality, i should be thankful to maria. she gnawed out with her little teeth my silly _faith_ and gave me that clear, firm and realistic outlook upon life which permits of no deceptions and...sentimentalisms. you, too, ought to experience and grasp it, wondergood, if you would follow magnus ergo." i remained silent, lazily chewing my cigar. magnus lowered his eyes and continued still more calmly and dryly: "desert pilgrims, to accustom themselves to death, used to sleep in coffins: let maria be your coffin and when you feel like going to church, kissing a woman and stretching your hand to a friend, just look at maria and her _father_, thomas magnus. take her, wondergood, and you will soon convince yourself of the value of my gift. i don't need her any longer. and when your humiliated soul shall become inflamed with truly inextinguishable, human hatred and not with weak contempt, come to me and i shall welcome you into the ranks of my yeomanry, which will very soon.... are you hesitating? well, then go, catch other lies, but be careful to avoid scoundrels and madonnas, my gentleman from illinois!" he broke into loud laughter and swallowed a glass of wine at one gulp. his swollen calm evaporated. little flames of intoxication, now merry, now ludicrous, like the lights of a carnival, now triumphant, now dim, like funeral torches at a grave, again sprang forth in his bloodshot eyes. the scoundrel was drunk but held himself firmly, merely swaying his branches, like an oak before a south wind. rising and facing me, he straightened his body cynically, as if trying to reveal himself in his entirety, and well nigh spat these words at me: "well? how long do you intend to think about it, you ass? come, quick, or i'll kick you out! quick! i'm tired of you! what's the use of my wasting words? what are you thinking of?" my head buzzed. madly pulling up that accursed sleeve of mine, i replied: "i am thinking that you are an evil, contemptible, stupid and repulsive beast! i am thinking in what springs of life or hell itself i could find for you the punishment you deserve! yes, i came upon this earth to play and to laugh. yes, i myself was ready to embrace any evil. i myself lied and pretended, but you, hairy worm, you crawled into my very heart and bit me. you took advantage of the fact that my heart was human and bit me, you hairy worm. how dared you deceive me? i will punish you." "you? me?" i am glad to say that magnus was astonished and taken aback. his eyes widened and grew round and his open mouth naïvely displayed a set of white teeth. breathing with difficulty, he repeated: "you? me?" "yes. i--you." "police?" "you are not afraid of it? very well. let all your courts be powerless, remain unpunished on this earth, you evil conscienceless creature! the day will come when the sea of falsehood, which constitutes your life, will part and all your falsehood, too, will give way and disappear. let there be no foot upon this earth to crush you, hairy worm. let! i, too, am powerless here. but the day will come when you will depart from this earth. and when you come to _me_ and fall under the shadow of my kingdom...." "your kingdom? hold on, wondergood. who are you, then?" and right at this point there occurred the most shameful event of my entire earthly life. tell me: is it not ridiculously funny when satan, even in human form, bends his knee in prayer to a prostitute and is stripped naked by the very first man he meets? yes, this is extremely ridiculous and shameful of satan, who bears with him the breath of eternity. but what would you say of satan when he turned into a powerless and pitiful liar and pasted upon his head with a great flourish the paper crown of a theatrical czar? i am ashamed, old man. give me one of your blows, the kind on which you feed your friends and hired clowns. or has this torn sleeve brought me to this senseless, pitiful wrath? or was this the last act of my human masquerade, when man's spirit descends to the mire and sweeps the dust and dirt with its breath? or has the _ruin_ of madonna, which i witnessed, dragged satan, too, into the same abyss? but this was--think of it!--this was what i answered magnus. thrusting out my chest, barely covered with my torn shirt, stealthily pulling up my sleeve, so that it might not slip off entirely, and looking sternly and angrily directly into the stupid, and as they seemed to me, frightened eyes of the scoundrel magnus, i replied _triumphantly_: "i am--satan!" magnus was silent for a moment--and then broke out into all the laughter that a drunken, repulsive, human belly can contain. of course you, old man, expected that, but i did not. i swear by eternal salvation, i did not! i shouted something but the brazen laughter of this beast drowned my voice. finally, taking advantage of a moment's interval between his thundering peals of laughter, i exclaimed quickly and modestly...like a footnote at the bottom of a page, like a commentary of a publisher: "don't you understand: i am satan. i have donned the human form! i have donned the human form!" he heard me with his eyes bulging, and with fresh thunderous roars of laughter, the outbursts shaking his entire frame, he moved toward the door, flung it open and shouted: "here! come here! here is satan! in human...human garb!" and he disappeared behind the door. oh, if i could only have fallen through the floor, disappeared or flown away, like a real devil, on wings, in that endless moment, during which he was gathering the _public_ for an extraordinary spectacle. and now they came--all of them, damn them: maria and all the six _aides_ and my miserable toppi, and magnus himself, and completing the procession--his eminence, cardinal x.! the cursed, shaven monkey walked with great dignity and even bowed to me, after which he sat down, just as dignified, in an armchair and carefully covered his knees with his robes. all were wondering, not knowing yet what it was all about, and glanced now at me and now at magnus, who tried hard to look serious. "what's the trouble, signor magnus?" asked the cardinal in a benevolent tone. "permit me to report the following, your eminence: mr. henry wondergood has just informed me that he is--satan. yes, satan, and that he has merely donned the human form. and thus our assumption that he is an american from illinois falls. mr. wondergood is satan and apparently has but recently deigned to arrive from hell. what shall we do about it, your eminence?" silence might have saved me. but how could i restrain this maddened wondergood, whose heart was aflame with insult! like a lackey who has appropriated his celebrated master's name and who faintly senses something of his grandeur, power and connections--wondergood stepped forward and said with an ironic bow: "yes, i am satan. but i must add to the speech of signor magnus that not only do i wear the human form but also that i have been robbed. are those _two_ scoundrels who have robbed me known to you, your eminence? and are you, perhaps, one of them, your eminence?" magnus alone continued to smile. the rest, it seemed to me, grew serious and awaited the cardinal's reply. it followed. the shaven monkey, it developed, was not a bad actor. pretending to be startled, the cardinal raised his right hand and said with an expression of extreme goodness, contrasting sharply with his words and gesture: "vade petro satanas!" i am not going to describe to you how they laughed. you can imagine it. even maria's teeth parted slightly. almost losing consciousness from anger and impotence, i turned to toppi for sympathy and aid. but toppi, covering his face with his hands, was cringing in the corner, silent. amid general laughter, and ringing far above it, came the heavy voice of magnus, laden with infinite ridicule: "look at the plucked rooster. that is satan!" and again there came an outburst of laughter. his eminence continuously shook, as though flapping his wings, and choked and whined. the monkey's gullet could hardly pass the cascades of laughter. i tore off that accursed sleeve madly and waving it like a flag, i ventured into a sea of falsehood, with full sails set. i knew that somewhere ahead there were rocks against which i might be shattered but the tempest of impotence and anger bore me on like a chip of wood. i am ashamed to repeat my speech here. every word of it was trembling and wailing with impotency. like a village vicar, frightening his ignorant parishioners, i threatened them with _hell_ and with all the dantean tortures of literary fame. oh, i did know something that i might really have frightened them with but how could i express the _extraordinary_ which is inexpressible in their language? and so i prattled on of eternal fire. of eternal torture. of unquenchable thirst. of the gnashing of teeth. of the fruitlessness of tears and pleading. and what else? ah, even of red hot forks i prattled, maddened more and more by the indifference and shamelessness of these shallow faces, these small eyes, these mediocre souls, regarding themselves above punishment. but they remained unmoved and smug, as if in a fortress, beyond the walls of their mediocrity and fatal blindness. and all my words were shattered against their impenetrable skulls! and think of it, the only one who was really frightened was my toppi! and yet he alone could _know_ that all my words were lies! it was so unbearably ridiculous when i met his pleading frightened eyes, that i abruptly ended my speech, suddenly, at its very climax. silently, i waved my torn sleeve, which served me as a standard, once or twice, and hurled it into the corner. for a moment it seemed to me that the shaven monkey, too, was frightened: the blue of his cheeks seemed to stand out sharply upon the pale, square face and the little coals of his eyes were glowing suspiciously beneath his black, bushy eyebrows. but he slowly raised his hand and the same sacrilegiously-jesting voice broke the general silence: "vade petro satanas!" or did the cardinal try to hide behind this jest his actual fright? i do not know. i know nothing. if i could not destroy them, like sodom and gomorrah, is it worth while speaking of cold shivers and goose flesh? a mere glass of wine can conquer them. and magnus, like the skilled healer of souls that he was, said calmly: "will you have a glass of wine, your eminence?" "with pleasure," replied the cardinal. "but none for satan," added magnus jestingly, pouring out the wine. but he could speak and do anything he pleased now: wondergood was squeezed dry and hung like a rag upon the arm of the chair. after the wine had been drunk, magnus lit a cigarette (he smokes cigarettes), cast his eye over the audience, like a lecturer before a lecture, motioned pleasantly to toppi, now grown quite pale, and said the following...although he was obviously drunk and his eyes were bloodshot, his voice was firm and his speech flowed with measured calm: "i must say, wondergood, that i listened to you very attentively and your passionate tirade created upon me, i may say, a great, artistic impression...at certain points you reminded me of the best passages of brother geronimo savanarola. don't you also find the same striking resemblance, your eminence? but alas! you are slightly behind the times. those threats of hell and eternal torture with which you might have driven the beautiful and merry florence to panic ring extremely unconvincing in the atmosphere of contemporary rome. the sinners have long since departed from the earth, mr. wondergood. have not you noticed that? and as for criminals, and, as you have expressed it, scoundrels,--a plain commissary of police is much more alarming to them than beelzebub himself with his whole staff of devils. i must also confess that your reference to the court of history and posterity was rather strange when contrasted with the picture you painted of the tortures of hell and your reference to eternity. but here, too, you failed to rise to the height of contemporary thought: every fool nowadays knows that history records with equal impartiality both the names of saints and of rogues. the whole point, mr. wondergood, which you, as an american, should be particularly familiar with, is in the scope with which history treats its respective subjects and heroes. the lashings history administers to its great criminals differ but little from her laurels--when viewed at a distance and this little distinction eventually becomes quite invisible--i assure you, wondergood. in fact, it disappears entirely! and in so far as the biped strives to find a place in history--and we are all animated by this desire, mr. wondergood--it need not be particular through which door it enters: i beg the indulgence of his eminence, but no prostitute received a new guest with greater welcome than does history a new...hero. i fear, wondergood, that your references to hell as well as those to history have fallen flat. ah, i fear your hope in the police will prove equally ill-founded: i have failed to tell you that his eminence has received a certain share of those billions which you have transferred to me in such a perfectly legal manner, while his connections...you understand?" poor toppi: all he could do was to keep on blinking! the _aides_ broke into loud laughter, but the cardinal mumbled angrily, casting upon me the burning little coals of his eyes: "he is indeed a brazen fellow. he said he is satan. throw him out, signor magnus. this is sacrilege!" "is that so?" smiled magnus politely: "i did not know that satan, too, belonged to the heavenly chair...." "satan is a fallen angel," said the cardinal in an instructive tone. "and as such he is in your service? i understand," magnus bowed his head politely in acceptance of this truth and turned smilingly to me: "do you hear, wondergood? his eminence is irritated by your audacity." i was silent. magnus winked at me slyly and continued with an air of artificial importance: "i believe, your eminence, that there must be some sort of misunderstanding here. i know the modesty and well-informed mind of mr. wondergood and i suppose that he utilized the name of satan merely as an artistic gesture. does satan ever threaten people with the police? but my unfortunate friend did. and, in general, has anybody ever seen _such_ a satan?" he stretched his hand out to me in an effective gesture--and the reply to this was another outburst of laughter. the cardinal, too, laughed, and toppi alone shook his wise head, as if to say: "idiots!"... i think magnus must have noticed that. or else he fell into intoxication. or was it because that spirit of murder with which his soul was aflame could not remain passive and was tearing at the leash. he threateningly shook his heavy, explosive head and shouted: "enough of this laughter! it is silly. why are you so sure of yourselves? it is stupid, i tell you. i believe in nothing and that is why i admit _everything_. press my hand, wondergood: they are all fools and i am quite ready to admit that you are satan. only you have fallen into a bad mess, friend satan. because it will not save you. i will soon throw you out anyhow! do you hear...devil?" he shook his finger at me threateningly and then lapsed into thought, dropping his head low and heavily, with his red eyes ablaze, like those of a bull, ready to hurl himself upon his enemy. the _aides_ and the insulted cardinal were silent with confusion. magnus again shook his finger at me significantly and said: "if you are satan, then you've come here too late. do you understand? what did you come here for, anyway? to play, you say? to tempt? to laugh at us human beings? to invent some sort of a new, evil game? to make us dance to your tune? well,--you're too late. you should have come earlier, for the earth is grown now and no longer needs your talents. i speak not of myself, who deceived you so easily and took away your money: i, thomas ergo. i speak not of maria. but look at these modest little friends of mine: where in your hell will you find such charming, fearless devils, ready for any task? and yet they are so small,--they will not even find a place in history." it was after this that thomas magnus blew me up, in the holy city of rome, in the palazzo orsini, when i still belonged to the american billionaire, henry wondergood. do you remember that genial american with his cigar and patent gold teeth? alas! he is no longer with us. he died suddenly and you will do well if you order a requiem mass for him: his illinois soul is in need of your prayers. let us receive the last breath of henry wondergood, blown up by the culprit thomas magnus, and buried by maria in the evening, when the moon was shining brightly. the end * * * * * transcriber's notes punctuation has been standardised. characters in small caps have been replaced by all caps. italic text has been denoted by _underscores_. this book was written in a period when many words had not become standarized in their spelling. numerous words have multiple spelling and hypenating variations in the text. these have been left unchanged while obvious spelling mistakes have been repaired unless noted below: pg - the following jumbled sentence has been edited to remove the repeated phrases: "again silence. finally there came a gruff voice, still silence. i knocked. again silence. finally there came a gruff voice, asking from behind the iron door:" pg - part of the sentence asking about maria appears to be missing from the original. (seek him in eternity.") =books by arlo bates.= the diary of a saint. crown vo, $ . . love in a cloud. a novel. crown vo, $ . . the puritans. a novel. crown vo, $ . . the philistines. a novel. mo, $ . . the pagans. a novel. mo, $ . . patty's perversities. a novel. mo, $ . ; paper, cents. prince vance. the story of a prince with a court in his box. by arlo bates and eleanor putnam. crown vo, $ . . a lad's love. mo, $ . . under the beech-tree. poems. crown vo, $ . . talks on writing english. first series. crown vo, $ . . talks on writing english. second series. crown vo, $ . , _net_. talks on the study of literature. crown vo, $ . . houghton, mifflin & co. boston and new york. the diary of a saint by arlo bates for many saints have lived and died, be sure, yet known no name for god. faith's tragedy. [illustration] boston and new york houghton, mifflin and company the riverside press, cambridge copyright by arlo bates all rights reserved _published september, _ contents chap. page i. january ii. february iii. march iv. april v. may vi. june vii. july viii. august ix. september x. october xi. november xii. december the diary of a saint i january january . how beautiful the world is! i might go on to say, and how commonplace this seems written down in a diary; but it is the thing i have been thinking. i have been standing ever so long at the window, and now that the curtains are shut i can see everything still. the moon is shining over the wide white sheets of snow, and the low meadows look far off and enchanted. the outline of the hills is clear against the sky, and the cedars on the lawn are almost green against the whiteness of the ground and the deep, blue-black sky. it is all so lovely that it somehow makes one feel happy and humble both at once. it is a beautiful world, indeed, and yet last night-- but last night was another year, and the new begins in a better mood. i have shaken off the idiotic mawkishness of last night, and am more like what father used to tell me to be when i was a mite of a girl: "a cheerful ruth privet, as right as a trivet." though to be sure i do not know what being as right as a trivet is, any more than i did then. last night, it is true, there were alleviating circumstances that might have been urged. for a week it had been drizzly, unseasonable weather that took all the snap out of a body's mental fibre; mother had had one of her bad days, when the pain seemed too dreadful to bear, patient angel that she is; kathie thurston had been in one of her most despairing fits; and the old year looked so dreary behind, the new year loomed so hopeless before, that there was some excuse for a girl who was tired to the bone with watching and worry if she did not feel exactly cheerful. i cannot allow, though, that it justified her in crying like a watering-pot, and smudging the pages of her diary until the whole thing was blurred like a composition written with tears in a primary school. i certainly cannot let this sort of thing happen again, and i am thoroughly ashamed that it happened once. i will remember that the last day father lived he said he could trust me to be brave both for mother and myself; and that i promised,--i promised. so last night may go, and be forgotten as soon as i can manage to forget it. to-night things are different. there has been a beautiful snow-fall, and the air is so crisp that when i went for a walk at sunset it seemed impossible ever to be sentimentally weak-kneed again; mother is wonderfully comfortable; and the new year began with a letter to say that george will be at home to-morrow. mother is asleep like a child, the fire is in the best of spirits, and does the purring for itself and for peter, who is napping with content expressed by every hair to the tip of his fluffy white tail. even hannah is singing in the kitchen a hymn that she thinks is cheerful, about "sa-a-a-acred, high, e-ter-er-er-nal noon." it is evident that there is every opportunity to take a fresh start, and to conduct myself in the coming year with more self-respect. so much for new year resolutions. i do not remember that i ever made one before; and very likely i shall never make one again. now i must decide something about kathie. i tried to talk with mother about her, but mother got so excited that i saw it would not do, and felt i must work the problem out with pen and paper as if it were a sum in arithmetic. it is not my business to attend to the theological education of the minister's daughter, especially as it is the methodist minister's daughter, and he, with his whole congregation, thinks it rather doubtful whether it is not sinful for kathie even to know so dangerous an unbeliever. i sometimes doubt whether my good neighbors in tuskamuck would regard tom paine himself, who, father used to say, lingers as the arch-heretic for all rural new england, with greater theological horror than they do me. it is fortunate that they do not dislike me personally, and they all loved father in spite of his heresies. in this case i am not clear, on the other hand, that it is my duty to stand passive and see, without at least protesting, a sensitive, imaginative, delicate child driven to despair by the misery and terror of a creed. if kathie had not come to me it would be different; but she has come. time after time this poor little, precocious, morbid creature has run to me in such terror of hell-fire that i verily feared she would end by going frantic. ten years old, and desperate with conviction of original sin; and this so near the end of the nineteenth century, so-called of grace! thus far i have contented myself with taking her into my arms, and just loving her into calmness; but she is getting beyond that. she is finding being petted so delightful that she is sure it must be a sin. she is like what i can fancy the most imaginative of the puritan grandmothers to have been in their passionate childhood, in the days when the only recognized office of the imagination was to picture the terrors of hell. i so long for father. if he were alive to talk to her, he could say the right word, and settle things. the bible is very touching in its phrase, "as one whom his mother comforteth," but to me "whom his father comforteth" would have seemed to go even deeper; but then, there is kathie's father, whose tenderness is killing her. i don't in the least doubt that he suffers as much as she does; but he loves her too much to risk damage to what he calls "her immortal soul." there is always a ring of triumph in his voice when he pronounces the phrase, as if he already were a disembodied spirit dilating in eternal and infinite glory. there is something finely noble in such a superstition. all this, however, does not bring me nearer to the end of my sum, for the answer of that ought to be what i shall do with kathie. it would never do to push her into a struggle with the creeds, or to set her to arguing out the impossibility of her theology. she is too young and too morbid, and would end by supposing that in reasoning at all on the matter she had committed the unpardonable sin. her father would not let her read stories unless they were sunday-school books. perhaps she might be allowed some of the more entertaining volumes of history; but she is too young for most of them. she should be reading about red riding-hood, and the white cat, and the whole company of dear creatures immortal in fairy stories. i will look in the library, and see what there may be that would pass the conscientiously searching ordeal of her father's eye. if she can be given anything which will take her mind off of her spiritual condition for a while, that is all that may be done at present. i'll hunt up my old skates for her, too. a little more exercise in the open air will do a good deal for her humanly, and perhaps blow away some of the theology. * * * * * later. hannah has been in to make her annual attack on my soul. i had almost forgotten her yearly missionary effort, so that when she appeared i said with the utmost cheerfulness and unconcern, "what is it, hannah?" supposing that she wanted to know something about breakfast. i could see by the instant change in her expression that she regarded this as deliberate levity. she was so full of what she had come to say that it could not occur to her that i did not perceive it too. dear old hannah! her face has always so droll an expression of mingled shyness and determination when, as she once said, she clears her skirts of blood-guiltiness concerning me. she stands in the doorway twisting her apron, and her formula is always the same:-- "miss ruth, i thought i'd take the liberty to say a word to you on this new year's day." "yes, hannah," i always respond, as if we had rehearsed the dialogue. "what is it?" "it's another year, miss ruth, and your peace not made with god." to me there is something touching in the fidelity with which she clings to the self-imposed performance of this evidently painful duty. she is distressfully shy about it,--she who is never shy about anything else in the world, so far as i can see. she feels that it is a "cross for her to bear," as she told me once, and i honor her for not shirking it. she thinks i regard it far more than i do. she judges my discomfort by her own, whereas in truth i am only uncomfortable for her. i never could understand why people are generally so afraid to speak of religious things, or why they dislike so to be spoken to about them. i mind hannah's talking about my soul no more than i should mind her talking about my nose or my fingers; indeed, the little flavor of personality which would make that unpleasant is lacking when it comes to discussion about intangible things like the spirit, and so on the whole i mind the soul-talk less. i suppose really the shyness is part of the general reticence all we new englanders have that makes it so hard to speak of anything which is deeply felt. father used to say, i remember, that it was because folk usually have a great deal of sentiment about religion and very few ideas, and thus the difficulty of bringing their expression up to their feelings necessarily embarrasses them. i assured hannah i appreciated all her interest in my welfare, and that i would try to live as good a life during the coming year as i could; and then she withdrew with the audible sigh of relief that the heavy duty was done with for another twelvemonth. she assured me she should still pray for me, and if i do not suppose that there is any great efficacy in her petition, i am at least glad that she should feel like doing her best in my behalf. mother declares that she is always offended when a person offers to pray for her. she looks at it as dreadfully condescending and patronizing, as if the petitioner had an intimate personal hold upon the almighty, and was willing to exert his influence in your behalf. but i hardly think she means it. she never fails to see when a thing is kindly meant, even if she has a keen sense of the ludicrous. at any rate, it does us no harm that kindly petitions are offered for us, even if they may go out into an unregarding void; and i am not sure that they do. january . kathie is delighted with the skates, and she does not think that her father will object to her having them; so there is at least one point gained. we have had such a lovely sunset! i do not see how there can be a doubter in a world where there are so many beautiful things. the whole west, through the leafless branches of the elms on the south lawn, was one gorgeous mass of splendid color. i hope george saw it. it is almost time for him to be here, and i have caught myself humming over and over his favorite tunes as i waited. mother has had a day of uneasiness, so that i could not leave her much, but rubbing her side for an hour or two relieved her. it has cramped my fingers a little, so that i write a funny, stiff hand. poor mother! it made me ashamed to be so glad in my heart as i saw how brave and quiet she was, with the lines of pain round her dear mouth. * * * * * later. "how long is it that we have been engaged?" that is what george asked me, and out of all the long talk we had this evening this is the one thing which i keep hearing over and over. why should it tease me so? it is certainly a simple question, and when two persons have been engaged six years there need no longer be any false sensitiveness about things of this sort. about what sort? do i mean that the time has come when george would not mind hurting my feelings? it may as well come out. as father used to say: "you cannot balance the books until the account is set down in full." well, then, i mean that there is a frankness about a long engagement which may not be in a short one, so that when george and i meet after a separation it is natural that almost the first question should be,-- "how long is it that we have been engaged?" the question is certainly an innocent one,--although one would think george might have answered it himself. how much did the fact that he talked afterward so eagerly about the miss west he met while at his aunt's, and of how pretty she is, have to do with the pain which the question gave me? at my age one might think that i was beyond the jealousies of a school-girl. we have been engaged six years and four months and five days. it is not half the time that jacob served for rachel, although it is almost the time he bowed his neck to the yoke for leah, and i am afraid lest i am nearer to being like the latter than the former. i always pitied leah, for she must have understood she had not her husband's love; any woman would perceive that. six years--and life is so short! poor george, it has not been easy for him! he has not even been able to wish that the obstacle between us was removed, since that obstacle is mother. surely she is my first duty; and since she needs me day and night, i cannot divide my life; but i do pity george. he is wearing out his youth with that old frump of a housekeeper, who makes him uncomfortable with an ingenuity that seems to show intellectual force not to be suspected from anything else. but she is a faithful old soul, and it is not kind to abuse her. "how long is it that we have been engaged?" i have a tendency to keep on writing that over and over all down the page as if this were the copy-book of a child at school. how tom used to admire my writing-books in our school-days! his were always smudged and blotted. he is too big-souled and manly to niggle over little things; and he laughed at the pains i took, turning every corner with absurd care. he was so strong and splendid on the ice when we went skating over on getchell's pond; and how often and often he has drawn me all the way home on my sled! but all that was ages and ages ago, and long before i even knew george. it never occurred to me until to-night, but i am really growing old. the birthdays that tom remembered, and on which he sent me little bunches of mayflowers, have not in the least troubled me or seemed too many. i have not thought much of birthdays of late years, but to-night i realize that i am twenty-nine, and that george has asked me,-- "how long is it that we have been engaged?" january . sackcloth and ashes have been my portion for days, and if i could by tearing from my diary the last leaves blot out of remembrance the foolish things i have written, it would be quickly done. my new year's resolutions were even less lasting than are those in the jokes of the comic papers; and i am ashamed all through and through. i have tried to reason myself into something resembling common sense, but i am much afraid i have not yet entirely accomplished it. i have said to myself over and over that it would be the best thing for george if he did fall in love with that girl he saw at franklin, and go his way without wasting more time waiting for me. he has wasted years enough, and it is time for him to be happy. but then--has he not been happy? or is it that i have been so happy myself i have not realized how the long engagement was wearying him? he must have wearied, or he could never have asked me-- no, i will not write it! january . george came over last night, and was so loving and tender that i was thoroughly ashamed of all the wicked suspicions i have had. after all, what was there to suspect? i almost confessed to him what a miserable little doubter i had been; but i knew that confession would only be relieving my soul at the expense of making him uncomfortable. i hated to have him think me better than i am; but this, i suppose, is part of the penalty i ought to pay for having been so weak. besides,--probably it was only my weakness in another form, the petty jealousy of a small soul and a morbid fancy,--he seemed somehow more remote than i have ever known him, and i could not have told him if i would. we did not seem to be entirely frank with each other, but as if each were trying to make the other feel at ease when it was not really possible. of course i was only attributing my own feelings to him, for he was dearly good. he told me more about his visit to franklin, and he seems to have seen miss west a good deal. she is a sort of cousin of the watsons, he says, and so they had a common ground. when she found that he lived so near to the watsons she asked him all kinds of questions. she has never seen them, having lived in the west most of her life, and was naturally much interested in hearing about her relatives. i found myself leading him on to talk of her. i cannot see why i should care about this stranger. generally i deal very little in gossip. father trained me to be interested in real things, and meaningless details about people never attracted me. yet this girl sticks in my mind, and i am tormented to know all about her. it cannot be anything he said; though he did say that she is very pretty. perhaps it was the way in which he said it. he seemed to my sick fancy to like to talk of her. she must be a charming creature. january . why should he not like to talk of a pretty girl? i hope i am not of the women who cannot bear to have a man use his eyes except to see their graces. it is pitiful to be so small and mean. i certainly want george to admire goodness and beauty, and to be by his very affection for me the more sensitive to whatever is admirable in others. if i am to be worthy of being his wife, i must be noble enough to be glad at whatever there is for him to rejoice in because of its loveliness: and yet as i write down all these fine sentiments i feel my heart like lead! oh, i am so ashamed of myself! january . miss charlotte came in this afternoon, looking so thin, and cold, and tall, that i have been rather sober ever since. "i wish i had on shoes with higher heels," i said to her as we shook hands; "then perhaps i shouldn't feel so insignificant down here." she looked down at me, laughing that rich, throaty laugh of hers. "mother always used to say she knew the kendalls couldn't have been drowned in the flood," she answered, "for they must all have been tall enough to wade to mt. ararat." "you know the genealogy so far back that you must be able to tell whether she was right." "i don't go quite so far as that," she said, sitting down by the fire, "but i know that my great-great-grandfather married a privet, so that i always considered judge privet a cousin." "if father was a cousin, i must be one too," said i. "you are the same relation to me on one side," miss charlotte went on, "that deacon webbe is on the other. it's about fortieth cousin, you see, so that i can count it or not, as i please." "i am flattered that you choose to count us in," i told her, smiling; "and i am sure also you must be willing to count in anybody so good as deacon webbe." "yes, deacon webbe is worth holding on to, though he's so weak that he'd let the shadow of a mosquito bully him. the answer to the question in the new england primer, 'who is the meekest man?' ought to be 'deacon webbe.' he used up all the meekness there was in the whole family, though." "i confess that i never heard mrs. webbe called meek," i assented. "meek!" sniffed miss charlotte; "i should think not. a wasp is a sunday-school picnic beside her. while as for tom"-- she pursed up her lips with an expression of disapproval so very marked i was afraid at once that tom webbe must have been doing something dreadful again, and my heart sank for his father. "but tom has been doing better," i said. "this winter he"-- "this winter!" she exclaimed. "why, just now he is worse than ever." "oh, dear," i asked, "what is it now? his father has been so unhappy about him." "if he'd made tom unhappy it would have been more to the purpose. tom's making himself the town talk with that brownrig girl." "what brownrig girl?" "don't you know about the brownrigs that live in that little red house on the rim road?" "i know the red house, and now that you say the name, i remember i have heard that such a family have moved in there. where did they come from?" "oh, where do such trash come from ever?" demanded miss charlotte. "i'm afraid nobody but the old nick could tell you. they're a set of drunken, disreputable vagabonds, that turned up here last year. they were probably driven out of some town or other. tom's been"-- but i did not wish to hear of tom's misdeeds, and i said so. miss charlotte laughed, as usual. "you never take any interest in wickedness, ruth," she said good-naturedly. "that's about the only fault i have to find with you." poor deacon webbe! tom has made him miserable indeed in these years since he came from college. the bitterness of seeing one we love go wrong must be unbearable, and when we believe that the consequences of wrong are to be eternal--i should go mad if i believed in such a creed. i would try to train myself to hate instead of to love; or, if i could not do this--but i could not believe anything so horrible, so that i need not speculate. deacon daniel is a saint, though of course he does not dream of such a thing. a saint would not be a saint, i suppose, who was aware of his beatitude, and the deacon's meekness is one of his most marked attributes of sanctity. i wonder whether, in the development of the race, saintliness will ever come to be compatible with a sense of humor. a saint with that persuasively human quality would be a wonderfully compelling power for good. deacon daniel is a fine influence by his goodness, but he somehow enhances the desirability of virtue in the abstract rather than brings home personally the idea that his example is to be followed; and all because he is so hopelessly without a perception of the humorous side of existence. but why do i go on writing this, when the thought uppermost in my mind is the grief he will have if tom has started again on one of his wild times. i do hope that miss charlotte is mistaken! so small a thing will sometimes set folk to talking, especially about tom, who is at heart so good, though he has been wild enough to get a bad name. january . things work out strangely in this world; so that it is no wonder all sorts of fanciful beliefs are made out of them. there could hardly be a web more closely woven than human life. to-day, when i had not seen tom for months, and when the gossip of last night made me want to talk with him, chance brought us face to face. mother was so comfortable that i went out for an hour. the day was delightful, cold enough so that the walking was dry and the snow firm, but the air not sharp to the cheek. the sun was warm and cheery, and the shadows on the white fields had a lovely softness. i went on in a sort of dream, it was so good to be alive and out of doors in such wonderful weather. i turned to go down the rim road, and it was not until i came in sight of the red house that i remembered what miss charlotte said last night. then i began to think about tom. tom and i have always been such good friends. i used to understand tom better in the old school-days than the others did, and he was always ready to tell me what he thought and felt. nowadays i hardly ever see him. since i became engaged he has almost never come to the house, though he used to be here so much. i meet him only once or twice a year, and then i think he tries to avoid me. i am so sorry to have an old friendship broken off like that. the red house made me think of tom with a sore heart, of all the talk his wild ways have caused, the sorrow of his father, and the good that is being lost when a fellow with a heart so big as tom's goes wrong. suddenly tom himself appeared before my very eyes, as if my thought had conjured him up. he came so unexpectedly that at first i could hardly realize how he came. then it flashed across me that he must have walked round the red house. i suppose he must have come out of a back door somewhere, like one of the family; such folk never use their front doors. he walked along the road toward me, at first so preoccupied that he did not recognize me. when he saw my face, he half hesitated, as if he had almost a mind to turn back, and his whole face turned red. he came on, however, and was going past me with a scant salutation, when i stopped him. i stood still and put out my hand, so that he could not go by without speaking. "good-afternoon, tom," i said. "isn't it a glorious day?" he looked about him with a strange air as if he had not noticed, and i saw how heavy and weary his eyes were. "yes," he answered, "it is a fine day." "where do you keep yourself, tom?" i went on, hardly knowing what i said, but trying to think what it was best to say. "i never see you, and we used to be such good friends." he looked away, and moved his lips as if he muttered something; but when i asked what he said, he turned to me defiantly. "look here, ruth, what's the good of pretending? you know i don't go to see you because you're engaged to george weston. you chose between us, and there's the end of that. what's more, you know that nowadays i'm not fit to go to see anybody that's decent." "then it is time that you were," was my answer. "let me walk along with you. i want to say something." i turned, and we walked together toward the village. i could see that his face hardened. "it's no sort of use to preach to me, ruth," he said, "though your preaching powers are pretty good. i've had so much preaching in my life that i'm not to be rounded up by piety." i smiled as well as i could, though it made me want to cry to hear the hard bravado of his tone. "i'm not generally credited with overmuch piety, tom. the whole town thinks all the privets heathen, you know." "humph! it's a pity there weren't a few more of 'em." i laughed, and thanked him for the compliment, and then we went on in silence for a little way. i had to ignore what he said about george, but it did not make it easier to begin. i was puzzled what to say, but the time was short that we should be walking together, and i had to do something. "tom," i began, "you may not be very sensitive about old friendships, but i am loyal; and it hurts me that those i care for should be talked against." "oh, in a place like tuskamuck," he returned, at once, i could see, on the defensive, "they'll talk about anybody." "will they? then i suppose they talk about me. i'm sorry, tom, for it must make you uncomfortable to hear it; unless, that is, you don't count me for a friend any longer." he threw back his head in the way he has always had. i used to tell him it was like a colt's shaking back its mane. "what nonsense! of course they don't talk about you. you don't give folks any chance." "and you do," i added as quietly as i could. he looked angry for just the briefest instant, and then he burst into a hard laugh. "caught, by jupiter! ruth, you were always too clever for me to deal with. well, then, i do give the gossips plenty to talk about. they would talk just the same if i didn't, so i may as well have the game as the name." "does that mean that your life is regulated by the gossips? i supposed that you had more independence, tom." he flushed, and stooped down to pick up a stick. with this he began viciously to strike the bushes by the roadside and the dry stalks of yarrow sticking up through the snow. he set his lips together with a grim determination which brought out in his face the look i like least, the resemblance to his mother when she means to carry a point. "look here, ruth," he said after a moment; "i'm not going to talk to you about myself or my doings. i'm a blackguard fast enough; but there's no good talking about it. if you'd cared enough about me to keep me straight, you could have done it; but now i'm on my way to the devil, and no great way to travel before i get there either." we had come to the turn of the rim road where the trees shut off the view of the houses of the village. i stopped and put my hand on his arm. "tom," i begged him, "don't talk like that. you don't know how it hurts. you don't mean it; you can't mean it. nobody but yourself can send you on the wrong road; and i know you're too plucky to hide behind any such excuse. for the sake of your father, tom, do stop and think what you are doing." "oh, father'll console himself very well with prayers; and anyway he'll thank god for sending me to perdition, because if god does it, it must be all right." "don't, tom! you know how he suffers at the way you go on. it must be terrible to have an only son, and to see him flinging his life away." "it isn't my fault that i'm his son, is it?" he demanded. "i've been dragged into this infernal life without being asked whether i wanted to come or not; and now i'm here, i can't have what i want, and i'm promised eternal damnation hereafter. well, then, i'll show god or the devil, or whoever bosses things, that i can't be bullied into a molly-coddle!" the sound of wheels interrupted us, and we instinctively began to walk onward in the most commonplace fashion. a farmer's wagon came along, and by the time it had passed we had come to the head of the rim road, in full sight of the houses. tom waited until i turned to the right, toward home, and then he said,-- "i'm going the other way. it's no use, ruth, to talk to me; but i'm obliged to you for caring." i cannot see that i did any good, and very likely i have simply made him more on his guard to avoid giving me a chance; but then, even if i had all the chance in the world, what could i say to him? and yet, tom is so noble a fellow underneath it all. he is honest and kind, and strong in his way; only between his father's meekness and his mother's sharpness--for she is sharp--he has somehow come to grief. they have tried to make him religious so that he would be good; and he is of the sort that must be good or he will not be religious. he cannot be pressed into a mould of orthodoxy, and so in the end--but it cannot be the end. tom must somehow come out of it. january . when george came in to-night i was struck at once with the look of pleasant excitement in his face. "what pleases you?" i asked him. "pleases me?" he echoed, evidently surprised. "isn't it a pleasure to see you?" "but that's not the whole of it," i said. "you've something pleasant to tell me. oh, i can read you like a book, my dear; so it is quite idle trying to keep a secret from me." he seemed confused, and i was puzzled to know what was the matter. "you are too wise entirely," was his reply. "i really hadn't anything to tell." "then something good has happened," i persisted; "or you have heard good news." "what a fanciful girl you are, ruth," george returned. "nothing has happened." he walked away from me, and went to the fire. he was strangely embarrassed, and i could only wonder what i had said to confuse him. i reflected that perhaps he was planning some sort of a surprise, and felt i ought not to pry into his thoughts in this fashion whatever the matter was that interested him. i sat down on the other side of the hearth, and took up some sewing. "george," i asked, entirely at random, "didn't you say that the miss west you met at franklin is a cousin of the watsons?" i flushed as soon as i had spoken, for i thought how it betrayed me that in my desire to hit on a new subject i had found the thought of her so near the surface of my mind. i had not consciously been thinking of her at all, and certainly i did not connect her with george's strangeness of manner. there was something almost weird, it seems to me now, in my putting such a question just then. perhaps it was telepathy, for she must have been vividly in his thoughts at that moment. he started, flushed as i have never seen him, and turned quickly toward me. "what makes you think that it was miss west?" "think what was miss west?" i cried. i was completely astonished; then i saw how it was. "never mind, george," i went on, laughing and putting out my hand to him. "i didn't mean to read your thoughts, and i didn't realize that i was doing it." "but what made you"-- "i'm sure i don't know," i broke in; and i managed to laugh again. "only i see now that you know something pleasant about miss west, and you may as well tell it." he looked doubtful a minute, studying my face. the hesitation he had in speaking hurt me. "it's only that she's coming to visit the watsons," he said, rather unwillingly. "olivia watson told me just now." "why, that will be pleasant," i answered, as brightly as if i were really delighted. "now i shall see if she is really as pretty as you say." i felt so humiliated to be playing a part,--so insincere. somebody has said the real test of love is to be unwilling to deceive the loved one, even in the smallest thing. that may be the test of a man's love, but a woman will bear the pain of that very deception to save the man she cares for from disquiet. i am sure it has hurt me as much not to be entirely frank with george as it could have hurt a man; but i could not make him uncomfortable by letting him see that i was disturbed. yet that he should have been afraid or unwilling to tell me did trouble me. he knows that i am not jealous or apt to take offense. he is always saying that i am too cold to be really in love. it made me feel that the coming of this girl must mean much to him when he feared to speak of it. if he had not thought it a matter of consequence, he would have realized that i should take it lightly. i am not taking it lightly; but what troubles me is not that she is coming, but that he hesitated to tell me. something is wrong when george fears to trust me. january . i have seen her. i went to church this morning for that especial reason. mother was a little astonished at me when i said that i was going. "well, ruth," she said, "you don't have much dissipation, but i didn't suppose that you were so dull you would take to church-going." "you can never tell," i answered, making a jest of a thing which to me was far from funny. "mr. saychase will be sure to conclude i'm under conviction of sin, and come in to finish the conversion." she looked at me keenly. "what is the matter, ruth?" she asked in that soft voice of hers which goes straight to my heart. "it isn't anything very serious, mother," i said. "since you will have the truth, i am going to church to see that miss west who's visiting the watsons. george thinks her so pretty that my curiosity is roused to a perfect bonfire." she did not say more, but i saw the sudden light in her eye. mother has never felt about george as i have wished. she has never done him justice, and she thinks i idealize him. that is her favorite way of putting it; but this is because she is my mother, and doesn't see how much idealizing there must have been on his side before he could fall in love with me. miss west is very pretty. all the time i watched in church i tried to persuade myself that she was not. i meanly and contemptibly sat there finding fault with her face, saying to myself that her nose was too long, her eyes too small, her mouth too big; inventing flaws as if my invention would change the fact. it was humiliating business; and utterly and odiously idiotic. miss west is pretty; she is more than this, she is wonderfully pretty. there is an appealing, baby look about her big blue eyes which goes straight to one's heart. she looks like a darling child one would want to kiss and shelter from all the hard things of life. i own it all; i realize all that it means; and if in my inmost soul i am afraid, i will not deny what is a fact or try to shut my eyes to the littleness of my feeling about her. of course george found her adorable. she is. the young men in the congregation all watched her, and even grim deacon richards could not keep his eyes off of her. she does not have the look of a girl of any especial mind. her prettiness is after all that of a doll. her large eyes are of the sort to please a man because of their appealing helplessness; not because they inspire him with new meanings. her little rosebud lips will never speak wisdom, i am afraid; but in my jealousy i wonder whether most men do not care more for lips which invite kisses than for lips which speak wisdom. i am frankly and weakly miserable. george walked home with me, but he had not two words to say. i must try to meet this. if george should come to care for her more than for me! if he should,--if by a pretty face he forgets all the years that we have belonged to each other, what is there to do? i cannot yet believe that it is best for him; but if it will make him happy, even if he thinks that it will, what is there for me but to make it as easy for him as i may? he certainly would not be happy to marry me and love somebody else. he cannot leave me without pain; that i am sure. i shall show my love for him more truly if i spare him the knowledge of what it must cost me. but what mawkish nonsense all this is! a man may admire a pretty face, and yet not be ready for it to leave behind all that has been dear to him. oh, if he had not asked me that question when he came back from franklin! i cannot get it out of my mind that even if he was not conscious of it, it meant he still was secretly tired of his long engagement; that he was at least dreaming of what he would do if he were free. he shall not be bound by any will of mine; and if his heart has gone out to this beautiful creature, i must bear it as nobly as i can. father used to say,--and every day i go back more and more to what he said to me,--"what you cannot at need sacrifice nobly you are not worthy to possess." january . i have had a note which puzzles me completely. tom webbe writes to say that he is going away; that i am to forgive him for the shame of having known him, and that his address is inclosed in a sealed envelope. i am not to open it unless there is real need. why should he give his address to me? january . the disconcerting way aunt naomi has of coming in without knocking, stealing in on feet made noiseless by rubbers, brought her into the sitting-room last night while i was mooning in the twilight, and meditating on nothing in particular. i knew her slow fashion of opening the door, "like a burglar at a cupboard," as hannah says,--so that i was able to compose my face into an appropriate smile of welcome before she was fairly in. "sitting here alone?" was her greeting. "mother is asleep," i answered, "and i was waiting for her to wake." aunt naomi seated herself in the stiffest chair in the room, and began to swing her foot as usual. "deacon daniel's at it again," she observed dispassionately. i smiled a little. it always amuses me that the troubles of the church should be so often brought to me who am an outsider. aunt naomi arrives about once a month on the average, with complaints about something. they are seldom of any especial weight, but it seems to relieve her to tell her grievances. "which deacon daniel?" i asked, to tease her a little. "deacon richards, of course. you know that well enough." "what is it now?" "he won't have any fire in the vestry," she answered. "why not let somebody else take care of the vestry then, if you want a fire?" "you don't suppose," was her response, with a chuckle, "that he'd give up the key to anybody else, do you?" "i should think he'd be glad to." "he'll hold on to that key till he dies," retorted aunt naomi with a sniff; "and i shouldn't be surprised if he had it buried with him. he wouldn't lose the chance of making folks uncomfortable." "oh, come, aunt naomi, you are always so hard on deacon richards," i protested. "he is always good-natured with me." "i wish you'd join the church, then, and see if you can't keep him in order. last night it was so cold at prayer-meeting that we were all half frozen, and mr. saychase had to dismiss the meeting. old lady andrews spoke up in the coldest part of it, when we were all so chilled that we couldn't speak, and she said in that little, high voice of hers: 'the vestry is very cold to-night, but i trust that our hearts are warm with the love of christ.'" i laughed at the picture of the half-frozen prayer-meeting, and dear old lady andrews coming to the rescue with a pious jest; it was so characteristic. "but has anybody spoken to deacon richards?" i asked. "you can't speak to him," she responded, wagging her foot with a violence that seemed to speak celestial anger within. "i try to after every prayer-meeting; but he has the lights out before i can say two words. i can't stay there in the dark with him; and the minute he gets me outside he locks the door, and posts off like a streak." "why not go down to his mill in broad daylight?" i suggested. "oh, he'd stick close to the grinding-thing just so he couldn't hear, and i'm afraid of being pitched into the hopper," she said, laughing. "you must speak to him. he pays some attention to what you say." "but it's none of my business. i don't go to prayer-meeting." "but it's your duty to go," she answered, with a shrewd smile that showed that she appreciated her response; "and if you neglect one duty it's no excuse for neglecting another. besides, you can't be willing to have the whole congregation die of cold." so in the end it was somehow fixed that i am to remonstrate with deacon daniel because the faithful are cold at their devotions. it would seem much simpler for them to stay at home and be warm. they do not, as far as i can see, enjoy going; but they are miserable if they do not go. their consciences trouble them worse than the cold, poor things. i suppose that i can never be half thankful enough to father for bringing me up without a theological conscience. prayer-meetings seem to be a good deal like salt in the boy's definition of something that makes food taste bad if you don't put it on; prayer-meetings make church-goers uneasy if they do not go. if they will go, however, and if they are better for going, or believe they are better, or if they are only worse for staying away, or suppose they are worse, they should not be expected to sit in a cold vestry in january. why deacon daniel will not have a fire is not at all clear. it may be economy, or it may be a lack of sensitiveness; it may be for some recondite reason too deep to be discovered. i refuse to accept aunt naomi's theory that it is sheer obstinacy; and i will beard the deacon in his mill, regardless of the danger of the hopper. at least he generally listens to me. january . hannah came up for me this evening while i was reading to mother. "deacon webbe's down in the parlor," she announced. "says he wants to see you if you're not busy. 'll come again if you ain't able to see him." "go down, ruth dear," mother said at once. "it may be another church quarrel, and i wouldn't hinder you from settling it for worlds." "but don't you want me to finish the chapter?" i asked. "church quarrels will generally keep." "no, dear. i'm tired, and we'll stop where we are. i'll try to go to sleep, if you'll turn the light down." as i bent over to kiss her, she put up her feeble thin fingers, and touched my cheek lovingly. "you're a dear girl," she said. "be gentle with the deacon." there was a twinkle in her eye, for the idea of anybody's being anything but gentle with deacon daniel webbe is certainly droll enough. miss charlotte said the other night that a baby could twist him round its finger and never even know there was anything there; and certainly he must call out the gentle feelings of anybody. only tom seemed always somehow to get exasperated with his father's meekness. poor tom, i do wonder why he went away! the deacon dries up by way of growing old. i have not seen him this winter except the other day at church, and then i did not look at him. to-night he seemed worn and sad, and somehow his face was like ashes, it was so lifeless. the flesh has dried to the bones of his face till he looks like a pathetic skull. his voice is not changed, though. it has the same strange note in it that used to affect me as a child; a weird, reedy quality which suggests some vague melancholy flavor not in the least fretful or whining,--a quality that i have never been able to define. i never hear him speak without a sense of mysterious suggestiveness; and i remember confiding to father once, when i was about a dozen years old, that deacon webbe had the right voice to read fairy stories with. father, i remember, laughed, and said he doubted much if deacon daniel knew what a fairy story was, unless he thought it was something wickedly false. tom's voice has something of the same quality, but only enough to give a little thrill to his tone when he is really in earnest. there is an amusing incongruity between that odd wind-harp strain in deacon webbe's voice and his gaunt new england figure. "ruth," the deacon asked, almost before we had shaken hands, "did you know tom had gone away?" i was impressed and rather startled by the intensity of his manner, and surprised by the question. "yes," i said. "he sent me word he was going." "do you know where he has gone?" "no." i wondered whether i ought to tell him about the sealed address, but it seemed like a breach of confidence to say anything yet. "did he say why he was going?" the deacon asked. "no," i said again. the deacon turned his hat over and over helplessly in his knotted hands in silence for a moment. he was so pathetic that i wanted to cry. "then you don't know," he said after a moment. "i only know he has gone." there was another silence, as if the deacon were pondering on what he could possibly do or say next. peter, who was pleased for the moment to be condescendingly kind to the visitor, came and rubbed persuasively against his legs, waving a great white plume of tail. deacon daniel bent down absently and stroked the cat, but the troubled look in his face showed how completely his mind was occupied. "i'm afraid there's something wrong," he broke out at length, with an energy unusual with him; an energy which was suffering rather than power. "i don't know what it is, but i'm afraid it's worse than ever. oh, miss ruth, if you could only have cared for tom, you'd have kept him straight." i could only murmur that i had always liked tom, and that we had been friends all our lives; but the deacon was too much moved to pay attention. "of course," he went on, "i hadn't any right to suppose judge privet's daughter would marry into our family; but if you had cared for him, miss ruth"-- "deacon webbe," i broke in, for i could not hear any more, "please don't say such things! you know you mustn't say such things!" as i think of it, i am afraid i was a little more hysterical than would have been allowed by cousin mehitable, but i could not help it. at least i stopped him from going on. he apologized so much that i set to work to convince him i was not offended, which i found was not very easy. poor deacon daniel, he is really heart-broken about tom, but he has never known how to manage him, or even to make the boy understand how much he loves him. meekness may be a christian virtue; but over-meekness is a poor quality for one who has the bringing up of a real, wide-awake, head-strong boy. a little less virtue and a little more common sense would have made deacon webbe a good deal more useful in this world if it did lessen his value to heaven. he is the very salt of the earth, yet he has so let himself be trampled upon that to tom his humility has seemed weakness. i know, too, tom has never appreciated his father, and has failed to understand that goodness need not always be in arms to be manly. and so here in a couple of sentences i have come round to the side of the deacon after all. perhaps in the long run the effect of his goodness, with all its seeming lack of strength, may effect more than sterner qualities. january . i was interrupted last night in my writing to go to mother; but i have had deacon webbe and tom in my mind ever since. i could not help remembering the gossip about tom, and the fact that i saw him coming from the red house. i wonder if he has not gone to break away from temptation. in new surroundings he may turn over a new leaf. oh, i would so like to write to him, and to tell him how much i hope for this fresh start, but i hardly like to open the envelope. i have been this afternoon to call on miss west. the watsons are not exactly of my world, but it seemed kind to go. if you were really honest, ruth privet, you would add that you wanted to see what miss west is like. it is all very well to put on airs of disinterested virtue; but if george had not spoken of this girl it is rather doubtful whether you would have taken the trouble to go to her in your very best bib and tucker,--and you did put on your very best, and wondered while you were doing it whether she would appreciate the lace scarf you bought at malta. i understand you wanted to impress her a little, though you did try to make yourself believe that you were only wearing your finest clothes to do honor to her. what a humbug you are! olivia watson came to the door, and asked me into the parlor, where i was left to wait some time before miss west appeared. i confessed then to myself how i had really half hoped that she would not be in; but now the call is over i am glad to have seen her. i am a little confused, but i know what she is. she is the most beautiful creature i ever saw. she has a clear color, when she flushes, like a red clover in september, the last and the richest of all the clovers of the year. then her hair curls about her forehead in such dear little ringlets that it is enough to make one want to kiss her. she speaks with a funny little western burr to her r's which might not please me in another, but is charming from her lips, the mouth that speaks is so pretty. yes, george was right. of her mind one cannot say quite as much. she is not entirely well bred, it seemed to me; but then we are a little old-fashioned in tuskamuck. she did notice the scarf, and asked me where i got it. "oh," she said, when i had told her, "then you have been abroad." "yes," i said, "i went with my father." "judge privet took you abroad several times, didn't he?" olivia put in. "yes; i went with him three times." "oh, my!" commented miss west. "how set up you must feel!" "i don't think i do," i answered, laughing. "do you feel set up because you have seen the west that so few of us have visited?" "why, i never thought of that," she responded. "you haven't any of you traveled in the west, have you?" "i haven't, at least." "but that ain't anything to compare with going abroad," she continued, her face falling; "and going abroad three times, too. i should put on airs all the rest of my life if i'd done that." it is not fair to go on putting down in black and white things that she said without thinking. i am ashamed of the satisfaction i found myself taking in her commonness. i was even so unfair to her that i could not help thinking that she somehow did not ring true. i wonder if a woman can ever be entirely just to another woman who has been praised by the man she cares for? if not i will be an exception to my sex! i will not be small and mean, just because miss west is so lovely that no man could see her without--well, without admiring her greatly. january . i went down to the grist-mill this afternoon to see deacon daniel, and to represent to him the sufferings of the faithful at frozen prayer-meetings. he was standing in the door of the mill, which was open to the brisk air, and his mealy frock gave a picturesque air to his great figure. he greeted me pleasantly, as he always does. "i've come on business," i said. "your own or somebody's else?" he asked, with a grin. "not exactly mine," i admitted. "what has aunt naomi sent you for now?" he demanded. i laughed at his penetration. "you are too sharp to be deceived," i said. "aunt naomi did send me. they tell me you are trying to destroy the church by freezing them all to death at the prayer-meetings." "aunt naomi can't be frozen. she's too dry." "that isn't at all a nice thing to say, deacon richards," i said, smiling. "you can't cover your iniquities by abusing her." he showed his teeth, and settled himself against the door-post more comfortably. "why didn't she come herself?" he inquired. "she said that she was afraid you'd pop her into the hopper. you see what a monster you are considered." "i wouldn't be willing to spoil my meal." deacon daniel likes to play at badinage, and if he had ever had a chance, might have some skill at it. as it is, i like to see how he enjoys it, if i am not always impressed by the wit of what he says. "deacon richards," i said, "why do you freeze the people so in the vestry?" "i haven't known of anybody's being frozen." "but why don't you have a fire?" i persisted. "if you don't want to build it, there are boys enough that can be hired." "how is your mother to-day?" was the only answer the deacon vouchsafed. "she's very comfortable, thank you. why don't you have a fire?" "makes folks sleepy," he declared; and once more switched off abruptly to another subject. "did you know tom webbe's gone off?" "yes." "where's he gone?" "i don't know. why should i?" "if you don't know," deacon daniel commented, "i suppose nobody does." "why don't you have a fire in the vestry?" i demanded, determined to tire him out. "you asked me that before," he responded, with a grin of delight. i gave it up then, for i saw that there was nothing to be got out of him in that mood. i looked up at the sky, and saw how the afternoon was waning. "i must go home," i said. "mother may want me; but i do wish you would be reasonable about the vestry. i'll give you a load of wood if you'll use it." "send the wood, and we'll see," was all the promise i could extract from the dear old tease. deacon daniel was evidently not to be cornered, and i came away without any assurance of amendment on his part. the faithful will have still to endure the cold, i suppose; but i have made an effort. what i said to deacon richards and what deacon richards said to me is not what i sat down to write. i have been lingering over it because i hated to put down what happened to me after i left the mill. why should i write it? this diary is not a confessional, and nothing forces me to set these things down. i really write it as a penance for the uncharitable mood i have been in ever since. i may as well have my thoughts on paper as to keep turning them over and over in my mind. i crossed the foot-bridge and turned up water street. i went on, pleased by the brown water showing through the broken ice in the mill-flume, and the fantastic bunches of snow in the willows beyond, like queer, white birds. i smiled to myself at the remembrance of deacon daniel, and somehow felt warmed toward him, as i always do, despite all his crotchety ways. he radiates kindness of heart through all his gruffness. suddenly i saw george coming toward me with miss west. they did not notice me at first, they were so engaged in talking and laughing together. my mood sobered instantly, but i said to myself that i certainly ought to be glad to see george enjoying himself; and, in any case, a lady does not show her foolish feelings. so i went toward them, trying to look as i had before i caught sight of them. they saw me in a moment, and instantly their laughter stopped. if they had come forward simply and at ease, i should have thought no more about it, i think; but no one could see their confusion without feeling that they expected me to disapprove. and if they expected me to disapprove, it seems to me they must have been saying things--but probably this is all my imagination and mean jealousy. "you see i've captured him," miss west called out in rather a high voice, as we came near each other. "i have no doubt he was a very willing captive," i answered, smiling, and holding out my hand. i realize now how i hated to give her my hand, and most certainly her manner was not entirely that of a lady. "we've been for a long walk," she went on, "and now i suppose i ought to let you have him." "i couldn't think of taking him. i am only going home." "but it seems real mean to keep him, after i've had him all the afternoon. i must give him to you." "i hope he wouldn't be so ungallant as to be given, and leave you to go home alone," i said. "that is not the way we treat strangers in tuskamuck." "oh, you mustn't call me a stranger," miss west responded, twisting her head to look up into george's face. "i'm really in love with the place, and i should admire to live here all the rest of my life." to this i had nothing to say. george had not spoken a word. i could not look at him, but i moved on now. i felt that i must get away from this girl, with her strange western speech, and her familiar manner. "good-by," i said. "mother will want me, and i mustn't linger any longer." i managed to smile until i had left them, but the tears would come as i hurried up the hill toward home. oh, how can i bear it! january . the happiness of george is the thing which should be considered. in any case i am helpless. i can only wait, in woman's fashion. even if i were convinced he would be happier and better with me,--and how can i tell that?--what is there i could do? my duty is by mother's sick-bed, and even if my pride would let me struggle for the possession of any man, i am not free to try even that degrading conflict. i should know, moreover, that any man saved in spite of himself would be apt to look back with regret to the woman he was saved from. jean ingelow's "letter l" is not often repeated in life, i am afraid. still, if one could be sure that it is a danger and he were saved, this might be borne. if it were surely for his good to think less of me, i might bear it somehow, hard as it would be. but my hands are tied. there is nothing for me but waiting. january . george met kathie last night as she was coming here, and sent word that he had to drive over to canton. i thought it odd for him to send me such a message instead of coming himself, for he had not seen me since i met him in the street with miss west. to-day aunt naomi came in, and the moment i saw her i knew that she had something to say that it would not be pleasant to hear. "what's george weston taking that west girl over to canton for?" she asked. it was like a stab in the back, but i tried not to flinch. "why shouldn't he take her?" i responded. aunt naomi gave a characteristic sniff, and wagged her foot violently. "if he wants to, perhaps he should," she answered enigmatically. the subject dropped there, but i wonder a little why she put it that way. january . our engagement is broken. george is gone, and the memory of six years, he says, had better be wiped out. january . i could not tell mother to-day. by the time i got my courage up it was afternoon, and i feared lest she should be too excited to sleep to-night. to-morrow morning she must know. ii february february . i wonder sometimes if human pride is not stronger than human affection. certainly it seems sometimes that we feel the wound to vanity more than the blow to love. i suppose that the truth is that the little prick stings where the blow numbs. for the moment it seemed to me to-night as if i felt more the sudden knowledge that the village knows of my broken engagement than i did the suffering of the fact; but i shall have forgotten this to-morrow, and the real grief will be left. miss charlotte, tall and gaunt, came in just at twilight. she brought a lovely moss-rose bud. "why, miss charlotte," i said, "you have never cut the one bud off your moss-rose! i thought that was as dear to you as the apple of your eye." "it was," she answered with her gayest air. "that's why i brought it." "mother will be delighted," i said; "that is, if she can forgive you for picking it." "it isn't for your mother," miss charlotte said, with a sudden softening of her voice; "it is for you. i'm an old woman, you know, and i've whims. it's my whim for you to have the bud because i've watched it growing, and loved it almost as if it were my own baby." then i knew that she had heard of the broken engagement. the sense of the village gossip, the idea of being talked over at the sewing-circle, came to me so vividly and so dreadfully that for a moment i could hardly get my breath. then i remembered the sweetness of miss charlotte's act, and i went to her and kissed her. the poor old dear had tears in her eyes, but she said nothing. she understood, i am sure, that i could not talk, but that i had seen what she meant me to see, her sympathy and her love. we sat down before the fire in the gathering dusk, and talked of indifferent things. she praised peter's beauty, although the ungrateful peter refused to stay in her lap, and would not be gracious under her caresses. she did not remain long, and she was gay after her fashion. miss charlotte is apt to cover real feeling with a decent veil of facetiousness. "now i must go home and get my party ready," she said, rising with characteristic suddenness. "are you going to have a party?" i asked in some surprise. "i have one every night, my dear," she returned, with her explosive laugh. "all the kendall ghosts come. it isn't very gay, but it's very select." she hurried away, and left me more touched than i should have wished her to see. february . it was well for me that miss charlotte's visit prepared me last night, for to-day kathie broke in upon me with the most childish frankness. "miss ruth," she burst out, "ain't you going to marry george weston?" "no, my dear," i answered; "but you mustn't say 'ain't.'" "'aren't,' then. but i thought you promised years and years ago." "kathie, dear," said i, "this isn't a thing that you may talk about. you are too young to understand, and it is vulgar to talk to people about their private affairs unless they begin." "but it's no wronger than"-- "there's no such word as 'wronger,' kathie." "no worse than to break one's word, is it?" "when two persons make an agreement they have a right to unmake it if they change their minds; and that is not breaking their word. how do the skates work?" "all right," kathie answered; "but father said that you and george weston"-- "kathie," i said as firmly as i could, "i have told you before that you must not repeat what your father says." "it isn't wrong," she returned rather defiantly. i was surprised at her manner, but i suppose that she is always fighting with her conscience about right and wrong, so the mere idea makes her aggressive. "i am not so sure," i told her, trying to turn the whole matter off with a laugh. "i don't think it's very moral to be ill bred. do you?" "why, father says manners don't matter if the heart is right." "this is only another way of saying that if the heart is right the manners will be right. if you in your heart consider whether your father would wish you to tell me what he did not say for my ears, you will not be likely to say it." that sounds rather priggish now it is written down, but i had to stop the child, and i could not be harsh with her. she evidently wanted much to go on with the subject, but i would not hear another word. how the town must be discussing my affairs! february . mother is certainly growing weaker, and although dr. wentworth will not admit to me that she is failing, i am convinced that he thinks so. she has been telling me this afternoon of things which she wishes given to this and that relative or friend. "it will not make me any more likely to die, ruth," she said, "and i shall feel more comfortable if i have these things off my mind. i've thought them out, and if you'll put them on paper, then i shall feel perfectly at liberty to forget them if i find it too much trouble to remember." i put down the things which she told me, trying hard not to let her see how the tears hindered my writing. when i had finished she lay quiet for some time, and then she said,-- "may i say one thing, ruth, about george?" she has said nothing to me before except comforting words to show me that she felt for me, and that she knew i could not bear to talk about it. "you know you may," i told her, though i confess i shrank at the thought. "i know how it hurts you now," she said, "and for that i am grieved to the heart; but ruth, dear, i can't help feeling that it is best after all. you are too much his superior to be happy with him. you would try to make him what you think he ought to be, and you couldn't do it. the stuff isn't in him. he'd get tired of trying, and you would be so humiliated for him that in the end i'm afraid neither of you would be happy." she stopped, and rested a little, and then went on. "i am afraid i don't comfort you much," she said, with a sigh. "i suppose that that must be left to time. but i want you to remember it is much less hard for me to leave you alone than it would have been to go with the feeling that you were to make a mistake that would hamper and sadden your whole life." the tears came into her eyes, and she put out her dear, shadowy hand so feebly that i could not bear it. i dropped on my knees by the bed, and fell to sobbing in the most childish way. mother patted my head as if i were the baby i was acting. "there, there, ruth," she said; "the privets, as your father would have said, do not cry over misfortunes; they live them down." she is right; and i must not break down again. february . there are times when i seem like a stranger visiting myself, and i most inhospitably wish that this guest would go. i must determine not to think about my feelings; or, rather, without bothering to make resolutions, i must stop thinking about myself. the way to do it, i suppose, is to think about others; and that would be all very well if it were not that the others i inevitably think about are george and miss west. i cannot help knowing that he is with her a great deal. somehow it is in the air, and comes to me against my will. if i go out, i cannot avoid seeing them walking or driving together. i am afraid that george's law business must suffer. i should never have let him neglect it so for me. perhaps i am cold-blooded. what mother said to me the other day has been much in my thoughts. i wonder how it was ever possible for me to be engaged to a man of whom neither father nor mother entirely approved. to care for him was something i could not help; i am sure of that. but the engagement is another matter. it came about very naturally after his being here so much in father's last illness. george was so kind and helpful about the business that we were all full of gratitude, and in my blindness i did not perceive how mother really felt. i realize now it was his kindness to father, and the relief his help brought to mother, which made it hard for her to say then that she did not approve of the engagement; and so soon after she became a helpless invalid that things went on naturally in their own course. i am sure that if mother could have known george as i have known him, she would have cared for him. she has hardly seen him in all these years. she hopes that i will forget, but i should be poorer if i could. one does not leave off loving just because circumstances alter. he is free to go his way, but that does not make me any the less his if there is any virtue in my being so. february . i met mrs. webbe in the street to-day, her black eyes brighter, more piercing, more snapping than ever. she came up to me in her quick, jerky way, stopped suddenly, tall and strong, and looked at me as if she were trying to read some profound secret, hid in the very bottom of my soul. i could never by any possibility be half so mysterious as mrs. webbe's looks seemed to make me. "do you write to tom?" she demanded. "i don't even know where he is," i answered. "then you don't write to him?" "no." "that's a pity," mrs. webbe went on, her eyes piercing me so that they almost gave me a sensation of physical discomfort. "he ought to know." i looked at her a moment in silence, thinking she might explain her enigmatic words. "to know what?" i asked at length. "about you and george weston," she responded, nodding her head emphatically; "but if you don't know where he is, that's the whole of it. good-day." she was gone before i could gather my wits to tell her that the news could make no difference to tom. in discussing my separation from george i suppose the village gossips--but i will not be unkind because i am unhappy. i know, and know with sincere pain, that deacon and mrs. webbe believe that i could have saved tom if i had been willing to marry him. i have cared for tom from girlhood, and i am fond of him now, in spite of all that has happened to show how weak he is; but it would be wicked for him to be allowed to suppose the breaking of my engagement makes any difference in our relations. he cannot be written to, however, so i need not trouble. february . miss west has gone back to franklin, but i do not see that this makes any especial difference to me. aunt naomi told me this afternoon, evidently thinking that i should wish to hear it, and evidently, too, trying not to let me see that she regarded it as more than an ordinary bit of news. i only wonder how long it will be before george will follow her. oh, i do hope she will make him happy! february . the consequence of my being of no religion seems to be that i am regarded as a sort of neutral ground by persons of all religions, where they may air their theological troubles. now it is a catholic who asks advice. perhaps i had better set up as a consulting something or other. mediums are the only sort of female consulting things that i think of, and they are so far from respectable that i could not be a medium; but i shall have to invent a name to call myself by, if this goes much further. this time it is rosa. rosa is as devout a little superstitious body as i ever saw. she firmly believes all that her church teaches her, and she believes all sorts of queer things besides. i wonder sometimes that her small mind, which never can remember to lay the table properly, can hold in remembrance all the droll superstitions she shiveringly accepts. perhaps the reason why she is so inefficient a servant, and is so constantly under the severe blight of hannah's awful disapproval, is that her mental faculties are exhausted in remembering signs and omens. i've no right to make fun of her, however, for i don't like to spill salt myself! the conundrum which rosa brings to me is not one which it is easy to handle. she believes that her church has the power of eternal life and death over her, and she wishes, in defiance of her church's prohibition, to marry a divorced man. she declares that unless she can marry ran gargan her heart will be broken into the most numerous fragments, and she implores me to devise a method by which she can accomplish the difficult feat of getting the better of the church. "sure, miss privet," she said in the most naïve way in the world, "you're that clever that ye could invint a way what would get round father o'rafferty; he's no that quick at seein' things." i suspect, from something the child let fall, that hannah, with genuine righteous hatred of the scarlet woman, had urged rosa to fly in the face of her church, and marry ran. hannah would regard it as a signal triumph of grace if rosa could be so far persuaded to disobey the tenets of catholicism. i can understand perfectly hannah's way of looking at the matter; but i have no more against rosa's church than i have against hannah's, so this view does not appeal to me. "rosa," i said, "don't you believe in your church?" she broke into voluble protestations of her entire faithfulness, and seemed inclined to feel that harm might come to her from some unseen malevolence if such charges were made so as to be heard by spying spirits. "then i don't see why you come to me," i said. "if you are a good catholic, i should think that that settled the matter." "but i thought you'd think of some way of gettin' round it," she responded, beginning to cry. "me heart is broke for ran, an' it is himsilf that'll go to the bad if i don't have him." poor little ignorant soul! how could one reason with her, or what was there to say? i could only try to show her that she could not be happy if she did the thing that she knew to be wrong. "but what for is ye tellin' me that, when ye don't belave it's wrong?" she demanded, evidently aggrieved. "i do think it is wrong to act against a church in which you believe," i said. i am afraid i did not in the least comfort her, for she went away with an air in which indignation was mingled with disappointment. february . rosa is all right. she told me to-day, fingering her apron and blushing very prettily, that she saw dennis maloney last night, and was engaged to him already. he has, it seems, personal attractions superior to those of ran, and rosa added that on the whole she prefers a first-hand husband. "so i'm obliged to ye for yer advisin' me to give ran the go-by," she concluded. "i thought yer would." i do not know whether the swiftness of the change of sweethearts or the amazing conclusion of her remarks moved me more. february . father used to say that peggy cole was the proudest thing on the face of the earth, and he would certainly be amused if he could know how her pride has increased. i could not leave mother this afternoon, and so i sent rosa down with a pail of soup to the poor old goody. peggy refused to have it because i did not bring it myself. she wasn't a pauper to have me send her soup, she informed rosa. i am afraid that rosa was indiscreet enough to make some remark upon the fact that i carry her food pretty often, for old peggy said,--i can see her wrinkled old nose turned up in supreme scorn as she brought it out,--"that's different. when miss ruth brings me a little thing now and then,--and it ain't often she'll take that trouble, either!--that's just a friend dropping in with something to make her sure of her welcome!" i shall have to leave everything to-morrow to go and make my peace with peggy, for the old goose would starve to death before she would take anything from the overseers of the poor, and i do not see how she keeps alive, anyway. february . i had a note from george this morning about the burgess mortgage, and in it he said that he is to be away for a week or two. that means-- but i have no longer any right to speculate about him. it is not my business what it means. henceforth he must come and go, and i must not even wonder about it. february . i must face the fact that mother will not be with me much longer. i can see how she grows weaker, and i can only be thankful that she does not suffer. she speaks of death now and then as calmly as if it were a matter of every-day routine. "mrs. privet," dr. wentworth said this morning, "you seem to be no more afraid of death than you are of a sunrise." "i'm not orthodox enough to be afraid," she answered, with her little quizzical smile. dear little mother, she is so serene, so sweet, so quiet; nothing could be more dignified, and yet nothing more entirely simple. she is dying like a gentlewoman. she lies there as gracious as if she had invited death as a dear friend, and awaited him with the kindliest welcome. the naturalness of it all is what impresses me most. when i am with her it is impossible for me to feel that anything terrible is at hand. she might be going away to pass a pleasant summer visit somewhere; but there is no suspicion of anything dreadful or painful. it is not that she is indifferent, either,--she has always found life a thing to be glad of. "i should have liked well enough to stay a while longer to bother you, ruth," she said, after dr. wentworth had gone, "but we must take things as they come. it's better, perhaps; you need a rest." dear mother! she is always so lovely and so wonderful! february . mother has been brighter to-day, and really seems better. if it will only last! i asked her last night if she expected to see father. she lay quiet a moment, and then she turned her face to smile on me before she answered. "i don't know, ruth," she said. "i have wondered about that a good deal, and i cannot be sure. if he is alive and knows, then i shall see him. i am sure of that. it is only life that has been keeping us apart. if he is not any more, why, then i shall not be either, and so of course i can't be unhappy. i feel just as he used to when he had you read that translation from something to him the week before he died; the thing that said death could not be an evil, for if we kept on existing we would be no longer bothered by the body, and that if we didn't, it was no matter, for we shouldn't know." she was still a moment, looking into some great distance with her patient, sunken eyes. then she smiled again, and said as if to herself, "but i think i shall see him." february . george is married. aunt naomi has been in to tell me. she mentioned it as if it were a thing in which i should have no more interest than in any bit of village news. she did not watch me, i remember now, or ask my opinion as she generally does. she was wonderfully tactful and kind; only i can see she thought i ought to know about it, and that the best way was to put the matter bluntly and simply, as if it had no possible sentiment connected with it. when she had done her errand, she went on to make remarks about deacon richards and the vestry fires; just what, i do not know, for i could not listen. then she mercifully went away. i did not expect it so soon! i knew that it must come, but i was not prepared for this suddenness. i supposed that i should hear of the engagement, and get used to it; and then come to know the wedding was to be, and so come gradually to the thing itself that shuts george forever out of my life. it is better, it is a thousand times better to have it all over at once. i might have brooded morbidly through the days as they brought nearer and nearer the time when george was to be her husband instead of mine. now it is done without my knowing. for three days he has been married; and i have only to think of him as the husband of another woman, and try to take it as a matter of course. whether george has done this because he cares so much for her or not, he has done what is kindest for me. it is like waking from the ether to find that the tooth is out. we may be sick and sore, but the worst is past, and we may begin, slowly perhaps, but really, to recover. yet it is so soon! how completely he must be carried away to be so forgetful of all that is past! we were engaged six years; and he marries miss west after an acquaintance of hardly as many weeks. i wonder if all men are like this. it seems sometimes as if they were not capable of the long, brooding devotion of women. but it is better so, and i would not have him thinking about me. he must be wrapped up in her. i do care most for his happiness, and his happiness now lies in his thinking of her and forgetting all the six years when he was--when i thought he was mine. i will not moon, and i will not fret. that george has changed does not, of course, alter my feeling. i am sore and hurt; i see life now restricted in its uses. he has cut me off from the happiness of serving him and helping him as a wife; but as a friend there is still much that i may do. very likely i can help his wife,--she seems so far short of what his wife should be. for service in all loyalty i belong to him still; and that is the thought which must help me. february . i have already had a chance to do something for george. i hope that i have not been unfair to my friends; but i do not see how i could decide any other way. old lady andrews came in this afternoon, with her snowy curls and cheeks pink from the wind. almost as soon as she was seated she began with characteristic directness. "i know you won't mind my coming straight to the point, my dear," she said. "i came to ask you about george weston's new wife. do you think we had better call on her?" the question had come to me before, but i confess i had selfishly thought of it only as a personal matter. "mr. weston's people were hardly of our sort, you know," she continued in her gentle voice, "though of course after your father took him into his office as a student we all felt like receiving him. i never knew him until after that." "i have seen a good deal of him," i said, wondering if my voice sounded queer; "you know he helped settle the estate." "it did seem providential," mrs. andrews went on, "that his mother did not live, for of course we could hardly have known her. she was a hardy, you know, from canton. but i have always found mr. weston a very presentable young man, especially for one of his class. he is really very intelligent." "as we have received him," i said, "i don't see how we can refuse to receive his wife." "that's the way i thought you would feel about it," old lady andrews answered; "but i wished to be sure. as he has been received entirely on account of his connection with your family, i told aunt naomi that it ought to be for you to say whether the favor should be extended to his wife. i am informed that she is very pretty, but she is not, i believe, exactly one of our sort." "she is exceedingly pretty," i assured her. "i have seen her. she is not--well, i am afraid that she is rather western, but i shall call." "then that settles it. of course we shall do whatever you decide. i suppose he will bring her to our church. i say 'our,' ruth, because you really belong to it. you are just a lamb that has found a place with a picket off, and got outside the fold. we shall have you back some time." "i am afraid," i said laughing, "that i should only disgrace you and injure the fold by pulling a fresh picket off somewhere to get out again." she laughed in turn, and fluttered her small hands in her delightful, birdlike way. "i am not afraid of that," she responded. "when the lord leads you in, he is able to make you want to stay. i hope your mother is comfortable." so that is settled, and miss west--why am i such a coward about writing it?--mrs. weston is to be one of us. george will be glad that she is not left out of society. iii march march . mother's calmness keeps me ashamed of the hot ache in my heart and the restlessness which makes it so hard for me to keep an outward composure. hannah is rather shocked that she should be so entirely unmoved in the face of death, and the dear, foolish old soul, steeped in theological asperities from her cradle, must needs believe that mother is somehow endangering her future welfare by this very serenity. "don't you think, miss ruth," she said to me yesterday, "that you could persuade your mother to see mr. saychase? she'd do it to oblige you." "but it wouldn't oblige me, hannah." "oh, miss ruth, think of her immortal soul!" "hannah," i said as gently as i could, she was so distressed, "you know how mother always felt about those things. it certainly couldn't do any good now to try to alter her opinions, and it would only tire her." i left hannah as quickly as i could without hurting her feelings, but i might have known that her conscience would force her to speak to mother. "bless me, hannah," mother said to her, "i'm no more wicked because i'm going to die than if i were going to live. i can't help dying, you know, so i don't feel responsible." when hannah tried to go on, and broke down with tears, mother put out her thin hand, like a sweet shadow. "hannah," she said, "i know how you feel, and i thank you for speaking; but don't be troubled. where there are 'many mansions,' don't you think there may be one even for those who did not see the truth, if they were honest in their blindness?" march . how far away everything else seems when the foot of death is almost at the door! as i sit by the bedside in the long nights, wondering whether he will come before morning, i think of the nights in which i may sometime be waiting for death myself. i wonder whether i shall be as serene and absolutely unterrified as mother is. it is after all only the terror of the unknown. why should we be more ready to think of the unknown as dreadful than as delightful? we certainly hail the thought of new experiences in the body; why not out of it? novelty in itself must give a wonderful charm to that new life, at least for a long time. think of the pleasure of having youth all over again, for we shall at least be young to any new existence into which we go, just as babies are young to this. death is terrible, it seems to me, only when we think of ourselves who are left behind, not when we think of those who go. life is a thing so beautiful that it may be sad to think of them as deprived of it; but the more beautiful it is, the more i am assured that whatever power made the earth must be able to make something better. if life is good, a higher step in evolution must be nobler; and however we mourn, none of us would dare to say that our grief is caused by the belief that our friends have through death gone on to sorrow. march . this morning-- march . mother was buried to-day. i have taken out this book to try to set down--to set down what? not what i have felt since the end came. that is not possible, and if it were, i have not the courage. i suppose the mournful truth is that in the dreadful loneliness which death has left in the house, i got out my diary as a companion. one's own thoughts are forlorn company when they are so sad, but if they are written out they may come to have more reality, and the journal to seem more like another personality. how strange and shameful the weakness is which makes it hard for us to be alone; the feeling that we cannot endure the brooding universe about us unless we have hold of some human hand! yet we are so small,--the poor, naked, timorous soul, a single fleck of thistle-down tossed about by all the winds which fill the immensities of an infinite universe. why should we not be afraid? father would say, "why should we?" he believed that the universe took care of everything in it, because everything is part of itself. "you've only to think of our own human instinct of self-preservation on a scale as great as you can conceive," he told me the day before he died, "and you get some idea of the way in which the universal must protect the particular." i am afraid that i am not able to grasp the idea as he did. i have thought of it many times, and of how calm and dignified he was in those last days. i am a woman, and the universe is so great that it turns me cold to think of it. i am able to get comfort out of father's idea only by remembering how sure he was of it, and how completely real it was to him. yet mother was as sure as he. she told me once that not to be entirely at ease would be to dishonor father's belief, and she was no less serene in the face of death than he was. yes; it would be to dishonor them both to doubt, and i do not in my heart of hearts; but it is lonely, lonely. march . it is touching to see how human kindness, the great sympathy with what is real and lasting in the human heart, overcomes the narrowness of creeds in the face of the great tragedy of death. hannah would be horrified at any hint that she wavered in her belief, yet she said to me to-day:-- "don't you worry about your mother, miss ruth. she was a good woman, if her eyes were not opened to the truth as it is in jesus. her heavenly father'll look after her. i guess she sees things some different now she's face to face with him; and i believe she had the root of the matter in her somehow, though she hadn't grace given her to let her light shine among men." dear old hannah! she is too loving in her heart not to be obliged to widen her theology when she is brought to the actual application of the awful belief she professes, and she is too human not to feel that a life so patient and so upright as mother's must lead to eternal peace, no matter what the creed teaches. march . the gray kitten is chasing its tail before the fire, and i have been looking at it and the blazing wood through my tears until i could bear it no longer. the moonlight is on the snow in the graveyard, and must show that great black patch where the grave is. she cannot be there; she cannot be conscious of the bleak chill of the earth; and the question whether she is anywhere and is conscious at all is in my mind constantly. she must be; she cannot have gone out like a candle-flame. she said to mr. saychase, that day hannah brought him and mother was too gentle to refuse to see him, that she had always believed god must have far too much self-respect not to take care of creatures he had made, and that she was not in the least troubled, because she did not feel any responsibility about what was to happen after death. she was right, of course; but he was horrified. he began to stammer out something, but mother stopped him. "i didn't mean to shock you," she said gently; "but don't you think, mr. saychase, i am near enough to the end to have the privilege of saying what i really believe?" he wouldn't have been human if he could have resisted the voice that said it or the smile that enforced the words. now she knows. she has found the heart of truth somewhere out there in the sky, which to us looks so wide, so thick with stars which might be abiding-places. she may have met father. how much he, at least, must have to tell her! whether he would know about us or not, i cannot decide. in any case i think he would like her to tell him. she is learning wonderful things. yes; she knows, and i am sure she is glad. march . george has been to see me. in the absorption and grief of the last fortnight i have hardly remembered him, and he has brought his wife home without my giving the matter a thought. it is wonderful that anything could so hold me that i have not been moved, but they came back the day after the funeral, and i did not hear of it until a couple of days later. it gave me a great shock when i saw him coming up the walk, but by the time he was in the house, i had collected myself, and i had, i think, my usual manner. he was most kind and sympathetic, and yet he could not help showing how ill at ease he was. perhaps he could not help reflecting that my duty to mother had been the thing which kept us apart, and that it was strange for this to end just as there was no longer the possibility of our coming together. i do not remember what george and i said to each other to-night, any more than i can recall what we said on that last time when he was here. i might bring back that other talk out of the dull blur of pain, but where would be the good? nothing could come of it but new suffering. we were both outwardly calm and self-possessed, i know, and talked less like lovers than like men of business. so a merchant might sell the remnants of a bankrupt fortune, i fancy; and when he was gone i went to prepare mother's night drink as calmly as if nothing had happened. i did not dare not to be calm. to-night we met like the friends we promised to be. he was uncomfortable at first, but i managed to make him seem at ease, or at least not show that he felt strange. he looked at me rather curiously now and then. i think he was astonished that i showed no more feeling about our past. i cannot have him unhappy through me, and he must feel that at least i accept my fate serenely, or he will be troubled. i must not give myself the gratification of proving that i am constant. he may believe i am cold and perhaps heartless, but that is better than for him to feel responsible for my being miserable. what did he tell me that night? it was in effect--though i think he hardly realized what he said or implied--how our long engagement had worn out the passion of a lover, and he felt only the friendship of a brother; the coming of a new, real love had shown him the difference. does this mean that married love goes through such a change? will he by and by have lived through his first love for his wife, and if so what will be left? that is not my concern; but would this same thing have come if i had been his wife, and should i now find myself, if we had been married when we hoped to be, only a friend who could not so fill his heart as to shut out a new love? better a hundredfold that it should be as it is. at least he was not tied to me when the discovery came. but it is not always so. certainly father and mother loved each other more after long years of living together.--but this is not a train of thought which it is well to follow. what is must be met and lived with; but i will not weaken my heart by dwelling on what might have been. george was most kind to come, and it must have been hard for him; but i am afraid it was not a happy half-hour for either of us. i suppose that any woman brought face to face with a man she still loves when he has done with loving her must feel as if she were shamed. that is nonsense, however, and i fought against the feeling. now i am happy in the thought that at least i have done one thing. i have made it possible for george to come to me if hereafter he need me. if he were in trouble and i could help, i know he would appeal to me as simply as ever. if i can help him, i am yet free to do it. i thank god for this! march . i have asked charlotte kendall to stay with me for a while. dear old miss charlotte, she is so poor and so proud and so plucky! i know that she is half starving in that great, gaunt kendall house, that looms up so among its balm of gilead trees, as if it were an asylum for the ghosts of all the bygone generations of the family. somehow it seems to me that in america the "decayed gentlewomen," as they are unpleasantly called in england, have a harder time than anywhere else in the world. miss charlotte has to live up to her instincts and her traditions or be bitterly humiliated and miserable. people generally assume that the family pride behind this is weak if it is not wicked; but surely the ideal of an honorable race, cultivated and right-minded for generations, is a thing to be cherished. the growth of civilization must depend a good deal upon having these ideas of family preserved somehow. father used to say the great weakness of modern times is that nowadays the best of the race, instead of saying to those below, "climb up to us," say, "we will come down to you." i suppose this is hardly a fair summing up of modern views of social conditions, though of course i know very little about them; but i am sure that the way in which class distinctions are laughed at is a mistake. i hope i hate false pride as much as anybody could; yet dear miss charlotte, trying hard not to disgrace her ancestors, and being true to her idea of what a gentlewoman should do, is to me pathetic and fine. she cares more for the traditions of her race than she does for her own situation; and anybody who did not admire this strong and unselfish spirit must look at life from a point of view that i cannot understand. i can have her here now on an excuse that she will not suspect, and she shall be fed and rested as she has not been for years. march . i forgot miss charlotte's plants when i asked her to come here. i went over this morning to invite her, and i found her trimming her great oleander tree with tender little snips and with loving glances which were like those a mother gives her pet child in dressing it for a party. the sun came in at the bay window, and the geraniums which are the pride of miss charlotte's heart were coming finely into blossom. if the poor old soul is ever really happy it is in the midst of her plants, and things grow for her as for nobody else. "do look, ruth," she said with the greatest eagerness; "that slip of heather that came from the wreath is really sprouting. i do think it will live." she brought me a vial full of greenish water into which was stuck a bit of heather from the wreath that cousin mehitable sent for mother. miss charlotte had asked me if she might go to the graveyard for the slip. she was so pathetic when she spoke of it! "it isn't just to have a new plant," she said. "it is partly that it would always remind me of your mother, and i should love it for that." to-day she was wonderful. her eyes shone as she looked at the twig, and showed me the tiny white point, like a little mouse's tooth, that had begun to come through the bark under the green water. it was as if she had herself somehow accomplished the miracle of creation. i could have taken her into my arms and cried over her as she stood there so happy with just this slip and her plants for family and riches. i told her my errand, and she began to look troubled. unconsciously, i am sure, she glanced around at the flowers, and in an instant i understood. "oh, i beg your pardon," i said before she had time to speak, "i forgot that you cannot leave the plants." "i was thinking how i could manage," she answered, evidently troubled between the wish to oblige me and the thought that her precious plants could not be left. "you need not manage," i said. "i was foolish enough not to think of them. of course you can't leave them." "i might come over in the daytime," she proposed hesitatingly. "i could make up the fire in the morning, and at this time of the year the room would be warm enough for them till i came back at night. i know you must be most lonely at night, and i would stay as late as i could." "you are a dear thing," i said, and her tone brought tears to my eyes. "if you will come over after breakfast and stay until after supper that will do nicely,--if you think you can spare the time." "there's nothing i can spare better," she said, laughing. "i'm like the man that was on his way to jail and was met by a beggar. 'i've nothing to give you but time,' he said, 'and that his honor just gave me, so i don't like to give it away.' that's one of your father's stories, ruth." i stayed talking with her for an hour, and it was touching to see how she was trying to be entertaining and to make me cheerful. i did come away with my thoughts entirely taken off of myself and my affairs, and that is something. march . it has done me good to have miss charlotte here. she makes her forlorn little jests and tells her stories in her big voice, and somehow all the time is thinking, i can see, of brightening the days for me. peter was completely scornful for two days, but now he passes most of his time in her lap, condescending, of course, but gracious. miss charlotte has been as dear and kindly as possible, and to-night in the twilight she told me the romance of her life. i do not know how it came about. i suppose that she was thinking of mother and wanted me to know what mother had been to her. perhaps, too, she may have had a feeling that it would comfort me to know that she understood out of her own suffering the pain that had come to me through george's marriage. i do not remember her father and mother. they both died when i was very young. i have heard that mr. kendall was a very handsome man, who scandalized the village greatly by his love of horses and wine, but father used to tell me he was a scholar and a cultivated man. i am afraid he did not care very much for the comfort of others; and aunt naomi always speaks of him as a rake who broke his wife's heart. charlotte took care of him after mrs. kendall died, and was devoted to him, they say. she was a middle-aged woman before she was left alone with that big house, and she sold the kendall silver to pay his debts. to-night she spoke of him with a sort of pitiful pride, yet with an air as if she had to defend him, perhaps even to herself. "i'm an old woman, ruth," she said, "and my own life seems to me like an old book that i read so long ago that i only half remember it. it is forty years since i was engaged." it is strange i had never known of this before; but i suppose it passed out of people's minds before i was old enough to notice. "i never knew you had been engaged, miss charlotte," i said. "then your mother never told you what she did for me," she answered, looking into the fire. "that was like her. she was more than a mother to me at the time"--she broke off, and then repeated, "it was like her not to speak of it. there are few women like your mother, ruth." we were both silent for a time, and i had to struggle not to break down. miss charlotte sat looking into the fire with the tears running unchecked down her wrinkled cheeks. she did not seem conscious of them, and the thought came to me that there had been so much sadness in her life that she was too accustomed to tears to notice them. "it is forty years," she said again. "i was called a beauty then, though you'd find that hard to believe now, ruth, when i'm like an old scarecrow in a cornfield. i suppose no young person ever really believes that an old woman can have been beautiful unless there's a picture to prove it. i'll show you a daguerreotype some time; though, after all, what difference does it make? at least he thought"-- another silence came here. the embers in the fire dropped softly, and the dull march twilight gathered more and more thickly. i felt as if i were being led into some sacred room, closed many years, but where the dead had once lain. perhaps it was fanciful, but it seemed almost as if i were seeing the place where poor miss charlotte's youth had died. "it wasn't proper that i should marry him, ruth. i know now father was right, only sometimes--for myself i suppose i hadn't proper pride, and i shouldn't have minded; but father was right. a kendall couldn't marry a sprague, of course. i knew it all along; and i vowed to myself over and over that i wouldn't care for him. when a girl tells herself that she won't love a man, ruth," she broke in with a bitter laugh, "the thing's done already. it was so with me. i needn't have promised not to love him if i hadn't given him my whole heart already,--what a girl calls her heart. i wouldn't own it; and over and over i told him that i didn't care for him; and then at last"-- it was terrible to hear the voice in which she spoke. she seemed to be choking, and it was all that i could do to keep control of myself. i could not have spoken, even if there had been anything to say. i wanted to take her in my arms and get her pitiful, tear-stained face hidden; but i only sat quiet. "well, we were engaged at last, and i knew father would never consent; but i hoped something would happen. when we are young enough we all hope the wildest things will happen and we shall get what we want. then father found out; and then--and then--i don't blame father, ruth. he was right. i see now that he was right. of course it wouldn't have done; but then it almost killed me. if it hadn't been for your mother, dear, i think i should have died. i wanted to die; but i had to take care of father." i put out my hand and got hold of hers, but i could not speak. the tears dropped down so that they sparkled in the firelight, but she did not wipe them away. i was crying myself, for her old sorrow and mine seemed all part of the one great pain of the race, somehow. i felt as if to be a woman meant something so sad that i dared not think of it. "and the hardest was that he thought i was wrong to give him up. he could not see it as i did, ruth; and of course it was natural that he couldn't understand how father would feel about the family. i could never explain it to him, and i couldn't have borne to hurt his feelings by telling him." "is he"-- "he is dead, my dear. he married over at fremont, and i hope he was happy. i think probably he was. men are happy sometimes when a woman wouldn't be. i hope he was happy." that was the whole of it. we sat there silent until rosa came to call us to supper. when we stood up i put my arms about her, and kissed her. then she made a joke, and wiped her eyes, and through supper she was so gay that i could hardly keep back the tears. poor, poor, lonely, brave miss charlotte! march . cousin mehitable arrived yesterday according to her usual fashion, preceded by a telegram. i tell her that if she followed her real inclinations, she would dispatch her telegram from the station, and then race the messenger; but she is constrained by her breeding to be a little more deliberate, so i have the few hours of her journey in which to expect her. it is all part of her brisk way. she can never move fast enough, talk quickly enough, get through whatever she is doing with rapidity enough. i remember father's telling her once that she would never have patience to lie and wait for the day of judgment, but would get up every century or two to hurry things along. it always seems as if she would wear herself to shreds in a week; yet here she is, more lively at sixty than i am at less than half that age. she was very kind, and softened wonderfully when she spoke of mother. i think that she loved her more than she does any creature now alive. "aunt martha," she said last night, "wasn't human. she was far too angelic for that. but she was too sweet and human for an angel. for my part i think she was something far better than either, and far more sensible." this was a speech so characteristic that it brought me to tears and smiles together. to-night cousin mehitable came to the point of her errand with customary directness. "i came down," she said, "to see how soon you expect to arrange to live with me." "i hadn't expected anything about it," i returned. "of course you would keep the house," she went on, entirely disregarding my feeble protest. "you might want to come back summers sometimes. this summer i'm going to take you to europe." i am too much accustomed to her habit of planning things to be taken entirely by surprise; but it did rather take my breath away to find my future so completely disposed of. i felt almost as if i were not even to have a chance to protest. "but i never thought of giving up the house," i managed to say. "of course not; why should you?" she returned briskly. "you have money enough to keep up the place and live where you please. don't i know that for this ten years you and aunt martha haven't spent half your income? keep it, of course; for, as i say, sometimes you may like to come back for old times' sake." i could only stare at her, and laugh. "oh, you laugh, ruth," cousin mehitable remarked, more forcibly than ever, "but you ought to understand that i've taken charge of you. we are all that are left of the family now, and i'm the head of it. you are a foolish thing anyway, and let everybody impose on your good-nature. you need somebody to look after you. if i'd had you in charge, you'd never have got tangled up in that foolish engagement. i'm glad you had the sense to break it." i felt as if she had given me a blow in the face, but i could not answer. "don't blush like that," cousin mehitable commanded. "it's all over, and you know i always said you were a fool to marry a country lawyer." "father was a country lawyer," i retorted. "fudge! cousin horace was a judge and a man whose writings had given him a wide reputation. don't outrage his memory by calling him a rustic. for my part i never had any patience with him for burying himself in the country like a clodhopper." "you forget that mother's health"--i began; but with cousin mehitable one is never sure of being allowed to complete a sentence. "oh, yes," she interrupted, "of course i forgot. well, if there could be an excuse, aunt martha would serve for excusing anything. i beg your pardon, ruth. but now all that is past and gone, and fortunately the family is still well enough remembered in boston for you to take up life there with very little trouble. that's what i had in mind ten years ago, when i insisted on your coming out." "people who saw me then will hardly remember me." "the folks that knew your father and mother," she went on serenely, "are of course old people like me; but they will help you to know the younger generation. besides, those you know will not have forgotten you. a privet is not so easily forgotten, and you were an uncommonly pretty bud, ruth. what a fool you were not to marry hugh colet! you always were a fool." cousin mehitable generally tempers a compliment in this manner, and it prevents me from being too much elated by her praise. she was interrupted here by the necessity of going to prepare for supper. miss charlotte did not come over to-day, so we were alone together. no sooner were we seated at the supper-table than she returned to the attack. "when you live in boston," she said, "i shall"-- "suppose i should not live in boston?" i interrupted. "but you will. what else should you do?" "i might go on living here." "living here!" she cried out explosively. "you don't call this living, do you? how long is it since you heard any music, or saw a picture, or went to the theatre, or had any society?" i was forced to confess that music and painting and acting were all entirely lacking in tuskamuck; but i remarked that i had all the books that attracted me, and i protested against her saying i hadn't any society. "oh, you see human beings now and then," cousin mehitable observed coolly; "and i dare say they are very worthy creatures. but you know yourself they are not society. you haven't forgotten the year i brought you out." i have not forgotten it, of course; and i cannot deny that when i think of that winter in boston, the year i was nineteen, i do feel a little mournful sometimes. it was all so delightful, and it is all so far away now. i hardly heard what cousin mehitable said next. i was thinking how enchanting a home in boston would be, and how completely alone as for family i am. cousin mehitable is the only near relative i have in the world, and why should i not be with her? it would be delightful. perhaps i may manage to get in a week or two in town now and then; but i cannot go away for long. there would be nobody to start the reading-room, or keep up the shakespeare club; and what would become of kathie and peggy cole, or of all that dreadful spearin tribe? i dare say i am too proud of my consequence, and that if i went away somebody would be found to look after things. still i know i am useful here; and it seems to me i am really needed. besides, i love the place and the people, and i think my friends love me. march . cousin mehitable went home to-day. easter is at hand, and she has a bonnet from paris,--"a perfect dream of a bonnet," she said with the enthusiasm of a girl, "dove-colored velvet, and violets, and steel beads, and two or three white ostrich tips; a bonnet an angel couldn't resist, ruth!"--and this bonnet must form part of the church service on easter. the connection between paris bonnets and the proper observance of the day is not clear in my mind; but when i said something of this sort to cousin mehitable she rebuked me with great gravity. "ruth, there is nothing in worse form than making jokes about sacred subjects." "your bonnet isn't sacred," i retorted, for i cannot resist sometimes the temptation to tease her; "or at least it can't be till it's been to church on easter." "you know what i mean," was her answer. "when you live with me i shall insist upon your speaking respectfully of the church." "i wasn't speaking of the church," i persisted, laughing at the gravity with which she always takes up its defense; "i was speaking of your bonnet, your paris bonnet, your easter bonnet, your ecclesiastical, frivolous, giddy, girlish bonnet." "oh, you may think it too young for me," she said eagerly, forgetting the church in her excitement, "but it isn't really. it's as modest and appropriate as anything you ever saw; and so becoming and _chic_!" "oh, i can always trust your taste, cousin mehitable," i told her, "but you know you're a worldly old thing. you'd insist upon having your angelic robes fitted by a fashionable tailor." again she looked grave and shocked in a flash. "how can you, ruth! you are a worse heathen than ever. but then there is no church in tuskamuck, so i suppose it is not to be wondered at. that's another reason for taking you away from this wilderness." "there are two churches, as you know very well," i said. "nonsense! they're only meeting-houses,--conventicles. however, when you come to boston to live, we will see." "i told you last night that i shouldn't give up tuskamuck." "i know you did, but i didn't mind that. you must give it up." she went away insisting upon this, and refusing to accept any other decision. i did so far yield as to promise provisionally that i would go abroad with her this summer. i need to see the world with a broader view again, and i shall enjoy it. to think of the picture galleries fills me with joy already. i should be willing to cross the atlantic just to see once more the enchanting tailor of moroni's in the national gallery. it is odd, it comes into my mind at this moment that he looks something like tom webbe, or tom looks something like him. very likely it is all nonsense. yes; i will go for the summer--to leave here altogether--no, that is not to be thought of. march . the whole town is excited over an accident up at the lake this morning. a man and his son were drowned by breaking through the ice. they had been up to some of the logging camps, and it is said they were not sober. they were brownrigs, and part of the family in the little red house. the mother and the daughter are left. i hope it is not heartless to hate to think of them. i have no doubt that they suffer like others; only it is not likely folk of this sort are as sensitive as we are. it is a mercy that they are not. march . the brownrig family seems just now to be forced upon my attention, and that in no pleasant way. aunt naomi came in this forenoon, and seated herself with an air of mysterious importance. she looked at me with her keen eyes, penetrating and humorous even when she is most serious, and seemed to be examining me to discover what i was thinking. it was evident at once that she had news. this is generally true, for she seems always to have something to tell. her mind gathers news as salt gathers moisture, and her greatest pleasure is to impart what she has heard. she has generally with me the air of being a little uncertain how i may receive her tidings. like all persons of strong mind and a sense of humor, she is by nature in sympathy with the habit of looking at life frankly and dispassionately, and i believe that secretly and only half consciously she envies me my mental freedom. sometimes i have suspected her of leading me on to say things which she would have felt it wrong to say herself because they are unorthodox, but which she has too much common sense not to sympathize with. she is convinced, though, that such freedom of thought as mine is wrong, and she nobly deprives herself of the pleasure of being frank in her thoughts when this would involve any reflection upon the theological conventions which are her rule of life. she gratifies a lively mind by feeding it on scraps of gossip and commenting on them in her pungent way; she is never unkind in her thought, i am sure, but she does sometimes say sharp things. like lady teazle, however, she abuses people out of pure good nature. i looked at her this morning as she sat swinging her foot and munching--there is no other word for it!--her green barège veil, and i wondered, as i have often wondered before, how a woman really so clever could be content to pass so much of her time in the gathering and circulating of mere trivialities. i suppose that it is because there is so little in the village to appeal to the intellectual side of her, and her mind must be occupied. she might be a brilliant woman in a wider sphere. now she seems something like a beaver in captivity, building dams of hairbrushes and boots on a carpeted floor. i confess, too, that i wondered, as i looked at her, if she represented my future. i thought of cousin mehitable's doleful predictions of what i should come to if i stay in tuskamuck, and i tried to decide whether i should come in time to be like aunt naomi, a general carrier of news from house to house, an old maid aunt to the whole village, with no real kindred, and with no interests wider than those of village gossip. i cannot believe it, but i suppose at my age she would not have believed it of herself. "we're really getting to be quite like a city," aunt naomi said, with a grimness which showed me there was something important behind this enigmatic remark. "are we?" i responded. "i confess i don't see how." "humph!" she sniffed. "there's wickedness here that isn't generally looked for outside of the city." "oh, wickedness!" i said. "there is plenty of that everywhere, i suppose; but i never have thought we have more than our share of it." she wagged her foot more violently, and had what might have seemed a considerable lunch on her green veil before she spoke again--though it is wicked for me to make fun of her. then she took a fresh start. "what are you knitting?" she asked. "what started in january to be some mittens for the turner boy. he brings our milk, and he never seems to have mittens enough." "i don't wonder much," was her comment. "his mother has so many babies that she can't be expected to take care of them." "poor mrs. turner," i said. "i should think the poor thing would be discouraged. i am ashamed that i don't do more for her." "i don't see that you are called upon to take care of all the poor in the town; but if you could stop her increasing her family it'd be the best thing you could do." when aunt naomi makes a remark like this, i feel it is discreet to change the subject. "i hope that now the weather is getting milder," i observed, "you are not so cold in prayer-meetings." she was not diverted, even by this chance to dwell on her pet grievance, but went her own way. "i suppose you'll feel now you've got to look out for that brownrig girl, too," she said. "that brownrig girl?" i repeated. i tried not to show it, but the blood rushed to my heart and made me faint. i realized something terrible was coming, though i had nothing to go upon but the old gossip about tom and the fact that i had seen him come from the red house. "her sin has found her out," returned aunt naomi with indignant emphasis. "for my part, i don't see what such creatures are allowed to live for. think what kind of a mother she will make. they'd better take her and her baby and drown 'em along with her father and brother." "aunt naomi!" was all i could say. "well, i suppose you think i'm not very charitable, but it does make me mad to see that sort of trash"-- "i don't know what you are talking about," i interrupted. "has the brownrig girl a child?" "no; but she's going to have. her mother's gone off and left her, and she's down sick with pneumonia besides." "her mother has gone off?" "yes; and it'd be good riddance, if there was anybody to take care of the girl." it is useless to ask aunt naomi how she knows all that goes on in the town. she collects news from the air, i believe. i reflected that she is not always right, and i hoped now she might be mistaken. "but somebody must be with her if she's down with pneumonia," i said. "yes; that old bagley woman's there. the overseers of the poor sent her, but she's about twice as bad as nobody, i should think. if i was sick, and she came round, i know i'd ask her to go away, and let me die in peace." it was evident enough that aunt naomi was a good deal stirred up, but i did not dare to ask her why. if there is anything worse behind this scandal, i had rather not know it. we were fortunately interrupted, and aunt naomi went soon, so i heard no more. i was sick with the loathsomeness of having tom webbe connected in my thought with that wretched girl, and i do hope that it is only my foolishness. he cannot have fallen to such depths. march . i have heard no more from the brownrigs, and i must hope things were somehow not as aunt naomi thought. to-day i learned that she is shut up with a cold. i must go in to-morrow and see her. miss charlotte is a great comfort. the dear old soul begins really to look better, and the thinness about her lips is yielding to good feeding. she tells me stories of the old people of the town whom i can just remember, and she is full of reverence for both father and mother. of course i never talk theology with her, but i am surprised sometimes to find that under the shell of her orthodoxy is a good deal of liberalism. i suppose any kindly mortal who accepted the old creeds made allowances for those nearest and dearest, and human nature will always make allowances for itself. i should think that an imaginative belief in a creed, a belief that realized the cruelty of theology, must either drive one mad or make one disbelieve from simple horror. nobody but a savage could worship a relentless god and not become insane from the horror of being in the clutch of an implacable power. march . i have had a most painful visit from deacon webbe. he came in looking so gray and old that it shocked me to see him. he shook hands as if he did not know what he was doing, and then sat down in a dazed way, slowly twirling his hat and fixing his eyes on it as if he were blind. i tried to say something, but only stumbled on in little commonplaces about the weather, to which he paid so little attention that it was evident he had no idea what i was saying. in a minute or two i was reduced to silence. one cannot go on saying mechanical nothings in the face of suffering, and it was impossible not to see that deacon webbe was in grievous pain. "deacon webbe," i said at last, when i could not bear the silence any longer, "what is the matter?" he raised his eyes to mine with a look of pitiful helplessness. "i've no right to come to you, miss ruth," he said in his slow way, "but there's nobody else, and you always were tom's friend." "tom?" i repeated. "what has happened?" "it isn't a thing to talk to a woman about," he went on, "and you'll have to excuse me, miss ruth. i'm sure you will. it's that brownrig girl." i sat silent, and i felt my hands growing cold. "she's had a baby," he said after a moment. the simple bald fact was horrible as he said it. i could not speak, and after a little hesitation he continued in a tone so low i could scarcely hear him. "it's his. think of the shame of it and the sin of it. it seems to me, if it could only have been the lord's will, i would have been glad to die rather than to have this happen. my son!" the wail of his voice went to my heart and made me shiver. i would have given anything i possessed to comfort him, but what could i say? shame is worse than death. when one dies you can at least speak of the happiness that has been and the consolation of the memory of this. in disgrace whatever has been good before makes the shame only the harder to bear. what could i say to a father mourning the sin and the disgrace of his only son? it seemed to me a long time that we sat there silent. at last he said:-- "i didn't come just to make you feel bad, miss ruth. i want you to tell me what i ought to do, what i can do. i ought to do something to help the girl. bad as she is, she's sick, and she's a woman. i don't know where tom is, and i'm that baby's grandfather." his voice choked, but he went on. "of course i ought not to trouble you, but i don't know what to do, i don't know what to do. my wife"-- the poor old man stopped. he is not polished, but he has the instinct of a good man to screen his wife, and plainly was afraid he might say something which would seem to reflect on her. "my wife," he said, evidently changing the form of his words, "is dreadfully put out, as she naturally would be, and of course i don't like to talk much with her about it. i thought you might help me, miss ruth." never in my life have i felt more helpless. i tried to think clearly, but the only thing i could do was to try to comfort him. i have no remembrance of what i said, and i believe it made very little difference. what he wanted was sympathy. i had no counsel to give, but i think i sent deacon daniel away somewhat comforted. i could only advise him to wait and see what was needed. he of course must have thought of this himself, but he liked to have me agree with him and be good to him. he will do his duty, and what is more he will do his best, but he will do it with very little help from mrs. webbe, i am afraid. poor deacon daniel! i could have put my arms round his neck and kissed his weather-beaten cheek, but he would not have understood. i suppose he would have been frightened half out of his wits, and very likely would have thought that i had suddenly gone mad. it is so hard to comfort a slow-minded person; he cannot see what you mean by a caress. yet i hope that deacon daniel went away somewhat heartened. oh, if tom could only realize the sorrow i saw in his father's eyes, i think he would have his punishment. march . when deacon webbe said last night that he did not know where tom was, i thought for just a moment of the sealed address tom left me. i was so taken up with pity, however, that the thought passed from my mind. after the deacon was gone i wondered whether i should have spoken of the letter; but it seemed to me that it was better to have said nothing. i thought i should open it before saying anything; and i needed to consider whether the time had come when i was justified in reading it. tom trusted me, and i was bound by that; yet surely he ought to be told the state of things. it was imperative that he should know about the poor girl. i have never been able to be sure why he did not let his family know where he was, but i fear he may have quarreled with them. now he must be told. oh, it is such wretched business, so sad and dreadful! i went upstairs after thinking by the fire until it had burned to embers, and indeed until the very ashes were cold. i took out tom's letter, and for a moment i was half sick at the thought that he had degraded himself so. it seemed almost as if in holding his letter i was touching her, and i would gladly have thrown it in the fire unopened. then i was ashamed to be so squeamish and so uncharitable, and realized how foolish i was. the sealed envelope had in it a card with tom's address in new york, and this note:-- "if you open this it must mean that you know. i have nothing to say in my own defense that you could understand; only this is true, ruth: i have never really cared for any woman in the world but you. you will not believe it, and you will not be likely to find it very easy to forgive me for saying it now, but it is true. i never knew better how completely you have possession of me than i do just at this moment, when i know i am writing what you will read hating me. no, i suppose you can't really hate anybody; but you must despise me, and it is an insult for me to say i love you. but i have loved you all my life, and i cannot help it. i shall go on till i die, even if you do not speak to me again in my whole life. do not make me come home unless i must. forgive me, if you can." the note had neither end nor beginning. i was so overcome by it all, by the pity of it, that i could not trust myself to think. i sat down and wrote to tom just this message, without salutation or signature:-- "your father has been here to see me. the brownrig girl is ill of pneumonia. her baby was born night before last, and is alive." i sent this off to-day. what he will do i cannot tell. i cannot even be sure what he ought to do, and i had no right to urge him to come or to stay away. certainly for him to marry that outcast creature seems impossible; but if he does not the baby must go through life with a brand of shame on her. the world is so cruel to illegitimate children! perhaps it has to be; at least father believed that the only preservation of society lay in this severity; but i am a woman, and i think of the children, who are not to blame. things are so tangled up in human relations that one thread cannot be drawn taut without bringing about tragedies on other lines. yet to marry this girl--oh, it is not possible! to think of tom webbe's living in the same house with that dreadful creature, of his having it known that he had married such a woman-- it is horrible, whichever way i look at it. i cannot be kind in my thoughts to one of them without being cruel to the other. i am so thankful that i have not to decide. i know i should be too weak to be just, and then i should be always unhappy at the wrong i had done. now, whatever i was called upon to take the responsibility of was done when i had written to tom. iv april april . when a new month comes in it always seems as if something should happen. the divisions of time do not appeal to the feelings as simple arbitrary conveniences, but as real endings and beginnings; so the fancy demands that the old order shall end and some better, new fashion begin. i suppose everybody has had the vague sense of disappointment that the new month or the new year is so like the one before. i used to feel this very strongly as a child, though never unhappily. it was a disappointment, but as all times were happy times, the disappointment was not bitter. the thought is in my mind to-night because i am troubled, and because i would so gladly leave the fret and worry behind, to begin afresh with the new month. the thought of tom and his trouble weighs on me so that i have been miserable all day. miss charlotte has not been here this week. her beloved plants need attention, and she is doing mysterious things with clippers and trowels, selecting bulbs, sorting out seeds, making plans for her garden beds, and working herself into a delightful fever of excitement over the coming glories of her garden. it is really rather early, i think, but in her impatience she cannot wait. her flowers are her children, and all her affection for family and kin, having nothing nearer to cling to, is lavished on them. it is so fortunate that she has this taste. i cannot help to-day feeling so old and lonely that i could almost envy her her fondness for gardening. i must cultivate a taste for something, if it is only for cats. i wonder how peter would like to have me set up an asylum for crippled and impoverished tabbies! over and over again i have asked myself what i can do to help deacon webbe, but i have found no answer. one of the hardest things in life is to see our friends bear the consequences of their mistakes. deacon daniel is suffering for the way he brought tom up, and yet he has done as well as he was able. father used to say what i declared was a hard saying, and which was the harder because in my heart of hearts i could never with any success dispute it. "you cannot wisely help anybody until you are willing not to interfere with the discipline that life and nature give," he said. "you would not offer to take a child's medicine for it; why should you try to bear the brunt of a friend's suffering when it comes from his own fault? that is nature's medicine." i remember that once i answered i would very gladly take a child's medicine for it if i could, and father laughed and pinched my ear. "don't try to be providence," he said. i would like to be providence for deacon webbe and tom now,--and for the girl, too. it makes me shiver to think of her, and if i had to see or to touch her, it would be more than i could endure. this moralizing shows that i am low in my mind. i have been so out of sorts that i was completely out of key to-day with george. i have had to see him often about the estate, but he has seemed always anxious to get away as quickly as possible. to-day he lingered almost in the old fashion; and i somehow found him altered. he is--i cannot tell how he is changed, but he is. he has a manner less-- it is time to stop writing when i own the trouble to be my own wrong-headedness and then go on to set down imaginary faults in my neighbors. april . i am beset with deacons lately. deacon richards has been here for an hour, and he has left me so restless that i may as well try to write myself into calmness. deacon richards never seems so big as when he stands talking with me, looking down on the top of my head, with his great bald forehead looming above his keen eyes like a mountain-top. i always get him seated as soon as i can, and he likes to sit in father's wide arm-chair. one of the things that i like best about him is that, brusque and queer as he is, he never takes that seat until he has been especially asked. then as he sits down he says always, with a little softening of his great voice,-- "this was your father's chair." he has never been out of tuskamuck a fortnight, i dare say; but there is something about this simple speech, ready for it as i of course always am, that almost brings the tears to my eyes. he is country born and country bred, but the delicacy of the courtesy underlying his brusqueness is pure gold. what nonsense it is for cousin mehitable to insist that we are too countrified to have any gentlemen! she does not appreciate the old new england stock. what deacon daniel wanted i could not imagine, but while we were talking of the weather and the common things of the day i could see that he was preparing to say something. he has a wonderful smile when he chooses to show it. it always reminds me of the picture one sees sometimes of a genial face peering from behind a glum mask. when i teased him about the vestry fires, he only grinned; but his grin is to his smile as the smell of peppermint to that of a rose. he amused me by his comments of aunt naomi. "she runs after gossip," he said, "just as a kitten runs after its tail. it doesn't mean anything, but it must do something." "she is a shrewd creature," i answered. "it is absurd enough to compare anybody so decorous to a kitten." "aunt naomi's nobody's fool," was his response. "she sent me here to-night." "sent you here?" i echoed. his face grew suddenly grave. "i don't know how this thing will strike you, miss ruth," he said explosively. "it seems to me all wrong. the fact is," he added more calmly, but with the air of meaning to have a disagreeable thing over, "it's about the brownrig girl. you know about her, and that she is very sick." "yes," i said. he stretched out his large hand toward the fire in a way that showed he was not at ease. i could not help noticing the difference between the hand of this deacon daniel and that of the other. deacon webbe is a farmer, and has a farmer's hand. deacon richards has the white hand of a miller. "i don't see myself," he said grimly, looking into the coals, "that there is likely to be anything contagious in her wickedness, but none of the women are willing to go near her. i should think she'd serve pretty well as a warning. the overseers of the poor 've sent old marm bagley to nurse her, and that seems to be their part; but who's to look out that marm bagley doesn't keep drunk all the time's more than i can see." he sniffed scornfully, as if his opinion of women was far from flattering. "how did you know about it?" i asked. "job pearson--he's one of the overseers--came to see if there wasn't somebody the church could send down. i went to aunt naomi, but she couldn't think of anybody. she's housed with a cold, and she wouldn't be the one to go into a sick-room anyway." "and she sent you here?" he turned to me with the smile which i can never resist. "the truth is," he answered, "that when there's nothing else to do we all come to you, miss ruth." "but what can i do?" "that is what i came to see." "did you expect me to go down and nurse the girl?" he looked at me with a shrewd twinkle in his eye, and for a moment said nothing. "i just expected if there was anything possible to be done you'd think of it," he replied. i thought for a moment, and then i told him i would write to cousin mehitable to send down a trained nurse from boston. "the overseers won't pay her," he commented with a grin. "perhaps you will," i returned, knowing perfectly that he was trying to tease. "it will take several days at least to get her here." we considered for a little in silence. i do not know what passed through his mind, but i thought with a positive sickening of soul of being under the same roof with that girl. i knew that it must be done, though; and, simply to be rid of the dread of it, i said as steadily as i could,-- "i will go down in the morning." and so it has come about that i am to be nurse to the brownrig girl and to tom webbe's baby. april . the last four days have been so full and so exhausting that there has been no time for scribbling in diaries. like pepys i have now to write up the interval, although i cannot bring myself to his way of dating things as if he always wrote on the very day on which they happened. father used to laugh at me because i always insisted that it was not honest of pepys to put down one date when he really wrote on another. tuesday forenoon i went down to the brownrig house. i had promised myself not to let the sick girl see how i shrank from her, but i had a sensation of sickening repugnance almost physical. when i got to the red house i was so ashamed of myself that i forgot everything else. the girl was so sick, the place so cheerless, so dirty, so poverty-stricken; she was so dreadful to look at, with her tangled black hair, her hot cheeks, her fierce eyes; everything was so miserable and dreadful, that i could have cried with pity. julia was in a bed so dirty that it would have driven me to distraction; the pillow-slip was ragged, and the comforter torn in great places, as if a wild cat had clawed it. marm bagley was swaying back and forth in an old broken rocking-chair, smoking a black pipe, which perhaps she thought fumigated the foul air of the sick-room. she had the appearance of paying very little attention to the patient and none at all to the baby, which wailed incessantly from a shabby clothes-basket in a corner. the whole scene was so sordid, so pitiful, so hopeless, that i could think only of the misery, and so forget my shrinking and dread. a munson boy, that the overseers of the poor had sent down, was chopping wood in the yard, and i dispatched him to the house for hannah and clean linen, while i tried to get marm bagley to attend to the baby and to help me to put things to rights a little. she smelled of spirits like another sairey gamp, and her wits did not appear to be entirely steady. after i found her holding the baby under her arm literally upside down, while she prepared its food, i decided that unless i wished to run the risk of being held as accessory to the murder of the infant, i had better look after it myself. "can't you pick up the room a little while i feed the baby?" i asked. "don't see no use of clearing up none," she said. "'tain't time for the funeral yet." this, i suppose, was some sort of an attempt at a rudimentary joke, but it was a most ghastly one. i looked at the sick girl to see if she heard and understood. it was evident that she had, but it seemed to me that she did not care. i went to the bedside. "i ought to have spoken to you when i came in," i said, "but your eyes were shut, and i thought you might be asleep. i am miss privet, and i have come to help mrs. bagley take care of you till a regular nurse can get here from boston." she looked at me with a strange sparkle in her eyes. "from boston?" she repeated. "yes," i said. "i have sent to my cousin to get a regular trained nurse." she stared at me with her piercing eyes opened to their fullest extent. "do they train 'em?" she asked. "yes," i told her. "a trained nurse is almost as good as a doctor." "then i shall get well?" she demanded eagerly. "she'll get me well?" "i hope so," i said, with as much of a smile as i could muster when i wanted to cry. "and before she comes we must clear up a little." i began to do what i could about the room without making too much bustle. the girl watched me with eager eyes, and at last, as i came near the bed, she asked suddenly,-- "did he send you?" i felt myself growing flushed, though there was no reason for it. "deacon richards asked me to come," i answered. "i don't know him," she commented, evidently confused. "is he overseer?" i hushed her, and went on with my work, for i wanted to think what i had better tell her. of course marm bagley was of no use, but when hannah came things went better. hannah was scandalized at my being there at all, and of course would not hear of my doing the rough work. she took possession of mrs. bagley, and ordered her about with a vigor which completely dazed that unsatisfactory person, and amused me so much that my disturbed spirits rose once more. this was all very well as long as it lasted, but hannah had to go home for dinner, and when the restraint of her presence was removed marm bagley reasserted herself. she tied a frowzy bonnet over a still more frowzy head, lighted her pipe, and departed for the woods behind the house. "when that impudent old hired girl o' yours's got all through and got out," she remarked, "you can hang a towel out the shed winder, and i'll come back. i ain't got no occasion to stay here and git ordered round by no hired girl of anybody's." my remonstrances were of no avail, since i would not promise not to let hannah come into the house, and the fat old woman waddled away into the seclusion of the woods. i suppose she slept somewhere, though the woods must be so damp that the indulgence seems rather a dangerous one; but at nightfall she returned more odorous, and more like sairey gamp than ever. hannah came back, and we did what we could. when dr. wentworth came in the afternoon he allowed us to get julia into clean linen, and she did seem grateful for the comfort of fresh sheets and pillow-slips. it amused me that hannah had not only taken the servants' bedding, but had picked out the oldest. "i took the wornest ones," she explained. "of course we wouldn't any of us ever want to sleep in them again." she was really shocked at my proposing to remain for the night. "it ain't for you, miss ruth, to be taking care of such folks," she declared; "and as for that bagley woman, i'd as soon have a bushel basket of cockroaches in the house as her, any time." even this lively image did not do away with the necessity of my remaining. i could not propose to hannah to take my place. the mere fact of being mistress often forces one to do things which servants would feel insulted if asked to undertake. father used to say, "remember that _noblesse oblige_ does not exist in the kitchen;" though of course this is true only in a sense. servants have their own ideas of what is due to position, i am sure; only that their ideas are so different, and often so funnily different, from ours. i could not leave the sick girl to the mercies of mrs. bagley, and so i had no choice but to stay. all day long julia watched me with a closeness most strangely disconcerting. she evidently could not make out why i was there. in the evening, as i sat by her, she said suddenly,-- "i dunno what you think yer'll get by it." "get by what?" "bein' here." i smiled at her manner, and told her that at least i had already got the satisfaction of seeing her more comfortable. she made no reply for a time, but evidently was considering the matter. i did not think it well for her to talk, so i sat knitting quietly, while mrs. bagley loomed in the background, rocking creakingly. "'twon't please him none," she said at last. "he don't care a damn for me." i tried to take this without showing that i understood it. "i'm not trying to please anybody," i responded. "when a neighbor is sick and needs help, of course anybody would come." "humph! folks hain't been so awful anxious to help me." "there is a good deal of sickness in town," i explained. "'tain't nobody's business to come, anyhow," commented mrs. bagley dispassionately. "there's precious few'd come if 'twas," the girl muttered. "has anybody been to see you?" i asked. the brownrig girl turned her fierce eyes up to me with a look which made me think of some wild bird hurt and caged. "one old woman that sat and chewed her veil and swung her foot at me. she never come but once." i had no difficulty in recognizing this portrait, even without mrs. bagley's explanatory comment. "that was aunt naomi dexter," she remarked. "she's always poking round." "miss dexter is one of the kindest women alive," i said, "though she is a little odd in her manner sometimes." "she said she hoped i'd found things bad enough to give me a hankerin' for something better," went on julia with increasing bitterness. "god! how does she think i'd get anything better? what does she know about it, anyway?" "there, there, jule," interposed mrs. bagley in a sort of professional tone, "now don't go to gettin' excited and rampageous. you know she brought you some rippin' flannel for the baby. them pious folks has to talk, but, lord, nobody minds it, and you hadn't ought ter. they don't really mean nothing much." it seemed to be time to interpose, and i forbade julia to talk, sent mrs. bagley off to sleep in the one other bedroom, and settled down for the night's watching. the patient fell asleep at last, and i was left to care for the fire and the poor little pathetic, forlorn, dreadful baby. the child was swathed in aunt naomi's "rippin' flannel," and i fell into baffling reflections in regard to human life. after all, i had no right to judge this poor broken girl lying there much more in danger than she could dream. what do i know of the intolerable life that has not self-respect, not even cleanliness of mind or body? society and morality have so fenced us about and so guarded us that we have rather to try to get outside than to struggle to keep in; and what do we know of the poor wretches fighting for life with wild beasts in the open? i am so glad i do not believe that sin is what one actually does, but is the proportion between deeds and opportunity. how carefully father explained this to me when i was not much more than a child, and how strange it is that so many people cannot seem to understand it! if i thought the moral law an inflexible thing like a human statute, for which one was held responsible arbitrarily and whether he knows the law or not, i should never be able to endure the sense of injustice. of course men have to be arbitrary, because they can see only tangible things and must judge by outward acts; but if this were true of a deity he would cease to be a deity at all, and be simply a man with unlimited power to do harm. april . i found myself so running aground last night in metaphysics that it seemed just as well to go to bed, diary or no diary. i was besides too tired to write down my interview with mrs. webbe. i was just about to go home for a bath and a nap after watching that first night, when, without even knocking, mrs. deacon webbe opened the outside door. i was in the kitchen, and so met her before she got further. naturally i was surprised to see her at six o'clock in the day. "good-morning," i said. "i knew you were here yesterday," she said by way of return for my greeting, "but i thought i'd get here before you came back this morning." "i have been here all night," i answered. she looked at me with her piercing black eyes, which always seem to go into the very recesses of one's thoughts, and then, in a manner rather less aggressive, remarked,-- "i've come to speak to this brownrig girl. you know well enough why." "i'm afraid you can't see her," i answered, ignoring the latter part of her words. "she is not so well this morning, and dr. wentworth told us to keep her as quiet as possible." mrs. webbe leaned forward with an expression on her face which made me look away. "is she going to die?" she demanded. i turned away, and began to close the door. i could not bear her manner. she has too much cause to hate the girl, but just then, with the poor thing sick to the very point of death, i could never have felt as she looked. "i'm sure i hope not," i returned. "we expect to have a professional nurse to-morrow, and then things will go better." "a professional nurse?" "yes; we have sent to boston for one." "sent to boston for a nurse for that creature? she's a great deal better dead! she only leads men"-- "if you will excuse me, mrs. webbe," interrupted i, pushing the door still nearer to closing, "i ought to go back to my patient. it isn't my business to decide who had better be dead." she started forward suddenly, taking me unawares, and before i understood what she intended, she had thrust herself through the door into the house. "if it isn't your business," she demanded sharply, "what are you here for? what right have you to interfere? if providence is willing to take the creature out of the way, what are you trying to keep her alive for?" i put up my hand and stopped her. "will you be quiet?" i said. "i cannot have her disturbed." "you cannot!" she repeated, raising her voice. "who gave you a right to order me round, ruth privet? is this your house?" i knew that her shrill voice would easily penetrate to julia's bedroom, and indeed there was only a thin door between the sick girl and the kitchen where we were. i took mrs. webbe by the wrist as strongly as i could, and before she could collect her wits, i led her out of the house, and down to the gate. "what are you doing?" she demanded. "how dare you drag me about?" "i beg your pardon," i said, dropping my hold. "i think you did not understand, mrs. webbe, that as nurse i cannot have my patient excited." she looked at me in a blaze of anger. i have never seen a woman so carried away by rage, and it is frightful. yet she seemed to be making an effort to control herself. i was anxious to help her if i could, so i forced a smile, although i am afraid it was not a very warm one, and i assumed as conciliatory a manner as i could muster. "you must think i was rather abrupt," i said, "but i did not mean to be. i couldn't explain to you in the kitchen, the partition is so thin. you see she's in the room that opens out of it." mrs. webbe softened somewhat. "it is very noble of you to be here," she said in a new tone, and one which i must confess did not to me have a genuine ring; "it's splendid of you, but what's the use of it? what affair of yours is it, anyway?" i was tempted to serve her up a quotation about a certain man who went down to jericho and fell among thieves, but i resisted. "i could come, mrs. webbe, and apparently nobody else could." "they wouldn't," she rejoined frankly. "don't you see everybody else knew it was a case to be let alone?" i asked her why. "everybody felt as if it was," responded she quickly. "i hope you don't set up to be wiser than everybody else put together." "i don't set up for anything," i declared, "but i may as well confess that i see no sense in what you say. here's a human creature that needs help, and it seems to be my place to help her." "it's a nice occupation for the daughter of judge privet to be nursing a disreputable thing like a brownrig." "a privet," i answered, "is likely to be able to stand it. you wouldn't let the girl die alone, would you?" "she wasn't alone. mrs. bagley was here." "you wouldn't let her die with mrs. bagley, then?" mrs. webbe looked me straight in the eye for a moment, with a look as hard as polished steel. "yes," she said, "i would." i could only stare at her in silence. "there," she went on, "make the best of that. i'm not going to be mealy-mouthed. i would let her die, and be glad of it. why should i want her alive? do you think i've no human feelings? do you think i'd ever forgive her for dragging tom into the mud? i've been on my knees half the night praying she and her brat might both die and leave us in peace! if there's any justice in heaven, a man like deacon webbe won't be loaded down with the disgrace of a grandchild like that." there was a sort of fascination in her growing wildness. everybody knows how she sneers at the meekness of her husband, and that she is continually saying he hasn't any force, but here she was catching at his goodness as a sort of bribe to heaven to let her have the life of mother and child. i could not answer her, but could only be thankful no houses were near. mrs. bagley would hear, i supposed, but that could not be helped. "what do you know about how i feel?" she demanded, swooping down upon me so that i involuntarily shrank back against the fence. "it is all very pretty for you to have ideas of charity, and play at taking care of the sick. i dare say you mean well enough, miss privet, but this isn't a case for you. go home, and let providence take care of that girl. god'll look after her!" i stood up straight, and faced her in my turn. "stop!" i cried. "i'm not a believer in half the things you are, but i do have some respect for the name of god. if you mean to kill this girl, don't try to lay the blame on providence!" she shrank as if i had struck her; then she rallied again with a sneer. "i think i know better than an atheist what it is right to say about my own religion," was her retort. somehow the words appealed to my sense of humor, and unconsciously i smiled. "well," i said, "we will not dispute about words. only i think you had better go now." perhaps my slight smile vexed her; perhaps it was only that she saw i was off my guard. she turned quickly, and before i had any notion of what she intended, she had run swiftly up the path to the house. i followed instantly. the idea of having a personal encounter with mrs. webbe was shocking, but i could not let her go to trouble julia without making an effort to stop her. i thought i might reach the door first, but she was too quick for me. before i could prevent her, she had crossed the kitchen and opened the door of the sick-room. i followed, and we came almost together into the room, although she was a few steps in advance. she went hastily to the bed. julia had been awakened by the noise, and stared at mrs. webbe in a fright. "oh, here you are, are you?" mrs. webbe began. "how did you dare to say that my son was the father of your brat? i'd like to have you whipped, you nasty slut!" "mrs. webbe," i said resolutely, "if you do not leave the house instantly, i will have you arrested before the sun goes down." she was diverted from her attack upon julia, and wheeled round to me. "arrested!" she echoed. "you can't do it." "i can do it, and you know me well enough to know that if i say it, i mean it. i'm not a lawyer's daughter for nothing. go out of the house this instant, and leave that sick girl alone. do you want to kill her?" she blazed at me with eyes that might have put me to flight if i had had only myself to defend. "do you think i want her to live? i told you once she ought to be out of the way. do you think you are doing a favor to tom by keeping this disreputable thing alive?" i took her by the wrist again. "you had better go," i said. "you heard what i said. i mean it." i confess that now i consider it all, the threat to have her arrested seems rather silly, and i do not see how i could well have carried it out. at the moment it appeared to me the simplest thing in the world, and at least it effected my purpose to frighten mrs. webbe with the law. she turned slowly toward the door, but as she went she looked over her shoulder at julia. "you are a nice thing to try to keep alive," she sneered. "the doctor says you haven't a chance, and you'd better be making your peace with god. i wouldn't have your heap of sins on my head for anything." i put my hand over her lips. "mrs. bagley," i said, "take her other arm." mrs. bagley, who had apparently been too confused to understand what was going on, and had stood with her mouth wide open in blear-eyed astonishment, did as i commanded, and we led mrs. webbe out of the room. i motioned mrs. bagley back into the bedroom to look after julia, and shut the door behind her. then i took mrs. webbe by the shoulders and looked her in the face. "i had rather have that girl's sins on my head than yours," i said. "you came here with murder in your heart, and you would be glad to kill her outright, if you dared. if you have not murdered her as it is, you may be thankful." i felt as if i was as much of a shrew as she, but something had to be done. she looked as if she were as much astonished as impressed, but she went. only at the door she turned back to say,-- "i'll come again to see my grandchild." after that i hardly dared to leave the house, but i got hannah to stand guard while i was at home. she has a deep-seated dislike for mrs. webbe, and i fear would greatly have enjoyed an encounter with her; but mrs. webbe did not return. now that i go over it all, i seem to have been engaged in a disreputable squabble, but i do not see what else there was for me to do. julia was so terrified and excited that i had to send for dr. wentworth as soon as i could find anybody to go. i set mrs. bagley to watch for a passer, and she took her pipe and went placidly to sleep before the door. i had to be with julia, yet keep running out to spy for a messenger, and it was an hour before i caught one. by the time the doctor got to us the girl was in hysterics, declaring she did not want to die, she did not dare to die, could not, would not die. all that day she was constantly starting out of her sleep with a cry; and by the time night had come, i began to feel that mrs. webbe would have her wish. april . that night was a dreadful one to me. the nurse from boston had not come, and i could not leave the girl alone with mrs. bagley. indeed marm bagley seemed more and more inefficient. i think she took advantage of the fact that she no longer felt any responsibility. the smell of spirits and tobacco about her grew continually stronger, and i was kept from sending her away altogether only by the fact that it did not seem right for me to be alone with julia. no house is near, and if anything happened in the night i should have been without help. julia was evidently worse. the excitement of mrs. webbe's visit had told on her, and whenever she went to sleep she began to cry out in a way that was most painful. about the middle of the night, that dreadfully forlorn time when the day that is past has utterly died out and nothing shows the hope of another to come, julia woke moaning and crying. she started up in bed, her eyes really terrible to see, her cheeks crimson with fever, and her black hair tangled all about her face. "oh, i am dying!" she shrieked. for the instant i thought that she was right, and it was dreadful to hear her. "i shall die and go to hell!" she cried. "oh, pray! pray!" i caught at my scattered wits and tried to soothe her. she clung to me as if she were in the greatest physical terror. "i am dying!" she kept repeating. "oh, can't you do something for me? can't you save me? oh, i can't die! i can't die!" she was so wild that her screams awakened mrs. bagley, who came running in half dressed, as she had lain down for the night. "lawk-a-marcy, child," she said, coming up to the bed, "if you was dying do you think you'd have strength to holler like that?" the rough question had more effect than my efforts to calm the girl. she sank back on the pillow, sobbing, and staring at mrs. bagley. "i ain't got no strength," she insisted. "i know i'm goin' to die right away." "nonsense, jule," was mrs. bagley's response. "i know when folks is dyin', i guess. i've seen enough of 'um. you're all right if you'll stop actin' like a blame fool." i see now that this was exactly the way in which the girl needed to be talked to. it was her own language, and she understood it. at the time it seemed to me brutal, and i interposed. "there, mrs. bagley," i said as soothingly as i could, "you are rather hard on julia. she is too sick to be talked to so." marm bagley sniffed contemptuously, and after looking at us a moment, apparently decided that the emergency was not of enough importance to keep her from her rest, so she returned to her interrupted slumbers. i comforted my patient as well as i could, and fortunately she was not again violent. still she moaned and cried, and kept urging me to pray for her. "pray for me! pray for me!" she kept repeating. "oh, can't you pray and keep me from hell, miss ruth?" there was but one thing to be done. if prayer was the thing which would comfort her, evidently i ought to pray with her. "i will pray if you will be quiet," i said. "i cannot if you go on like this." "i'll be still, i'll be still," she cried eagerly. "only pray quick!" i kneeled down by the bed and repeated the lord's prayer as slowly and as impressively as i could. the girl, who seemed to regard it as a sort of spell against invisible terrors, clutched my hand with a desperate grasp, but as i went on the pressure of her hot fingers relaxed. before i had finished she had fallen asleep as abruptly as she had awakened. i sat watching her, thinking what a strange thing is this belief in prayer. the words i had said are beautiful, but i do not suppose this made an impression on julia. to her the prayer was a fetich, a spell to ward her soul from the dark terrors of satan, a charm against the powers of the air. i wondered if i should be happier if i could share this belief in the power of men to move the unseen by supplication, but i reflected that this would imply the continual discomfort of believing in invisible beings who would do me harm unless properly placated, and i was glad to be as i am. the faith of some christians is so noble, so sweet, so tender, that it is not always easy to realize how narrowing are the conditions of mind which make it possible. when one sees the crude superstition of a creature like julia, it is not difficult to be glad to be above a feeling so ignorant and degrading; when i see the beautiful tenderness of religion in its best aspect i am glad it can be so fine and so comforting, but i am glad i am not limited in that way. my prayer with julia had one unexpected result. while i was at home in the morning mr. thurston came to see her. the visit was most kind, and i think it did her good. "he did some real praying," mrs. bagley explained to me afterward. "course jule'd rather have that." my efforts in the devotional line had more effect, so far as i could judge, upon mr. thurston than upon julia. i met him when i was going back to the house, and he stopped me with an expression of gladness and triumph in his face. "my dear miss privet," he said, "i am so glad that at last you have come to realize the efficacy of prayer." i was so astonished at the remark that for the moment i did not realize what he meant. "i don't understand," i said, stupidly enough. my look perhaps confused him a little, and his face lost something of its brightness. "that poor girl told me of your praying with her last night, when she thought she was dying." "yes," i repeated, before i realized what i was saying, "she thought she was dying." then i reflected that it was useless to hurt his feelings, and i did not explain. i could not wound him by saying that if julia had wanted me to repeat a gypsy charm and i had known one i should have done it in the same spirit. i wanted to make the poor demented thing comfortable, and if a prayer could soothe her there was no reason why i should not say one. people think because i do not believe in it i have a prejudice against prayer; but really i think there is something touching and noble in the attitude of a mind that can in sincerity and in faith give itself up to an ideal, as one must in praying. it seems to me a pathetic mistake, but i can appreciate the good side of it; only to suppose that i believe because i said a prayer to please a frightened sick girl is absurd. it is well that we are not read by others, for our thoughts would often be too disconcerting. poor mr. thurston would have been dreadfully horrified if he had realized i was thinking as we stood there how like my saying this prayer for julia was to my ministering to rosa's chilblains. she believes that crosses cut out of a leaf of the bible and stuck on her feet take away the soreness, but she regards it as wicked to cut up a bible. i have an old one that i keep for the purpose, and she comes to me every winter for a supply. we began at the end, and are going backwards. revelation is about used up now. she evidently thinks that as i am a heretic anyway, the extra condemnation which must come from my act will make no especial difference, and i am entirely willing to run the risk. still, it is better mr. thurston did not read my thought. "i wish you might be brought into the fold," the clergyman said after a moment of silence. i could only thank him, and go on my way. april . yesterday the new nurse, miss dyer, arrived, and great is the comfort of having her here. she is a plain, simple body, in her neat uniform, rather colorless except for her snapping black eyes. her eyes are interestingly at variance with the calmness of her demeanor, and give one the impression that there is a volcano somewhere within. she interests me much,--largely, i fancy, from the suggestion about her of having had a history. she is swift and yet silent in her motions, and understands what she has to do so well that i felt like an awkward novice beside her. she disposed of mrs. bagley with a turn of the hand, as it were, somehow managing that the frowzy old woman was out of the house within an hour, with her belongings, pipe and all, yet without any fuss or any contention. mrs. bagley had the appearance of being too dazed to be angry, although i fancy when she has had time to think matters over she will be indignantly wrathful at having been so summarily expelled. "i pity you more for having that sort of a woman in the house than for having to take care of the patient, miss privet," miss dyer said. "i don't see what the lord permits such folks in the world for, without it is to sharpen up our christian charity." "she would sharpen mine into vinegar, i'm afraid," i answered, laughing. "i confess it has been about all i could do to stay in the house with her." to-night i can sleep peacefully in my own bed, secure that julia is well taken care of. the girl seems to me to be worse instead of better, and dr. wentworth does not give much encouragement. i suppose it is better for her to die, but it is cruel that she wants so to live. she is horribly afraid of death, and she wants so much to live that it is pitiful to reflect it is possible she may not. what is there she can hope for? she does not seem to care for the child. this is because she is so ill, i think, for anybody must be touched by the helplessness of the little blinking, pink thing. it is like a little mouse i saw in my childhood, and which made a great impression on me. that was naked of hair, just so wrinkled, so pink, so blinking. it was not in the least pretty, any more than the baby is; but somehow it touched all the tenderness there was in me, and i cried for days because hannah gave it to the cat. i feel much in the same way about this baby. i have not the least feeling toward it as a human being, i am afraid. to me it is just embodied babyhood, just a little pink, helpless, palpitating bunch of pitifulness. april . miss dyer came just in time. i could not have gone through to-night without her, i think. i could not have stayed quiet by julia's beside, although i am as far as possible from being able to sleep. to-night, just as the evening was falling, and i was almost ready to come home, i heard a knock at the door. miss dyer was in the room with julia, so i answered the knock myself. i opened the door to find myself face to face with tom webbe. the shock of seeing his white face staring at me out of the dusk was so great that i had to steady myself against the door-post. he did not put out his hand, but greeted me only by taking off his hat. "father said you were here," he began, in a strained voice. "yes," i answered, feeling my throat contract; "i am here now, but i am going home soon." i was so moved and so confused that i could not think. i had longed for him to come; i could not have borne that he should have been so base as not to come; and yet now that he was here i would have given anything to have him away. he had to come; he had to bear his part of the consequences of wrong, but it was horrible to me for him to be so near that dreadful girl, and it was worse because i pitied her, because she was so helpless, so pathetic, so near even to death. we stood in the dusk for what seemed to me a long time without further speech. tom must have found it hard to know what to say at such a time. he looked at me with a sort of wild desperation. then he cleared his throat, and moistened his lips. "i have come," he said. "what do you want me to do?" i could not bear to have him seem to put the responsibility on me. "i did not send for you," i answered quickly. he gave me the wan ghost of a smile. "do you suppose that i should have come of myself?" he returned. "what shall i do?" i would not take the burden. the decision must be his. "you must do what you think right," i said. then i added, with a queer feeling as if i were thinking aloud, "what you think right to her and to--to the baby." his face darkened, and i was glad that i had not said "your baby." i understood it was natural for him to look angry at the thought of the child, the unwelcome and unwitting betrayer of what he would have kept hidden; and yet somehow i resented his look. "the baby is not to blame, tom," i said. "it has every right to blame you." "to blame me?" he repeated. "if it has to bear a shame all its life, whose fault is it, its own or yours? if it has been born to a life like that of its mother, it certainly has no occasion to thank you." he turned his flushed and shamed face away from me, and looked out into the darkening sky. i could see how he was holding himself in check, and that it was hard for him. i hated to be there, to be seeing him, to be talking over a matter that it was intolerable even to think about; but since i was there, i wanted to help him,--only i did not know how. i wanted to give him my hand, but i somehow shrank from touching his. i felt as if it was wicked and cruel to hold back, but between us came continually the consciousness of julia and that little red baby sleeping in the clothes-basket. i am humiliated now to think of it, but the truth is that i was a brute to tom. suddenly tom turned for a moment toward the west, so that the little lingering light of the dying day fell on his face, and i saw by his set lips and the look in his eyes that he had come to some determination. then he faced me slowly. "ruth," he said, "i would go down into hell for you, and i'm going to do something that is worse. what's past, it's no use to make excuses for, and you're too good to understand if i told you how i got into this foul mess. now"-- he stopped, with a catch in his voice, and i wanted more than i can tell to say something to help him, but no words came. i could not think; i wanted to comfort him as i comfort kathie when she is desperate. the evident difficulty he had in keeping his self-control moved me more than anything he could have said. "i'll marry the girl," he burst out in a moment. "you are right about the baby. it's no matter about jule. she isn't of any account anyway, and she never expected me to marry her. i'll never see her after she's--after i've done it. it makes me sick to think of her, but i'll do what i can for the baby." he stopped, and caught his breath. i could feel in the dusk, rather than see, that he looked up, as if he were trying to read my face in the darkness. "i will marry her," he went on, "on one condition." "what is that?" i asked, with my throat so dry that it ached. "that you will take the child." i think now that we must both have spoken like puppets talking by machinery. i hardly seemed to myself to be alive and real, but this proposition awoke me like a blow. i could at first only gasp, too much overcome to bring out a word. "but its mother?" i managed to stammer at last. "if i'm to marry her for the sake of the child," he answered in a voice i hardly recognized, "it would be perfect tomfoolery to leave it to grow up with the brownrigs. if that's to be the plan, i'll save myself. jule doesn't mind not being married. you don't know what a tribe the brownrigs are. it's an insult for me to be talking to you about them, only it can't be helped. is it a boy or a girl?" i told him. "and you think a girl ought to be left to follow the noble example of the mother!" "oh no, no!" i cried out. "anything is better than that." "that is what must happen unless you take the poor thing," he said in a voice which, though it was hard, seemed somehow to have a quiver in it. "but would she give the baby up?" i asked. "she's its mother." "jule? she'll be only too glad to get rid of it. anyway she'd do what i told her to." i tried to think clearly and quickly. to have the baby left to follow in the steps of its mother was a thing too terrible to be endured, and yet i shrank selfishly from taking upon my shoulders the responsibility of training the child. whatever tom decided about the marriage, however, i felt that he should not have to resolve under pressure. if he were doing it for the sake of the baby's future, i could clear his way of that complication. i could not bear the thought of having tom marry julia. this would be a bond on his whole life; and yet i could not feel that he had a right to shirk it now. if i agreed to take the child, that would leave him free to decide without being pushed on by fear about the baby. my mind seemed to me wonderfully clear. i see now it was all in a whirl, and that the only thing i was sure of was that if it would help him for me to take the baby there was nothing else for me to do. "tom," i said, "i do not, and i will not, decide for you; and i will not have anything to do with conditions. if she will give me the baby, i will take it, and you may decide the rest without any reference to that at all." he took a step forward so quickly and so fiercely that he startled me, and put out his hand as if he meant to take me by the arm. then he dropped it. "do you think," he said, "that i would have an illegitimate brat near you? it is bad enough as it is, but you shall not have the reproach of that." my cheeks grew hot, but the whole talk was so strange and so painful that i let this pass with the rest. i cannot tell how i felt, but i know the remembrance of it makes my eyes swim so that i cannot write without stopping continually; and i am writing here half the night because i cannot sleep. i could not answer tom; i only stood dully silent until he spoke again. "i know i can't have you, ruth," he said, "and i know you were right. i'm not good enough for you." "i never said that," i interrupted. "i never thought that." "never mind. it's true; but i'd have been a man if you'd have given me a chance." "oh, tom," i broke in, "don't! it is not fair to make me responsible!" "no," he acknowledged, with the shake of his shoulders i have known ever since we were children; "you are not to blame. it's only my infernal, sneaking self!" i could not bear this, either. everything that was said hurt me; and it seemed to me that i had borne all that i could endure. "will you go away now, tom," i begged him. "i--i can't talk any more to-night. shall i tell julia you have come?" he gave a start at the name, and swore under his breath. "it is damnable for you to be here with that girl," he burst out bitterly; "and i brought it on you! it isn't your place, though. where are all the christians and church members? i suppose all the pious are too good to come. they might get their righteousness smudged. oh, how i hate hypocrisy!" "don't, tom," i interrupted. "go away, please." my voice was shaky; and indeed i was fast getting to the place where i should have broken down in hysterical weeping. "i'll go," he responded quickly. "i'll come in the morning with a minister. will eight o'clock do? i'd like to get it over with." the bitterness of his tone was too much for me. i caught one of his hands in both of mine. "oh, tom," i said, "are you quite sure this is what you ought to do?" "do you tell me not to marry her?" he demanded fiercely. i was completely unnerved; i could only drop his hand and press my own on my bosom, as if this would help me to breathe easier. "oh no, no," i cried, half sobbing. "i can't, i can't. i haven't the right to say anything; but i do think it is the thing you ought to do. only you are so noble to do it!" he made a sound as if he would answer, and then he turned away suddenly, and dashed off with great strides. i could not go back into the house, but came home without saying good-night, or letting miss dyer know. i must be ready to go back as soon as it is light. april . it seems so far back to this morning that i might have had time to change into a different person; and yet most of the day i have simply been longing to get home and think quietly. i wanted to adjust myself to the new condition of things. last night the idea that tom should marry the girl was so strange and unreal that it could make very little impression on me. now it is done it is more appallingly real than anything else in the world. i went down to the red house almost before light, but even as early as i came i found tom already there. the nurse had objected to letting him in, and even when i came she was evidently uncertain whether she had done right in admitting him; but tom has generally a way of getting what he is determined on, and before i reached the house everything had been arranged with julia. "i wanted to come before folks were about to see me," tom said to me. "there'll be talk enough later, and i'd rather be out of the way. i've arranged it with her." "does she understand"--i began; but he interrupted. "she understands all there is to understand; all that she could understand, anyway. she knows i'm marrying her for the sake of the child, and that you're to have it." the munson boy that i have hired to sleep in the house now mrs. bagley is gone, in order that miss dyer may have somebody within call, appeared at this minute with a pail of water, and we were interrupted. the boy stared with all his eyes, and i was half tempted to ask him not to speak of tom's being here; but i reflected with a sick feeling that it was of no use to try to hide what was to be done. if tom's act was to have any significance it must be known. i turned away with tears in my eyes, and went to julia. julia i found with her eyes shining with excitement, and i could see that despite tom's idea that she did not care about the marriage, she was greatly moved by it. "oh, miss privet," she cried out at once, "ain't he good! he's truly goin' to marry me after all! i never 'sposed he'd do that." "you must have thought"--i began; and then, with a sinking consciousness of the difference between her world and mine, i stopped. "and he says you want the baby," she went on, not noticing; "though i dunno what you want of it. it'll be a pesky bother for yer." "mr. webbe wanted me to take it and bring it up." "well," julia remarked with feeble dispassionateness, "i wouldn't 'f i was you." "are you willing i should have it?" i asked. "oh, i'm willing anything he wants," was her answer. "he's awful good to marry me. he never said he would. he's real white, he is." she was quiet a moment, and then she broke out in a burst of joy. "i never 'sposed i'd marry a real gentleman!" she cried. her shallow delight in marrying above her station was too pathetic to be offensive. i was somehow so moved by it that i turned away to hide my face from her; but she caught my hand and drew me back. then she peered at me closely. "you don't like it," she said excitedly. "you won't try to stop him?" "no," i answered. "i think he ought to do it for the sake of his child." she dropped her hold, and a curious look came into her face. "that's what he said. yer don't either of yer seem to count me for much." i was silent, convicted to the soul that i had not counted her for much. i had accepted tom's decision as right, not for the sake of this broken girl-mother, this castaway doomed to shame from her cradle, but for the sake purely of the baby that i was to take. it came over me how i might have been influenced too much by the selfish thought that it would be intolerable for me to have the child unless it had been as far as might be legitimatized by this marriage. i flushed with shame, and without knowing exactly what i was doing i bent over and kissed her. "it is you he marries," i said. her tears sprang instantly, tears, i believe, of pure happiness. "you're real good," she murmured, and then closed her eyes, whether from weakness or to conceal her emotion i could not be sure. it was nearly eight before mr. thurston came. tom has never been on good terms with mr. saychase, and it must have been easier for him to have a clergyman with whom he had never, i suppose, exchanged a word, than one who knew him and his people. i took the precaution to say at once to mr. thurston that julia was too ill to bear much, and that he must not say a word more than was necessary. "i will only offer prayer," he returned. i know mr. thurston's prayers. i have heard them at funerals when i have been wickedly tempted to wonder whether he were not attempting to fill the interval between us and the return of the lost at the resurrection. "i am afraid it will not do," i told him. "you do not realize how feeble she is." "then i will only give them the blessing. perhaps i might talk with mr. webbe afterward, or pray with him." i knew that if this proposition were made to tom he would say something which would wound the clergyman's feelings. "mr. thurston," i urged, "if you'll pardon me, i wouldn't try to say anything to him just now. he is doing a plucky thing, and a thing that's noble, but it must be terribly hard. i don't think he could endure to have anybody talk to him. he'll have to be left to fight it out for himself." it was not easy to convince mr. thurston, for when once a narrow man gets an idea of duty he can see nothing else; but i managed in the end to save tom at least the irritation of having to fight off religious appeals. the ceremony was as brief as possible. it was touching to see how humble and yet how proud julia was. she seemed to feel that tom was a sort of god in his goodness in marrying her,--and after all perhaps she was partly right. his coldness only made her deprecatory. i wondered how far she was conscious of his evident shrinking from her. he seemed to hate even to touch her fingers. i cannot understand-- april . i have had many things to do in the last two days, and i find myself so tired with the stress of it all that i have not felt like writing. it is perhaps as much from a sort of feverish uneasiness as from anything else i have got out my diary to-night. the truth is, that i suffer from the almost intolerable suspense of waiting for julia to die. dr. wentworth and miss dyer both are sure there is no chance whatever of her getting well, and i cannot think that it would be better for her, or for tom, or for her baby--who is to be my baby!--if she should live. we are all a little afraid to say, or even to think, that it is better for a life of this sort to end, and i seem to myself inhuman in putting it down in plain words; but we cannot be rational without knowing that it is better certain persons should be out of the way, for their own sakes as well as for the good of the community, and the more quickly the better. julia is a weed, poor thing, and the sooner she is pulled up the better for the garden. and yet i pity her so! i can understand religion easily when i think of lives like hers. it is so hard to see the justice of having the weed destroyed for the good of the flowers that men have to invent excuses for the eternal. somebody has defined theology as man's justification of a deity found wanting by human standards, and now i realize what this means. human mercy could not bear to make a julia, and a power which allows the possibility of such beings has to be excused to human reason. the gods that men invent always turn to frankensteins on their hands. if there is a conscious power that directs, he must pity the gropings of our race, although i suppose seeing what it is all for and what it all leads to must make it possible to bear the sight of human weakness. the baby is growing wonderfully attractive now she is so well fed and attended to. i am ashamed to think how little the poor wee morsel attracted me at first. she was so associated with dreadful thoughts, and with things which i hated to know and did not wish to remember, that i shrank from her. perhaps now the fact that she is to be mine inclines me to look at her with different eyes, but she is really a dear little thing, pretty and sweet. oh, i will try hard to make her life lovely! april . aunt naomi came in last night almost as soon as i was at home. she should not have been out in the night air, i think, for her cold is really severe, and has kept her shut up in the house for a fortnight. she was so eager for news, however, that she could not rest until she had seen me, and i am away all day. "well," was her greeting, "i am glad to see you at home once more. i've begun to feel as if you lived down in that little red house." i said i had pretty nearly lived there for the last two weeks, but that since miss dyer came i had been able to get home at night most of the time. "how do you like going out nursing?" she asked, thrusting her tongue into her cheek in that queer way she has. i told her i certainly shouldn't think of choosing it as a profession, at least unless i could go to cleaner places. "i hear you had hannah clean up," she remarked with a chuckle. "how did you hear that?" i asked her. "i thought you had been housed with a cold." aunt naomi's smile was broad, and she swung her foot joyously. "i've had all my faculties," she answered. "so i should think. you must keep a troop of paid spies." "i don't need spies. i just keep my eyes and ears open." i wondered in my heart whether she had heard of the marriage, and as if she read the question in my mind, she answered it. "i thought i'd like to know one thing, though," she observed with the air of one who candidly concedes that he is not infallible. "i'd like to know how the new mrs. webbe takes his marrying her." "aunt naomi," i burst out in astonishment, "you are a witch, and ought to be looked after by the witch-finders." aunt naomi laughed, and her eyes twinkled at the agreeable compliment i paid to her cleverness. then she suddenly became grave. "i am not sure, ruth," she said, "that i should be willing to have your responsibility in making him marry such a girl." i disclaimed the responsibility entirely, and declared i had not even suggested the marriage. i told her he had done it for the sake of the child, and that the proposition was his, and his only. she sniffed contemptuously, with an air which seemed to cast doubts on my sanity. "very likely he did, and i don't suppose you did suggest it in words; but it's your doing all the same." "i will not have the responsibility put on me," i protested. "it isn't for me to determine what tom webbe shall do." "you can't help it," was her uncompromising answer. "you can make him do anything you want to." "then i wish i were wise enough to know what he ought to do," i could not help crying out. "oh, aunt naomi, i do so want to help him!" she looked at me with her keen old eyes, to which age has only imparted more sharpness. i should hate to be a criminal brought before her as my judge; her eyes would bring out my guilty secret from the cunningest hiding-place in my soul, and she would sentence me with the utmost rigor of the law. after the sentence had been executed, though, she would come with sharp tongue and gentle hands, and bind up my wounds. now she did not answer my remark directly, but went on to question me about the brownrig girl and the details of her illness; only when she went away she stopped to turn at the door and say,-- "the best thing you can do for tom webbe is to believe in him. he isn't worth your pity, but your caring what happens to him will do him more good than anything else." i have been wondering ever since she went how much truth there is in what she said. tom cannot care so much for me as that, although placed as he is the faith of any woman ought to help him. i know, of course, he is fond of me, and that he was always desperate over my engagement; but i cannot believe the motive power of his life is so closely connected with my opinions as aunt naomi seems to think. if it were he would never have been involved at all in this dreadful business. but i do so pity him, and i so wish i might really help him! april . julia is very low. i have been sitting alone with her this afternoon, almost seeing life fade away from her. only once was she at all like her old self. i had given her some wine, and she lay for a moment with her great black eyes gleaming out from the hollows into which they have sunk. she seemed to have something on her mind, and at last she put it feebly into words. "don't tell her any bad of me," she said. for an instant i did not understand, and i suppose that my face showed this. she half turned her heavy head on her pillow, so that her glance might go toward the place where the baby slept in the broken clothes-basket. the sadness of it came over me so suddenly and so strongly that tears blinded me. it was the most womanly touch that i have ever known in julia; and for the moment i was so moved that i could not speak. i leaned over and kissed her, and promised that from me her child should never know harm of its mother. "she'd be more likely to go to the devil if she knew," julia explained gaspingly. "now she'll have some sort of a chance." the words were coarse, but as they were said they were so pathetic that they pierced me. poor little baby, born to a tainted heritage! i must save her clean little soul somehow. poor julia, she certainly never had any sort of a chance. april . she is in her grave at last, poor girl, and it is sad to think that nobody alive regrets her. tom cannot, and even her dreadful mother showed no sorrow to-day. somehow the vulgarity of the mother and her behavior took away half the sadness of the tragedy. when i think about it the very coarseness of it all makes the situation more pathetic, but this is an afterthought that can be felt only when i have beaten down my disgust. when one considers how julia grew up with this woman, and how she had no way of learning the decencies of life except from a mother who had no conception of them, it makes the heart ache; and yet when mrs. brownrig broke in upon us at the graveyard this morning, disgust was the strongest feeling of which i was conscious. the violation of conventionalities always shocks a woman, i suppose, and when it comes to anything so solemn as services over the dead, the lack of decency is shocking and exasperating together, with a little suggestion besides of sacrilege. miss charlotte surprised me by coming over just after breakfast to go to the funeral with me. "i don't like to have you go alone," she said, "and i knew you would go." i asked her in some surprise how in the world she knew when the funeral was to be, for we thought that we had kept it entirely quiet. "aunt naomi told me last night," she answered. "i suppose she heard it from some familiar spirit or other,--a black cat, or a toad, or something of the kind." i could only say that i was completely puzzled to see how aunt naomi had discovered the hour in any other way, and i thanked miss charlotte for coming, though i told the dear she should not have taken so much trouble. "i wanted to do it, my dear," she returned cheerfully. "i am getting to be an old thing, and i find funerals rather lively and amusing. don't you remember maria harmon used to say that to a pious soul a funeral was a heavenly picnic?" whatever a "heavenly picnic" may be, the funeral this morning was one of the most ghastly things imaginable. tom and mr. thurston were in one carriage and miss charlotte and i in another. we went to the graveyard at the rim, where julia's father and brother were buried, a place half overgrown with wild-rose and alder bushes. in summer it must be a picturesque tangle of wild shrubs and blossoms, but now it is only chill, and barren, and neglected. the spring has reddened and yellowed the tips of the twigs, but not enough to make the bushes look really alive yet. the heap of clay by the grave, too, was of a hideous ochre tint, and horribly sodden and oozy. just as the coffin was being lowered a wild figure suddenly appeared from somewhere behind the thickets of alders and low spruces which skirt the fence on one side. it proved to be old mrs. brownrig, who with rags and tags, and even her disheveled gray hair fluttering as she moved, half ran down the path toward us. she must have been hiding in the woods waiting, and i found afterward that she had been seen lurking about yesterday, though for some reason she had not been to her house. now she had evidently been drinking, and she was a dreadful thing to look at. i wonder why it is that nature, which makes almost any other ruin picturesque, never succeeds in making the wreck of humanity anything but hideous? an old tower, an old tree, even an old house, has somehow a quality that is prepossessing; but an old man is apt to look unattractive, and an old woman who has given up taking care of herself is repulsive. perhaps we cannot see humanity with the impartial eyes with which we regard nature, but i do not think this is the whole of it. somehow and for some reason an inanimate ruin is generally attractive, while a human ruin is ugly. mrs. brownrig seemed to me an incarnation of the repulsive. she made me shudder with some sort of a feeling that she was wicked through and through. even the pity she made me feel could not prevent my sense that she was vicious. i wanted to wash my hands just for having seen her. i was ashamed to be so uncharitable, and of course it was because she was so hideous to look at; but i do not think i could have borne to have her touch me. "stop!" she called out. "i'm the mother of the corpse. don't you dare to bury her till i get there!" i glanced at tom in spite of myself. he had been stern and pale all the morning, not saying a word more than was necessary, but now the color came into his face all at once. i could not bear to see him, and tried to look at the mother, but repulsion and pity made me choke. she was panting with haste and intoxication by the time she reached us, and stumbled over something in the path. she caught at tom's arm to save herself, and there she hung, leering up into his face. "you didn't mean for me to come, did you?" she broke out, half whimpering and half chuckling. "she was mine before she was yours. you killed her, too." tom kept himself still, though it must have been terribly hard. he must have been in agony, and i could have sobbed to think how he suffered. he grew white as i have never seen him, but he did not look at the old woman. she was perhaps too distracted with drink and i hope with grief to know what she was doing. she turned suddenly, and looked at the coffin, which rested on the edge of the grave. "my handsome jule!" she wailed. "oh, my handsome jule! they're all dead now! what did you put on her? did you make a shroud or put on a dress?" "she has a white shroud," i said quickly. "i saw to everything myself." she turned to me with a fawning air, and let go her clasp on tom's arm. "i'm grateful, miss privet," she said. "we brownrigs ain't much, but we're grateful. i hope you won't let 'em bury my handsome gel till i've seen her," she went on, with a manner pitifully wheedling. "she was my gel before she was anybody else's, and it ain't goin' to hurt nobody for me to see her. i'd like to see that shroud." how much natural grief, how much vanity, how much maudlin excitement was in her wish, i cannot tell; but manifestly there was nothing to do but to have the coffin opened. when the face of the dead woman had once more been uncovered to the light, the dreadful mother hung over it raving and chuckling. now she shrieked for her handsome jule, and wailed in a way that pierced to the marrow; then she would fall to imbecile laughter over the shroud, "just like a lady's,--but then jule was a lady after she was married." miss charlotte, tom, and i stood apart, while mr. thurston tried to get the excited creature away; and the grave-diggers looked on with open curiosity. i could not help thinking how they would tell the story, and of how tom's name would be bandied about in connection with it. sometimes i feel as if it were harder to bear the vulgarities of life than actual sorrows. father used to say that pain is personal, but vulgarity a violation of general principles. this is one of his sayings which i do not feel that i understand entirely, and yet i have some sense of what he meant. a thing which is vulgar seems to fly in the face of all that should be, and outrages our sense of the fitness of things. well, somehow we got through it all. it is over, and julia is in her grave. i cannot but think that it is better if she does not remember; if she has gone out like an ill-burning candle. nothing is left now but to consider what can be done for the lives that we can reach. i am afraid that the mother is beyond me, but for tom i can, perhaps, do something. for baby i should do much. april . it is so strange to have a child in the house. i feel queer and disconcerted when i think of it, although things seem to go easily enough. the responsibility of taking charge of a helpless life overwhelms me, and i do not dare to let my thoughts go when they begin to picture possibilities in the future. i wonder that i ever dared to undertake to have baby; and yet her surroundings will be so much better here than with the dreadful brownrig grandmother that she must surely be better for them. in any case i had to help tom. i proposed a permanent nurse for baby, but hannah and rosa took up arms at once, and all but upbraided me with having cast doubts on their ability and faithfulness. surely we three women among us should be able to take care of one morsel, although none of us ever had babies of our own. april . nothing could be more absurd than the way in which the entire household now revolves about baby. all of us are completely slaves already, although the way in which we show it is naturally different. rosa has surrendered frankly and without reservations. she sniffed and pouted at the idea of having the child "of that brownrig creature" in the house. she did not venture to say this to me directly, of course; but she relieved her mind by making remarks to hannah when i could not help hearing. from the moment baby came, however, rosa succumbed without a struggle. it is evident she is born with the full maternal instinct, and i see if she does not marry her dennis, or some more eligible lover, and take herself away before baby is old enough to be much affected, the child will be spoiled to an unlimited extent. as for hannah, her method of showing her affection is to exhibit the greatest solicitude for baby's spiritual welfare, mingled with the keenest jealousy of rosa's claims on baby's love. i foresee that i shall have pretty hard work to protect my little daughter from hannah's well-meant but not very wise theology; and how to do this without hurting the good old soul's feelings may prove no easy problem. as for myself--of course i love the little, helpless, pink thing; the waif from some outside unknown brought here into a world where everything is made so hard to her from the start. she woke this afternoon, and looked up at me with tom webbe's eyes, lying there as sweet and happy as possible, so that i had to kiss and cuddle her, and love her all at once. it is wonderful how a baby comes out of the most dreadful surroundings as a seedling comes out of the mud, so clean and fresh. i said this to aunt naomi yesterday, and she sniffed cynically. "yes," she answered, "but a weed grows into a weed, no matter how it looks when it is little." the thought is dreadful to me. i will not believe that because a human being is born out of weakness and wickedness there is no chance for it. the difference, it seems to me, is that every human being has at least the germs of good as well as of bad, and one may be developed as well as the other. baby must have much that is good and fine from her father, and the thing i have to do is to see to it that the best of her grows, and the worse part dies for want of nourishment. surely we can do a great deal to aid nature. perhaps my baby cannot help herself much, at least not for years and years; but if she is kept in an atmosphere which is completely wholesome, whatever is best in her nature must grow strong and crowd down everything less noble. v may may . baby is more bewitching every day. she is so wonderful and so lovely that i am never tired of watching her. the miracle of a baby's growth makes one stand speechless in delight and awe. when this little morsel of life, hardly as many days in the world as i have been years, coos and smiles, and stretches out those tiny rosebud fingers only big enough for a fairy, i feel like going down on my knees to the mystery of life. i do not wonder that people pray. i understand entirely the impulse to cry out to something mighty, something higher than our own strength, some sentient heart of nature somewhere; the desire to find, by leaning on the invisible, a relief from the oppressiveness of the emotions we all must feel when a sense of the greatness of life takes hold on us. if it were but possible to believe in any of the many gods that have been offered to us, how glad i should be. father used to say that every human being really makes a deity for himself, and that the difference between believers and unbelievers is whether they can allow the church to give a name to the god a man has himself created. i cannot accept any name from authority, but the sense of some brooding power is very strong in me when i see this being growing as if out of nothing in my very hands. when i look at baby i have so great a consciousness of the life outside of us, the life of the universe as a whole, that i am ready to agree with any one who talks of god. the trouble is that one idea of deity seems to me as true and also as inadequate as all the rest; so that in the end i am left with only my overwhelming sense of the mightiness of the mystery of existence and of the unity of all the life in the universe. may . to-day we named baby. i would not do it without consulting her father, so i sent for tom, and he came over just after breakfast. the day has been warm, and the windows were open; a soft breath of wind came in with a feeling of spring in it, and a faint hint of a summer coming by and by. i was upstairs in the nursery when tom came; for we have made a genuine, full-fledged nursery of the south chamber, and installed rosa and the baby there. when they told me that he was here, i took baby, all pink and sweet from her bath, and went down with her. tom stood with his back to the parlor door, looking out of the window. he did not hear me until i spoke, and said good-morning. then he turned quickly. at sight of baby he changed color, and forgot to answer my greeting. he came across the room toward us, so that we met in the middle of the floor. "good god, ruth!" he said. "to think of seeing you with her baby in your arms!" the words hurt me for myself and for him. "tom," i cried out excitedly, "i will not hear you say anything against baby! it is neither hers nor yours now. it is mine, mine! you shall not speak of her as if she were anything but the sweetest, purest thing in the whole world!" he looked at me so intently and so feelingly while i snuggled the pink ball up to me and kissed it, that it was rather disconcerting. to change the subject, i went straight to the point. "tom," i said, "i want to ask you about baby's name." "oh, call it anything you like," he answered. "but you ought to name her," i told him. he was silent a moment; then he turned and walked away to the window again. i thought that he might be considering the name, but when he came back abruptly he said:-- "ruth, i can't pretend with you. i haven't any love for that child. i wish it weren't here to remind me of what i would give anything to have forgotten. if i have any feeling for it, it is pity that the poor little wretch had to be chucked into the world, and shame that i should have any responsibility about it." i told him he would come to love her some time; that she was after all his daughter, and so sweet he couldn't help being fond of her. "if i ever endure her," he said, almost doggedly, "it will be on your account." "nonsense, tom," i retorted, as briskly as i could when i wanted to cry, "you'll be fond of her because you can't help it. see, she has your eyes, and her hair is going to be like yours." he laughed with a trace of his old buoyant spirit. "what idiocy!" was his reply. "her eyes are any color you like, and she has only about six hairs on her head anyway." i denied this indignantly, partly because it was not true, and partly, i am afraid, with feminine guile, to divert him. we fell for a moment almost into the oldtime boy-and-girl tone of long ago, and only baby in my arms reminded us of what had come between. "well," i said at last, "it is evident that you are not worthy to give this nice little, dear little, superfine little girl a name; so i shall do it myself. i shall call her thomasine." "what an outlandish name!" "it is your own, so you needn't abuse it. do you agree?" "i don't see how i can help myself, for you can call her anything you like." "of course i shall," i told him; "but i thought you should be consulted." he shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. "having made up your mind," he said, "you ask my advice." "i shouldn't think of consulting you till i had made up my mind," was my retort. "now i want you to give her her name." "give it to her how?" "her name is to be thomasine," i repeated. "it is an absurd name," tom commented. "that's as it may be," was all i would answer, "but that's what she's to be called. you're to kiss her, and"-- he looked at me with a sudden flush. he had never, i am sure, so much as touched his child with the tip of his finger, much less caressed her. the proposition took him completely by surprise, and evidently disconcerted him. i did not give him time to consider. i made my tone and manner as light as i could, and hurried on. "you are to kiss her and say, 'i name you thomasine.' i suppose that really you ought to say 'thee,' but that seems rather theatrical for us plain folk." he hesitated a second, and then he bent over baby in my arms. "i name you thomasine," he said, and just brushed her forehead with his lips. then he looked at me solemnly. "you will keep her?" he said. "yes," i promised. so baby is named, and tom must have felt that she belongs really to him, however he may shrink from her. may . i have had a dreadful call from mrs. webbe. she came over in the middle of the forenoon, and the moment i saw her determined expression i felt sure something painful was to happen. "good-morning," she said abruptly; "i have come after my son's infant." "what?" i responded, my wits scattering like chickens before a hawk. "i have come after my son's infant," she repeated. "we are obliged to you for taking care of it; but i won't trouble you with it any longer." i told her i was to keep baby always. she looked at me with tightening lips. "i don't want to have disagreeable words with you, ruth," she said, "but you must know we could never allow such a thing." i asked her why. "you must know," she said, "you are not fit to be trusted with an immortal soul." i fear that i unmeaningly let the shadow of a smile show as i said,-- "but baby is so young"-- "this is no laughing matter," she interrupted with asperity, "even if the child is young. i must do my duty to her from the very beginning. of course it will be a cross for me, but i hope i shall bear it like a christian." something in her voice and manner exasperated me almost beyond endurance. i could not help remembering the day mrs. webbe came to the brownrig house, and i am much afraid i was anything but conciliatory in my tone when i answered. "mrs. webbe," i said to her, "if you cared for baby, and wanted to love her, i might perhaps think of giving her up, though i am very fond of her, dear little thing." mrs. webbe's keen black eyes snapped at me. "i dare say you look at it in that way," she retorted. "that's just it. it's just the sort of worldliness that would ruin the child. it's come into the world with sin and shame enough to bear, and you'd never help it to grace to bear it." the words were not entirely clear, yet i had little doubt of their meaning. the baby, however, was after all her own flesh and blood, and i was secretly glad that to strengthen me in my resolve to keep thomasine i had my promise to the dead mother and to tom. "but, mrs. webbe," i said as gently as i could, "don't you think the fact that baby has no mother, and must bear that, will make her need love more?" "she'll need bracing up," was the emphatic rejoinder, "and that's just what she won't get here. i don't want her. it's a cross for me to look at her, and realize we've got to own a brat with brownrig blood in her. i'm only trying to do my duty. where's that baby going to get any religious training from you, ruth privet?" i sat quiet a moment, thinking what i had better say. mrs. webbe was entirely conscientious about it all. she did not, i was sure, want baby, and she was sincere in saying that she was only trying to do her duty. when i thought of thomasine, however, as being made to serve as a living and visible cross for the good of mrs. webbe's soul, i could not bear it. driven by that strong will over the thorny paths of her grandmother's theology, poor baby would be more likely to be brought to despair than to glory. it was of course right for mrs. webbe to wish to take baby, but it could not be right for me to permit her to do so. if my duty clashed with hers, i could not change on that account; but i wished to be as conciliatory as possible. "don't you think, mrs. webbe," i asked, trying to look as sunny as a june day, "that baby is rather young to get harm from me or my heresies? couldn't the whole matter at least be left till she is old enough to know the meaning of words?" she looked at me with more determination than ever. "well, of course it's handsome of you to be willing to take care of tom's baby, and of course you won't mind the expense; but you made him marry that girl, so it's only fair you should expect to take some of the trouble that's come of what you did." "you don't mean," i burst out before i thought, "that you wouldn't have had tom marry her?" "it's no matter now, as long as she didn't live," mrs. webbe answered; "though it isn't pleasant knowing that one of that brownrig tribe married into our family." i had nothing to say. it would have hurt my pride, of course, had one of my kin made such a marriage, and i cannot help some secret feeling that julia had forfeited her right to be treated like an honest girl; but there was baby to be considered. besides this, the marriage was made, it seems to me, by tom's taking the girl, not by the service at her deathbed. mrs. webbe and i sat for a time without words. i looked at the carpet, and was conscious that mrs. webbe looked at me. she is not a pleasant woman, and i have had times of wishing she might be carried off by a whirlwind, so that deacon webbe and tom might have a little peace; but i believe in her way she tries to be a good one. the trouble is that her way of being good seems to me to be a great deal more vicious than most kinds of wickedness. she uses her religion like a tomahawk, and whacks with it right and left. "look here," she broke out at last, "i don't want to be unpleasant, but it ain't a pleasant thing for me to come here anyway. i suppose you mean to be kind, but you'd be soft with baby. that's just what she mustn't have. she'd better be made to know from the very start what's before her." "what is before her?" i asked. mrs. webbe flushed. "i don't know as there's any use of my telling you if you don't see it yourself. she's got to fight her way through life against her inheritance from that mother of hers, and--and her father." she choked a little, and i could not help laying my hand on hers, just to show that i understood. she drew herself away, not unkindly, i believe, but because she is too proud to endure pity. "she's got to be hardened," she went on, her tone itself hardening as she spoke. "from her cradle she's got to be set to fight the sin that's in her." i could not argue. i respected the sternness of her resolve to do her duty, and i knew that she was sacrificing much. every smallest sight of the child would be an hourly, stinging humiliation to her pride, and perhaps, too, to her love. in her fierce way she must love tom, so that his shame would hurt her terribly. yet i could not give up my little soft, pink baby to live in an atmosphere of disapproval and to be disciplined in the rigors of a pitiless creed. that, i am sure, would never save her. tom webbe is a sufficient answer to his mother's argument, if she could only see it. if anything is to rescue thomasine from the disastrous consequences of an unhappy heritage, it must be just pure love and friendliness. "mrs. webbe," i said, as firmly as i could, "i think i know how you feel; but in any case i could not give up baby until i had seen tom." a deeper flush came over the thin face, and a look which made me turn my eyes away, because i knew she would not wish me to see the pain and humiliation which it meant. "tom," she began, "tom! he"--she broke off abruptly, and, rising, began to gather her shawl about her. "then you refuse to let me have her?" she ended. "the baby's father should have something to say in the matter, it seems to me," i told her. "he has already decided," she replied sternly, "and decided against the child's good. he wants her to stay with you. i suppose," she added, and i must say that her tone took a suggestion of spite, "he thinks you'll get so interested in the baby as sometime"-- she did not finish, perhaps because i gave her a look, which, if it expressed half i felt, might well silence her. she moved quickly toward the door, and tightened her shawl with an air of virtuous determination. "well," she observed, "i have done my duty by the child. what the lord let it live for is a mystery to me." she said not another word, not even of leave-taking, but strode away with something of the air of a brisk little prophetess who has pronounced the doom of heaven on the unrighteous. it is a pity such people will make of religion an excuse for taking themselves so seriously. all the teachings of theology mrs. webbe turns into justifications of her prejudices and her hardness. the very thought of thomasine under her rigorous rule makes me shiver. i wonder how her husband has endured it all these years. saintship used to be won by making life as disagreeable as possible for one's self; but nowadays life is made sufficiently hard by others. if living with his wife peacefully, forbearingly, decorously, does not entitle deacon webbe to be considered a saint, it is time that new principles of canonization were adopted. heavens! what uncharitableness i am running into myself! may . i told aunt naomi of mrs. webbe's visit, and her comments were pungent enough. it is wicked, perhaps, to set them down, but i have a vicious joy in doing it. "of course she'd hate to have the baby," aunt naomi declared, "but she'd more than get even by the amount of satisfaction she'd get nagging at it. she's worn deacon daniel till he's callous, so there can't be much fun rasping him, and tom won't listen to her. she wants somebody to bully, and that baby'd just suit her. she could make it miserable and get in side digs at its father at the same time." "you are pretty severe, aunt naomi," i said; "but i know you don't mean it. as for troubling tom, he says he doesn't care for baby." "pooh! he's soft-hearted like his father; and even if he didn't care for his own child, which is nonsense anyway, he'd be miserable to see any child go through what he's been through himself with that woman." it is useless to attempt to stay aunt naomi when once she begins to talk about mrs. webbe, and she has so much truth in her favor i am never able successfully to urge the other side of the case so as to get for mrs. webbe any just measure of fair play. to-night i almost thought that aunt naomi would devour her green veil in the energy with which she freed her mind. the thing which she cannot see is that mrs. webbe is entirely blind to her own faults. mrs. webbe would doubtless be amazed if she could really appreciate that she is unkind to deacon daniel and to tom. she acts her nature, and simply does not think. i dare say most of us might be as bad if we had her disposition.--which tags on at the end of the nasty things i have been writing like a piece of pure cant! may . it certainly would seem on the face of it that a woman alone in the world as i am, of an age when i ought to have the power of managing my own affairs, and with the means of getting on without asking financial aid, might take into her house a poor, helpless, little baby if she wished. apparently there is a conspiracy to prevent my doing anything of the sort. cousin mehitable has now entered her protest, and declares that if i do not give up what she calls my mad scheme she shall feel it her duty to have me taken in charge as a lunatic. she wants to know whether i have no decency about having a bachelor's baby in the house, although she is perfectly well aware that tom was married. she reminds me that she expects me to go to europe with her in about a month, and asks whether i propose to leave thomasine in a foundling hospital or a day nursery while i am gone. her letter is one breathless rush of indignation from beginning to end, so funnily like her that with all my indignation i could hardly read it for laughing. i confess it is hard to give up the trip abroad. i was only half aware how i have been counting on it until now i am brought face to face with the impossibility of carrying out the plan. i have almost unconsciously been piecing together in my mind memories of the old days in europe, with delight in thinking of seeing again places which enchanted me. any one, i suppose, who has been abroad enough to taste the charm of travel, but who has not worn off the pleasure by traveling too much, must have moments of longing to get back. i have had the oddest, sudden pangs of homesickness when i have picked up a photograph or opened a magazine to a picture of some beautiful place across the ocean. the smallest things can bring up the feeling,--the sound of the wind in the trees as i heard it once when driving through the black forest, the sun on a stone wall as it lay in capri, the sky as it looked at one place, or the grass as i saw it at another. i remember how once a white feather lying on the turf of the lawn brought up the courtyard of warwick castle as if a curtain had lifted suddenly; and always these flashing reminders of the other side of the world have made me feel as if i must at once hurry across the ocean again. now i have let myself believe i was really going, and to give it up is very hard. it is perhaps making too much of it to be so disappointed. certainly baby must be taken care of, and i have promised to take care of her. i fear that it will be a good while before i see europe again. i am sorry for cousin mehitable, but she has never any difficulty in finding friends to travel with. it is evident enough that my duty is here. may . rosa has not yet come to the end of her matrimonial perplexities. the divorced wife of ran gargan is now reported as near death, and rosa is debating whether to give up dennis maloney and wait for ran. "of course dennis is gone on me," she explained last night in the most cold-bloodedly matter-of-fact fashion, "and i'd make him a main good wife. but ran was always the boy for me, barring father o'rafferty wouldn't let me marry him." "rosa," i said, with all the severity i could command, "you must not talk like that. it sounds as if you hadn't any feeling at all. you don't mean it." rosa tossed her saucy head with emphatic scorn. "what for don't i mean it?" she demanded. "any woman wants to marry the man she likes best, and, barring him, she'd take up with the man who likes her best." i laughed, and told her she was getting to be a good deal of a philosopher. "humph!" was her not very respectful reply; "it's the only choice a woman has, and she don't always have that. she's better off if she'll take the man that's sweet on her; but it's the way we girls are made, to hanker after the one we're sweet on ourselves." her earnestness so much interfered with the supper which she was giving to thomasine that i took baby into my arms, and left rosa free to speak out her mind without hindrance. "i'm not going to take either of 'em in a hurry," she went on. "i'd not be leaving you in the lurch with the baby, miss ruth. i'd like to have ran, but i don't know what he's got. he'd make me stand round awful, they say, and dennis'd be under my thumb like a crumb of butter. i mistrust i'd be more contented with ranny. it'd be more stirred up like; but i'd have some natural fear of him, and that's pleasant for a woman." i had never seen rosa in this astonishing mood before, and so much worldly wisdom was bewildering. such generalizations on the relation of the sexes took away my breath. i was forced to be silent, for there was evidently no chance of my holding my own in a conversation of this sort. it is strange how boldly and bluntly this uneducated girl has thought out her relations with her lovers. she recognizes entirely that dennis, who is her slave, will treat her better than ran, who will be her master; yet she "mistrusts she will be more contented with ranny." the moral seems to be that a woman is happier to be abused by the man she loves than to be served by the man who loves her. that can only be crude instinct, the relics of savagery. in civilized woman, i am sure, when respect goes love must go also. no; that isn't true! women keep on loving men when they know them to be unworthy. perhaps this applies especially to good wives. a good woman is bound to love her husband just as long as she can in any way compass it, and to deceive herself about him to the latest possible instant. i wonder what i should do? i wonder--well, george has shown that he is not what i thought him, and do i care for him less? he only showed, however, that he did not care for me as much as i thought, and of course that does not necessarily prove him unworthy. and yet-- what is the use of all this? what do i know about it anyway? i will go to bed. may . it is amusing to see how jealous hannah and rosa are of baby's attention. thomasine can as yet hardly be supposed to distinguish one human being from another, and very likely has not drawn very accurate comparisons between any of us and the furniture; but rosa insists that baby knows her, and is far more fond of her than of hannah, while of course hannah indignantly sniffs at an idea so preposterous. "she really laughed at me this morning when i was giving her her bath," rosa assured me to-day. "she knows me the minute i come into the nursery." it is beautiful to see how the sweetness and helplessness of the little thing have so appealed to the girls that prejudices are forgotten. when i brought thomasine home i feared that i might have trouble. they scorned the child of that brownrig girl, and they both showed the fierce contempt which good girls of their class feel for one who disgraces herself. all this is utterly forgotten. the charm of baby has so enslaved them that if an outsider ventured to show the feelings they themselves had at first, they would be full of wrath and indignation. the maternal instinct is after all the strongest thing in most women. rosa considers her matrimonial chances in a bargain-and-sale fashion which takes my breath, but she will be perfectly fierce in her fondness for her children. hannah is a born old maid, but she cannot help mothering every baby who comes within her reach, and for thomasine she brings out all the sweetness of her nature. may . i have been through a whirlwind, but now i am calm, and can think of things quietly. it is late, but the fire has not burned down, and i could not sleep, so peter and i may as well stay where we are a while longer. i was reading this afternoon, when suddenly kathie rushed into the room out of breath with running, her face smooched and wet with tears, and her hair in confusion. "why, kathie," i asked, "what is the matter?" her answer was to fly across the room, throw herself on her knees beside me, and burst into sobs. the more i tried to soothe her, the more she cried, and it was a long time before she was quiet enough to be at all reasonable. "my dear," i said, "tell me what has happened. what is the matter?" she looked up at me with wild eyes. "it isn't true!" she broke out fiercely. "i know it isn't true! i didn't say a word to him, because i knew you wouldn't want me to; but it's a lie! it's a lie, if my father did say it." "why, kathie," i said, amazed at her excitement, "what in the world are you saying? your father wouldn't tell a lie to save his life." "he believes it," she answered, dropping her voice. a sullen, stubborn look came into her face that it was pitiful to see. "he does believe it, but it's a lie." i spoke to her as sternly as i could, and told her she had no right to judge of what her father believed, and that i would not have her talk so of him. "but i asked him about your mother, and he said she would be punished forever and ever for not being a church member!" she exclaimed before i could stop her. "and i know it's a lie." she burst into another tempest of sobs, and cried until she was exhausted. her words were so cruel that for a moment i had not even the power to try to comfort her; but she would soon have been in hysterics, and for a time i had to think only of her. fortunately baby woke. rosa was not at home, and by the time hannah and i had fed thomasine, and once more she was asleep in her cradle, i had my wits about me. kathie had, with a child's quick change of mood, become almost gay. "kathie," i said, "do you mind staying here with baby while i take a little walk? rosa is out, and i have been in the house all day. i want a breath of fresh air." "oh, i should love to," she answered, her face brightening at the thought of being trusted with a responsibility so great. i was out of doors, and walking rapidly toward mr. thurston's house, before i really came to my senses. i was so wounded by what kathie had thoughtlessly repeated, so indignant at this outrage to my dead, that i had had strength only to hide my feelings from her. now i came to a realization of my anger, and asked myself what i meant to do. i had instinctively started out to denounce mr. thurston for bigotry and cruelty; to protest against this sacrilege. a little, i feel sure,--at least i hope i am right,--i felt the harm he was doing kathie; but most i was outraged and angry that he had dared to speak so of mother. i was ashamed of my rage when i grew more composed; and i realized all at once how mother herself would have smiled at me. so clear was my sense of her that it was almost as if she really repeated what she once said to me: "my dear ruth, do you suppose that what mr. thurston thinks alters the way the universe is made? why should he know more about it than you do? he's not nearly so clever or so well educated." i smiled to recall how she had smiled when she said it; then i was blinded by tears to remember that i should never see her smile again; and so i walked into a tree in the sidewalk, and nearly broke my nose. that was the end of my dashing madly at mr. thurston. the wound kathie's words had made throbbed, but with the memory of mother in my mind i could not break out into anger. i turned down the cove road to walk off my ill-temper. after all mr. thurston was right from his point of view. he could not believe without feeling that he had to warn kathie against the awful risk of running into eternal damnation. it must hurt him to think or to say such a thing; but he believes in the cruelty of the deity, and he has beaten his natural tenderness into subjection to his idea of a moloch. it is so strange that the ghastly absurdity of connecting god's anger with a sweet and blameless life like mother's does not strike him. indeed, i suppose down here in the country we are half a century or so behind the thought of the real world, and that mr. thurston's creed would be impossible in the city, or among thinkers even of his own denomination. at least i hope so, though i do not see what they have left in the orthodox creed if they take eternal punishment out of it. the fresh air and the memory of mother, with a little common sense, brought me right again. i walked until i had myself properly in hand, and till i hoped that the trace of tears on my face might pass for the effect of the wind. it was growing dusk by this time, and the lamps began to appear in the houses as i came to mr. thurston's at last. i slipped in at the front door as quietly as i could, and knocked at the study. mr. thurston himself opened the door. he looked surprised, but asked me in, and offered me a chair. he had been writing, and still held his pen in his hand; the study smelled of kerosene lamp and air-tight stove. poor man! theology which has to live by an air-tight stove must be dreary. if he had an open fire on his hearth, he might have less in his religion. "i have come to confess a fault, mr. thurston," i said, "and to ask a favor." he smiled a little watery smile, and put down his pen. "is the favor to be a reward for the fault or for confessing it?" he asked. i was so much surprised by this mild jest, coming from him, that i almost forgot my errand. i smiled back at him, and forgot the bitterness that had been in my heart. he looked so thin, so bloodless, that it was impossible to have rancor. "i left kathie with baby while i went for a walk," i said, "and i have stayed away longer than i intended. i forgot to tell her she could call hannah if she wanted to come home, and she is too conscientious to leave, so i am afraid that she has stayed all this time. i wanted you to know it is my fault." "i am glad for her to be useful," her father said, "especially as you have been so kind to her." "then you will perhaps let her stay all night," i went on. "i can take over her night-things. i promised to show her about making a new kind of pincushion for the church fair; and i could do it this evening. besides, it is lonely for me in that great house." i felt like a hypocrite when i said this, though it is true enough. he looked at me kindly, and even pityingly. "yes," he returned, "i can understand that. if you think she won't trouble you, and"-- i did not give him opportunity for a word more. i rose at once and held out my hand. "thank you so much," i said. "i'll find mrs. thurston, and get kathie's things. i beg your pardon for troubling you." i was out of the study before he could reconsider. across the hall i found his wife in the sitting-room with another air-tight stove, and looking thinner and paler than he. she had a great pile of sewing beside her, and her eyes looked as if months of tears were behind them, aching to be shed. i told her mr. thurston had given leave for kathie to pass the night with me, and i had come for her night-things. she looked surprised, but none the less pleased. while she was out of the room i looked cautiously at the mending to see if the clothing was too worn for her to be willing that i should see it. when she came in with her little bundle, i said, as indifferently as i could, "i suppose if kathie were at home she would help you with the mending, so i'll take her share with me, and we'll do it together." of course she remonstrated, but i managed to bring away a good part of the big pile, and now it is all done. poor mrs. thurston, she looked so tired, so beaten down by life, the veins were so blue on her thin temples! if i dared, i'd go every week and do that awful mending for her. i must get kathie to smuggle some of it over now and then. when we blame these people for the narrowness of their theology, we forget their lives are so constrained and straitened that they cannot take broad views of anything. the man or woman who could take a wide outlook upon life from behind an air-tight stove in a half-starved home would have to be almost a miracle. it is wonderful that so much sweetness and humanity keep alive where circumstances are so discouraging. when i think of patient, faithful, hard-working women like mrs. thurston, uncomplaining and devoted, i am filled with admiration and humility. if their theology is narrow, they endure it; and, after all, men have made it for them. father said once women had always been the occasion of theology, but had never produced any. i asked him, i remember, whether he said this to their praise or discredit, and he answered that what was entirely the result of nature was neither to be praised nor to be blamed; women were so made that they must have a religion, and men so constituted as to take the greatest possible satisfaction in inventing one. "it is simply a beautiful example," he added, with his wonderful smile which just curled the corners of his mouth, "of the law of supply and demand." i am running on and on, although it is so late at night. aunt naomi, i presume, will in some occult way know about it, and ask me why i sat up so long. i am tired, but the excitement of the afternoon is not all gone. that any one in the world should believe it possible for mother to be unhappy in another life, to be punished, is amazing! surely a man whose theology makes such an idea conceivable is profoundly to be pitied. may . hannah is perfectly delightful about tomine. she hardly lets a day go by without admonishing me not to spoil baby, and yet she is herself an abject slave to the slightest caprice of the tyrannous small person. we have to-night been having a sort of battle royal over baby's going to sleep by herself in the dark. i made up my mind the time had come when some semblance of discipline must be begun, and i supposed, of course, that hannah would approve and assist. to my surprise she failed me at the very first ditch. "i am going to put tomine into the crib," i announced, "and take away the light. she must learn to go to sleep in the dark." "she'll be frightened," rosa objected. "she's too little to know anything about being afraid," i retorted loftily, although i had secretly a good deal of misgiving. "too little!" sniffed hannah. "she's too little not to be afraid." i saw at a glance that i had before me a struggle with them as well as with baby. "children are not afraid of the dark until they are told to be," i declared as dogmatically as possible. "they are told not to be," objected rosa. "but that puts the idea into their heads," was my answer. hannah regarded me with evident disapprobation. "but supposing the baby cries?" she demanded. "then she must be left to stop," i answered, with outward firmness and inward quakings. "but suppose she cries herself sick?" insisted rosa. "she won't. she'll just cry a little till she finds nobody comes, and then she'll go to sleep." the two girls regarded me with looks that spoke disapproval in the largest of capitals. it is so seldom they are entirely united that it was disconcerting to have them thus make common cause against me, but i had to keep up for the sake of dignity if for nothing else. thomasine was fed and arranged for the night; she was kissed and cuddled, and tucked into her crib. then i got hannah and rosa, both protesting they didn't mind sitting up with the darling all night, out of the room, darkened the windows, and shut baby in alone for the first time in her whole life, a life still so pathetically little. i closed the nursery door with an air of great calmness and determination, but outside i lingered like a complete coward. the girls were glowering darkly from the end of the hall, and we needed only candlelight to look like three bloodthirsty conspirators. for two or three minutes there was a soothing and deceptive silence, so that i turned to smile with an air of superior wisdom on the maids. then without warning baby uplifted her voice and wailed. there was something most disconcertingly explosive about the cry, as if thomasine had been holding her breath until she were black in the face, and only let it escape one second short of actual suffocation. i jumped as if a mouse had sprung into my face, and the two girls swooped down upon me in a whirl of triumphant indignation. "there, miss ruth!" cried hannah. "there, miss privet!" cried rosa. "well," i said defensively; "i expected her to cry some." "she wants to be walked with, poor little thing," rosa said incautiously. i was rejoiced to have a chance to turn the tables, and i sprang upon her tacit admission at once. "rosa," i said severely, "have you been walking thomasine to sleep? i told you never to do it." rosa, self-convicted, could only murmur that she had just taken her up and down two or three times to make her sleepy; she hadn't really walked her to sleep. "what if she had?" hannah demanded boldly, her place entirely forgotten in the excitement of the moment. "if babies like to be walked to sleep, it stands to reason that's nature." i began to feel as if all authority were fast slipping away from me, and that i should at this rate soon become a very secondary person in my own house. i tried to recover myself by assuming the most severe air of which i was capable. "you must not talk outside the nursery door," i told them. "if thomasine hears voices, of course she'll keep on crying. go downstairs, both of you. i'll see to baby." they had not yet arrived at open mutiny, and so with manifest unwillingness they departed, grumbling to each other as they went. baby seemed to have some superhuman intelligence that her firmest allies were being routed, for she set up a series of nerve-splitting shrieks which made every fibre of my body quiver. as soon as the girls were out of sight i flopped down on my knees outside of the door, and put my hands over my ears. i was afraid of myself, and only the need i felt of holding out for tomine's own sake gave me strength to keep from rushing into the nursery in abject surrender. the absurdity of it makes me laugh now, but with the shrieks of baby piercing me, i felt as if i were involved in a tragedy of the deepest dye. i think i was never so near hysterics in my life; but i had even then some faint and far-away sense of how ridiculous i was, and that saved me. thomasine yelled like a young tornado, and every cry went through me like a knife. i was on my knees on the floor, pouring out tears like a watering-pot, trying to shut out the sound. there is something in a baby's cry that is too much even for a sense of humor; and no woman could have heard it without being overcome. i had so stopped my ears that although i could not shut out baby's cries entirely i did not hear hannah and rosa when they came skulking back. the first i knew of their being behind me was when hannah, in a whispered bellow, shouted into my ear that baby would cry herself into convulsions. demoralized as i was already, i almost yielded; i started to my feet, and faced them in a tragic manner, ready to give up everything. i was ready to say that rosa might walk up and down with tomine every night for the rest of her life. fortunately some few gleams of common sense asserted themselves in my half-addled pate, and instead of opening the door, i spread out my arms, and without a word shooed the girls out of the corridor as if they were hens. then the ludicrousness of it came over me, and although i still tingled with baby's wailing, i could appreciate that the cries were more angry than pathetic, and that we must fight the battle through now it had been begun. the drollest thing about it all was that it seemed almost as if the willful little lady inside there had some uncanny perception of my thought. i had no sooner got the girls downstairs again, and made up my mind to hold out than she stopped crying; and when we crept cautiously in ten minutes after, she was asleep as soundly and as sweetly as ever. but i feel as if i had been through battles, murders, and sudden deaths. may . baby to-night cried two or three minutes, but her ladyship evidently had the sense to see that crying is a painful and useless exercise when she has to deal with such a hard-hearted tyrant as i am, and she quickly gave it up. rosa hoped pointedly that the poor little thing's will isn't broken, and hannah observed piously that she trusted i realized we all of us had to be treated like babies by our heavenly father. i was tempted to ask her if our heavenly father never left us to cry in the dark. if we could be as firm with ourselves as we can be with other people, what an improvement it would be. i wonder what tom would think of my first conflict with his baby. may . i went to-day to call on mrs. weston. although i am in mourning, i thought it better to go. i feared lest she should think my old relations to george might have something to do with my staying away. it was far less difficult than i thought it would be. i may be frank in my diary, i suppose, and say i found her silly and rather vulgar, and i wonder how george can help seeing it. she was inclined to boast a little that all the best people in town had called. "olivia watson acted real queer about my wedding-calls," she said. "she doesn't seem to know the rich folks very well." "oh, we never make distinctions in tuskamuck by money," i put in; but she went on without heeding. "olivia said mrs. andrews--she called her lady andrews, just as if she was english." "it is a way we have," i returned. "i'm sure i don't know how it began. very likely it is only because it fits her so well." "well, anyway, she called; and olivia owned she'd never been to see them. i could see she was real jealous, though she wouldn't own it." "old lady andrews is a delightful person," i remarked awkwardly, feeling that i must say something. "i didn't think she was much till olivia told me," returned mrs. weston, with amazing frankness. "i thought she was a funny old thing." it is not kind to put this down, i know; but i really would like to see if it sounds so unreal when it is written as it did when it was said. it was so unlike anything i ever heard that it seemed almost as if mrs. weston were playing a part, and trying to cheat me into thinking her more vulgar and more simple than she is. i am afraid i shall not lessen my unpleasant impression, however, by keeping her words. mrs. weston talked, too, about george and his devotion as if she expected me to be hurt. possibly i was a little; although if i were, it was chiefly because my vanity suffered that he should find me inferior in attraction to a woman like this. i believe i am sincerely glad that he should prove his fondness for his wife. indeed fondness could be the only excuse for his leaving me, and i do wish happiness to them both. i fear what i have written gives the worst of mrs. weston. she perhaps was a little embarrassed, but she showed me nothing better. she is not a lady, and i see perfectly that she will drop out of our circle. we are a little cranfordish here, i suppose, but anywhere in the world people come in the long run to associate with their own kind. mrs. weston is not our kind; and even if this did not affect our attitude, she would herself tire of us after the first novelty is worn off. may . george came in this morning on business, and before he went he thanked me for calling on his wife. "i shouldn't have made a wedding-call just now on anybody else," i told him; "but your association with father and the way in which we have known you of course make a difference." he showed some embarrassment, but apparently--at least so i thought--he was so anxious to know what i thought of mrs. weston that he could not drop the subject. "gertrude isn't bookish," he remarked rather confusedly. "i hope you found things to talk about." "meaning that i can talk of nothing but books?" i returned. "poor george, how i must have bored you in times past." he flushed and grew more confused still. "of course you know i didn't mean anything like that," he protested. i laughed at his grave face, and then i was so glad to find i could talk to him about his wife without feeling awkward that i laughed again. he looked so puzzled i was ready to laugh in turn at him, but i restrained myself. i could not understand my good spirits, and for that matter i do not now. somehow my call of yesterday seems to have made a difference in my feeling toward george. just how or just what i cannot fully make out. i certainly have not ceased to care about him. i am still fond of the george i have known for so many years; but somehow the husband of mrs. weston does not seem to be the same man. the george weston who can love this woman and be in sympathy with her is so different from anything i have known or imagined the old george to be that he affects me as a stranger. the truth is i have for the past month been in the midst of things so serious that my own affairs and feelings have ceased to appear of so much importance. when death comes near enough for us to see it face to face, we have a better appreciation of values, and find things strangely altered. i have had, moreover, little time to think about myself, which is always a good thing; and to my surprise i find now that i am not able to pity myself nearly as much as i did. this seems perhaps a little disloyal to george. my feeling for him cannot have evaporated like dew drying from the grass. at least i am sure that i am still ready to serve him to the very best of my ability. vi june june . cousin mehitable is capable of surprises. she has written to deacon richards to have my baby taken away from me. the deacon came in to-night, so amused that he was on the broad grin when he presented himself, and chuckling even when he said good-evening. "what pleases you?" i asked. "you seem much amused about something." "i am," he answered. "i've been appointed your guardian." "by the town authorities?" i demanded. "i should have thought i was old enough to look after myself." "it's your family," he chuckled. "miss privet has written to me from boston." "cousin mehitable?" i exclaimed. "miss mehitable privet," he returned. "she has written to you about me?" asked i. he nodded, in evident delight over the situation. my astonishment got the better of my manners so that i forgot to ask him to sit down, but stood staring at him like a booby. i remembered cousin mehitable had met him once or twice on her infrequent visits to tuskamuck, and had been graciously pleased to approve of him,--largely, i believe, on account of some accidental discovery of his very satisfactory pedigree. that she should write to him, however, was most surprising, and argued an amount of feeling on her part much greater than i had appreciated. i knew she would be shocked and perhaps scandalized by my having baby, and she had written to me with sufficient emphasis, but i did not suppose she would invoke outside aid in her attempts to dispossess me of thomasine. "but why should she write to you?" i asked deacon daniel. "she said," was his answer, "she didn't know who else to write to." "but what did she expect you to do?" the deacon chuckled and caressed his beardless chin with a characteristic gesture. when he is greatly amused he seizes himself by the chin as if he must keep his jaw stiff or an undeaconical laugh would come out in spite of him. "i don't think she cared much what i did if i relieved you of that baby," was his reply. "she said if i was any sort of a guardian of the poor perhaps i could put it in a home." "but you are not," i said. "no," he assented. "and you shouldn't have her if you were," i added. "i don't want the child," deacon daniel returned. "i shouldn't know what to do with it." then we both laughed, and i got him seated in father's chair, and we had a long chat over the whole situation. i had not realized how much i wanted to talk matters over with somebody. aunt naomi is out of the question, because she is so fond of telling things; miss charlotte would be better, but she is not very worldly wise; and if i may tell the truth, i wanted to talk with a man. the advice of women is wise often, and yet more often it is comforting; but it has somehow not the conclusiveness of the decision of a sensible man. at least that is the way i felt to-night, though in many matters i should never think of trusting to a man's judgment. "i think i shall adopt baby legally," i said. "then nobody could take her away or bother me about her." he asked me if her father would agree, and i said that i was sure he would. "it would make her your heir if you died without a will," he commented. i said that nothing was more easy than to make a will, and of course i should mean to provide for her. "you are not afraid of wills, then?" deacon daniel observed, looking at me curiously. "so many folks can't bear the idea of making one." "very likely it's partly because i am a lawyer's daughter," i said; "but in any case making a will wouldn't have any more terrors for me than writing a check. but then i never had any fear of death anyway." deacon daniel regarded me yet more intently, clasping his great white hands over his knee. "i never can quite make you out, miss ruth," he said after a little. "you haven't any belief in a hereafter that i know of, but you seem to have no trouble about it." i asked him why i should have, and he answered that most people do. "perhaps that is because they feel a responsibility about the future that i don't," i returned. "i don't think i can alter what is to come after death, and i don't see what possible good i can do by fretting about it. father brought me up, you know, to feel that i had all i could attend to in making the best i can of this life, without wasting my strength in speculating about another. in any case i can't see why i should be any more afraid of death than i am of sleep. i understand one as well as i do the other." he looked at the rug thoughtfully a moment, and then, as if he declined to be drawn into an argument, he came back to the original subject of our talk. "would tom webbe want to have anything to do with the child?" he asked. "i think he would rather forget she is in the world," i told him. "by and by he may be fond of her, but now he tries not to think of her at all. i want to make her so attractive and lovely he can't help caring for her." "but then she will care for him," the deacon commented. "why, of course she will. that is what i hope. then she might influence him, and help him." "you are willing to share her with her father even if you do adopt her?" he asked. i did not understand his manner, but i told him i did not think i had any right to deprive her of her father's affection or him of hers if i adopted her a dozen times over. the deacon made no answer. his face was graver, and for some time we sat without further word. "tom webbe isn't as bad as he seems, miss ruth," deacon daniel said at length. "if you had to live with his mother, i guess you'd be ready to excuse him for 'most anything. his father never had the spunk to say boo to a goose, and mrs. webbe has bullied him from the time we were boys. he's as good as a man can be, but it's a pity he don't carry out paul's idea of being ruler in his own house." "paul was a bachelor like you, deacon daniel," i answered, rather saucily; "and neither of you knows anything about it." he grinned, but only added that tom had been nagged into most of his wildness. "i'm not excusing him," he went on, apparently afraid that he should seem to be condoning iniquity; "but there's a good deal to be said for him. aunt naomi says he ought to be driven out of decent society, but tom webbe never did a mean thing in his life." i was rather surprised to hear this defense from deacon richards, but i certainly agreed with him. tom's sin makes me cringe; but i realize that i'm not capable of judging him, and he certainly has a good deal of excuse for whatever evil he has fallen into. june . one thing more which deacon richards said has made me think a good deal. he asked me what tom had meant to do about the child if its mother lived. i told him julia had been willing for me to have baby in any case. he thought in silence a moment. "i don't believe," he said, "tom ever meant to live with that woman. he must have married her to clear his conscience." "he married her so the child should not be disgraced," i answered. deacon daniel looked at me with those great keen eyes glowing beneath his shaggy white brows. "then he went pretty far toward clearing his record," was his comment. "there are not many men would have tied themselves to such a wife for the sake of a child." this was not very orthodox, perhaps, but a good heart will get the better of orthodoxy now and then. it has set me to thinking about tom and his wife in a way which had not occurred to me. i wonder if it is true that he did not mean to live with her. i remember now that he said he would never see julia again, but at the time this meant nothing to me. if he had thought of making a home, he would naturally expect to have his child, but after all i doubt if at that time he considered anything except the good of baby. he did not love her; he had not even looked at her; but he tried to do her right as far as he could. he could give her an honest name in the eyes of the world, but he must have known that he could not make a home with julia where the surroundings would be good for a child. this must have been what he considered for the moment. yet tom is one who thinks out things, and he may have thought out the future of the mother too. when i look back i wonder how it was i consented so quickly to take tomine. i wanted to help tom, and i wanted him to be able to decide without being forced by any consideration of baby. i do not know whether he ought to have married julia for her own sake. if she had lived, i am afraid i should have been tempted to think he had better not have bound himself to her; and yet i realize that i should have been disappointed in him if he had decided not to do it. i doubt if i could have got rid entirely of the feeling that somehow he would have been cowardly. i wonder if he had any notion of my feeling? he came out of the trial nobly, at least, and i honor him with all my heart for that. june . aunt naomi has now a theme exactly to her taste in the growing extravagance of george's wife. mrs. weston has certainly elaborated her style of dress a good deal, a thing which is the more noticeable from the fact that in tuskamuck we are on the whole so little given to gorgeous raiment. i remember that when i called i thought her rather overdressed. to-day aunt naomi talked for half an hour with the greatest apparent enjoyment about the fine gowns and expensive jewelry with which the bride is astonishing the town. i am afraid it does not take much to set us talking. i tried half a dozen times to-day to change the subject, but my efforts were wasted. aunt naomi was not to be diverted from a theme so congenial. i reminded her that any bride was expected to display her finery--this is part of the established formality with which marriage is attended. "that's all very well," she retorted with a sniff; "folks want to see the wedding outfit. this is finery george weston has had to pay for himself." "i don't see how anybody can know that," i told her; and i added that it did not seem to me to be the town's business if it were true. "she tells everybody he gave her the jewelry," aunt naomi responded; "and the dresses she's had made since she was married. she hadn't anything herself. the watsons say she was real poor." "the marriage was so sudden," i said, "that very likely she hadn't time to get her wedding outfit. at any rate, aunt naomi, i don't see what you and i have to do with her clothes." the dear old gossip went on wagging her foot and smiling with evident delight. "it's the business of the neighbors that she's sure to ruin her husband if she keeps on with her extravagance, isn't it? besides, she wears her clothes to have them talked about. she talks about them herself." "a few dresses won't ruin her husband," i protested. "she has one hired girl now, and she's talking of a second," aunt naomi went on, unshaken. "did you ever hear of such foolishness?" i reminded her that i had two maids myself. "oh, you," she returned; "that's different. i hope you don't put her on a level with real folks, do you?" i tried to treat the whole matter as if it were of no consequence, and i did stop the talk here; but secretly i am troubled. george has very little aside from what he earns in his profession, and he might easily run behind if his wife is really extravagant. he needs a woman to help him save. june . tomine delighted the family to-day by her wonderful precocity in following with her eyes the flight of a blue-bottle fly that buzzed about the nursery. such intelligence in one so young is held by us women to betoken the most extraordinary promise. i communicated the important event to mr. saychase, who came to call, and he could neither take it gravely nor laugh at the absurdity of our noticing so slight a thing. he seemed to be trying to find out how i wished him to look at it; and as i was divided between laughter and secret pride in baby he could not get a sure clue. how dull the man is; but no doubt he is good. when piety and stupidity are united, it is unfortunate that they should be made prominent by being set high in spiritual places. june . i have a good deal of sympathy with cain's question when he asked the lord if he were his brother's keeper. of course his crime turned the question in his case into a mere pitiful excuse, but cain was at least clever enough to take advantage of a principle which must appeal to everybody. we cannot be responsible for others when we have neither authority nor control over them. it is one of the hardest forms of duty, it seems to me, when we feel that we ought to do our best, yet are practically sure that in the end we can effect little or nothing. what can i do to influence george's wife? somehow we seem to have no common ground to meet on. father used to say that people who do not speak the same ethical language cannot communicate moral ideas to each other. this is rather a high-sounding way of saying that mrs. weston and i cannot understand each other when anything of real importance comes up. it is of course as much my fault as hers, but i really do not know how to help or change it. i suppose there is a certain arrogance and self-righteousness in my feeling that i could direct her, but i am certainly older and i believe i am wiser. yet i am not her keeper, and if to feel that i am not involves me in the cowardice of cain, i cannot help it. i am ready to do anything i can do, but what is there? june . still it is george's wife. i dare say a good deal of talk has been circulating, and i have not heard it. i have been so occupied with graver matters ever since george was married that i have seen few people, and have paid little heed to the village talk. to-day old lady andrews said her say. she began by reminding me of the conversation we had had in regard to calling on the bride. "i am glad we did it, ruth," she went on. "it puts us in the right whatever happens; but she will not do. i shall never ask her to my house." i could say nothing. i knew she was right, but i was so sorry for george. "she is vulgar, ruth," the sweet old voice went on. "she called a second time on me yesterday, and i've been only once to see her. she said a good deal about it's being the duty of us--she said 'us,' my dear,--to wake up this sleepy old place. i told her that, personally, since she was good enough to include me with herself, i preferred the town as it had been." i fairly laughed out at the idea of old lady andrews' delivering this with well-bred sweetness, and i wondered how far mrs. weston perceived the sarcasm. "did she understand?" i asked. "about half, i think, my dear. she saw she had made a mistake, but i doubt if she quite knew what it was. she was uneasy, and said she thought those who had a chance ought to make things more lively." i asked if mrs. weston gave any definite idea how this liveliness was to be secured. "not very clearly," was the answer. "she said something about hoping soon to have a larger house so she could entertain properly. her dress was dreadfully showy, according to my old-fashioned notions. i am afraid we are too slow for her, my dear. she will have to make a more modern society for herself." and so the social doom of george's wife is written, as far as i can see. i can if i choose ask people to meet her, but that will do her little good when they have looked her over and given her up. they will come to my house to meet anybody i select, but they will not invite her in their turn. it is a pity social distinctions should count for so much; but in tuskamuck they certainly do. june . mr. saychase called again this afternoon. he is so thin and so pale that it is always my inclination to have hannah bring him something to eat at once. to-day he had an especially nervous air, and i tried in vain to set him at his ease. i fear he may have taken it into his head to try to bring me into the church. he did not, it is true, say anything directly about religion, but he had an air of having something very important in reserve which he was not yet ready to speak of. he talked about the church work as if he expected me to be interested. he would not have come so soon again if he did not have some particular object. it is a pity anything so noble as religion should so often have weak men to represent it. what is good in religion they do not fairly stand for, and what is undesirable they somehow make more evident. if superstition is to be a help, it must appeal to the best feelings, and a weak priest touches only the weaker side of character. one is not able to receive him on his merits as a man, but has to excuse him in the name of his devotion to religion. still, mr. saychase is a good man, and he means well with whatever strength of mind nature endowed him. june . tom came to-day to see baby,--not that he paid much attention to her when he saw her. it amuses me to find how jealous i am getting for tomine, and anxious she shall be treated with deference. i see myself rapidly growing into a hen-with-one-chicken attitude of mind, but i do not know how it is to be helped. i exhibited baby this afternoon with as much pride and as much desire that she should be admired as if she had been my veriest own, so it was no wonder that tom laughed at me. he was very grave when he came, but little by little the fun-loving sparkle came into his eyes and a smile grew on his face. "you'd make a first rate saleswoman, ruth," he said, "if you could show off goods as well as you do babies." i suppose i can never meet tom again with the easy freedom we used to feel, especially with baby to remind us; but we have been good friends so long that it is a great comfort to feel something of the old comradeship to be still possible. tom was so awkward about baby, so unwilling to touch her, that i offered to put her into his arms. then he suddenly grew brave. "don't, ruth," he said. "it hurts you that i can't care for the baby, but i can't. perhaps i shall sometime." i took thomasine away without a word, and gave her to rosa in the nursery. when i came back to the parlor tom was in his favorite position before the window. he wheeled round suddenly when he heard me. "you are not angry, ruth?" he asked. "no, tom," i answered; "only sorry." i sat down and took up my sewing, while he walked about the room. he stopped in front of me after a moment. "i wanted to tell you, ruth," he said, "that i am not going back to new york." i looked at him questioningly, and waited. "i had really a good opening there," he went on; "but i thought i ought not to take it." i asked him why. "i'll be hanged if i quite know," he responded explosively. "i suppose it's part obstinacy that makes me too stubborn to run away from disgrace, and partly it's father. this thing has broken him terribly. i'm going to stay and help him out." i know how tom hates farming, and i held out my hand to him and said so. "i hate everything," he returned desperately; "but it wouldn't be square to leave him now when he's so cut up on my account." we were both of us, i am sure, too moved to have much talk, and tom did not stay long. he went off rather abruptly, with hardly a good-by; but i think i understood. i am glad he has the pluck to stand by poor old deacon daniel; but he must learn to be fond of baby. that will be a comfort to him. june . george seems to me to be almost beside himself. i cannot comprehend what his wife is doing to him. she has apparently already come to realize that she is not succeeding in tuskamuck, and is determined to conquer by display and showy ways of living. she cannot know us very well if she supposes that such means will do here. her latest move i find it hard to forgive her. i do not understand how george can have done it, no matter how much she urged him; but i am of course profoundly ignorant how such a woman controls a man. i am afraid one thing which made him attractive to me was that he was so willing to be influenced, but we see a man in a light entirely different when it is another woman who shapes his life. what once seemed a fine compliance takes on a strange appearance of weakness when we are no longer the moving force; but i think i do myself no more than justice when i feel that at least i tried always to influence george for his own good. poor miss charlotte came over directly after breakfast this morning to tell me. she had been brooding over it half the night, poor soul, and her eyes looked actually withered with crying and lack of sleep. "i know i exaggerate it," she kept saying, "and of course he didn't mean to insult me; but to think anybody dared to ask me to sell the house, the kendall house that our family has lived in for four generations! it would have killed my father if he had known i should live to come to this!" i tried to soothe her, and to make her believe that in offering to buy her house george had thought only of how much he admired it, and not at all of her feelings, which he could not understand. "of course he could not understand my feelings," miss charlotte said, with a bitterness which i am sure was unconscious. "he never had a family, and i ought to remember that." she grew somewhat more calm as she unburdened her heart. she told me george had praised the place, and said how much he had always liked it. he confessed that it was his wife who first suggested the purchase: she wanted a house where she could entertain and which would be of more importance than the one in which she lived. "he said," miss charlotte went on with a strange mingling of pride and sorrow, "his wife felt that the house in itself would give any family social standing. i don't know how pleased his wife would be if she knew he told me, but he said it. he told me she meant to have repairs and improvements. she must feel as if she owned it already. he said she had an iron dog stored somewhere that she meant to put on the lawn. think of it, ruth, an iron dog on our old lawn!" then suddenly all the sorrow of her lot seemed to overwhelm her at once, and she broke down completely. she sobbed so unrestrainedly and with so complete an abandonment of herself to her grief that i cried with her, even while i was trying to stop her tears. "it isn't just george weston's coming to ask me to sell the place," she said; "it is all of it: it's my being so poor i can't keep up the name, and the family's ending with me, and none of my kin even to bury me. it's all of the hurts i've got from life, ruth; and it's growing so old i've no strength any longer to bear them. oh, it's having to keep on living when i want to be dead!" i threw my arms about her, and kissed the tears from her wrinkled cheeks, though there were about as many on my own. "don't," i begged her, "don't, dear miss charlotte. you break my heart! we are all of us your kin, and you know we love you dearly." she returned my embrace convulsively, and tried to check her sobbing. "i know it's cowardly," she got out brokenly. "it's cowardly and wicked. i never broke down so before. i won't, ruth dear. just give me a little time." dear miss charlotte! i made her stay with me all day; and indeed she was in no condition to do anything else. i got her to take a nap in the afternoon, and when she went home she was once more her own brave self. she said good-night with one of her clumsy joking speeches. "good-by, my dear," she said; "the next time i come i'll try not to be so much like the waterworks girl that had a creek in her back and a cataract in each eye." she is always facetious when she does not quite trust herself to be serious. and i, who do not dare to trust myself to think about george and his wife, had better stop writing. june . deacon richards presented himself at twilight, and found me sitting alone out on the doorsteps. i watched his tall figure coming up the driveway, bent with age a little, but still massive and vigorous; and somehow by the time he was near enough to speak, i felt that i had caught his mood. he smiled broadly as he greeted me. "where's the baby?" he demanded. "i supposed i should find you giving it its supper." "there isn't any 'it' in this house," was my retort; "and as for baby's supper, you are just as ignorant as a man always is. any woman would know that babies are put to bed long before this." he grinned down upon me from his height. "how should i know what time it went to bed?" he asked, with a laugh in his voice. "i never raised a baby. i've come to talk about it, though." "look here, deacon daniel," i cried out, with affected indignation, "i will not have my baby called 'it,' as if she were a stick or a stock!" he laughed outright at this; then at my invitation sat down beside me. we were silent for a time, looking at the color fading in the west, and the single star swimming out of the purple as the sky changed into gray. the frogs were working at their music with all the persistence of a child strumming five-finger exercises, but their noise only made the evening more peaceful. "how restful it is," i said to him at last; "it almost makes one feel there can never be any fretting again about anything." deacon daniel did not answer for a moment, then he said with the solemnity of one who seldom puts sentiment into words,-- "it is like the twenty-third psalm." i simply assented, and then we were silent again, until at last he moved as if he were waking himself, and sighed. i always wonder whether somewhere in the past deacon richards has had his romance, and if so what it may have been. if he has, a night like this might well bring it up to his memory. i am glad if it comes to him with the peace of a psalm. "have you thought, miss ruth," the deacon asked at length in the growing dark, "what a responsibility you are taking upon yourself in having that baby?" it was like the dear old man to have considered me and to look at the moral side of the question. he wanted to help me, i could see; and of course he cannot understand how entirely religious one may be without theology. i told him i had thought of it very seriously; and it seemed to me sometimes that it was more than i was equal to. but i added that i could not help thinking i could do better by baby than mrs. webbe. "mrs. webbe is no sort of a woman to bring up a child," he agreed. then he added, with a shrewdness that surprised me a little: "babies have got to be given baby-treatment as well as baby-food." "of course they have," was my reply. "babies have a right to love as well as to milk, and poor little thomasine would get very little from her grandmother." deacon daniel gave a contemptuous snort. "that woman couldn't really love anything," he declared; "or if she did she'd show it by being hateful." i said she certainly loved tom. "yes," he retorted; "and she's nagged him to death. for my part i can't more than half blame tom webbe as i ought to, when i think of his having had his mother to thorn him everlastingly." "then you do think it's better for baby to be with me than with her grandmother?" i asked him. "it's a hundred times better, of course; but i wondered if you'd thought of the responsibility of its--of her religious instruction." we had come to the true kernel of the deacon's errand. i really believe that in his mind was more concern for me than for baby. he is always unhappy that i am not in the fold of the church; and i fancy that more or less consciously he was making of thomasine an excuse for an attempt to reach me. it is not difficult to understand his feeling. mother used to affirm that believers are anxious to proselyte because they cannot bear to have anybody refuse to acknowledge that they are right. this is not, i am sure, the whole of it. of course no human being likes to be thought wrong, especially on a thing which, like religion, cannot be proved; but there is a good deal of genuine love in the attempt of a man like deacon daniel to convert an unbeliever. he is really grieved for me, and i would do anything short of actual dishonesty to make him suppose that i believed as he would have me. i should so like him to be happy about my eternal welfare. when the future does not in the least trouble me, it seems such a pity that he should be disturbed. i told him to-night i should not give baby what he would call religious instruction, but i should never interfere if others should teach her, if they made what is good attractive. "but you would tell her that religion isn't true," he objected. "oh, no;" i answered. "i should have to be honest, and tell her if she asked that i don't believe we know anything about another life; but of course as far as living in this one goes i shouldn't disagree with religion." he tried to argue with me, but i entirely refused to be led on. "deacon daniel," i told him, "i know it is all in your kindness for me that you would talk, but i refuse to have this beautiful summer evening wasted on theology. you couldn't convince me, and i don't in the least care about convincing you. i am entirely content that you should believe your way, and i am entirely satisfied with mine. now i want to talk with you about our having a reading-room next winter." so i got him to another subject, and what is better i think i really interested him in my scheme of opening a free library. if we can once get that to working it will be a great help to the young men and boys. "the time seems to have come in human development," i remember father's saying not long before he died, "when men must be controlled by the broadening instead of by the narrowing of their minds." june . i have been considering why it is that i have had so much said to me this spring about religion. people have not been in the habit of talking to me about it much. they have come to let me go my own way. i suppose the fact of mother's death has brought home to them that i do not think in their way. how a consistent and narrow man can look at the situation i have had a painful illustration in mr. thurston. if kathie had not pushed him into a corner by asking him about mother, i doubt if he could have gone to the length he did; but after all any really consistent believer must take the view that i am doomed to eternal perdition. i am convinced that few really do believe anything of the sort, but they think that they do, and so baby and i have been a centre of religious interest. another phase of this interest has shown itself in mr. saychase's desire to baptize thomasine. i wonder if i had better put my preferences in my pocket, and let the thing be done. it offends my sense of right that a human being should have solemn vows made for her before she can have any notions of what all this means; but if one looks at the whole as simply promises on the part of adults that they will try to have the child believe certain things and follow certain good ways of living, there is no great harm in it. i suppose deacon webbe and his wife would be pleased. i will let tom decide the matter. june . i met tom in the street to-day, and he absolutely refuses to have baby christened. "i'll have no mummeries over any child of mine," he declared. "i've had enough of that humbug to last me a lifetime." i could not help saying i wished he were not so bitter. "i can't help it, ruth," was his retort. "i am bitter. i've been banged over the head with religion ever since i was born, and told that i was 'a child of the covenant' till i hate the very thought of the whole business. whatever you do, don't give anybody the right to twit thomasine with being 'a child of the covenant.' she has enough to bear in being the child of her parents." "don't, tom," i begged him. "you hurt me." without thinking what i did i put my hand on his arm. he brushed it lightly with his fingers, looking at it in a way that almost brought tears to my eyes. i took it off quickly, but i could not face him, and i got away at once. poor tom! he is so lonely and so faithful. i am so sorry that he will keep on caring for me like that. no woman is really good enough not to tremble at the thought of absorbing the devotion of a strong man; and it seems wicked that i should not love tom. june . the rose i transplanted to mother's grave is really, i believe, going to bloom this very summer. i am glad the blossoms on father's should have an echo on hers. june . babies and diaries do not seem to go very well together. there is no tangible reason why i should not write after the small person is asleep, for that is the time i have generally taken; but the fact is i sit working upon some of tomine's tiny belongings, or now and then sit in the dark and think about her. my journal has been a good friend, but i am afraid its nose is out of joint. baby has taken its place. i begin to see i made this book a sort of safety-valve for poor spirits and general restlessness. now i have this sweet human interest in my life i do not need to resort to pen and ink for companionship. the dear little rosy image of thomasine is with me all the time i seem to be sitting alone. june . last night i felt as if i was done with relieving my mind by writing in an unresponsive journal; to-night i feel as if i must have just this outlet to my feelings. last night i thought of baby; to-night i am troubled about her father. i saw tom this afternoon at work in the hayfield, looking so brown and so handsome that it was a pleasure to see him. he had the look of a man who finds work just the remedy for heart-soreness, and i was happy in thinking he was getting into tune with wholesome life. i was so pleased that i took the footpath across the field as a mere excuse to speak to him, and i thought he would have been glad to see me. i came almost up to him before he would notice me, although i think he must have seen me long before. he took off his hat as i came close to him, and wiped his forehead. "tom," i said at once, "i came this way just to say how glad i am to see you look as if you were getting contented with your work. you were working with such a will." i do not know that it was a tactful speech, but i was entirely unprepared for the shadow which came over his face. "i was trying to get so completely tired out that i should sleep like a log to-night," he answered. before anything else could be said deacon daniel came up, and the talk for the rest was of the weather, and the hay, and nothings. i came away as sad as i had before been pleased. i can understand that tom is sore in his heart. he is dominant, and his life is made up of things which he hates; he is ambitious, and he is fond of pleasure. he has no pleasure, and he can see nothing before him but staying on with his father. it is true enough that it is his own fault. he has never been willing to stick to work, and the keenest of his regrets must be about his own ill-doing. he is so generous, however, and so manly and kind that i cannot bear to see him grow hard and sad and bitter. yet what can i do to help it? certainly this is another case for asking if i am my brother's keeper. i am afraid that i was resigned not to be the keeper of mrs. weston, but with tom it is different. poor tom! vii july july . thomasine is legally my daughter. it gives me an odd feeling to find myself really a parent. george and tom met here this forenoon with the papers, and all necessary formalities were gone through with. it was not a comfortable time for any of us, i fancy; and i must own that george acted strangely. he was out of spirits, and was but barely civil to tom. he has never liked the idea of my having thomasine, and has tried two or three times to persuade me to give her up. i have refused to discuss the question with him, because it was really settled already. to-day he came before tom, and made one more protest. "you can keep the child if you are so determined," he said, "though why you should want to i can't conceive; but why need you adopt it? it hasn't any claim on you." i told him that she had the claim that i loved her dearly. he looked at me with an expression more unkind than i had ever seen in his face. "how much is it for her father's sake?" he burst out. the words, offensive as they were, were less so than the manner. "a good deal," i answered him soberly. "i have been his friend from the time we were both children." he moved in his chair uneasily. "look here, ruth," he said; "you've no occasion to be offended because i hint at what everybody else will say." i asked what that was. "you are angry," was his response. "when you put on your grand air it is no use to argue with you; but i've made up my mind to be plain. everybody says you took the baby because you are fond of him." i could feel myself stiffening in manner with every word, but i could not help it. i had certainly a right to be offended; but i tried to speak as naturally as i could. "i don't know, george," was my reply, "what business it is of everybody's; and if it were, why should i not be fond of tom?" he flushed and scowled, and got up from his seat. "oh, if you take it that way," he answered, "of course there's nothing more for me to say." i was hurt and angry, but before anything more could be said rosa showed tom in. he said good-morning to george stiffly, but tom is always instinctively polite, i think. george had toward him an air plainly unfriendly. i do not understand why george should feel as he does about my adopting thomasine, but in any case he has no right to behave as he did. i felt between the two men as if i were hardly able to keep the peace, and as if on the slightest provocation, george would fly out. it was absurd, of course, but the air seemed to be full of unfriendliness. "i suppose we need not be very long over business," i said, trying with desperation to speak brightly. "i've been over the papers, tom, and i can assure you they are all right. i'm something of a lawyer, you know." george interposed, as stiffly as possible, that he must urge me to have the instrument read aloud, in order that i might realize what i was doing. i assured him i knew perfectly what the paper was, even if it were called an instrument. "ruth is entirely right," tom put in emphatically. "there is not the slightest need of dragging things out." "i can understand that you naturally would not want any delay," george retorted sharply. tom turned and looked at him with an expression which made george change color, but before anything worse could be said, i hurried to ask tom to ring for rosa to act as a witness. i looked in my turn at george, and i think he understood how indignant i was. "it's outrageous for you to burden yourself with his brat," george muttered under his breath as tom went across the room to the bell-rope. "you forget that you are speaking of my daughter," i answered him, with the most lofty air i could manage to assume. he turned on his heel with an angry exclamation, and no more objections were made. george never showed me this unpleasant side of his character before in all the years i have known him. for the moment he behaved like a cad, like nothing else than a cad. something very serious must have been troubling him. he must have been completely unstrung before he could be so disagreeable. rosa came in, and the signing was done. after the business was finished george lingered as if he wished to speak with me. very likely he wished to apologize, but my nerves were not in tune for more talk with him, and in any case it was better to ignore all that had been unpleasant. "you have no more business, have you, george?" i asked him directly. "tom of course will want to see the daughter he has given away. i didn't let him see her first for fear he'd refuse to part with her." george had no excuse for staying after that, and he was just leaving the room when rosa reappeared with tomine. the darling looked like a cherub, and was in a mood truly angelic. george scowled at her as if the dear little thing had done him some wrong, and hurried away. i do not understand how he could resist my darling, or why he should feel so about her. it is, i suppose, friendship for me; but he should realize a little what a blessing baby is to my lonely life. tom stood silent when rosa took thomasine up to him. he did not offer to touch the tiny pink face, and i could fancy how many thoughts must go through his mind as he looked. while he might not regret the dead woman, indeed, while he could hardly be other than glad that julia was not alive, he must have some feeling about her which goes very deep. i should think any man who was not wholly hard must have some tenderness toward the mother of his child, no matter who or what she was. it moves even me, to think of such a feeling; and i could not look at tom as he stood there with the living child to remind him of the dead mother. it seemed a long time that he looked at baby, and we were all as quiet as if we had been at prayer. then tom of his own accord kissed tomine. he has never done it before except as i have asked him. he came over to me and held out his hand. "i must go back to haying," he said. then he held my hand a minute, and looked into my eyes. "make her as much like yourself as you can, ruth," he added; "and god bless you." the tears came into my eyes at his tone, and blinded me. before i could see clearly, he was gone. i hope he understood that i appreciated the generosity of his words. july . i am troubled by the thought of yesterday. george went away so evidently out of sympathy with what i had done, and very likely thinking i was unfriendly, that it seems almost as if i had really been unkind. i must do something to show him that i am the same as ever. perhaps the best thing will be to have his wife to tea. my mourning has prevented my doing anything for them, and secretly, i am ashamed to say, this has been a relief. i can ask them quietly, however, without other guests. july . i feel a little as if i had been shaken up by an earthquake, but i am apparently all here and unhurt. day before yesterday cousin mehitable descended upon me in the wake of her usual telegram, determined to bear me away to europe, despite, as she said, all the babies that ever were born. she had arranged my passage, fixed the date, engaged state-rooms, and cabled for a courier-maid to meet us at southampton; and now i had, she insisted, broken up all her arrangements. "it's completely ungrateful, ruth," she declared. "here i have been slaving to have everything ready so the trip would go smoothly for you. i've done absolutely every earthly thing that i could think of, and now you won't go. you've no right to back out. it's treating me in a way i never was treated in my whole life. it's simply outrageous." i attempted to remind her that she had been told of my decision to stay at home long before she had made any of her arrangements; but she refused to listen. "i could bear it better," she went on, "if you had any decent excuse; but it's nothing but that baby. i must say i think it's a pretty severe reflection on me when you throw me over for any stray baby that happens to turn up." i tried again to put in a protest, but the tide of cousin mehitable's indignation is not easily stemmed. "to think of your turning cousin horace's house into a foundling hospital!" she exclaimed. "why don't you put up a sign? twenty babies wouldn't be any worse than one, and you'd be able to make a martyr of yourself to some purpose. oh, i've no patience with you!" i laughed, and assured her that there was no sort of doubt of the truth of her last statement; so then she changed her tone and begged me not to be so obstinate. of course i could not yield, for i cannot desert baby; and in the end cousin mehitable was forced to give me up as incorrigible. then she declared i should not triumph over her, and she would have me know that there were two people ready and just dying to take my place. i knew she could easily find somebody. the awkward thing about this visit was that cousin mehitable should be here just when i had asked the westons to tea. i always have a late dinner for cousin mehitable, although hannah regards such a perversion of the usual order of meals as little less than immoral; and so george and his wife found a more ceremonious repast than i had intended. i should have liked better to have things in their usual order, for i feared lest mrs. weston might not be entirely at her ease. i confess i had not supposed she might think i was endeavoring to impress her with my style of living until she let it out so plainly that i could not by any possibility mistake her meaning. she evidently wished me to know that she saw through my device; and of course i made no explanations. it was an uncomfortable meal. cousin mehitable refused to be conciliating. she examined the bride through her lorgnette, and i could see that mrs. weston was angered while she was apparently fascinated. george was taciturn, and i could not make things go smoothly, though i tried with all my might. by the time the guests went, i felt that my nerves were fiddlestrings. "well," cousin mehitable pronounced, as soon as the door had closed behind them, "of all the dowdy frumps i ever saw, she is the worst. i never saw anybody so overdressed." "she was overdressed," i assented; "but you behaved horribly. you frightened her into complete shyness." "shyness! humph!" was her response. "she has no more shyness than a brass monkey. that's vulgar, of course, ruth. i meant it to be to match the subject." i put in a weak defense of mrs. weston, although i honestly do find her a most unsatisfactory person. she is self-conscious, and somehow she does not seem to me to be very frank. very likely, moreover, she had been disconcerted by the too evident snubs of my unmanageable cousin. "if i snubbed her," was the uncompromising rejoinder with which a suggestion of this sort was met, "i'm sure i am not ashamed of it. to think of her saying that you evidently wanted to show tuskamuck how to do things in style! does she think any person with style would let her into the house?" i thanked her for the compliment to me. "oh, bother!" she retorted. "you are only a goose, with no sense at all. to think you once thought of marrying that country booby yourself!" i was too much hurt to reply, and probably my face showed my feeling, for cousin mehitable burst into a laugh. "you needn't look so grumpy about it," she cried. "all's well that ends well. you're safely out of that, thank heaven!" i felt that loyalty to george required that i should protest, but she interrupted me. "don't be a humbug, ruth," she said; "and for pity's sake don't be such a fool as to try to humbug yourself. you're not a sentimental schoolgirl to moon after a man, especially when he's shown what his taste is by taking up with such a horror as mrs. weston." "i am fond of him," i asserted, stubbornly enough. she seized me by the shoulders, and looked with her quick black eyes into mine so that i felt as if she could see down to my very toes. "can you look me in the face, ruth privet, and tell me you really care for a man who could marry that ignorant, vulgar, dowdy woman just for her pretty face? can you fool yourself into thinking that you haven't had a lucky escape from a man that's in every way your inferior? you know you have! why, can you honestly think now for a moment of marrying him without feeling your backbone all gooseflesh?" fortunately she did not insist upon my answering her, but shook me and let me go. i doubt if i could have borne to have her press her questions. i was suddenly conscious that george has changed or that my idea of him has altered; and that if he were still single, i could not marry him under any circumstances. cousin mehitable went home this morning, but her talk has been in my mind all day. it comes over me that i have lost more than george. his loving another did not deprive me of the power or the right to love him, and his marriage simply set him away from my life. in some other life, if there be one, i might have always been sure he would come back to me. i cannot help knowing i fed his higher nature, and i helped him to grow, while his wife appeals to something lower, even if it is more natural and human. i felt that in some other possible existence he would see more clearly, and she would no longer satisfy him. now i begin to feel that i have lost more than i knew. i have lost not only him, but i have lost--no, i cannot have lost my love for him. it is only that to-night i am foolish. it is rainy, dreary, hopeless; and seeing mrs. weston through cousin mehitable's eyes has put things all askew. yet why not put it down fearlessly, since i have begun? if i am to write at all it should be the truth. i am beginning to see that the man i loved was not george weston so much as a creature i conjured up in his image. i see him now in a colder, a more sane light, and i find that i am not looking at the man who filled my heart and thought. he has somehow changed. this would be a comfort to some, i suppose. i see now how mother felt about him. she never thought him what he seemed to me, and she always believed that sooner or later i should be disappointed in him. i should not have been disappointed if i had married him--i think! yet now i see how he is under the influence of his wife--but no, it is not her influence only; i see him now, i fear, as he is when he is free to act his true self, unmoved by the desire to be what i would have had him. he was influenced by me. i knew it from the very first, and i see with shame how proud of it i was. yet it gave me a chance to help him, to grow with him, to feel that we were together developing and advancing. oh, dear, how cold and superior, and conceited it sounds now it is on paper! it truly was not that i thought i was above him; but it is surely the part of a woman to inspire her lover and to grow into something better with him. now it seems as if whatever george did he did for me, and not because of any inner love for growth. he appears now less worthy by just so much as what he was seems to me higher than what he is. i have lost what he was. it is cruel that i cannot find the george i cared for. it is hard to believe he existed only in my mind. july . i have been reading over what i wrote last night. it troubles me, and it has a most self-righteous flavor; but i cannot see that it is not true. it troubles me because it is true. i remember that i wondered when george tired of me if the same would have come about if we had married. am i so changeable that if i had been his wife i should have tried him by my severe standards, and then judged him unworthy? i begin to think the pharisees were modest and self-distrustful as compared to self-righteous me. it is terribly puzzling. if i were his wife i should surely feel that my highest duty was to help him, to bring out whatever is best in him. i think i should have been too absorbed in this ever to have discovered that i was idealizing him. now i am far enough away from him to see him clearly. the worse part of him has come out; and very likely i am not above a weak feminine jealousy which makes me incapable of doing him justice. i believe if i had been his wife i might have kept him--yet he was already tired of my influence! such speculations are pretty unprofitable work. the only thing to keep in mind now is that he is my friend, and that it is for me to do still whatever i can for him. i confess that cousin mehitable is right. i am no longer sorry i did not marry george, but i still care for him sincerely, and mean to serve him in every way possible. july . miss charlotte came in this morning while i was playing with tomine, and hailed me as a mother in israel. she is a great admirer of baby, but she declines to touch her. "i'm too big and too rough," she says. "i know i should drop her or break her, or forget she isn't a plant, and go to snipping her with my pruning-shears. you'd better keep her. you've the motherly way with you." it must please any woman to be told that she has the motherly way, and just now i certainly need it. miss charlotte came to talk with me about kathie. the poor child has been growing more and more morbid all summer, and i do not see what is to be done for her. i have tried to comfort and help her, but as her troubles are religious i am all but helpless. miss charlotte went over the cove yesterday on one of her roving tramps in the woods,--"bushwhacking," as she calls it,--and found kathie roaming about in elder's cut-down, wringing her hands and crying aloud like a mad thing. "you can't tell what a start it gave me, ruth," she said. "i heard her, and i thought of wild beasts and wild indians, and all sorts of horrors. then when i saw her, i didn't know her at first. her hair was all tousled up, and she wrung her hands in the craziest way." "did you speak to her?" i asked. "i couldn't. she ran away as soon as i called to her. she'll end in a lunatic asylum if you don't get hold of her." i could only shake my head. "what can i do, miss charlotte?" i asked her. "the trouble is she is half crazy about sin and judgment, and things of that sort that i don't even believe in at all. what can i say? you don't want me to tell her her father's religion is a mistake, i suppose." miss charlotte smiled serenely, and regarded me with a look of much sweet kindliness. "you're a fearful heathen, ruth," was her response, "but you have a fine wheedling way with you. couldn't you persuade her she's too young to think about such things?" "i've tried something of the kind, but she says she is not too young to die. she is like a child out of an old memoir. she isn't of our time at all. we read of that sort of a girl, but i supposed they all died a hundred years ago." "i doubt if there ever were such girls," miss charlotte returned with candor; "except once in a very great while. i think the girls of the memoirs were very much like the rest of us most of the time. they probably had spells of being like kathie. the difference is that she is at boiling point all the time." "of course it's her father," i said thoughtfully. "yes," she assented. "he's such a rampant methodist." i could not help the shadow of a smile, and when she saw it miss charlotte could no more help smiling in her turn. "of course you think it's a case of the pot's calling the kettle black," she said, "but the methodists do make such a business of frightening folks out of their wits. we don't do that." i let this pass, and asked if she couldn't make some practical suggestion for the treatment of kathie. "i can't tell you how to dilute her methodism," she returned with a shrewd twinkle in her eye. "you must know the way better than i do." i am troubled and perplexed. i have so many times wondered what i ought to do about talking to kathie. i have always felt that the fact her father trusted her with me put me on my honor not to say things to her of which he would not approve. it seemed unwise, too, for the child to have any more turmoil in her brain than is there already; and i know that to make her doubt would be to drive her half distracted. the question is whether she has not really begun to doubt already, and needs to be helped to think fearlessly. she is a strange survival from another century. our grandmothers used to agonize over sin, it is claimed, although i think miss charlotte is probably right when she says they were after all a good deal like us. at any rate they were brought up to dread eternal punishment, but it is astonishing to find anybody now who receives this as anything but a theory. belief in the old creeds would seem impossible in these days except in a conventional and remote fashion; and yet kathie takes it all with the desperation of two hundred years ago. if she were to listen to a suggestion of using her creed less like a hair-shirt, she would feel she had committed an appalling transgression. she is only a baby after all, and heaven knows what business she has with creeds anyway. i would as soon think of giving tomine dynamite bombs to play with. i said something of this sort to miss charlotte, and she agreed with me that kathie ought not to brood over theologic questions, but she thought even a child ought, as she put it, instinctively falling into the conventional phraseology of the church, to make her peace with god. i am so glad that nobody ever put it into my childish head that i could ever be at war with god. peter has made a leap to the table, and set his foot on my wet writing. evidently he thinks it foolish to waste time in this sort of scribbling; but i do wish i knew what i can do and what i ought to do. july . deacon daniel webbe came this afternoon to see his granddaughter. mrs. webbe--had forbidden him, i was about to write, but perhaps that is not fair. he only said she thought he had better not come, and he tried clumsily to hint that he hoped i would not betray him. it was touching to see him, he was so much moved by the beauty and the daintiness of baby, and by all the thoughts he must have had about tom. he said little, only that he spoke with a good deal of feeling of how good it is in tom to stay at home and take charge of the farm; but tears were in his patient eyes, and he looked at tomine with a glance so pathetic that i had to go away to wipe my own. i find that having baby here naturally keeps my thoughts a good deal on tom and his possible future. i can't help the feeling that i owe him some sort of reparation for the devotion he has given me all these years. surely a woman owes a man something for his caring for her so, even if she cannot feel in the same way toward him. tom has always been a part of my life. we were boy and girl together long before i knew george. when the westons moved here, i must have been ten or twelve years old; and i never knew george until father took him into the office. it was the winter father had first been ill, and he had to have an assistant at once. i remember perfectly the excellent reports father got from some office in boston where george had been, and these decided him. he had been inclined not to like george at the beginning. i think i first became interested in george through defending him. george always seemed rather to prefer that i should not know his people, and this struck me as strange. the less admirable they were the more tom would have insisted upon my knowing them. dear old tom! how many times he has told me of his own faults, and never of his good deeds. he is certainly one of the most stubbornly honest creatures alive. tom and george are about as different as two mortals could be. george has very little of tom's frankness, and he has not much of tom's independence. father used to declare that george would always be led by a woman, but would never own it to himself. i wonder if this is true. he is being led now by his wife. i fancy, though, he has no idea of such a thing. tom would lead wherever he was. i have rambled far enough away from deacon daniel and the baby. i do hope tomine will have her father's honesty. if she have that, other things may be got over. deacon daniel spoke of her having her father's eyes, and she could hardly have tom's eyes and not be straightforward. july . mr. saychase has taken to frequent pastoral visitations of late. he probably feels now that the moral welfare of baby is involved he must be especially active. i wish he did not bore me so, for he comes often, and i do wish to be friendly. to-night he seemed rather oddly interested in my plans for the future. "i hope that you mean to remain in tuskamuck," he said. "some folks think you are likely to move to boston." i told him that i had no such intention, and reminded him that baby made a new bond between me and the place. "oh, the baby," he responded, it seemed to me rather blankly. "you mean, i presume, that you contemplate keeping the infant." "keeping her?" i responded. "why, i have adopted her." "i heard so," mr. saychase admitted; "but i did not credit the report. i suppose you will place her in some sort of a home." "yes," i answered; "in my home." he flushed a little, and as he was my guest i set myself to put him at his ease. but i should like to understand why everybody is so determined that tomine shall be sent to a "home." july . i went to see old lady andrews to-day. she was as sweet and dear as ever, and as immaculate as if she had just been taken out of rose-leaves and lavender. she never has a hair of her white curls out of place, and her cheeks are at seventy-five pinker than mine. i like to see her in her own house, for she seems to belong to the time of the antique furniture, so entirely is she in harmony with it. i get a fresh sense of virtue every time i look at her beautiful old laces. i wonder if the old masters ever painted angels in thread laces; if not it was a great oversight. dear old lady andrews, she has had enough sorrow in her life to embitter any common mortal; her husband, her two sons, and her near kin are all dead before her; but she is too sweet and fine to degenerate. when sorrow does not sour, how it softens and ennobles. old lady andrews was greatly interested about baby, and we gossiped of her in a delightful way for half an hour. "it pleases me very much, ruth," she said at last, "to see how motherly you are. i never had any doubt about you at all except that i wondered whether you could really mother a baby. i knew you would love it, and be kind, of course; but babies ought to have motherliness if they are really to thrive." i flushed with pleasure, and asked if she meant that she had thought me cut out for an old maid. "if i did," she answered, with that smile of hers which always makes me want to kiss her on the spot, "i shall never think so again. you've the genuine mother-instinct." she looked at me a moment as if questioning with herself. "the truth is," she went on, as if she had made up her mind to say the whole, "you have been for years making an intellectual interest do instead of real love, and of course your manner showed it." i could not ask her what she meant, though i only half understood, and i wished to hear more. she grew suddenly more serious, and spoke in a lower tone. "ruth," she asked, "i am an old woman, and i am fond of you. may i say something that may sound impertinent?" of course i told her she might say anything, and that i knew she could not be impertinent. i could not think what was coming. she leaned forward, and put her thin hand on mine, the little tennant hand with its old-fashioned rings. "it is just this, ruth. be careful whom you marry. i'm so afraid you'll marry somebody out of charity. at least don't think of being a parson's wife." "a parson's wife?" i echoed stupidly, not in the least seeing what she meant. "that would be worse than to take up with the prodigal son," she added, not heeding my interrogation; "though it does seem to me, my dear, that you are too good to be just served up like a fatted calf in honor of his return." i stared at her with bewilderment so complete that she burst into a soft laugh, as mellow as her old laces. "i am speaking parables, of course, and it's no matter now about the prodigal. i only wanted to suggest that you are not just the wife for mr. saychase, and"-- "mr. saychase!" i burst out, interrupting her, i think, for the first time in my life. "why, who ever thought of anything so preposterous?" "oh, you innocent!" she laughed. "i knew you'd be the last one to see it, and i wanted to warn you so that he need not take you entirely by surprise. he is my pastor, and a very good man in his way; but he isn't our kind, my dear." i sat staring at her in a sort of daze, while i suddenly remembered how much mr. saychase has been to see me lately, and how self-conscious he has seemed sometimes. i had not a word to say, even in protest, and old lady andrews having, i suppose, accomplished all she wished in warning me, dropped the subject entirely, and turned back to thomasine's doings and welfare. the idea that mr. saychase has been thinking of me as a possible helpmate is certainly ludicrous. i believe thoroughly any girl should "thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love," but in this case i do not see how love comes into the question at all. i cannot help feeling that he would intellectually be the sort of a husband to put into a quart-pot, there to bid him drum, and at least he will lose no sleep from a blighted passion for me. certainly i should be intellectually starved if i had to live with him. he is not naturally a man of much power of thinking, i suppose, and he has never cultivated the habit. one cannot help seeing that whatever his original capabilities they have been spoiled by his profession. a minister, father said to me once, must either be so spiritual that his creed has no power to restrain him, or a poor crippled thing, pathetic because the desire of rising has made him hamper himself with vows. i think i understand what he meant, and i am afraid mr. saychase is of the latter sort: a man who meant well, and so pledged himself always to cling to the belief the church had made for him, no matter what higher light might come into his life. he is to be pitied,--though he would not understand why. he could hardly care for anybody so far from his way of thinking as i am, so old lady andrews cannot be right there. july . george is having his house enlarged. mrs. weston is certainly energetic, with what is perhaps a western energy. she has been married only about four months. george told me the other day that he meant to make the house larger. "gertrude wants a bigger parlor," he explained, rather ill at ease, i thought. "the house is big enough for me, but when a man has a wife things are different." there was a labored playfulness in his manner which troubled me. he has bought a phaeton and pony for her. i hope that he is not going beyond his means. as for a larger parlor, i am afraid that mrs. weston will have to fill it with rather odd people. july . kathie has shown a new side to her character which troubles me. it is all, i suppose, part of her morbid, unhinged condition, but it is unpleasant. she has conceived a violent jealousy of baby. she refuses to stay in the house if i have thomasine with me. this afternoon i had sent for her to come over and stay to tea. she came in about five, with a wild look in her eyes which she has almost all the time now. she sat down without saying anything, and began to pull the roses in a bowl on the table to pieces, scattering the petals on the floor. i laughingly told her that she evidently thought she was in the woods where roses grew wild and there were no rugs. instead of answering me, or apologizing, she looked at me strangely, and for a moment said nothing. "are you going to have baby brought down here this afternoon?" she demanded at last. i said tomine was out with rosa, but that i expected them in soon, as it was almost time for baby's supper. "will she come in here?" kathie asked. "oh, yes," was my reply. "you will see her. never fear." "then i may as well go home now," observed this astounding child, rising, and going deliberately toward the door. "what in the world do you mean?" i cried out, completely taken by astonishment. "i never will stay in the room with her again," kathie responded emphatically. "i just hate her!" i could only stare at her. "you're all taken up with her now," kathie continued. "you used to like me, but now it's all that baby. i'm much obliged to you for inviting me to supper, but i can't stay any longer if she's coming." if anybody could make me understand whether kathie is sane or not i should have more confidence in attempting to deal with her. to-day i felt as if i were dealing with a mad creature, and that it was idle to try to do anything. it seemed to me it would be a pity to treat the matter too seriously, and i tried to act as if i thought she was merely joking. i laughingly told her that the idea was one of the funniest i ever heard, and that we must tell baby when she came in, to see if we could make the small person laugh. kathie received my remarks with unmoved seriousness. "it isn't a joke at all, miss ruth," she said, with an uncanny air which was most uncomfortable, but which in some indefinable way gave me for the first time in all my dealings with the girl a sort of hint that she was partly acting. "it is just my wicked heart. i hate"-- i interrupted her briskly. "your wicked fiddlesticks, kathie!" i said. "don't talk nonsense. what time has been settled on for the church fair?" she was so taken aback that she had no defense ready, and after a sort of gasp of amazement she answered my question, and said no more about her wickedness. baby came in with rosa, and kathie behaved as usual, only i remember now that she did not offer to touch tomine. i went upstairs for a moment with rosa and baby to see if everything was right, and when i went back to the parlor my guest had taken herself off. she had gone without her supper as she had said she should. i confess my first feeling was that she needed to be soundly shaken; but after all when a child is morbidly wrong in her feelings the particular way in which she shows it is not of much consequence. perhaps she had better be expending her distempered mood on jealousy of baby than on religion. the question is what i had better do; and i confess i do not know how to answer it. july . mr. saychase has made his purpose and his ideas entirely clear, and i wish i could think of them with less inclination to laugh. if he could for a single minute know how funny he was, it would do him more good than anything i can think of as likely to happen to him. he came to call to-night, and so evident was his air of excitement that even rosa must have noticed it; she was all significant smiles when she ushered him in. i tried to talk about commonplace things, but could get practically no response. for half an hour by the clock we went stumbling on with intervals of silence when i could think of nothing except that i must say something. at last he cleared his throat with a manner so desperate and determined that i knew something dreadful was coming. "miss privet," he said, "i thought i would mention to you that i came to-night for a particular purpose." it came over me with a sickening sense that old lady andrews was right, and that it was too late to stop him. i did make a desperate effort to interpose, but he had at last got started, and would not be stayed. "you must have noticed," he went on, as if he were repeating a lesson, "that i entertain a great respect for your character." "indeed, mr. saychase," i responded, with a laugh which was principally nerves, "you evidently mean to make me unbearably vain." "that you could never be," he returned with an air of gallantry i should not have thought him capable of. "your modesty is one of your greatest charms." the girl who can hear her modesty praised and not be amused must be lacking in a sense of humor. i laughed aloud before i realized what i was doing. then, as he looked hurt, i apologized humbly. "it's no matter," he said graciously; "of course you wouldn't be modest if you knew how modest you are." this sounded so ambiguous and so like comic opera that in spite of myself i laughed again. "come, mr. saychase," i begged him, "don't say any more about my modesty, please. we'll take it for granted. have you seen aunt naomi this week? she has had a little return of her bad cold." "i came over to-night," he broke out explosively, not in the least diverted by my question, "to ask you to marry me." all i could do was to blurt out his name like an awkward schoolgirl. "i dare say you are surprised, miss ruth," he went on, evidently relieved to have got the first plunge over with, "but that, as we were saying, may be laid to modesty." i respect mr. saychase,--at least i think he means well, and i hated to be the means of making him uncomfortable; but this return to my modesty was too funny, and nearly sent me off into laughter again. my sense of the fun of the situation brought back, however, my self-control. "mr. saychase," i said, as gravely as i could, "i am not so dull as not to feel the honor you have done me, but such a thing is entirely impossible. we had better talk of something else." "but i am in earnest, miss privet," he urged. i assured him that i was not less so. "i hope you will not decide hastily," was his response. "i have long recognized your excellent qualities; our ages are suitable; and i think i am right in saying that we both find our highest satisfaction in doing good. be sure my esteem for you is too great for me to easily take a refusal." "but, mr. saychase," i argued, catching at any excuse to end his importunity, "you forget that i am not a sharer in your beliefs. a clergyman ought not to marry a woman that half his parish would think an atheist." "i have thought of that," he responded readily, "and knew you must recognize that a clergyman's wife should be a helpmeet in his religious work; but i hoped that for the sake of the work, if not for mine, you might be willing to give up your unhappy views." there was a sort of simplicity about this which was so complete as to be almost noble. it might be considered an amazing egotism, and it might be objected that mr. saychase had a singular idea of the sincerity of my "unhappy views;" but the entire conviction with which he spoke almost made me for the moment doubt myself. unfortunately for him, a most wickedly absurd remembrance came into my mind of a sentimental story in an old red and gold annual that was grandmother's. a noble christian chieftain has falled in love with a moorish damsel, and says to her: "beautiful zorahida, only become a christian, and thou shalt be my bride." beautiful zorahida took at once to the proposition, but i am made of more obstinate stuff. i hid the smile the story brought up, but i determined to end this talk at once. "mr. saychase," i said as firmly as i could, "you are kind, but it is utterly impossible that i should change my views or that i should marry you. we will, if you please, consider the subject closed entirely. how soon do you go to franklin to the annual conference?" he evidently saw i was in earnest, and to my great relief said no more in this line. he could not help showing that he was uncomfortable, although i was more gracious to him than i had ever been in my life. he did not stay long. as he was going i said i was sure he would not let anything i had said wound him, for i had not meant to hurt him. he said "oh, no," rather vaguely, and left me. i wonder how many girls ever get an offer of marriage without a hint of love from beginning to end! july . tomine is more adorable every day. i wish tom could see her oftener. it would soften him, and take out of his face the hard look which is getting fixed there. he surely could not resist her when she wakes up from her nap, all rosy and fresh, and with a wonder-look in her eyes as if she had been off in dreamland so really that she could not understand how she happens not to be there still. i think the clasp of her soft little fingers on his would somehow take the ache out of his heart. poor tom! i wonder how far being sorry for a thing makes one better. repentance is more than half discomfort, mother used to say. i always told her that to me it seemed like a sort of moral indigestion which warned us not to eat any more of the forbidden fruit that caused it. tom is unhappy. he is proud, and he feels the disgrace more than he would own. any country town is so extremely pronounced in its disapproval of sins of a certain kind that a man would have to be covered with a rhinoceros hide not to feel it; and to stand up against it means to a man of tom's disposition a constant attitude of defiance. sometimes i find myself feeling so strongly on tom's side that i seem to have lost all moral sense. it is my instinct, the cruelly illogical injustice of my sex perhaps, to lay the blame on poor dead julia. only--but i cannot think of it, and how i come to be writing about it is more than i can tell. i do think a good deal about tom, however, and wonder what the effect on his character will be. he is of a pretty stubborn fibre when once he has taken a determination; and now that he has made up his mind to fight down public opinion here he will do it. the question is what it will cost him. sometimes it seems a pity that he could not have gone away from home, into a broader atmosphere, and one where he could have expended his strength in developing instead of resisting. here he will be like a tree growing on a windy sea-cliff; he will be toughened, but i am afraid he will be twisted and gnarled. i wonder if little tomine will ever ask me, when she is grown, about her mother. if she does i can only say that i never saw julia until she was on her deathbed; and that will have to do. dear little soft baby! the idea of her being grown up is too preposterous. she is always to be my baby thomasine, and then i can love her without the penalty of having to answer troublesome questions. viii august august . i said a thing to tom to-day which was the most natural thing in the world, yet which teases me. he came to pay one of his rare visits to baby, and we were bending over her so that our heads were almost together. i was not thinking of him, but just of tomine, and without considering how he might take it i declared that i felt exactly as if she were my very own. "what do you mean?" tom asked. "she is yours." "oh, but i mean as if i were really her mother," i explained, stupidly making my mistake worse. "would to god you were!" he burst out. "would to god you cared enough for me to be now!" i was of course startled, though i had brought it on myself. i got out of it by jumping up and calling to rosa to take tomine and give her her supper. now recalling it, and remembering how tom looked, his eyes and his voice, i wonder what i ought to do. i do not know how to make him understand that because george has left me i am no more likely to marry somebody else. i may not feel the same toward george, but nothing follows from that. i own to myself frankly that i respect tom more than i do george; i can even say that i find more and more as time goes on that i had rather see tom coming up the walk. the old boy and girl friendship has largely come back between tom and me; and i am a little, just a little on the defensive on his account against the talk of the village. i think now all is over, and julia in her grave, that might be allowed to rest. only one thing i do not understand. i am no more moved by the touch of george's hand now than by that of any acquaintance; i cannot touch tom's fingers without remembering julia. august . it is curious to see how rosa's heart and her religion keep up the struggle. ran's wife has obstinately refused to die, but has instead got well enough to send rosa an insulting message; so the hope of finding a solution of all difficulties in ran's becoming a widower is for the present at least abandoned. rosa is evidently fond of ran, and while the priest and her conscience--or rather her religious fear of consequences--keep her from marrying him, they cannot make her give him up entirely. she still clings to some sort of an engagement with dennis; and she still talks in her amazingly cold-blooded way about her lovers, speculating on the practical side of the question in a fashion so dispassionate that ran's chance would seem to be gone forever; but in the end she comes back to him. what the result will be i cannot even guess, but i feel it my duty not to encourage rosa to incline toward ran, who is really drunken and disreputable. i remind her how he beat his wife; but then she either says any man with spunk must beat his wife now and then when he isn't sober, or she declares that anybody might and indeed should beat that sort of a woman. i can only fall back upon the fact that she cannot marry him without incurring the displeasure of her church, and although she never fails to retort that i do not believe in her religion, i can see that the argument moves her. in dealing with rosa it is very easy to see how necessary a religion is for the management of the ignorant and unreasonable. in this case the obstinacy of rosa's attachment may prove too strong for the church, but the church is the only thing which in her undisciplined mind could combat her inclination for a moment. sometimes when rosa appeals to me for sympathy i wonder whether genuine love is not entirely independent of reason; and i wonder, too, whether it is or is not a feeling which must last a whole life long. i seem to myself to be sure that if i had married george i should always have loved him,--or i should have loved the image of him i kept in my mind. i would have defied proof and reason, and whatever he did i should have persuaded myself that no matter what circumstances led him to do he was really noble in his nature. i know i should have stultified myself to the very end, rather than to give up caring for him; and it seems to me that i should have done it with my mental eyes shut. i should have been hardly less illogical about it than rosa is. what puzzles me most is that while i can analyze myself in this lofty way, i believe i have in me possibilities of self-deception so complete. whether it is a virtue in women to be able to cheat themselves into constancy i can't tell, and indeed i think all these speculations decidedly sentimental and unprofitable. august . aunt naomi came to-day, like an east wind bearing depression. she has somehow got hold of a rumor that george is speculating. where she obtained her information i could not discover. she likes to be a little mysterious, and she pieces together so many small bits of information that i dare say it would often be hard for her to say exactly what the source of her information really was. she is sometimes mistaken, but for anybody who tells so many things she is surprisingly seldom entirely wrong. besides i half think that in a village like ours thoughts escape and disseminate themselves. i am sometimes almost afraid as i write things down in this indiscreet diary of mine, lest they shall somehow get from the page into the air, and aunt naomi will know them the next time she appears. this is to me the worst thing about living in a small place. it is impossible not to have the feeling of being under a sort of foolish slavery to public opinion, a slavish regard to feelings we neither share nor respect; and greater still is the danger of coming to be interested in trifles, of growing to be gossips just as we are rustics, simply from living where it is so difficult not to know all about our neighbors. speculation was the word which to-day aunt naomi rolled as a sweet morsel under her tongue. any sort of financial dealing is so strangely far away from our ordinary village ways that any sort of dealing in stocks would, i suppose, be regarded as dangerously rash, if not altogether unlawful; but i do hope that there is nothing in george's business which will lead him into trouble. i know that i am bothering about something which is none of my affair, and which is probably all right, if it has any existence. "i don't know much about speculation myself," aunt naomi observed; "and i doubt if george weston does. he's got a wife who seems bound to spend every cent she can get hold of, and it looks as if he found he'd got to take extra pains to get it." "but how should anybody know anything about his affairs?" i asked in perplexed vexation. she regarded me shrewdly. "everybody knows everything in a place like this," she responded waggishly. "i'm sure i don't see how everything gets to be known, but it does. you can't deny that." i told her that i was afraid we were dreadfully given to gossiping about our neighbors, and to talking about things which really didn't concern us. "some do, i suppose," she answered coolly, but with a twinkle from behind the green veil which is always aslant across her face. "it's a pity, of course; but you wouldn't have us so little interested in each other as not to notice the things we hear, would you?" i laughed, of course, but did not give up my point entirely. "but so much that is said is nonsense," i persisted. "here mrs. weston has been in tuskamuck for four or five months, and she is already credited with running into extravagance, and bringing her husband into all sorts of things. we might at least give her time to get settled before we talk about her so much." "she hadn't been here four or five weeks before she made it plain enough what she is," was the uncompromising retort. "she set out to astonish us as soon as she came. that's her western spirit, i suppose." i did not go on with the talk, but secretly the thing troubles me. speculation is a large word, and it is nonsense to suppose george to be speculating in any way which could come to much, or that aunt naomi would know it if he were. i do wish people would either stop talking about george, or talk to somebody besides me. august . mrs. tracy came in to call to-day. she makes a round of calls about once in two years, and i have not seen her for a long time. she had her usual string of questions, and asked about me and baby and tom and the girls and the summer preserving until i felt as if i had been through the longest kind of a cross-examination. just before she left she inquired if mrs. weston had told me that her husband was going to make a lot of money in stocks. i said at once that i seldom saw mrs. weston, and that i knew nothing about her husband's business affairs; but this shows where aunt naomi got her information. mrs. weston must have been talking indiscreetly. i wonder--but it seems to me i am always wondering! august . kathie has not been near me since she left the house the other evening. it seemed better to let her work out things in her own way than to go after her. i hoped that if i took no notice she might forget her foolishness, and behave in a more natural way. i met her in the street this afternoon, and stopped to speak with her. i said nothing of her having run away, but talked as usual. at last i asked her if she would not come home with me, and she turned and came to the gate. then i asked her to come in, but she stopped short. "is the baby gone?" she demanded. "no," i answered. "you know i shall never come into your house again while that baby is there," she declared in an odd, quiet sort of way. "i hate that baby, and he that hates is just like a murderer." she said it with a certain relish, as if she were proud of it. i begin to suspect that there may be a good deal of the theatrical mixed with her abnormal feeling. "kathie," i said, "you may be as silly as you like, but you can't make me believe anything so absurd as that you hate thomasine. as for being a murderer in your heart, you wouldn't hurt a fly." she looked at me queerly. i half thought there was a little disappointment in her first glance; then a strange expression as if she unconsciously took herself for audience, since i would not serve, and went on with her play of abnormal wickedness. "you don't know how wicked i am," she responded. "i am a murderer in my heart." a strangely intense look came into her eyes, as if a realization of what she was saying took hold of her, and as if she became really frightened by her own assumption. she clutched my arm with a grasp which must have been at least half genuine. "oh, miss ruth," she said. "i don't know what i shall do. i know i am lost!" i wanted to shake the child, so completely for the moment did i feel that a lot of her emotion was make-believe, even if unconscious; but on the other hand she was actually beginning to turn pale and tremble with the nervous excitement she had raised by her fear or her theatricals. "kathie," i said, almost severely, "you know you are talking nonsense. come into the house, and have a glass of milk and a slice of cake. you'll feel better after you've had something to eat." she looked at me with eyes really wild, and without a word turned quickly and ran down the street at full speed, leaving me utterly confounded. i am sure she acts to herself, and that her religious mania is partly theatrical; but then i suppose religious mania always is. yet it has a basis in what she believes, and with her imaginative, hysterical temperament she has the power of taking up her ideas so completely that she gets to be almost beside herself. when she is so much in earnest she must be treated, i suppose, as if all her self-accusations and agony of mind were entirely real. august . i have been to lay a bunch of sweet-peas on mother's grave. i wonder and wonder again if she knows when i am so near the place where we left her, the place where it always seems to me some life must yet linger. i have all my life been familiar with the doubt whether any consciousness, any personality survives death; and yet it is as natural to assume that life goes on as it is to suppose the sun will rise to-morrow. i know that my feeling proves nothing; but still instinctively i cling to it. in any case there is the chance the dead are alive and alert somewhere in the shadows, and if they are they must be glad not to be forgotten. i should not be willing to take the chance, and neglect the grave of one who had been fond of me. mother loved me as i loved her; and this decides i shall run no risk of her being unhappy after death in the thought that i have forgotten. i suppose i cling to a feeling that there must be some sort of immortality largely from the loneliness i feel. the idea of never seeing father or mother again is more than i could endure. father used to say that after all each of us is always really alone in this world, and even our best friends can no more come close to us than if they did not exist; but this always seemed to me a sort of cold, forlorn theory. the warmth of human companionship somehow makes it impossible for me to feel anything like this. when i said so to father, i remember he smiled, and said he was glad i did find it impossible. one thing i am sure of to the very bottom of my heart: that things are somehow completely right, so that whatever death means it must be part of a whole which is as it should be. august . to-day tom brought me a bunch of cardinal-flowers. he had been up to the lake meadows, he said, and thought i might like them. the whole parlor is alive with the wonderful crimson--no, scarlet, of the great flaming armful of blossoms. tom used to get them for me when i was a girl, but since those days i have had only a stray spike now and then. they bring back the past, and the life-long friendship i have had with tom. i wonder sometimes why i have never been in love with tom. life never seemed complete without him. in the years he kept away on account of george i missed him sorely, and more than once i have thought of all sorts of ways to bring things back to the former footing; only i knew all the time it was of no use. it is the greatest comfort to have the old friendship back, and now tom must understand that i have no more than friendship to give him. it would be vexing if he should misunderstand, but i must take care he does not. august . i have been at the town hall helping to make ready for a raspberry festival, to raise money for the church. miss charlotte came after me, and of course i had to go. she said all that was wanted was my taste to direct about decorating the hall, but i have been told so before, and i knew from experience that taste is expected to work out its own salvation. to be really fair i suppose i should say i cannot stand by and give directions, but have to take hold with my own hands, so it is nobody's fault but my own if i do things. besides, it is really good fun among the neighbors, with the air full of the smell of cedar, with all the pretty young girls making wreaths and laughing while they work, and with your feet tangled in evergreens and laurel whenever you cross the floor. miss charlotte is in her element at such a time. her great-throated laugh, as strong as a man's, rings out, and she seems for the time quite happy and jolly with excitement. it came over me to-day almost with a sense of dismay how old i seem to the young girls. they treated me with a sort of respect which couldn't be put into words exactly, i suppose, but which i felt. somehow i believe the breaking of my engagement has made me seem older to them. perhaps it is my foolish fancy, but i seem to see that while i was engaged i had still for them a hold on youth which i have now lost. i suppose they never thought it out, but i know they feel now that i am very much their senior. at a time like this, too, i realize how true it is that i am somehow a little outside of the life of the village. i have lived here almost all my life. except for the years i was at school, and a winter or two in boston or abroad i have been generally at home. i know almost everybody in town, by sight at least. yet i always find when i am among tuskamuck people in this way that i am looking at them as if i were a spectator. i wonder if this means that i am egotistical or queer, or only that my life has been so much more among books and intellectual things than the life of most of them. i am sure i love the town and my neighbors. the thing i wish to put down, however, has nothing to do with my feelings toward the town. it is that i am ashamed of the way i wrote the other day about mr. saychase. he entered the hall this afternoon just as old mrs. oliver came limping in to see the decorations; and the lovely way in which he helped the poor old lame creature made me blush for myself. i almost wanted to go to him and apologize then and there. it would have been awkward, however, first to explain that i had made fun of him in my diary, and then apologize! but he is a good soul, even if he did think i was a sort of nineteenth century zorahida, to give up mohammedanism for the sake of wedding a christian chief.--and here i go again! august . i have been reading to-night a book about the east, and it has stirred me a good deal. the speculations of strange peoples on the great mystery of life and death bring them so close to us. they show how alike all mankind is, and how we all grope about after some clue to existence. on the whole it is better, i think, not to give much thought to what may come after death,--no more thought, that is, than we cannot help. we can never know, and we must either raise vague hopes to make us less alive to the importance of life, the reality of life--i do not know how to say it. of course all religion insists on the importance of life, but rather as a preparation for another existence. i think we need to have it always before us that what is important is not what will happen after we are dead and gone, but what is happening now because we are alive and have a hand in things. i see this is not very clear, but i am sure the great thing is to live as if life were of value in itself. to live rightly, to make the most out of the life we can see and feel, is all that humanity is equal to, and it is certainly worth doing for its own sake. the idea which has struck me most in what i have been reading to-night is the theory that each individual is made up of the fragments of other lives; that just as the body is composed of material once part of other bodies, so is the spirit built up of feelings, and passions, and tendencies, and traits of temperament formerly in other individuals dead and gone. at first thought it does not seem to me a comfortable theory. i should not seem to belong to myself any more, if i believed it. to have the temper of some bygone woman, and the affections of another, and the tastes of a third,--it is too much like wearing false hair! it does not seem to me possible, but it may be true. at least it is a theory which may easily be made to seem plausible by the use of facts we all know. if it is the true solution of our characters here, it is pleasant to think that perhaps we may modify what for the present is our very own self so it shall be better stuff for the fashioning of another generation. i should like to feel that when this bunch of ideas and emotions goes to pieces, the bits would make sweet spots in the individuals they go to make part of. i suppose this is what george eliot meant in the "choir invisible," or something like this. as one thinks of the doctrine it is not so cold and unattractive as it struck me in the reading. one could bear to lose a conscious future if the alternative was happiness to lives not yet in being. i should like, though, to know it. but if there weren't any me to know, i should not be troubled, as the old philosophers were fond of saying, and the important thing would be not for me to know but for the world to be better. i begin to see how the doctrine might be a fine incentive to do the best with life that is in any way possible; and what more could be asked of any doctrine? august . baby was ill night before last, and we three women were smitten to the heart. hannah went for dr. wentworth, and when he came he laughed at our panic, and assured me nothing serious was the matter. it was only a little indigestion caused by the excessive heat. i do not know how i should have behaved if it had not been that rosa was in such a panic i had to give all my spare attention to keeping her in order. it came to me then what an advantage an officer must have in a battle; he cannot break down because he has to look to his men. last night i wished greatly tom were in reach; it would have been dreadful if anything really serious had happened to baby, and he not to know it until it was too late. yet he could have done nothing if the worst had been true and he had been here. it would have been no comfort to poor little sick tomine to have one person by her more than another, so long as her nurses were not strangers. a father is nothing to her yet. i wonder when he will be. yesterday tomine was better, and to-night she seems as well as ever; but it will take time for me to be rid entirely of fear. i wonder if she had gone whether her little bunch of vitality would have been scattered through new lives. she can hardly have much personality or individuality yet. sometimes the universe, the power that keeps going on and on, and which is so unmoved by human pain, strikes me as too terrible for thought; but i cling desperately to father's idea that nature is too great to be unkind, and that what looks to us like cruelty is only the size of things too big for us to grasp. it is a riddle, and the way i put it is neither so clear nor wise, i suppose, as the theories of countless religious teachers, they and i alike guessing at things human insight is not equal to. i doubt much if it is profitable to speculate in this vein. "think all you can about life as a good and glorious thing," father wrote to me once when i had expressed in a school-letter some trouble or other about what comes after death, "but keep in mind that of what came before we were born or will happen after we are dead we shall never in this life know anything, no matter how much we speculate, so dreaming about it or fretting about it is simply building air-castles." i have said over to myself ever since i began to be perplexed that to speculate about another life is to build air-castles. baby is well again and i will not fret or dream of what it would mean if she had slipped away from us. august . i must settle myself a little by writing, or i shall be like old mrs. tuell, who said that for years she never slept a wink because her nerves wiggled like angleworms all over her inside. i have certainly been through an experience which might make anybody's nerves wiggle. about half past two o'clock rosa brought me a note, and said:-- "that thurston girl left it, and told me not to give it to you till three o'clock; but if i don't give it to you now, i know i'd forget it." i opened the note without thinking anything about the time. it was written in kathie's uneven hand, and blotched as if it had been cried over. this is what it said:-- dear miss ruth,--this letter is to bid you good-by. you are the only one in the world i love, and nobody loves me. i cant stand you to love that baby better than me, and god is so angry it dont make any difference what i do now. when you read this i shall be in torment forever, because i am going down to davis cove to drownd myself because i am so wicked and nobody loves me. dont tell on me, because it would make you feel bad and father wouldnt like it to get round a child of his had drownd herself and mother would cry. yours truly and with a sad and loving good-by forever, kathie thurston. p. s. if they get me to bury will you please put some flowers on my coffin. no more from yours truly k. t. my first impulse was to laugh at this absurd note, but it came over me suddenly that there was no knowing what that child will do. even now i am bewildered. i cannot get it out of my mind that there is a good deal of the theatrical in kathie, but i may be all wrong. at any rate i reflected how she has a way of acting so that apparently she can herself take it for real. i thought it over a while; then i got my hat and started down the street, with the notion that at least it would do no harm to go down to davis cove, and see if kathie were there. as i walked on, recalling her incomprehensible actions, a dreadful feeling grew in my mind that she might have meant what she said, and she would be more likely to try to drown herself because she had told me. a sort of panic seized me; and just then the town clock struck three. i had got down just opposite the foot-bridge, and when i remembered that three was the time when i was to have the note, i feared i should be too late, and i began to run. fortunately, there was nobody in sight, and as i came to the bend in the street i saw george coming, leading kathie by the arm. she was dripping wet, and half staggering, although she kept her feet. i hurried up to them, too much out of breath with haste and excitement to be able to speak. "hullo!" george called out, as i came up to them, "see what a fish i've caught." "why, kathie," gasped i, with a stupidity that was lucky, for it kept george from suspecting, "you've been in the water." she gave me a queer look, but she said nothing. "a little more and she'd have stayed there," george put in. "you are wet too," i said, looking at him for the first time. "yes," he returned; "luckily i got off my coat and vest as i ran, so i saved my watch, but everything else is wet fast enough." "how did it happen?" i asked. "she was trying to get sugar-pears from those trees by the water," george answered; "and i suppose she lost her balance. i was going along the road and heard her scream." "along the road?" i echoed; for i knew davis cove is too far from the road for him to have heard a cry. "she fell in just by the old shipyard on the point," he said. "the boys were in swimming in the cove," kathie explained, in a way which was of course unintelligible to george. "well," george commented, after a moment in which he seemed to clear up her meaning, "the next time you want sugar-pears you'd better get them when the boys are out of the way, so you needn't go in swimming yourself." we had been walking along the road as we talked, and by this time had reached the foot-bridge. i told george he must go home and get on dry clothing, and i would see to kathie. he demurred at first, but i insisted, so he left us to cross the bridge alone. we walked in silence almost across the bridge, and then i asked her what kept bumping against me as i held her up. "it's rocks in my pocket," she answered, quite in a matter-of-fact way. "i put 'em there to sink me." i could have shaken her on the spot, so uncharitable was my mood, but i managed to answer her in a perfectly cool tone. "then you had better take them out," i said. she got her hand into her pocket and fished out three or four pebbles, which all together wouldn't have sunk a three-days-old-kitten; and when these had been thrown over the bridge we proceeded on our drabbled way. my doubts of the genuineness of the whole performance grew in spite of me. i do not know exactly why i am coming so strongly to feel that kathie is not wholly ingenuous, but i cannot get rid of the idea. "kathie," i asked, "did you see mr. weston coming when you jumped in?" she looked up at me with eyes so honest i was ashamed of myself, but when she answered unhesitatingly that she had seen him, i went on ruthlessly to ask if she did not know he would save her. "i thought if he was coming i'd got to hurry," she returned, as simply as possible. i was more puzzled than ever, and i am puzzled still. whether she really meant to take her life, or whether she only thought she meant it, does not, i suppose, make any great difference; but i confess i have been trying to make out ever since i left her. i would like to discover whether she is consciously trying to fool me or endeavoring as much to cheat herself, or is honest in it all; but i see no way in which i am ever likely to be satisfied. i asked her to say nothing at home about how her ducking happened, and i satisfied her mother by repeating what george had said. to-morrow i must have it out with mr. thurston somehow or other; although i am still completely in the dark what i shall say to him. i hope the old fairy-tales are right when they say "the morning is wiser than the evening." august . the morning is wiser than the evening, for i got up to-day with a clear idea in my mind what i had better do about kathie. it is always a great comfort to have a definite plan of action mapped out, and i ate my breakfast in a cheerful frame of mind, intending to go directly to see mr. thurston while i should be fairly sure of finding him. i reckoned without kathie, however, who presented herself at the dining-room window before i had finished my coffee, and begged me to come out. "i can't come in without breaking my word," she said. i could not argue with the absurd chit in that situation, so i went out into the garden with her and sat down on the bench by the sun-dial. the big red roses father was so fond of are all in blossom, and in the morning air were wonderfully sweet. it was an enchanting day, and the dew was not entirely dried, so the garden had not lost the freshness it has when it first wakes up. i was exhilarated by the smell of the roses and the beauty of everything, and the clearness of the air. rosa held baby up to us at the nursery window above, and i waved my hand to her, smiling from pure delight in everything. kathie watched me with her great eyes, and when i sat down on the bench she threw herself at full length on the grass, and burst out sobbing. "you do love her better than me!" she wailed. "i came to say how sorry i was, but i'm sorry now that i didn't stay in the water." i took her by the shoulder, and spoke to her so sternly that i startled her. "you are not to talk in that way anymore, kathie," i said. "i am fond of you and i am fond of baby; but if baby were big enough and talked this silly way about you, do you suppose i would allow it? sit up and stop crying." i have always been careful not to hurt her feelings; perhaps i have been too careful. she sat up now, and then rose to her feet in a dazed sort of way. i determined to see if anything was to be made out of her mood. "kathie," said i, "how much of that performance yesterday was real, and how much was humbug? tell me the truth." she grew a little paler and her eyes dilated. i looked her straight in the face, half minded to force her if need be to give me some guidance in what i should do. "i really meant to drown myself," she answered solemnly, "only when i saw the water and thought of hell i was afraid." she stopped, and i encouraged her to go on. "i saw mr. weston, and i was scared of him and--and everything, and so i jumped in." i reflected that very likely the child was more of a puzzle to herself than she was to me, and in any case i had more important ends to gain than the satisfying of my curiosity, so i asked her as gently as i could if she really believed she would be eternally lost if she killed herself. "oh, yes, miss ruth!" she cried with feverish eagerness. "then why do you do it?" i went on. "how do you dare to do it?" she looked at me with a growing wildness in her face that was certainly genuine. "i'm lost, anyway," she burst out. "i know i have been too wicked for god to forgive me. i have committed murder in my heart, and i know i was never meant to be saved." "stop!" i commanded her. "you are a little, foolish girl, too young even to know what you are talking about. how dare you decide what god will do?" she regarded me with a look of stupefaction as if i were a stranger whom she had never seen; and indeed i can well believe i seemed one. then the perversity of her mind came back to the constant idea. "that's just it," she declared. "that's just my wickedness." after this i refused to go into the subject any further. i got up and asked her if i should find her father at home. she begged me not to go to see him, and then said with an air of relief that he had gone out to connecticut mills to visit a sick woman. i did not stay with her longer. i said i must go into the house, and as she refused to come, i left her, a forlorn little figure, there among the roses, and went in. it seemed hard to do it, but i had made up my mind she had better not indulge in any more talk this morning. august . cousin mehitable, in a letter which came this morning, pities me because of my colorless existence; but i begin to feel that life is becoming too lurid. i have to-day bearded--no, mr. thurston hasn't any beard; but i have had my interview with him, and i feel as if i had been leading a cavalry charge up a hill in the face of a battery of whatever kind of guns are most disconcertingly destructive. i am somewhat confused about the beginning of our talk. i got so excited later that the tame beginnings have slipped away; but i know i said i had come to make a proposition about kathie, and somehow i led up to the child's mad performance the other day. i showed him the note and told him the story, but not until i had made him promise not to mention the matter to the child. when he had finished he was as pale as my handkerchief, his thin, bloodless face positively withered with pain. "i cannot keep silence about this," he said when i had finished. "i must withdraw my promise, miss privet. my kathie's soul is in danger." i am sure that i am not ill-tempered, but over kathie and her father i find myself in a state of exasperation which threatens to destroy all my claims to be considered a sane and temperate body. i had to struggle mightily to keep myself in hand this morning, but at first, at least, i succeeded. "mr. thurston," i said, "i cannot release you. i should never have told you except on your promise, and you cannot honestly break it. now listen to me. i have no right to dictate, but i cannot stand by and see dear little kathie going to ruin. i am sure i know what is good for her just now better than you do. she is a good child, only she has gone nearly wild brooding over theologic questions she should never have heard of until she was old enough to judge them more reasonably." he tried to interrupt me, but i put up my hand to stop him, and went on. "you know how nervous and high-strung she is, and you cannot think her capable of looking fairly at the awful mysteries with which a creed deals." "but i have only instructed her in those things on which her eternal salvation depends," he broke in. "her eternal salvation does not depend on her being driven into a madhouse or made to drown herself," i retorted, feeling as if i were brutal, but that it couldn't be helped. "the truth is, mr. thurston, you have been offering up kathie as a sacrifice to your creed just as the fathers and mothers of old made their children pass through the fires to moloch." he gasped, and some thin blood rushed to his face, but i did not stop. "i have no doubt they were conscientious, just as you are; but that didn't make it any better for the children. you have been entirely conscientious in torturing kathie, but you have been torturing her." his face was positively gray, and there was a look of anguish in his eyes which made me weak. it would have been so much easier to go on if he had been angry. "you don't understand," he said brokenly. "you think all religion is a delusion, so of course you can't see. you think i don't love my child, and that i am so wrapped up in my creed i can't see she suffers. you won't believe it hurts me more than it does her." "do you think then," i asked him, doing my best to keep back the tears, "that it can give any pleasure to a kind heavenly father? i do understand. you have been so afraid of not doing your duty to kathie you have brought her almost to madness, almost"-- "don't! don't!" he interrupted, putting out his hand as if i had struck him. "oh, miss privet, if she had"-- i saw the real affection and feeling of the man as i have never realized them. i had been hard, and perhaps cruel, but it was necessary to save kathie. i spoke now as gently as i could. "no matter for the things that didn't happen, mr. thurston. she is safe and sound." "but she meant to do it," he returned in a tone so low i could hardly catch the words. "meant?" i repeated. "she isn't in a condition to mean anything. she was distraught by brooding over things that at her age she should never even have heard of. i beg your pardon, mr. thurston, but doesn't what has happened prove she is too high-strung to be troubled with theology yet? i am not of your creed, but i respect your feeling about it. only you must see that to thrust these things on kathie means madness and despair"-- "but she might die," he broke in. "she might die without having made her peace with her maker, and be lost forever." there was anguish in his face, and i know he meant it from the bottom of his heart; but in his voice was the trace of conventional repetition of phrases which made it possible for me to be overcome by exasperation. i looked at him in that mingled fury of impatience and passionate conviction of my ground which must have been the state of the prophets of old when the spirit of prophecy descended upon them. i realize now that to have the spirit of prophecy it is necessary to lose the temper to a degree not altogether commendable in ordinary circumstances. i blazed out on that poor, thin-blooded, dejected, weak-minded, loving methodist minister, and told him he insulted the god he worshiped; i said he had better consider the text "i will have mercy and not sacrifice;" i flung two or three other texts at him while he stood dazed with astonishment; i flamed at him like a burning-bush become feminine flesh; and fortunately he did not remember that even the old nick is credited with being able to cite scripture for his purposes. i think the texts subdued him, so that it is well father brought me up to know the bible. at least i reduced mr. thurston to a state where he was as clay in the hands of the potter. then i presented to his consideration my scheme to send kathie away to boarding-school for a year. i told him he was at liberty to select the school, if only it was one where she would not be too much troubled about theology. of course i knew it would be hopeless to think of her going to a school entirely unsectarian, but i have already begun to make inquiries about the relative reasonableness of methodist schools, and i think we may find something that will do. to put the child into surroundings entirely new, where her mind will be taken away from herself, and where a consciousness of the keenly discerning eyes of girls of her own age will keep her theatrical tendencies in check, should work wonders. i made mr. thurston give his consent, and before i left the house i saw mrs. thurston. i told her not to trouble about kathie's outfit, and so i hope that bother is pretty well straightened out for the present. august . george has taken a violent cold from his ducking, and is confined to the house. i hope that it is nothing serious. it is especially awkward now, for mr. longworthy is coming over from franklin in a day or two to go over his accounts as trustee. kathie came over this morning while i was at breakfast, and tapped on the dining-room window. she was positively shining with happiness. i never saw a child so transformed. "oh, miss ruth," she cried out, as soon as i turned, "oh, won't you come out here? i do so want to kiss you!" i asked her to come inside, but she said she had promised not to, and rather than to get into a discussion i went out to her. she ran dancing up to me, fairly quivering with excitement. "oh, miss ruth," she said, "it is too good to be true! you are the most loveliest lady that ever lived! oh, i am so happy!" i had to laugh at her demonstrativeness, but it was touching to see her. she was no more like the morbid, hollow-eyed girl she had been than if she had never had a trouble. it is wonderful that out of the family of a methodist parson should come a nature so exotic, but after all, the spiritual raptures and excesses which have worn mr. thurston as thin as a leaf in december must have their root in a temperament of keenly emotional extremes. "i always wanted to go to boarding-school," kathie went on, possessing herself of my hand, and covering it with kisses; "but mother always said we couldn't afford it. now i am going. oh, i shall have such a beautiful time!" i laughed at her enthusiasm, but i tried to moderate her extravagance a little by telling her that at boarding-school she would have to work, and to live by rule, so that she must give up her wild ways. "oh, i'll work," she responded, her ardor undampened. "i'll be the best girl you ever heard of. i beg your pardon for everything i've done, and i'll never do anything bad again." this penitence seemed to me rather too general to amount to much, but that she was so much pleased was after all the chief thing, so i made no allusion to particular shortcomings, i did not even urge her to come into the house, for i felt this was a point for her to work out in her own mind. we walked in the dewy garden, discussing the preparations for her leaving home, and it was droll and pathetic to find how poverty had bred in her fantastic little pate a certain sort of shrewdness. she said in the most matter-of-fact way that it would be nice for her father to have one less mouth to fill, and that she supposed her smaller sisters could have her old clothes. i confess she did not in talking exhibit any great generosity of mind, but perhaps it was not to be expected of a child dazzled by the prospect of having a dream come true, and of actually being blessed with more than one new frock at a time. i am not clear what the result of sending her among strangers will be, and i see that a good deal of care will be necessary in choosing the school. i do believe good must come of it, however; and at least we are doing the best we can. august . i went over to george's this morning to find out whether he is able to see mr. longworthy. he was in bed, but insisted upon seeing me. i have had a terrible day. i left him completely broken down with his confession. o mother! mother! august . childishly i cried myself to sleep last night. it is so terrible to feel that a friend has done wrong and proved himself unworthy. i could not help shivering to think of george, and of how he has had night after night to go to sleep with the knowledge of his dishonesty. i settled in my own mind what i could do to cover his defalcation, which fortunately is small enough for me to provide for by going to boston and selling some of the bonds aunt leah left me, and which mr. longworthy has nothing to do with. then i lay there in the dark and sopped my pillow, until somehow, i found myself in the middle of a comforting dream. i dreamed that i was a little girl, and that i was broken-hearted about some indefinite thing that had happened. i had in my dream, so far as i can recall, no idea what the trouble was, but the grief was keen, and my tears most copious. i was in the very thickest of my childish woe when father came behind me, picked me up like a feather, and set me down in his lap. i had that ineffable sense of companionship which can be named but never described, and i clung to him with a frantic clasp. he kissed me, and wiped away my tears with soothing words, and then at last he whispered in my ear as a precious secret something so infinitely comforting that my sorrow vanished utterly. i broke into smiles, and kissed him again and again, crying out that it was too good to be true, and he had made me happy for my whole life. so keen was my joy that i awoke, and lay in bed half dreaming still, saying over and over to myself his enchanting words as if they would forever be a safeguard against any pain which life might bring. gradually i became sufficiently wide awake to realize what this wonderful message of joy was, and found myself ecstatically repeating: "pigs have four feet and one tail!" of course i laughed at the absurdity, but the comfort stayed with me all the same, and all day i have gone about with a peaceful mind, cheered by the effect of this supernaturally precious fact of natural history. i went to boston and came back without seeing anybody but business men. i saw george a moment on my way from the station, and now everything is ready for mr. longworthy to-morrow. both george and i may sleep to-night in peace. all the way to and from boston i found myself going over my whole acquaintance with george, questioning myself about what he has been and what he is. to-night i have been reading over what i have written of him in my diary, and the picture i find of him this year has gone to my heart. i am afraid i have not been kind, perhaps have not been just; for if what i have been writing is true george is--he is not a gentleman. it does not startle me now to write this as it would have done two days ago. i am afraid it will be years before i am able to get out of my remembrance how he looked when he confessed. it seems almost as if i should never be able to think of him again except as i saw him then, his face almost as colorless as his pillow, and then red with shame. he looked shrunken, morally as well as physically. i do not know whether i blamed him more or less because he was so eager to throw the whole blame on his wife's extravagance; i only know that it can hardly have been more cruel for him to tell me of his dishonor than it was for me to hear. if he had asked me i would have lent him money, or given it to him, for that matter, and done it gladly rather than to have him troubled. to think how he must have been teased and bothered for this pitiful sum, just two or three hundred dollars, before he could have made up his mind to borrow it on my securities! he might have got it honestly, it was so little; but he did not wish anybody to know he needed it. pride, and folly, and vanity,--i am so hurt that i begin to rail. i will put the whole thing out of my mind, and never think of it again if i can help it. ix september september . at last kathie is gone. what with having dressmakers and seeing to her, and doing the shopping, and corresponding with the principal of the school, and all the rest of it, i have had my hands full for the last three weeks. i have enjoyed it, though; i suppose it is always a pleasure partaking of the moral for a woman when she can conscientiously give her whole mind up to the making of clothes. i do not doubt the delight of sewing fig-leaves together went for the moment far toward comforting eve for leaving paradise. i cannot now help smiling to see how entirely kathie's fine scruples about breaking her vow not to come into the house were forgotten when i had a dressmaker here waiting to fit her frocks. i feel a little as if i were trying to be providence and to interfere in her life unwarrantably now she is gone and there is nothing more to do about it but to await the result. i have done what i thought best, though, and that is the whole of it. as father used to say, it is not our duty to do the wisest thing, for we cannot always tell what it is, but only to be honest in doing what seems to us wisest. i hope she will do well, and i believe she will. september . cousin mehitable writes me from rome that she is sure i am tired of baby, and had better come over for a couple of months. i cannot tell whether she means what she says, or is only trying to carry her point. she has never had a child near her, and can hardly know how completely a baby takes possession of one. there are many things in the world that i should enjoy, and i should certainly delight in going abroad again, but baby has so taken the first place in my heart and life that everything else is secondary. i wonder sometimes whether after a woman has a child of her own she can any longer give her husband her very warmest love. perhaps the law of compensation comes in, and if men grow less absorbed in their wives the wives have an equal likelihood of coming to feel that the husband is less a part of their lives than the child. only if a woman really loved a man-- september . it is a childish habit to break off in the middle of a sentence because one does not know how to finish it. i have been turning over the leaves of this book to see if i had done it often, and i have been amused and humiliated to find so many places where i have ended with a dash, like an hysterical schoolgirl. yet i do not see just what one is to do when suddenly one finds a subject hopelessly too deep. last night when i got to a place where i was balancing the love of a mother for her husband and for her child, i naturally realized suddenly that i had never had a child, and very likely never really loved a man. the love i had for george seems now so unreal that i feel completely fickle; although i believe i am generally pretty constant. i could not bear to think i am not loyal in my feelings. i have come to be so sure the george i was fond of never existed, though, that i can hardly have the same feelings i had before. this is the sort of subject, however, which is sure to end in a dash if i go on with it, so it seems wiser to stop before such a catastrophe is reached. september . to-day is father's birthday. it is always a day which moves me a good deal. i can never be reminded of an anniversary like this without finding my head full of a swarm of thoughts. i cannot think of the beginning or the ending of father's life without looking at it as a whole, and reckoning up somehow the effect of his having lived. this is the real question, i suppose, in regard to any life. he was to me so wonderful, he was so great a man, that i have almost to reason with myself to appreciate why the world in general does not better remember him. his life was and is so much to me that i find it hard to realize how narrow is the circle which ever even knew of him at all. his books and his decisions keep his name still in the memory of lawyers somewhat, and those who knew him will not easily forget; but after all this is so little in comparison to the fame he might have had. how persistent is an old thought! i should have supposed this idea might have died long ago. father himself answered it when he told cousin mehitable he was entirely satisfied if his part in the progress of humanity was conducted decently and in order; he was not concerned whether anybody knew he lived or did not know. "the thing is that i live as well as i can," he said, "and not that it should be known about. i shan't mind, cousin mehitable, whether anybody takes the trouble to praise me after i am dead, but i do think it may make some tiny difference to the race that i did my level best while i was alive." i can see him now as he stood by the library fire saying this, with his little half whimsical smile, and i remember thinking as he spoke how perfectly he lived up to his theories. certainly the best thing a man can leave to his children is a memory like that which i have of father: a memory half love and half respect. father's feeling about the part of the individual in the general scheme of things was like certain oriental doctrines i have read since his death; and i suppose he may have been influenced by the writings of the east. he seemed to feel that he was part of a process, and that the lives of those who sometime would come after him might be made easier and happier if he lived well and wisely. i am sure he was right. i do not know how or where or when the accounts of life are settled, or whether it makes any difference to the individual as an individual or not; but i am sure what we do is of consequence, and i wish my life might be as fine, as strong, as noble as was father's. september . aunt naomi came in this forenoon with her catlike step, and seated herself by the south window in the sunshine. the only eye which could be seen clearly was bright with intention, and it was evident at a glance that she had things to say. she was rather deliberate in coming at it. aunt naomi is an artist in gossip, and never spoils the effect of what she has to tell by failing to arouse expectation and interest. she leads one on and stirs up curiosity before she tells her news, and with so much cleverness does she manage, that a very tiny bit of gossip will seem a good deal when she has set it forth. it is a pleasure to see anything well done, even gossip; so aunt naomi is an unfailing source of amusement to me,--which is perhaps not to my credit. she made the usual remarks about the weather and asked after baby; she observed that from the way miss charlotte breathed when she was asleep in prayer-meeting last night she was afraid she had taken cold; she told me ranny gargan's divorced wife was at death's door again, and tried to get from me some sort of information of rosa's feelings toward the possible widower; then she gradually and skillfully approached her real subject. "it's strange how folks get over being in love when once they are married," she said, hitching her chair into the sunlight, which had moved a little from her while she talked. i knew by her careless tone, too careless not to be intentional, that something was coming, but i would not help her. i simply smiled vaguely, and asked where the sewing-circle was to be next week. she was not disconcerted by the question, but neatly turned it to her uses. "at mrs. tobey's," she answered. "i hope we shan't see anything unpleasant across the road." "what do you mean?" i asked, rather startled at this plain allusion to george's house. "they say george weston and his wife do rather queer things sometimes." i asked her at once to say exactly what she meant, and not to play with it. i added that i did not see why george and his wife should be so much discussed. "they are talked about because they deserve it," aunt naomi returned, evidently delighted by the effect she had produced. "if they will quarrel so all the neighborhood can hear and see, of course people will talk about it. why shouldn't they? we ought to take some interest in folks, i should think." i was silent a minute. i wanted to know why she said this, and what george and his wife had been doing to make the village comment, but i would not go on gossiping about them, and i dropped the subject altogether. i made a remark about the willeyville fair. aunt naomi chuckled audibly, but she did not persist in talking about the westons. september . rosa is once more in a state of excitement, and the household is correspondingly stirred. hannah goes about with her head in the air and an expression of the most lofty scorn on her face; rosa naturally resents this attitude, both of mind and of body; so i have to act as a sort of buffer between the two. the fuss is about ranny again. i begin to feel that i should be justified in having him kidnapped and carried off to some far country, but i hardly see my way clear to measures so extreme. i am astonished to find that aunt naomi did not know all the facts about the illness of ranny's wife; or perhaps she was too much occupied with the affairs of the westons to tell the whole. ranny seems this time to have got into real difficulty, and apparently as the result of his latest escapade is likely to pay a visit to the county jail. it seems that while he was pretty far gone in liquor ex-mrs. ranny came to plead with him to take her back and marry her over again. she having had the greatest difficulty in getting divorced from him in the first place, one would think she might be content to let well enough alone; but she is evidently madly fond of gargan, who must be a good deal of an adonis in his own world, so completely does he sway the hearts of the women, even though they know him to be brutal, drunken, disreputable, and generally worthless. on this occasion ranny behaved worse than usual, and met his former wife's petition by giving her a severe beating with the first thing which came to hand, the thing unluckily being an axe-handle. the poor woman is helpless in her bed, and ranny has been taken possession of by the constable. rosa refuses to see anything in the incident which is in the least to the discredit of ranny. i was in the garden this morning, and overheard her defending her lover against hannah's severe censures upon him and upon rosa for siding with him. "why shouldn't he beat his own wife when she deserved it," rosa demanded, "and she nothing but a hateful, sharp-nosed pig?" "she isn't his wife," hannah retorted, apparently not prepared to protest against a doctrine so well established as that a man might beat his spouse. "well, she was, anyhow," persisted rosa; "and that's the same thing. you can't put a man and his wife apart just by going to law. father o'rafferty said so." "oh, you can't, can't you?" hannah said with scornful deliberation. "then you're a nice girl to be talking about marrying ranny gargan, if he's got one wife alive already." this blow struck too near home, i fear, for rosa's voice was pretty shrill when she retorted. "what do you know about marrying anyhow, hannah elsmore? nobody wants to marry you, i'll be bound." it seemed to be time to interfere, so i went nearer to the window and called to rosa to come out to baby and me. "rosa," i said, when she appeared, flushed and angry, "i wish you wouldn't quarrel with hannah." "then what for's she all the time twitting me about ranny gargan?" demanded the girl with angry tears in her eyes. "she don't know what it is to care for a man anyhow, and what for does she be taking me up short when i'm that bad in my mind a'ready i can't stand it? ranny gargan's old beast of a wife's got him into a scrape, but that don't make any difference to me. i ain't going back on him." i established myself on the grass beside the sun-dial, and took baby, sweet and lovely, into my arms. "i am sorry, rosa," i said when we were settled comfortably. "i hoped you'd got over thinking about ranny gargan. he is certainly not the sort of man to make you happy, even if he were free. he'd never think of sparing you or letting you have your own way." "who's wanting to have their own way, miss privet?" demanded my astonishing handmaid; and then went on in her usual fashion of striking me breathless when she comes to discourse of love and marriage. "that ain't what women marry for, miss privet. they're just made so they marry to be beat and broke and abused if that's what pleases the men; and that's the way they're best off." "but, rosa," i put in, "you always talk as if you'd be meekness itself if a husband wanted to abuse you, but i confess i never thought you would be at all backward about defending yourself." a droll look came into her rosy irish face, and a funny little touch of brogue into her voice. "i'd think if he loved me the way he ought to, miss privet, he'd be willing to take a whack himself now and then, just in the way of love. besides," she added, "i'd come it round ranny when it was anything i really wanted. any man's soft enough if a woman knows how to treat him right." i abandoned the discussion, as i am always forced to abandon a talk of this sort with rosa. i suppose in her class the crude doctrine that it is the right of the man to take and the duty of the woman to give still exists with a good deal of simplicity and force, but it almost stops my breath to hear rosa state it. it is like a bit of primeval savagery suddenly thrust into my face in the midst of nineteenth-century civilization. the worst of it all is, moreover, to feel the habits of old generations buzzing dizzily in my ears until i have a confused sensation as if in principle the absurd vagaries of rosa might be right. i am tinglingly aware that fibres which belonged to some remote progenitress, some barbaric woman captured by force, perhaps, after the marriage customs of primitive peoples, retain the instinct of submission to man and respond to rosa's uncivilized theories. i have a sort of second sense that if a man i loved came and asserted a brutal sovereignty over me, it would appeal to these inherited instincts as right and proper, according to the order appointed by nature. i know what nonsense this is. the sense of justice has in the modern woman displaced the old humiliating subjection,--although if one loved a man the subjection would not be humiliating, but just the highest pleasure. i can conceive of a woman's being so fond of a man that to be his abject slave would be so much the happiest thing in the world that to serve him to her very utmost would be so great a delight as almost to be selfishness. how father would have shouted over a page like this! i would not have supposed even rosa could have spurred me into such an attempt at philosophy, and i hardly believed i knew so many long words. after all i doubt if rosa and i are so far apart in our instincts; only she has the coolness to put them into words i only imitate, and cannot pretend to rival. september . it is delightful to see how really fond tom is becoming of baby. i came home from a walk this afternoon, and there in the parlor was tom down on the floor with tomine, shaking his head at her like a bear, and making her laugh. rosa beamed from the background with the most complete approval. he sprang up when i appeared, but i ignored all the strangeness, and only said how glad i was to see him. i think he liked my taking as a matter of course his being there, and very likely this was what made him confess he had been in two or three times to play with baby when he knew that i was not at home. "i saw you going down the other side of the river," he said, "so i came to keep thomasine from being lonesome." i returned that it was not very complimentary to tell me he had tried to avoid me, but that i appreciated how much more fascinating baby was than i, so he need not apologize; and the end of it was that after this nonsense had broken the ice we sat on the floor together to entertain her ladyship. she was pleased to be in the most sunny mood imaginable, and responded to our fooling most graciously. with truly feminine preference, however, she bestowed most of her attention upon the man. she is a more entrancing creature every day; and she certainly has her father's eyes. i compared them this afternoon. september . the reading-room seems really at last to be coming into being. i have found a place for it. it is a kind of square box over the post-office, but with furniture and pictures it can be made rather attractive. i have made out a list of periodicals, and sent to boston for framed photographs for the walls. to-day i went to talk over the plan with deacon richards. the mill was fragrant with its sweet mealy smell, and deacon daniel was as dusty as a moth-miller. as i stood in the doorway waiting for him to come down from the wheel, where he was doing something or other about the hopper, i fell to humming the old rhyme we sang as children when we went by the mill:-- "'miller, miller, musty-poll, how many bags of wheat you stole?' 'one of wheat and one of rye.' 'you naughty miller, you must die!'" "that isn't very polite," deacon daniel said, coming up behind me before i knew he had left his perch. i turned and greeted him smilingly, repeating the last line:-- "you naughty miller, you must die!" "i suppose i must," he assented; "but it won't be for stealing, miss ruth." i love the old mill, with its great beams and its continual sound of dashing water and the chirruping of the millstones grinding away at the corn like an insatiate monster that can never have enough. the smell of the meal, too, is so pleasant, and even the abundant dust is so clean and fresh it seems to belong there. the mellow light through the dim windows and the shadows hiding in every corner have always from childhood appealed to my imagination. i find there always a soothing and serene mood. "i want your advice, deacon richards," i said. "so as not to follow it?" he demanded. "that's what women generally want of advice." i assured him i was ready to follow his advice if it were good, and so we talked about the reading-room. i told him it seemed to me that if it was to go on properly it should have a head; somebody to manage it and be responsible for the way in which it was carried on. "but you will do that yourself," he said. i answered that it must be a man, for it was nonsense to think of a woman's running a reading-room for men. he looked at me for a moment with his droll grin, and then he was pleased to say that for a woman i had a remarkable amount of common sense. i thanked him for the compliment to my sex, and then asked if he would undertake the business, and promise not to freeze the readers out the way he did the prayer-meetings. "i'm not the sort of person you want," he answered, chuckling at my allusion to the fire question. "i've sense enough to know that without being a woman. why don't you ask tom webbe?" i confessed that i had thought of tom, but--and there i stuck, for i could hardly tell the deacon how i thought gossip had already said enough about tom and myself without my giving folk any more to talk about. "i don't know what that 'but' means," he remarked, grinning more than ever, as if he did know perfectly. "anyway, there's nobody in town who could do it so well. all the men and boys like him, and he has a level head. he's the only one of the young fellows that's been to college, and he ought to know more about books than any of the rest of them. besides, he needs something to take up his mind." i felt the deacon was right, and i began to ask myself whether my personal feelings should be allowed to count in such a matter. still i could hardly make up my mind to take the responsibility of putting tom at the head of a reading-room i had started. if nothing else were to be considered i did not want my connection with the plan to be too prominent, and gossip about tom would be just the thing to keep my name always to the front. "i hope you are sensible enough to do one thing," deacon daniel went on, "and that is to have everybody who uses the room pay for it. it needn't be much, but they'll respect it and themselves more if they pay something, and it'll give them the right to grumble." "i don't want them to grumble," i returned. "oh, nobody cares much for anything he can't grumble about," was his reply, with a laugh; "but really they are twice as likely to grumble if you pay for everything than if they help. that's the way we are made." i told him that he was an old cynic, but i saw in a moment he was right about the value that would be put on a thing which was paid for. if the men feel they are helping to support the reading-room they will take a good deal more interest in it. "tom webbe will manage them all right," the deacon declared. "he'll let them grumble just enough, and make them so contented they'll think they're having their own way while he's going ahead just the way he thinks best. he's the only man for the place." perhaps he is; and indeed the more i think about it, the more i see the deacon is right. it would certainly be good for tom, and that is a good deal. i wonder what i ought to do? what deacon daniel said about the way in which tom would manage the men has been running through my mind. i wonder that i, who have known tom so well, never thought before of how great his power is to control people. it showed itself when he was a boy; and if he had carried out his plan to study law it would have been--i do wonder if tom is working by himself, and if that is the reason he borrowed those law-books? september . old lady andrews has solved the question for me. i am so glad i thought to go to her for advice. she suggests that we have a committee, and make deacon richards chairman. then tom can be put on, and really do the work. "it wouldn't do at all for you to put tom webbe at the head alone, my dear," she said. "it would make talk, and aunt naomi would have you married to him a dozen times before the week was over; but this way it will be all right." i asked her if committees did not usually have three on them, and she answered that deacon richards would know. "i belong to an old-fashioned generation, my dear, and i never can feel that it's quite respectable for a woman to know about committees and that sort of thing. i'm sure in my day it wouldn't have been thought well-bred. but deacon daniel will know. he's always on committees at church conferences and councils." once more i visited the mill, and told deacon daniel of old lady andrews' suggestion. he agreed at once, and declared the plan was better than that of having one man at the head. "it'll be much the same thing as far as managing the reading-room goes," he observed, stroking his chin thoughtfully, "but somehow folks like committees, and they generally think they have a better show if three or four men are running things than if there's only one. of course one man always does manage, but a committee's more popular." deacon daniel was very sure that the committee should have three on it, and when i asked who should be the other man he said:-- "if it were anybody else but you, miss ruth, i shouldn't think it was any use to say it, but you'll see what i mean. i think cy turner is the man for the third place." "the blacksmith?" i asked, a good deal surprised. "i'm afraid i don't see what you mean. i don't even know him." the deacon grinned down on me from his height, and made me a characteristic retort. "he doesn't look as if he'd kept awake nights on that account." the blacksmith's jolly round face and twinkling eyes as i had seen him on the street now and then came up before my mind, and i felt the full force of the deacon's irony. i told him that he was impertinent, and asked why he named mr. turner. "because," he answered, seriously, "what you want is for the folks that haven't any books at home and don't have a chance to read to get interested in the reading-room. if cy turner takes hold of it, he'll do more than anybody else in town could do to make it go among just those folks. he's shrewd and good-natured, and everybody that knows him likes him. he'll have all the boys in the reading-room if he has to take them there by the collar, and if he does they'll think it's fine." i could see at once the wisdom of the deacon's idea. i asked how tom and the blacksmith would work together, and was assured that mr. turner has a most unlimited admiration for tom, so that the two would agree perfectly. i made up my mind on the spot, and decided to go at once to interview the blacksmith, from whose shop i could hear above the whirring of the mill the blows on the anvil. i had no time on the little way from the mill to the blacksmith shop to consider what i should say to mr. turner, and i passed the time in hoping there would be no men about. it made no difference; he was so straightforward and simple, so kindly and human, that i felt at ease with him from the first. he was luckily alone, so i walked in boldly as if i were in the habit of visiting the forge every day of my life. he looked surprised to see me, but not in the least disconcerted. the self-respecting coolness of a new england workingman is something most admirable. mr. turner was smutty and dressed in dirty clothes, leather apron and all, but his manners were as good as those of the best gentleman in the land. there is something noble in a country where a common workingman will meet you with no servility and without any self-consciousness. i liked mr. turner from the moment i saw his face and heard his voice, rich and cheery, and i was won by his merry eyes, which had all the time a twinkling suggestion of a smile ready to break out on the slightest occasion. i went straight to my errand, and nothing could have been better than the way in which he received my proposition. he had no false modesty, and no over-assurance. he evidently knew that he could do what was required, he was undisguisedly pleased to be asked, and he was troubled by no doubts about social proprieties or improprieties. "i suppose mr. webbe will do most of what work there is to do," i said, "but he will be an easy person to work with on a committee, i should think." "yes, marm, he will," the blacksmith responded heartily. "there ain't a squarer fellow alive than tom webbe. tom's been a bit wild, perhaps; but he's an awful good fellow just the same, if you know him. i'm pleased to be on the committee with him, miss privet; and i'll do my best. i think the boys'll do about as i want 'em to." i had only to see mr. turner to understand why deacon daniel had chosen him. i think the committee--but "oh, good gracious mercy me," as the old woman in the story says, it just occurs to me that i have not said a word to tom about the whole business! september . it is strange that my only difficulty in arranging about the reading-room should come from tom, on whom i had counted as a matter of course; but it is fortunate that i had assumed he would serve, for this is what made him consent. when i saw him to-day, and told him what i had done, he at first said he could not possibly have anything to do with the whole matter. "i thank you, ruth," he said, "but don't you see i had better not give folks any occasion to think of me at all just now? the gossips need only to be reminded of my being alive, and they will begin all over again." "tom," i asked him desperately, "are you never going to get over this bitter feeling? i can't bear to have you go on thinking that everybody is talking about you." "i don't blame them for talking," was his answer. i assured him he would have been pleased if he could have heard the way in which mr. turner spoke of him yesterday. "oh, cy! he is too good-hearted to fling at anybody." "but deacon richards was just as friendly," i insisted. "yes, he would be. it isn't the men, ruth; they are ready to give a fellow a chance; but the women"-- he did not seem to know how to finish his sentence, and i reminded him that i too was a woman. "oh, you," responded tom, "you're an angel. you might almost be a man." i laughed at him for putting men above angels, and so by making him smile, by coaxing him, and appealing to his friendliness to back me up now i had committed myself, i prevailed upon him to serve. i am sure it will be good for the reading-room, and i am equally sure it will be good for tom. why in the world this victory should have left me a little inclined to be blue, i do not understand. x october october . i went this afternoon to walk on the rim road. the day was beyond words in its beauty,--crisp, and clear, and rich with all that vitality which nature seems so full of in autumn, as if it were filling itself with life to withstand the long strain of the winter. the leaves were splendid in their color, and shone against the sky as if they were full of happiness. perhaps it was the day that made it possible for me to see the red house without a pang, but i think it was the sense of baby at home, well and happy, and learning, unconsciously of course, to love me with every day that goes over her small head. a thin thread of smoke trickled up from the chimney, and i thought i ought to go in to see if the old grandmother was there. i wonder if it is right not to try if the blessed granddaughter might not soften her old heart, battered and begrimed if it be. nobody answered my knock, however, and so i did not see mrs. brownrig, for which i was selfishly glad. she has not been very gracious when i have sent her things, so i was not, i confess, especially anxious for an interview. i went away smiling to myself over a saying of father's: "there is nothing so pleasant as a disagreeable duty conscientiously escaped." october . i really know something which has escaped the acuteness of aunt naomi, and i feel greatly puffed up in consequence. deacon richards has been here this evening, and as it was rather cool i had a brisk, cheery fire. "i do like to be warm," he said, stretching out his hand luxuriously to the blaze. "i never could understand why i feel the cold so. i should think it was age, if it hadn't always been so from the time i was a boy." i thought of the cold vestry, and smiled to myself as i wondered if deacon daniel had ascetic ideas of self-torture. "then i should think you would be fond of big fires," i observed. "i am," he responded, "only they make me sleepy. i'm like a kitten; i go to sleep when i get warmed through." i laughed outright, and when he asked me what i was laughing at i told him it was partly at the idea of his being like a kitten, and partly because i had found him out. "it is all very well for you to keep the vestry as cold as a barn so that you can keep awake," i added; "but don't you think it is unfair to the rest of the congregation to freeze them too?" he looked rather disconcerted a moment, and then grinned, though sheepishly. "heat makes other people sleepy too," he said defensively. i chaffed him a little, and told him i should send a couple of loads of wood to the vestry, and that if it were necessary i would give him a bottle of smelling-salts to keep him awake, but certainly the room must be warmer. i declared i would not have dear old lady andrews exposed to the danger of pneumonia, even if he was like a kitten. it is really quite as touching as it is absurd to think of his sitting in prayer-meeting shivering and uncomfortable because he feels it his duty to keep awake. in biblical times dancing before the lord was a legitimate form of worship; it is almost a pity that sleeping before the lord cannot be put among proper religious observances. dear miss charlotte always sleeps--devoutly, i am sure--at every prayer-meeting, and then comes out declaring it has been a beautiful meeting. i have no doubt she has been spiritually refreshed, even if she has nodded. father used to say that no religion could be permanent until men were able to give their deity a sense of humor; and i do think a supreme being which could not see the humorous side of deacon richards' pathetic mortification of the flesh in his frosty vestry could hardly have the qualifications necessary to manage the universe properly. october . ranny gargan has settled the question of marriage for the present at least. he has remarried his first wife to prevent her from bringing suit against him. as miss charlotte rather boldly said, he has legitimized the beating by marrying the woman. rosa takes the matter coolly. she says she is glad to have things so she can't think of ranny, for now she can take dennis, and not bother any more about it. "it's a comfort to any woman not to have to decide what man she'll marry," she remarked with her amazing philosophy. "then you'd like to have somebody arrange a marriage for you, rosa," i said, rather for the sake of saying something. "arrange, is it?" she cried, bristling up suddenly. "what for would i have somebody making my marriage? i'd like to see anybody that would dare!" the moral of which seems to be that if rosa is so much of a philosopher that she sometimes seems to me to be talking scraps out of old heathen sages, she is yet only a woman. october . aunt naomi had about her when she came stealthily in this afternoon an air of excitement so evident as almost to be contagious. i could see by the very hurry of her sliding step and the extra tightness of her veil that something had stirred her greatly. "what is it, aunt naomi?" i asked at once. "you fairly bristle with news. what's happened?" she smiled and gave a little cluck, but my salutation made her instantly moderate her movements. she sat down with a composed and self-contained air, and only by the unusually vigorous swinging of her foot showed that she was not as serene as on ordinary occasions. "who said anything had happened?" she demanded. i returned that she showed it by her looks. "something is always happening, i suppose." i know aunt naomi well enough to understand that the quickest way of coming at her tidings was to pretend indifference, so i asked no more questions, but made a careless remark about the weather. "what made you think anything had happened?" persisted she. "it was simply an idea that came into my head," was my reply. "i hope deacon daniel keeps the vestry warm in these days." aunt naomi was not proof against this parade of indifference, and in a moment she broke out with her story. "well," she declared, "tom webbe seems bound to be talked about." "tom webbe!" i echoed. "what is it now?" i confess my heart sank with the fear that he had become desperate with the pressure of weary days, and had somehow defied all the narrow conventionalities which hem him in here in this little town. "it's the brownrig woman," aunt naomi announced. "if you get mixed up with that sort of creatures there's no knowing what you'll come to." "but what about her?" i demanded so eagerly that i became suddenly conscious of the keen curiosity which my manner brought into her glance. "what has she been doing?" i went on, trying to be cool. it was only by much questioning that i got the story. had it not been for my real interest in tom i would not have bothered so much, but as it was she had me at her mercy, and knew it. what happened, so far as i can make out, is this: the brownrig woman has been worse than ever since julia's death. she has been drunk in the streets more than once, and i am afraid the help she has had from tom and others has only led her to greater excesses. once deacon richards came upon her lying in the ditch beside the road, and she has made trouble more than once, besides disturbing the prayer-meeting. last evening tom came upon a mob of men and boys down by the flatiron wharf, and in the midst of them was mrs. brownrig, singing and howling. they were baiting her, and saying things to provoke her to more outrageous profanity. "they do say," observed aunt naomi with what seemed to me, i am ashamed to say, an unholy relish, "her swearing was something awful. john deland told me he never heard anything like it. he said no man could begin to come up to it." "john deland, that owns the smoke-houses?" i put in. "what was he doing there? i always thought he was a decent man." "so he is. he says," she returned with her drollest smile, "he was just passing by and couldn't help hearing. i dare say you couldn't have helped hearing if you'd been passing by." "i should have passed pretty quickly then; but what did tom webbe do?" she went on to say that tom had come upon this disgraceful scene, and found the crowd made up of all the lowest fellows in town. the men were shouting with laughter, and the old woman was shrieking with rage and intoxication. "john deland says as soon as tom saw what was going on and who the woman was, he broke through the crowd, and took her by the arm, and told her to come home. she cursed him, and said she wouldn't go; and then she cried, and they had a dreadful time. then somebody in the crowd--john says he thinks it was one of the bagley boys that burnt micah sprague's barn. you remember about that, don't you? they live somewhere down beyond the old shipyard"-- "i remember that the spragues' barn was burned," answered i; "but what did the bagley boy do last night?" "he called out to tom webbe to get out of the way, and not spoil the fun. then tom turned on the crowd, and i guess he gave it to them hot and heavy." "i'm sure i hope he did!" i said fervently. "he said he thought they might be in better business than tormenting an old drunken woman like that, and called them cowards to their faces. they got mad, and wanted to know what business it was of his, anyway. then he blazed out again, and said"-- i do not know whether the pause aunt naomi made was intentionally designed to rouse me still further, or whether she hesitated unconsciously; but i was too excited to care. "what did he say?" i asked breathlessly. "he told them she was his mother-in-law." "tom webbe said that? to that crowd?" cried i, and i felt the tears spring into my eyes. it was chiefly excitement, of course, but the pluck of it and the hurt to tom came over me in a flash. "what did they do?" "they just muttered, and got out of the way. john deland said it wasn't two minutes before tom was left alone with the old woman, and then he took her home. it's a pity she wouldn't drink herself to death." "i think it is, aunt naomi," was my answer; though i wished to add that the sentiment was rather a queer one to come from anybody who believes as she does. i do not know what else aunt naomi said. indeed when she had told her tale she seemed in something of a hurry to leave, and i suspect her of going on to repeat it somewhere else. tom's sin has left a trail of consequences behind it which he could never have dreamed of. i cannot tell whether i pity him more for this or honor him for the courage with which he stood up. poor tom! october . an odd thing has happened to the westons. a man came in the storm last night and dropped insensible on the doorstep. he might have lain there all night, and very likely would have died before morning, but george, when he started for bed, chanced to open the door to look at the weather. he found the tramp wet and covered with sleet, and at first thought that he was either dead or drunk. when he had got him in and thawed out by the kitchen fire, the man proved to be ill. george sent for dr. wentworth, and had a bed made up in the shed-chamber, but when he told me this morning he said it seemed rather doubtful if the tramp could live. "what did mrs. weston say?" i asked. i do not know how i came to ask such a question, and i meant nothing by it. george, however, stiffened in a moment as if he suspected me of something unkind. "mrs. weston didn't like my taking him into the house," he said. "she thought i ought to have sent him off to the poor-farm." "you could hardly do that last night," i returned, wondering how i could have offended him. "i am afraid the tramp's looks set her against him." "she hasn't seen him. she'd gone to bed before i found him last night, and this morning he is pretty sick. dr. wentworth says he can't be moved now. he's in a high fever, and keeps talking all the time." it is so very seldom we hear of tramps in tuskamuck that it is strange to have one appear like this, and it is odd he chose george's house to tumble down at, as it is a little out of the road. tramps have a law of their own, however, and never do what one would expect of them. i hope his illness will not be serious. i offered to do what i could, but george said they could take care of the man for the present. then he hesitated, and flushed a little as if confused. "i am sorry," he said, "it should happen just now, for gertrude ought not to be troubled when--when she isn't well." it is a pity, and i hope no harm will come of it, but if mrs. weston has not seen the tramp and has not been startled, i do not see why any should. october . if i could be superstitious, i think i should be now; but of course the whole thing is nonsense. people are talking--in forty-eight hours! how gossip does spring and spread!--as if there were something peculiar about that tramp. there is nothing definite to say except that he came to george's house, which is a little off from the main street, and that in his delirium he keeps calling for some person he says he knows is there, and he will surely find, no matter how she hides. the idea of the sick in a delirium is always painful, and the talk about this man makes it doubly so. i am afraid the fact that mrs. weston's servants do not like her has something to do with the whispers in the air. dislike will create suspicion on the slightest excuse, and there can be nothing to connect her with this dying tramp. what could there be? i wish aunt naomi would not repeat such unpleasant things. october . i have been with tom hanging the pictures in the new reading-room, and everything is ready for the opening when the magazines and the books come. next wednesday is the first of the month, and then we will have it opened. tom has already a list of over twenty men and boys who have joined, and lame peter tobey is to be janitor. it is delightful to see how proud and pleased he is. he can help his mother now, and the poor boy was pathetic in the way he spoke of that. he only mentioned it, but his tone touched me to the quick. tom and i had a delightful afternoon, hanging pictures, arranging the furniture, and seeing that everything was right. mr. turner and deacon richards came in just as we finished, and the three men were so simple in their interest, and so hearty about it, that i feel as if everything was going forward in just the right spirit. mr. turner saw where a bracket was needed for one of the lamps, and said at once he would make one to-morrow. it was charming to see how pleased he was to find there was something he could furnish, and which nobody else at hand could have supplied. we are always pleased to find we are not only needed, but we are needed in some particular way which marks our personal fitness for the thing to be done. deacon daniel brought a big braided rug that an old woman at the rim had made by his orders. he was in good spirits because he had helped the old woman and the reading-room at the same time. tom was happy because he was at work, and in an atmosphere that was friendly; and i was happy because i could not help it. and so when we locked the room, and came home in the early twilight, i felt at peace with all the world. tom came in and had a frolic with tomine, and when he went he held my hand a moment, looking into my face as if to impress me with what he said. "thank you, ruth," were the words; "i think you'll succeed in making me human again. good-night." if i am helping him to be reconciled with the world and himself i am more glad than i can tell. october . the earthquake always finds us unprepared, and to-night it has come. i feel dazed and queer, as if life had been shaken to its foundations, and as if it were trembling about me. george came in suddenly--my hand trembles so that i am writing like an old woman. if the chief object of keeping a journal is to help myself to be sane and rational, i must have better control over my nerves. about seven o'clock, as i sat sewing, i heard hannah open the front door to somebody. i half expected a deacon, as it generally is a deacon in the evening, but the door opened, and george came rushing in. his hurry and his excited manner made me see at once that something unusual had happened. his face was pale, his eyes wild, and somehow his whole air was terrifying. "what is the matter?" i cried, jumping up to meet him. he tried to speak, but only gave a sort of choking gasp. "has anything happened?" i asked him. "your wife"-- "i haven't any wife," he interrupted. the shock was terrible, for i thought at once she must be dead, and i made some sort of a horrified exclamation. then we stared at each other a minute. i supposed something had happened to her, and that he had from the force of old habit come to me in hope of comfort. "i never had a wife," he went on, almost angrily, and as if i had disputed him. i do not know what we said then or how we said it. it was a long time before i could understand, and even now it seems like a bad dream. somehow he made me understand that the tramp who was sick at their house had kept calling out in his delirium for gertrude and declaring he had found her, that she need not hide, for he would surely find her wherever she hid. the servants talked of it, and george knew it a day or two ago. i do not know whether he suspected anything or not. very likely he could hardly tell himself. finally one of the girls told mrs. weston, and she acted very strangely. she wanted to have a description of the man, and at last she insisted on going herself to peep at him, to see what he was like. george happened to come home just at the time mrs. weston had crept up to the door of the shed-chamber. some exclamation of hers when she saw her husband roused the sick man, who sat up in bed and screamed that he knew his wife's voice, and he would see her. george caught her by the arm, pushed the door wide open with his foot, and led her into the chamber. she held back, and cried out, and the tramp, half wild with delirium, sprang out of bed, shouting to george: "take your hands off of my wife!" george declares that even then he should not have believed the tramp was really speaking the truth if gertrude hadn't confirmed it. he thought the man was out of his head, and the worst of his suspicion was that the stranger had known mrs. weston somewhere. as soon as the tramp spoke, however, she fell down on her knees and caught george's hand, crying over and over: "i thought he was dead! i thought he was dead!" it must have been a fearful thing for both of them; and then gertrude fainted dead away at george's feet. the girl who had been taking care of the tramp was out of the room at the moment, but she heard george calling, and came in time to take her mistress away; while george got the tramp back to bed, and soothed him into some sort of quiet. then he rushed over here. i urged him to go back at once, telling him his wife would want him, and that it might after all be a mistake. "i don't want ever to set eyes on her again," he declared doggedly. "she's cheated me. she told me i was the first man she ever cared for, and i never had a hint she'd been married. she made a fool of me, but thank god i'm out of that mess." "what do you mean?" i asked him. "you are talking about your wife." "she isn't my wife, i tell you," persisted he. "i'll never live with her again." he must have seen how he shocked me, and at last he was persuaded to go home. i know i must see him to-morrow, and i have a cowardly desire to run away. i have a hateful feeling of repulsion against him, but that is something to be overcome. at any rate both he and his poor wife need a friend if they ever did, and i must do the best i can. i cannot wonder george should be deeply hurt by finding that mrs. weston had a husband before and did not tell him. she can hardly have loved him or she must have been honest with him. it may have been through her love and fear of losing him that she did not dare to tell; though from what i have seen of her i haven't thought her much given to sentiment. how dreadful it must be to live a life resting on concealment. i have very likely been uncharitable in judging her, for she must always have been uneasy and of course could not be her true self. october . some rumor of the truth has flown about the town, as i was sure when i saw aunt naomi coming up the walk this forenoon. sometimes i think she sees written on walls and fences the things which have happened or been said in the houses which they surround. she has almost a second sight; and if i wished to do anything secret i would not venture to be in the same county with her. she seated herself comfortably in a patch of sunshine, and looked with the greatest interest at the mahonia in bloom on the flower-stand by the south window. she spoke of the weather and of peter's silliness, told me where the sewing-circle was to be next week, and approached the real object of her call with the deliberation of a cat who is creeping up behind a mouse. when she did speak, she startled me. "i suppose you know that tramp over to the westons' died this morning," she remarked, so carelessly it might have seemed an accident if her eye had not fairly gleamed with eagerness. "died!" i echoed. "yes, he's dead," she went on. "he had some sort of excitement yesterday, they say, and it seems to have been the end of him." she watched me as if to see whether i would give any sign of knowing more of the matter than she did, but for once i hope i baffled her penetration. i made some ordinary comment, which could not have told her much. "it's very queer a tramp should go to that particular house to die," observed aunt naomi, as if she were stating an abstract truth in which she had no especial interest. i asked what there was especially odd about it. "well, for one thing," she answered, "he asked the way there particularly." i inquired how she knew. "al demmons met him on the rim road," she continued, not choosing, apparently, to answer my question directly, "and this man wanted to know where a man named weston lived who'd married a woman from the west called something al demmons couldn't remember. al demmons said that george weston was the only weston in town, and that he had married a girl named west. then the man said something about 'that used to be her name.' it's all pretty queer, i think." to this i did not respond. i would not get into a discussion which would give aunt naomi more material for talk. after a moment of silence, she said:-- "well, the man's dead now, and i suppose that's the end of him. i don't suppose mrs. weston's likely to tell much about him." "aunt naomi," i returned, feeling that even if all the traditions of respect for my elders were broken i must speak, "doesn't it seem to you harm might come of talking about this tramp as if he were some mysterious person connected with mrs. weston's life before she came to tuskamuck? it isn't strange that somebody should have known her, and when once a tramp has had help from a person he hangs on." she regarded me with a shrewd look. "you wouldn't take up cudgels for her that way if you didn't know something," she observed. after that there was nothing for me to say. i simply dropped the subject, and refused to talk about the affairs of the westons at all. i am so sorry, however, that gossip has got hold of a suspicion. it was to be expected, i suppose, and indeed it has been in the air ever since the man came. i am sorry for the westons. october . after the earthquake a fire,--i wonder whether after the fire will come the still, small voice! it is curious that out of all this excitement the feeling of which i am most conscious after my dismay and my pity is one of irritation. i am ashamed to find in my thought so much anger against george. he had perhaps a right to think as he did about my affection for him, though it is inconceivable any gentleman should say the things he said to me last night. even if he were crazy enough to suppose i could still love him, how could he forget his wife; how could he be glad of an excuse to be freed from her; how could he forget the little child that is coming? oh, i am like jonah when he was so sure he did well to be angry! i am convinced i can have no just perception of character at all, for this george weston is showing himself so weak, so ungenerous, so cruel, that he has either been changed vitally or i did not really know him. i was utterly deceived in him. no; i will not believe that. we have all of us possibilities in different directions. i wish i could remember the passage where browning says a man has two sides, one for the world and one to show a woman when he loves her. perhaps one side is as true as the other; and what i knew was a possible george, i am sure. he came in yesterday afternoon with a look of hard determination. he greeted me almost curtly, and added in the same breath:-- "the man is dead. she's confessed it all. he was her husband, and she was never my wife legally at all. she says she thought he was dead." "then there's only one thing to do," i answered. "you can get mr. saychase to marry you to-day. of course it can be arranged if you tell him how the mistake arose, and he won't speak of it." he laughed sneeringly. "i haven't any intention of marrying her," he said. "no intention of marrying her?" i repeated, not understanding him. "if the first ceremony wasn't legal, another is necessary, of course." "she cheated me," he declared, his manner becoming more excited. "do you suppose after that i'd have her for my wife? besides, you don't see. she was another man's wife when she came to live with me, and"-- i stared at him without speaking, and he began to look confused. "no man wants to marry a woman that's been living with him," he blurted out defiantly. "i suppose that isn't a nice thing to say to you, but any man would understand." i was silent at first, in mere amazement and indignation. the thing seemed so monstrous, so indelicate, so cruel to the woman. she had deceived him and hidden the fact that she had been married, but there was no justice in this horrible way of looking at it, as if her ignorance had been a crime. i could hardly believe he realized what he was saying. before i could think what to say, he went on. "very likely you think i'm hard, ruth; and perhaps i shouldn't feel so if it hadn't come about through her own fault. if she'd told me the truth"-- "george!" i burst out. "you don't know what you are saying! you didn't take her as your wife for a week or a month, but for all her life." "she never was my wife," he persisted stubbornly. i looked at him with a feeling of despair,--not unmixed, i must confess, with anger. most of all, however, i wanted to reach him; to make him see things as they were; and i wanted to save the poor woman. i leaned forward, and laid my fingers on his arm. my eyes were smarting, but i would not cry. "but if there were no question of her at all," i pleaded, "you must do what is right for your own sake. you have made her pledges, and you can't in common honesty give them up." "she set me free from all that when she lied to me. i made pledges to a girl, not to another man's wife." "but she didn't know. she thought she was free to marry you. she believed she was honestly your wife." "she never was, she never was." he repeated it stubbornly as if the fact settled everything. "she was!" i broke out hotly. "she was your wife; and she is your wife! when a man and a woman honestly love each other and marry without knowing of any reason why they may not, i say they are man and wife, no matter what the law is." "suppose the husband had lived?" he demanded, with a hateful smile. "the law really settles it." "do you believe that?" i asked him. "or do you only wish to believe it?" he looked at me half angrily, and the blood sprang into his cheeks. then he took a step forward. "she came between us!" he said, lowering his voice, but speaking with a new fierceness. i felt as if he had struck me, and i shrank back. then i straightened up, and looked him in the eye. "you don't dare to say that aloud," i retorted. "you left me of your own accord. you insult me to come here and say such a thing, and i will not hear it. if you mean to talk in that strain, you may leave the house." he was naturally a good deal taken aback by this, and perhaps i should not--yes, i should; i am glad i did say it. he stammered something about begging my pardon. "let that go," interrupted i, feeling as if i had endured about all that i could hear. "the question is whether you are not going to be just to your wife." "you fight mighty well for her," responded george, "but if you knew how she"-- "never mind," i broke in. "can't you see i am fighting for you? i am trying to make you see you owe it to yourself to be right in this; and moreover you owe it to me." "to you?" he asked, with a touch in his voice which should have warned me, but did not, i was so wrapped up in my own view of the situation. "yes, to me. i am your oldest friend, don't you see, and you owe it to me not to fail now." he sprang forward impulsively, holding out both his hands. "ruth," he cried out, "what's the use of all this talk? you know it's you i love, and you i mean to marry." i know now how a man feels when he strikes another full in the face for insulting him. i felt myself growing hot and then cold again; and i was literally speechless from indignation. "i went crazy a while for a fool with a pretty face," he went rushing on; "but all that"-- "she is your wife, george weston!" i broke in. "how dare you talk so to me!" he was evidently astonished, but he persisted. "we ought to be honest with each other now, ruth," he said. "there's too much at stake for us to beat about the bush. i know i've behaved like a fool and a brute. i've hurt you and--and cheated you, and you've had every reason to throw me over like a sick dog; but when you made up the money i'd lost and didn't let mr. longworthy suspect, i knew you cared for me just the same!" "cared for you!" i blazed out. "do you think i could have ruined any man's life for that? i love you no more than i love any other man with a wife of his own!" "that's just it," he broke in eagerly. "of course i knew you couldn't own you cared while she"-- the egotism of it, the vulgarity of it made me frantic. i was ashamed of myself, i was ashamed of him, and i felt as if nothing would make him see the truth. never in my whole life have i spoken to any human being as i did to him. i felt like a raging termagant, but he would not see. "stop!" i cried out. "if you had never had a wife, i couldn't care for you. i thought i loved you, and perhaps i did; but all that is over, and over forever." "you've said you'd love me always," he retorted. some outer layer of courtesy seemed to have cracked and fallen from him, and to have left an ugly and vulgar nature bare. the pathos of it came over me. the pity that a man should be capable of so exposing his baser self struck me in the midst of all my indignation. i could not help a feeling, moreover, that he had somehow a right to reproach me with having changed. thinking of it now in cooler blood i cannot see that since he has left me to marry another woman he has any ground for reproaching me; but somehow at the moment i felt guilty. "george," i answered, "i thought i was telling the truth; i didn't understand myself." the change in his face showed me that this way of putting it had done more to convince him than any direct denial. his whole manner altered. "you don't mean," he pleaded piteously, "you've stopped caring for me?" i could only tell him that certainly i had stopped caring for him in the old way, and i begged him to go back to his wife. he said little more, and i was at last released from this horrible scene. all night i thought of it miserably or i dreamed of it more miserably still. that poor woman! what can i do for her? i hope i have not lost the power of influencing george, for i might use it to help her. xi november november . how odd are the turns that fate plays us. sometimes it seems as if an unseen power were amusing himself tangling the threads of human lives just as peter has been snarling up my worsted for pure fun. only a power mighty enough to be able to do this must be too great to be so heartless. i suppose, too, that the pity of things is often more in the way in which we look at them than it is in the turn which fate or fortune has given to affairs. the point of view changes values so. all this is commonplace, of course; but it is certainly curious that george's wife should be in my house, almost turned out of her husband's. when i found her on the steps the other night, wet with the rain, afraid to ring, afraid of me, and terrified at what had come upon her, i had no time to think of the strange perversity of events which had brought this about. she had left george's house, she said, because she was afraid of him and because he had said she was to go as soon as she was able. he had called her a horrible name, she added, and he had told her he was done with her; that she must in the future take care of herself and not expect to live with him. i know, after seeing the cruel self george showed the other day, that he could be terrible, and he would have less restraint with his wife than with me. in the evening, as soon as it was really dark, in the midst of the storm, she came to me. she said she knew how i must hate her, that she had said horrid things about me, but she had nowhere else to go, and she implored i would take her in. she is asleep now in the south chamber. she is ill, and i cannot tell what the effects of her exposure will be. dr. wentworth looks grave, but he does not say what he thinks. what i ought to do is the question. she has been here two days, and her husband must have found out by this time what i suppose everybody in town knows,--where she is. i cannot fold my hands and let things go. i must send for george, much as i shrink from seeing him. how can i run the risk of having another scene like the one on friday? and yet i must do something. she can do nothing for herself. it should be a man to talk with george; but i cannot ask tom. he and george do not like each other, and he could not persuade george to do right to gertrude. perhaps deacon richards might effect something. november . after all my difficulty in persuading deacon richards to interfere, his efforts have come to nothing. george was rude to him, and told him to mind his own affairs. i suppose dear old deacon daniel had not much tact. "i told him he ought to be ashamed of himself," the deacon said indignantly, "and that he was a disgrace to the town; but it didn't seem to move him any." "i hope he treated you well," i answered dolefully. "i am sorry i persuaded you to go." "he was plain enough," deacon daniel responded grimly. "he didn't mince words any to speak of." i must see him myself. i wish i dared consult tom, but it could not do any good. i must work it out alone; but what can i say? november . fortunately, i did not have to send for george. he appeared this afternoon on a singular errand. he wanted to pay me board for his wife until she was well enough to go away. i assured him he need not be troubled about board, because i was glad to do what i could for his wife; and i could not help adding that i did not keep a lodging-house. "i'm willing to be as kind to her while she's here as i can," he assured me awkwardly, "and of course i shall not let her go away empty-handed." "she is not likely to," i retorted, feeling my cheeks get hot. "dr. wentworth says she cannot be moved until after the baby comes." he flushed in his turn, and looked out of the window. "i don't think, ruth," was his reply, "we can discuss that. it isn't a pleasant subject." there are women, i know, who can meet obstinacy with guile. i begin to understand how it may be a woman will stoop to flatter and seem to yield, simply through despair of carrying her end by any other means. the hardness of this man almost bred in me a purpose to try and soften him, to try to bewitch him, somehow to fool and ensnare him for his own good; to hide how i raged inwardly at his injustice and cruelty, and to pretend to be acquiescent until i had accomplished my end. i cannot lie, however, even in acts, and all that sort of thing is beyond my power as well as my will. i realized how hopeless it was for me to try to do anything with him, and i rose. "very likely you are right," i said. "it is evidently useless for us to discuss anything. now i can only say good-by; but i forbid you to come into my house again until you bring mr. saychase with you to remarry you to gertrude." he had risen also, and we stood face to face. "do you suppose," he asked doggedly, "now i am free i'd consent to marry any woman but you? i'll make you marry me yet, ruth privet, for i know perfectly well you love me. think how long we were engaged." i remembered the question he asked me when he came back from franklin after he had seen her: "how long have we been engaged?" "i shall keep your wife," was all i said, "until she is well and chooses to go. george, i beg of you not to let her baby be born fatherless." a hateful look came into his eyes. "i thought you were fond of fatherless babies," he sneered. "go," i said, hardly controlling myself, "and don't come here again without mr. saychase." "if i bring him it will be to marry you, ruth." something in me rose up and spoke without my volition. i did not know what i was saying until the words were half said. i crossed the room and rang the bell for rosa, and as i did it i said:-- "i see i must have a husband to protect me from your insults, and i will marry tom webbe." before he could answer, rosa appeared. "rosa," i said, and all my calmness had come back, "will you show mr. weston to the door. i am not at home to him again until he comes with mr. saychase." she restrained her surprise and amusement better than i expected, but before she had had time to do more than toss her head george had rushed away without ceremony. by this time, i suppose, every man, woman, and child in town knows that i have turned him out of my house. november . "and after the fire a still, small voice!" i have been saying this over and over to myself; and remembering, not irreverently, that god was in the voice. i have had a talk with tom which has moved me more than all the trouble with george. the very fact that george so outraged all my feelings and made me so angry kept me from being touched as i might have been otherwise; but this explanation with tom has left me shaken and tired out. it is emotion and not physical work that wears humanity to shreds. tom came to discuss the reading-room. he is delighted that it has started so well and is going on so swimmingly; and he is full of plans for increasing the interest. i was, i confess, so preoccupied with what i had made up my mind to say to him i could hardly follow what he was saying. i felt as if something were grasping me by the throat. he looked at me strangely, but he went on talking as if he did not notice my uneasiness. "tom," i broke out at last, when i could endure it no longer, "did you know that mrs. weston is here, very ill?" "yes," was all he answered. "and, tom," i hurried on, "george won't remarry her." "won't remarry her?" he echoed. "the cur!" "he was here yesterday," i went on desperately, "and he said he is determined to marry me." tom started forward with hot face and clenched fist. "the blackguard! i wish i'd been here to kick him out of the house! what did you say to him?" "i told him he had insulted me, and forbade him to come here again without mr. saychase to remarry them," i said. then before tom's searching look i became so confused he could not help seeing there was more. "well?" he demanded. he was almost peremptory, although he was courteous. men have such a way in a crisis of instinctively taking the lead that a woman yields to it almost of necessity. "tom," i answered, more and more confused, "i must tell you, but i hope you'll understand. i had a frightful time with him. i was ashamed of him and ashamed of myself, and very angry; and when he said he'd make me marry him sometime, i told him"-- "well?" demanded tom, his voice much lower than before, but even more compelling. "i told him," said i, the blood fairly throbbing in my cheeks, "that i should marry you. you've asked me, you know!" he grew fairly white, but for a moment he did not move. his eyes had a look in them i had never seen, and which made me tremble. it seemed to me that he was fighting down what he wanted to say, and to get control of himself. "ruth," he asked me at last, with an odd hoarseness in his voice, "do you want george weston to marry that woman?" "of course i do," i cried, so surprised and relieved that the question was not more personal the tears started to my eyes. "i want it more than anything else in the world." again he was still for a moment, his eyes looking into mine as if he meant to drag out my most secret thought. these silences were too much for me to bear, and i broke this one. i asked him if he were vexed at what i had said to george, and told him the words had seemed to say themselves without any will of mine. "i could only be sorry at anything you said, ruth," he returned, "never vexed. i only think it a pity for you to link your name with mine." i tried to speak, but he went on. "i've loved you ever since i was old enough to love anything. i've told you that often enough, and i don't think you doubt it. i had you as my ambition all the time i was growing up. i came home from college, and you were engaged, and all the good was taken out of life for me. i've never cared much since what happened. but if i've asked you to love me, ruth, i never gave you the right to think i'd be base enough to be willing you should marry me without loving me." again i tried to speak, though i cannot tell what i wished to say. i only choked and could not get out a word. "don't talk about it. i can't stand it," he broke in, his voice husky. "you needn't marry me to make george weston come up to the mark. i'll take care of that." i suppose i looked up with a dread of what might happen if he saw george, and of course tom could not understand that my concern was for him and not for george. he smiled a bitter sort of smile. "you needn't be afraid," he said. "i'll treat him tenderly for your sake." i was too confused to speak, and i could only sit there dazed and silent while he went away. it was not what he was saying that filled me with a tumult till my thoughts seemed beating in my head like wild birds in a net. suddenly while he was speaking, while his dear, honest eyes full of pain were looking into mine, the still, small voice had spoken, and i knew that i cared for tom as he cared for me. november . i realize now that from the morning when tom and i first stood with baby in my arms between us i have felt differently toward him. it was at the moment almost as if i were his wife, and though i never owned it to myself, even in my most secret thought, i have somehow belonged to him ever since. i see now that something very deep within has known and has from time to time tried to tell me; but i put my hands to the ears of my mind. miss fleming used to try to teach us things at school about the difference between the consciousness and the will, and other dark mysteries which to me were, and are, and always will be utterly incomprehensible, and i suppose some kind of a consciousness knew what the will wouldn't recognize. that sounds like nonsense now it is on paper, but it seemed extremely wise when i began to write it. no matter; the facts i know well enough. it is wonderful how a woman will hide a thing from herself, a thing she knows really, but keeps from being conscious she knows by refusing to let her thoughts put it into words. to myself i seem shamefully fickle,--and yet it seems also as if i had never changed at all, but that it was always tom i have been fond of, even when i fully believed it was george. of course this is only a weak excuse; but at least i have been fond of tom as a friend from my childhood. he has always commanded me, too, in a way. he has done what i wished and what i thought best; but i have always known he could be influenced only so far, and that if i wanted what he did not believe in he could be as stubborn as a rock. the hardness of his mother shows itself in him as the stanch foundation for the gentleness he gets from his father. miss charlotte came in for a moment to-day, and by instinct she knew that something had made me happy. she was full of sympathy for a moment, and then, i think, some suspicion came into her dear old head which she would not have there. "ruth, my dear," she said in her rough way, "you look too cheerful for the head of a foundling asylum and a house of refuge. i hope you've made george weston promise to marry his own wife,--though if i made the laws it wouldn't be necessary for a man to marry a woman more than once. i've no idea of weddings that have to come round once in so often like house-cleaning." she was watching me so keenly as she spoke that i smiled in spite of myself. "no," i told her, "i haven't been able to make him; but tom webbe has undertaken to bring him round, so i believe it will be all right." whether she understood or not i cannot tell, but from the loving way in which she leaned over and kissed me i suspect she had some inkling of it. november . they are married. just after dusk to-night i heard the doorbell, and rosa came in with a queer look on her face to say that mr. saychase and mr. weston were in the hall. i went out to them at once, and tried to act as if everything had been arranged between us. george was pale and stern. he would not look at me, and i did not exchange a word directly with him while he was in the house, except to say good-evening and good-by. i kept them waiting just a moment or two while i prepared gertrude, and then i called them upstairs. she behaved very well, acting as if she were a little frightened, but accepting everything without a word. i suspect she is too ill really to care for anything very much. the ceremony was over quickly, and then george went away without noticing his wife further except to say good-night. tom came in for a moment, later, to see that everything was well, and of course i asked him how he had brought george to consent. he smiled rather grimly. "i did it simply enough," he said. "i tried easy words first, and appealed to him as a gentleman,--though of course i knew it was no use. if such a plea would have done any good, i shouldn't have been there. then i said he wouldn't be tolerated in tuskamuck if he didn't make it right for his wife. he said he guessed he could fix that, and if other people would mind their own business he could attend to his. then i opened the door and called in cy turner. i had him waiting outside because i knew weston would understand he meant business. i asked him to say what we'd agreed; and he told weston that if he didn't marry the woman before midnight we'd have him ridden out of town on a rail. he weakened at that. he knew we'd do it." i could not say anything to this. it was a man's way of treating the situation, and it accomplished its end; but it did affect me a good deal. i shivered at the very idea of a mob, and of what might have happened if george had not yielded. tom saw how i felt, i suppose. "you think i'm a brute, ruth," he said, "but i knew he'd give in. he isn't very plucky. i always knew that." he hurried away to go to the reading-room, where he had to see to something or other, and we said nothing about our personal relations. i wonder if i fancied that he watched me very closely to see how i took his account, or if he really thought i might resent his having browbeaten george. he need not have feared. i was troubled by the idea of the mob, but i was proud of tom, and i could not help contrasting his clear, straightforward look with the way george avoided my eyes. november . now there are two babies in the house, and cousin mehitable might think her prediction that i would set up an orphan asylum was coming true in earnest. in spite of mrs. weston's exposure everything is going well, and we hope for the best. i sent george a note last night to tell him, and he came over for a minute. he behaved very well. he had none of the bravado which has made him so different and so dreadful, and he was more like his old self. he was let into his wife's chamber just long enough to kiss her, but that was all. i suppose to be the father of a son must sober any man. november . tom never comes any more to see me or baby. when i discovered i cared for him i felt that of course everything was at last straightened out; and here is tom, who only knows that he cares for me, so the case is about as it was before except that now he will never speak. i must do something; but what can i do? when i thought only of getting out of the way of george's marriage it was bad enough to speak to tom, and now it seems impossible. i can't, i can't, i can't speak to him again! november . cousin mehitable and her telegram arrived this time together, for the boy who drove her from the station brought the message, and gave it to her to bring into the house. she was full of indignation and amazement at what she found, and insisted upon going back to boston by the afternoon train. "i never know what you will do, ruth," she said, "so of course i ought not to be surprised; but of all the wild notions you could take into your head, i must say to have mrs. weston come here to have her baby is the most incredible." "you advised me to have more babies, as long as i had one," i interposed. "i've a great mind to shake you," was her response. "this is a pretty reception when i haven't seen you since i came home. to think i should be cousin to a foundling hospital, and that all the family i have left!" i suggested that if i really did set up a foundling hospital, she would soon have as large a family as anybody could want, and she briskly retorted that she had more than she wanted now. she had come down to persuade me to go to boston for the winter, to make up, she said, for my not going abroad with her, and she brought me a wonderful piece of embroidered crêpe for a party dress. she was as breezy and emphatic as ever, and she denounced me and my doings in good round terms. "i suppose if you did come to boston," she said, "you'd be mixed up in all the dreadful charities there, and i should never see you." "but you know, cousin mehitable," i protested, "you belong to two or three charitable societies yourself." "but those are parish societies," was her reply. "that is quite different. of course i do my part in whatever the church is concerned in; but you just do things on your own hook, and without even believing anything. i think it's wicked myself." i could only laugh at her, and it was easy to see that her indignation was not with any charitable work i did, but only with the fact i would not promise to leave everything and go home with her. before she went home i told her i had a confession to make. she commented, not very encouragingly, that she supposed it was something worse than anything had come yet, but that as she was prepared for anything i might as well get it out. "if you've decided to be some sort of a mormon wife to that horrid mr. weston," she added, "i shouldn't be in the least surprised. perhaps you'll take him in with the rest of his family." i said i did indeed think of being married, but not to him. "let me know the worst at once, ruth," she broke out, rather fiercely. "at my age i can't stand suspense as i could once. what tramp or beggar or clodhopper have you picked out? i know you too well to suppose it's anybody respectable." when i named tom, she at first pretended not to know him, although she has seen him a dozen times in her visits here, and once condescended to say that for a countryman he was really almost handsome. "i know it's the same name as that baby's father's," she ended, her voice getting icier and icier, "but of course no respectable woman would think of marrying him." "then i'm not a respectable woman," i retorted, feeling the blood rise into my face, "for i'm thinking of it." we looked for a moment into each other's eyes, and i felt, however i appeared, as if i were defying anything she could say. "so he has taken advantage of your mothering his baby, has he?" she brought out at last. i responded that he did not even suspect i meant to marry him. she stared, and demanded how he was to find out. i answered that i could think of no way except for me to tell him. she threw up her hands in pretended horror. "i dare say," she burst out, "he only got you to take the baby so that you'd feel bound to him. i should think when he'd disgraced himself you might have self-respect enough to let him alone. oh, what would cousin horace say!" then she saw she was really hurting me, and her eyes softened somewhat. "i shan't congratulate you, ruth, if that's what you expect; but since you will be a fool in your own obstinate way, i hope it'll make you happy." i took both her hands in mine. "cousin mehitable," i pleaded, "don't be hard on me. i know he's done wrong, and it hurts me more than i can tell you. i am so sorry for him and i really, really love him. i'm all alone now except for baby, and i am sure if father were alive he would see how i feel, and approve of what i mean to do." the tears came into her eyes as i had never seen them. she drew her hands away, but first she pressed mine. "ruth," she said, "never mind my tongue. if you've only baby, i've nobody but you, and you won't come near me. besides, you are going to have him. i can't pretend i like it, ruth; but i do like you, and i do dearly hope you'll be happy. you deserve to be, my dear; and i'm a selfish, worldly old woman, with a train to catch. now don't say another word about it, or i'll disinherit you in my will." so we kissed each other, and she went away with my secret. november . kathie has come home for her thanksgiving vacation, and i never saw a creature so transformed. she is so interested in her school, her studies, her companions, that she seems to have forgotten that anybody ever frightened her about her soul; and she is just a merry, happy girl, bright-eyed and rather high-strung, but not in the least morbid. she hugged me, and kissed tomine, and the nonsense of her jealousy, as of her having committed the unpardonable sin, was forgotten entirely. it is an unspeakable comfort to me that the experiment of sending her away has turned out so well. miss charlotte came in while kathie was here, and watched her with shrewd, keen eyes as she rattled on about the things she is studying, the games she plays, and the friends she has made. when she had gone, miss charlotte looked at me with one of her friendly regards. "she's made over, like the boy's jackknife that had a new blade and a new handle," was her comment. "i think, my dear, you've saved her soul alive." i was delighted that she thought kathie so much improved, though of course i realized i had not done it. november . i have invited george to thanksgiving dinner. i do hope gertrude will be able to come downstairs; if she is not i shall have to get through as best i can without her. miss charlotte will come, and that will prevent the awkwardness of our being by ourselves. george comes every day to see his wife, and i think his real feelings, his better side, have been called out by her illness. she is the mother of his son, and she is so extremely pretty and pathetic as she lies there, that i should not think any man could resist her. she is so softened by what she has gone through, and so grateful for kindness, she seems a different person from the over-dressed woman we have known without liking very much. she told me yesterday a good deal about her former life. she has been an orphan from her early girlhood, largely dependent upon an aunt who wanted to be rid of her. it was partly by the contrivance of her aunt, and partly because she longed to escape from a position of dependence, that she married her first husband. she did not stop, i think, to consider what she was doing, and she found her case a pretty hard one. her husband abused her, and before they had been married a year he ran away to escape a charge of embezzlement. word was sent to her soon after that he was drowned. she took again her maiden name, and came east to escape all shadow of the disgrace of her married life. she earned her living as a typewriter, until she saw george at franklin, where she was employed in the bank. she confessed that she came here to secure him, and she wept in begging my pardon for taking him away from me. if she can keep to her resolutions and if george will only be still fond of her, things may yet go well with them. aunt naomi dryly observed yesterday that what has happened will be likely to prevent mrs. weston for a long time to come from trying to make a display, and so it may be the best thing that could have befallen her. so much depends upon george, though! november . the dinner went off much better than i could have hoped. dr. wentworth allowed gertrude to leave her room for the first time, and george brought her down to dinner in his arms. she was given only a quarter of an hour, but this served for the topic of talk, and george was so tender with his wife that miss charlotte was quite warmed to him. the two babies of course had to be produced, but it was rather painful to see how thin and spindling the little weston baby looked beside my bonny thomasine. tomine has grown really to know me. she will come scrambling like a little crab across the floor toward me if i appear in the nursery. hannah and rosa are both jealous of me, and i triumph over them in a fashion little less than inhuman. i am glad thanksgiving is over, for in spite of all any of us might do to seem perfectly at ease, some sense of constraint and uncomfortableness was always in the background. on the whole, however, we did very well; and miss charlotte sat with me far into the twilight, talking of mother. xii december december . i dreamed last night a dream which affected me so strongly that i can hardly write of it without shivering. i dreamed that george came with mr. saychase to remarry, as i thought, gertrude. when we all stood by the side of her bed, however, george seized my hand, and announced that he had come to marry me, and was resolved to have no other wife. gertrude fell back on her pillow in a faint. i struggled to pull away the hand george had taken, but i was powerless. i tried to scream, but that horrible paralysis which sometimes affects us in dreams left me speechless. i felt myself helpless while mr. saychase went on marrying me to george before the eyes of his own wife, in spite of anything i could do to prevent it. the determination to be free of this bond struggled in me so strongly against the helplessness which held me that i sprang up in bed at last, awake and bursting into hysterical crying. the strange thing about it all is that i seem to have broken more than the sleep of the body. it is as if all these years i had been in a drowse in my mind, and had suddenly sprung up throbbingly awake. i am as aghast at myself as if i should discover i had unconsciously been walking in the dark on the edge of a ghastly precipice,--yes, a precipice on the edge of a valley full of writhing snakes! my very flesh creeps at the thought that i could by any possibility be made the wife of any man but tom. i look back to-day over the long years i was engaged, and understand all in a flash how completely george spoke the truth when he used to complain i was an iceberg and did not know what it was to be in love. he was absolutely right; and he was right to leave me. i can only wonder that through those years when i endured his bodily presence because i thought i loved his mental being, he could endure me at all. he could not have borne it, i see now, if he had been really in love with me himself. i am wise with a strange new wisdom; but whence it comes, or why it has opened to me in a single night, from a painful dream, is more than i can say. i understand that george never loved me any more than i did him. he will go back to gertrude,--indeed i do not believe he has ever ceased to be fond of her, even when he declared he was tired of her and wanted me to take him back. he was angry with her, and no human being understands himself when he is angry. last night after i waked i could not reason about things much. i was too panic-stricken. i lay there in the dark actually trembling from the horror of my dream, and realized that from my very childhood tom has stood between me and every other man. now at last i, who have been all these years in a dull doze, am awake. i might almost say, without being in the least extravagant, that i am alive who was dead; i, who have thought of love and marriage as i might have thought about a trip abroad, know what love means. my foolish dream has changed me like a vision which changes a mere man into a prophet or a seer. i cannot bear that tom should go on suffering. i must somehow let him know. december . fortune was kind to me this morning, and tom knows. i had to go to take some flannel to old peggy cole, and as i crossed the foot-bridge tom came out of deacon daniel's mill. he flushed a little when he saw me, and half hesitated, as if he were almost inclined to turn back. i did not mean to let him escape, however, and stood still, waiting for him. we shook hands, and i at once told him i had wanted to see him, so that if he were not in a hurry i should be glad if he would walk on with me. he assented, not very willingly i thought, and we went on over the bridge together. the sun was shining until the snow-edges glistened like live coals, and everywhere one looked the air fairly shimmered with light. the tide was coming up in the river, and the cakes of ice, yellowed in patches by the salt water until they were like unshorn fleeces, were driven against the long sluice-piers, jostling and pushing like sheep frightened into a corner. the piers themselves, and every spar or rock that showed above the water, were as white as snow could make them. it was one of those days when the air is a tonic, so that every breath is a joy; and as tom and i walked on together i could have laughed aloud just for joy of the beautiful winter day. "how cold the water looks," tom said, turning his face away from me and toward the rim. "it is fairly black with cold." "even the ice-cakes seem to be trying to climb out of it," i returned, laughing from nothing but pure delight. "i suppose that is the way you feel about me, tom. you haven't been near tomine or me for ten days, and you know you wanted to get away from me this morning." he did not answer for a minute. then he said in a strained voice:-- "it's no use, ruth; i shall have to go away. i can't stand it here. it was bad enough before, but now i simply cannot bear it." "you mean," i returned, full of fun and mischief, "that the idea of my offering myself to you was too horrible? you had a chance to refuse, tom; and you took it. i should think i was the one to feel as if it wasn't to be borne." he stopped in the street and turned to face me. "don't, ruth," he protested in a voice which went straight to my heart. "if you knew how it hurts me you wouldn't joke about it." i wanted to put my arms about his neck and kiss him as i used to do when we were babies; but that was manifestly not to be thought of, at least not in the street in plain sight of the blacksmith shop. "it isn't any joke," said i. "just walk along so the whole town need not talk about us, please." he walked on, and i tried to think of a sentence which would tell him that i really cared for him, yet which i could say to him there in the open day, with the sun making a peeping eye of every icy crystal on fence or tree-twig. "well?" he cried after a moment. "o tom," i asked in despair, "why don't you help me? i can't say it. i can't tell you i"-- i did not dare to look at him, and i came to a stop in my speech because i could feel that he was pressing eagerly to my side. "you what, ruth?" he demanded, his voice quivering. "be careful!" perhaps his agitation helped me to master mine. certain it is for the moment i thought only that he must not be kept in suspense, and so i burst out abruptly:-- "tom, you are horrid! i've offered myself to you once, and now you want me to protest in the open street that i can't live without you! well, then; i can't!" "ruth!" it was all he said; just my name, which he has said hundreds and hundreds of times ever since he could say anything; but i think i can never hear my name again without remembering the love he put into it. i trembled with happiness, but i would not look at him. i walked on with my eyes fixed on the snowy hills beyond the town, and tried to believe i was acting as if i had said nothing and felt nothing unusual. i remember our words up to this time, but after that it is all a joyful blur. i know tom walked about and waited for me while i did my errand with peggy cole; the droll old creature scolded me because the flannel was not thicker, and i beamed on her as if she were expressing gratitude; then he walked home with me, and couldn't come in because as we turned the corner we saw aunt naomi walk into the house. one thing i do remember of our talk on the way home. tom said suddenly, and with a solemnity of manner that made me grave at once:-- "there is one thing more, ruth, we must be frank about now or we shall always have it between us. can you forgive me for being baby's father?" he had found just the phrase for that dreadful thing which made it most easy for me to answer. "tom, dear," i answered, "it isn't for me to forgive or not to forgive. it is in the past, and i want to help you to forget utterly what cannot now be helped." "but baby," he began, "she"-- "baby is ours," i interrupted. "all the rest may go." he promised to come in to-night, and then i had to face aunt naomi. she looked me through and through with eyes that seemed determined to have the very deepest secrets of my soul. whether i concealed anything from her or not i cannot tell; but after all why should i care? the day has been lived through, and it is time for tom to come. december . if i could write--but i cannot, i cannot! ever since rosa rushed in last night, crying out that tom was drowned, i have seen nothing but the water black with cold, and the flocks of ice cakes grinding--oh, why should i torment myself with putting it down? december . we buried him to-day. cousin mehitable sent a wreath of ivy. nobody else knows our secret. if he remembers, it is sweet for him to know. december . the stars are so beautiful to-night they make me remember how tom and i in our childhood used to play at choosing stars we would visit when we could fly. to-night he may be exploring them, but for me they shine and shine, and my tears blur them, and make them dance and double. december . i have been talking with deacon richards and mr. turner. they both think i can take tom's place on the reading-room committee without coming forward too much. nothing need be said about it, only so i can do most of tom's work. of course i cannot go to the room evenings as he did; but mr. turner will do that. tom was so interested in this that i feel as if i were continuing his work and carrying out his plans. i remember all he had told me, and it almost seems like doing it with him. almost! december . now i know all about tom's death that anybody knows. i could not talk about it before. aunt naomi and dear miss charlotte both tried to tell me, but i would not let them. to-night mr. turner came to talk about the library, and before he went away we spoke about tom. he was so homely in his speech, so honest, so kindly, that i kept on, and could listen to him even when he told how tom died. that night tom had been down on the other side of the river, and was coming up--coming to me--past the flatiron wharf. mrs. brownrig was on the wharf, crazy with drink, and threatening to throw herself overboard. two or three of the people who live near there, men and women, were trying to get her away, and when tom appeared they asked him to see what he could do. as he came near her the old woman shrieked out that he had killed her daughter and would murder her; and before they realized what she was doing she had jumped into the water. tom ran to the edge, unfastening his overcoat as he went, and just paused to tear it off before he leaped in after her. the tide was running out, and the water was full of ice. he had a great bruise on his forehead where he had evidently been struck by a block. mrs. brownrig pinioned his arms too, so he had no chance anyway. it was a mercy that the bodies were recovered before the tide drifted them out. "tom was an awful good fellow," the blacksmith concluded, "an awful good fellow." i could not answer him. december . deacon webbe has been here to-day. he was so bowed and bent and broken i could hardly talk to him without sobbing; and i had to tell him i was to have been his daughter, and that if he would let me, i would be so still. he was greatly touched, and he will keep our secret. december . more than the death of father, more, even, than that of mother who had been my care and comfort so long, the death of tom seems to leave me alone in a wide, empty universe. i cannot conceive of a future without him; i cannot believe the bonds which bound us are broken. i have his child, and i cannot take baby in my arms without feeling i am coming closer to tom. all my friends have been very dear. i do not think any one of them, except perhaps miss charlotte, suspects how much the loss of tom means to me, but they at least realize that we were life-long comrades, and that i must feel the death of the father of baby very keenly. however much or little they suspect, no one has betrayed any intimation that tom and i were more than close friends. even aunt naomi has said nothing to make me shrink. people are so kind in this world, no matter what pessimists may say. december . i have been very busy with all the christmas work for my poor people, the things tom wanted done for the reading-room, and the numberless trifles which need to be attended to. to-night i think i am writing in my diary for the last time. the year has been full of wonderful things, some of them terrible to bear, and yet, now i look back, i see it has brought me more than it has taken away. tom is mine always, everywhere, as long as we two have any existence in all the wide spaces between the stars we used to choose to fly to; and his baby is left to comfort me and to hearten me for the work i have all around me to do. i cannot keep the tears back always, and heartache is not to be cured by any sort of reasoning that i know; yet as long as i have his love, the memory of father and mother, and dear baby, i have no right to complain. just to be in one's place and working, to go on growing,--dying when the time comes,--what a priceless, blessed thing life is! transcriber's note. phrases in italics are indicated by _italics_. phrases in bold are indicated by =bold=. words in the text which were in small-caps were converted to normal case. double-word "a" removed on page : "yours truly and with a a sad and loving" typos corrected: page : "fastastic" --> "fantastic" (fantastic bunches of snow in the willows) page : "be" --> "he" (clergyman with whom he) (images generously made available by the internet archive - cornell university) passing by by maurice baring london: martin secker _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _friday, december_ _th_, . _gray's inn_. i went to the station this morning to see the housmans off. they are leaving for egypt and intend to stay there a month or perhaps two months. they are stopping a few days at paris on the way. _saturday, december_ _th_. my christmas holidays begin. i am spending christmas with uncle arthur and aunt ruth. i have to be back at the office on the first of january. _thursday, january_ _st_, . _gray's inn_. received a post-card from mrs housman, from cairo. _monday, february_ _nd_. received a letter from mrs housman. they are returning to london. _sunday, february_ _th_. the housmans return to-morrow. they have been away one month and twenty-one days. _monday, february_ _th_. went to meet the housmans at the station. they are going straight into their new house at campden hill and are giving a house-warming dinner next monday, to which i have been invited. _tuesday, february_ _th._ lord ayton has been made parliamentary under-secretary. i do not know him but i remain in the office. he is taking me on. _monday, february_ _th. gray's inn_. the housmans had their house-warming in their new house at campden hill. i was the first to arrive. on one of the walls in the drawing-room there is the large portrait of mrs housman by walter bell, which i had never seen since it was exhibited in the new gallery ten years ago. it was always being lent for exhibitions when i went to the old house in inverness terrace. while i was looking at this picture housman joined me and apologised for being late. he said the portrait of mrs housman was bell's _chef-d'oeuvre_. he liked it _now._ then he said: "we are having some music to-night. solway is dining with us and will play afterwards. he plays for nothing here, an old friend; you know him? miss singer is coming too. you know her? she writes. i don't read her." at that moment mrs housman came in and almost immediately mr and mrs carrington-smith were announced. mr carrington-smith is housman's partner, an expert in deep-breathing besides being rich. mrs carrington-smith had lately arrived from munich. the other guests were--miss housman (housman's sister), lady jarvis, miss singer, whom i was to take in to dinner, a city friend of mr housman's, mr james randall, a little man with a silk waistcoat, and, the last to arrive, solway. i sat on mrs housman's left, next to miss singer. carrington-smith sat on mrs housmans right; housman sat at the head of the table, between mrs carrington-smith and lady jarvis. miss singer talked to me earnestly at first. she is writing on the italian renaissance. i told her i was ignorant of the subject, upon which her earnestness subsided, and she smiled. then we talked of music, where i felt more at home. she had been to all solway's concerts. she is not a wagnerite. just as we were beginning to get on smoothly there was a shuffle in the conversation and mrs housman turned to me. i told her we had a new chief at the office--lord ayton. "we met him in egypt," she said. "he had been big-game shooting. i had no idea he was an official." i told her he was only a parliamentary under-secretary. at that moment there was a lull in the general conversation and housman overheard us. "ayton," he broke in. "a pleasant fellow, not too much money, some fine things, furniture, at his place, but he won't go far, no grit." i asked mrs housman what he was like. she said they had made great friends at cairo but she did not think they would ever meet again. "you know," she said, "these great friends one makes travelling, people, you know, who are just passing by." miss singer said he had an old house in sussex. she had been over it. it was let; there were some fine old things there. "but he won't sell," said housman. "he's not a man of business." mrs carrington-smith said she preferred impressionist pictures, especially the danish school. housman laughed at her and said there was no money in them. miss housman said she had heard from a dealer that lord ayton had a remarkable set of charles ii. chairs and that she wished he would sell them. solway took no part in the conversation but discussed music with miss singer. i caught the phrase, "trombones as good as baireuth." mrs housman asked me whether i had seen ayton yet. i told her he had not been to the office. "i think you will like him," she said. then, as an afterthought, "he's not a musician." she asked me whether there were any changes in the staff. i told her none except for the arrival of a new private secretary (unpaid) whom lord ayton is bringing with him, called cunninghame. she had never heard of him. we stayed a long time in the dining-room. housman was proud of his madeira and annoyed with us for not drinking enough. mr randall said he was sorry but he never mixed his wines, and he had some more champagne. randall, carrington-smith and housman talked of the international situation. solway explained to me why portions of the ninth symphony were always played too fast. he was most illuminating. then we went upstairs. more guests had arrived. a few people i knew, a great many i had not seen before, solway played some bach preludes and the waldstein sonata. the unmusical went downstairs. there were about a dozen people left in the drawing-room. afterwards there were some refreshments downstairs. i got away about half-past twelve. _tuesday, february_ _th. gray's inn_. our first day under the new regime. the new chief came to the office to-day. he looks young, and was friendly and unofficial. the new private secretary came too, mr guy cunninghame, an affable young man. he wears a beautifully tied bow tie. i wonder how it is done and whether it takes a long time or not. he is well dressed, but when it comes to describing him he is dressed like anyone else, and yet he gives the impression of being well dressed. i don't know why. i suppose it is an art like any other. i could not tie a tie like that to save my life. _equidem non invideo magis miror_. he seems to have been everywhere, to have read everything and to know everyone. he is not condescending, he is just naturally agreeable. i had to go over to the foreign office in the morning to see someone in the eastern department. when i came back cunninghame told me that a mrs housman had been to see ayton, about some billet for her brother-in-law. she talked to him first. cunninghame said he thought she did not like coming on such an errand. she then saw a., who said he would do what he could. he told c. afterwards he was sure he couldn't do anything for the fellow. c. had never met her nor heard of her, but curiously enough he said he recognised her from her picture which he had seen, walter bell's picture. i asked him if he had seen it at the new gallery. he said no, at a dealer's in america two years ago. i asked him if he was sure it was the same picture. he said he was quite sure. the picture was for sale. "one couldn't mistake the picture," he said. "it's the best thing walter bell ever did. his pictures are valuable now he is dead, but there was a slump in them before he died, or rather, there never was a boom in them. that one picture attracted a great deal of attention when it was first exhibited, and then one heard little of him till he died. now, of course, his pictures fetch high prices." _letter from guy cunninghame to his cousin, mrs caryl_ london, _february_ _th_, . dearest elsie, since my last letter i have been installed. i am george ayton's secretary. i sit in the office with another man, who was there before and has been taken on, called mellor. he is as silent as a deaf-mute and i have no doubt is the soul of discretion. there isn't much work to do and ayton has got a real secretary of his own who writes shorthand and typewrites without mistakes and lives in his house. he writes all his private letters and does all his business for him. he is not supposed to do official work, but george brings him to the office all the same, and he has a typewriter in the clerk's room and is always ready to do any odd job. i find him most useful. he is still more silent than mellor. i haven't much to tell you. i have got into my new flat in halkin street. it will be presentable in time. the pictures are up, but not the curtains. let us hope they won't be a failure: they were promised last week but have not yet arrived. if you have time and are passing that way i wish you would get me from the bon marché half-a-dozen coloured tablecloths. george has got a flat in stratton street. i dined with him alone last night. we went to a music hall after dinner and heard harry lauder. his sister, mrs campion, is in paris. perhaps you will see her. yesterday a lady came to the office to interview him and saw me first, a mrs housman. have you ever heard of her? i recognised her at once as the subject of a picture by walter bell. do you remember a large picture of a lady in white playing the piano? such a clever picture. i saw it in new york at altheim's shop, but i believe it was exhibited years ago at the new gallery. well, she is far more beautiful than the picture. she is not really tall, but she looks tall, with a wonderful walk, but i can't describe her, she makes other people look unreal--like wax-works. she was dressed anyhow and rather shabbily in black, wearing no gloves but the most beautiful ring i have ever seen, a kind of double monogram, probably old french. she came on business. i wonder who she is. she is not a foreigner and not, i think, an american, but she is, looks and talks, especially talks, not like an englishwoman. i shall try to come to paris for easter. don't forget the tablecloths. yours, guy. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, march_ _st_. i dined last night with the housmans, they were alone except for solway, and after dinner we had some music. solway played the schumann variations and then he asked mrs housman to sing. i hadn't heard her for a long time as she hardly ever will sing now. she sang _willst du dein herz mir schenken_. solway says the song isn't by bach really but by his nephew. then she sang a song from purcell's _dido_, some schubert; among others, _wer nie sein brot_, and the _junge nonne_. solway said he had never heard the last better sung. housman then asked her to sing a song from _the merry widow_, which she did. housman plays himself by ear. she did not allude to having been at the office, nor did i. _tuesday, march_ _nd_. dined with cunninghame at his flat last night. a comfortable and luxurious abode. i asked him if ayton was likely to marry. he laughed. he said he had been in love for years, with a mrs shamier. i had never heard of her. cunninghame said she was clever and accomplished, and had been very pretty and painted by all the painters. he says a. will never marry. i asked him if mrs shamier was in london. he said of course. she has a husband who is in parliament, and several children; a country house on the south coast; but they are not particularly well off. "you must come and meet her at dinner," he said. "i am devoted to her." i asked him if she was fond of a. "not so much now, but she won't let him go." i went away early as c. was going to a party. _wednesday, march_ _rd_. went to the british museum before going to the office, to look up an old english tune for mrs housman from ford's _music of sundry kinds_ called _the doleful lover_. i found it. _thursday, march_ _ th_. went to solway's chamber music concert last night. brahms quintet and a trio by solway himself. some brahms _lieder_. the housmans were there. i thought solway's trio fine. _friday, march_ _th_. a. went to the country this afternoon to stay with the shamiers; so c. said, but, as a matter of fact, he told me he was going to his own house. cunninghame is going away himself to-morrow. he always goes away on saturdays, he says. i remain in london. _saturday, march_ _th_. went to the london library and got some books for sunday: _thaïs_, by anatole france, recommended to me by c.; a book called _a human document_, recommended me by mrs housman. i do not think i shall read any of them. the only literature i read without difficulty is _the times_ and _jane eyre_, and _the times_ doesn't come out on sunday. _sunday night, march_ _th_. called on the housmans in the afternoon. she was out. luncheon at the club. dinner at the club. i began _a human document_, but could not read more than five pages of it. i couldn't read any of the book by anatole france. went to a concert in the afternoon. it was not enjoyable. read _jane eyre_. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _monday, march_ _th_. dearest elsie, i meant to write you a long letter yesterday from the country. i went to stay with the shamiers. i thought, of course, george would be there. he didn't come near the office on friday. he wasn't there and evidently wasn't even expected. louise in tearing spirits and a new man there called lavroff, a russian philosopher; youngish and talking english better than any of us, except that he always said "i _have been_ seeing so-and-so to-day," "i _have been to the concert yesterday_." needless to say, i didn't have a moment to write to you, in fact the only place where i get time to write you a line is at the office. everything is appallingly dull. mellor, the secretary, had dinner with me one night. he spoke a little but not much. i think he is shy but not stupid. george likes being in london, but louise didn't mention him. it's curious if after all this fuss and trouble to get this job and to be in london it all comes to an end. the tablecloths have arrived. thank you a thousand times. they are exactly what i wanted. the curtains have arrived too but they are a failure; too bright. i can't afford to get new ones yet. this week i have got some dinners. george said something about giving a dinner this week. yours in great haste, g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, march_ _th_. a. asked me whether if i was free on thursday i would dine with him. i said f would be pleased to. he said he would try and get a few people. _tuesday, march_ _th_. a. has got a secretary called tuke. he writes all his private letters and he comes down to the office in the mornings. this morning he came and asked me mrs housman's address. it is curious that he should have applied to me and not to c., as i was not here when she called, nor does a. know that i know her. how can he have known that i know her? _wednesday, march_ _th_. dined with cunninghame last night at his flat. the guests were mr and mrs shamier, miss macdonald, c.'s cousin, m. lavroff, a russian, and a miss hope. i sat between the russian and miss macdonald. miss macdonald is an elderly lady, kind and agreeable. mr shamier, m.p., was once, i believe, an athlete, a cricket blue. miss hope looked as if she were in fancy dress; lavroff, the russian, is unkempt, with thick eyebrows and dark eyes. tolstoy was mentioned at dinner. mrs shamier said he was her favourite novelist, upon which lavroff became greatly excited and said the day would come when, the world would perceive and be ashamed of itself for perceiving that tolstoy was not worthy to lick dostoyevsky's boots. being asked my opinion i was obliged to confess that i had read the works of neither novelist. miss macdonald asked me who was my favourite novelist. i said charlotte brontë. she said she shared my preference and couldn't read russian books, they depressed her. after dinner we had some music. miss hope sang and accompanied herself. she sang songs by fauré and hahn; among others _la prison_. she altered the text of the last line, and instead of singing "qu'as tu fait de ta jeunesse?" she rendered it--"qu'as tu fait dans ta jeunesse?": scarcely an improvement. when she had finished lavroff was asked to play. he consented immediately and played some folk songs. although he is in no sense a pianist, they were beautifully played. _thursday, march_ _th_. had dinner last night with admiral bowes in hyde park gardens. the only people there besides myself were colonel hamley and grayson, who is, they say, a rising m.p. the admiral said his nephew, bowes in the f.o. (whom i know a little), had become a roman catholic. "what on earth made him do that?" said colonel hamley. "got hold of by the priests," said the admiral; and they all echoed the phrase: "got hold of by the priests" and passed on to other topics. i have often wondered what the process of being "got hold of by the priests" consists of, and where and how it happens. _friday, march_ _th_. dined last night with a. at his flat. i was surprised to meet mr and mrs housman. the hostess was a.'s sister, mrs campion. she is a deal older than he is, a widow and good company. there was also a mrs braham, and a younger man called clive. he is in a bank and is, i believe, a useful man in a sailing boat. i sat between mrs campion and mrs housman. after dinner a. said to mrs housman that, knowing she liked music, he had provided her with a musical treat. mrs braham would sing to us. she sang, accompanying herself, _the garden of sleep, the silver ring, mélisande in the wood_, and, by special request, _the little grey home in the west_. there was no other music. _saturday, march_ _th._ had tea with the housmans. they asked me to dinner next tuesday to meet a. mrs housman says that mrs campion is one of the most charming and amusing people she has ever met. c. is staying in london. this saturday a. is going to his house in the country. he has a small house on the coast near littlehampton, where he keeps his yacht, but, of course, he cannot yacht yet. he has a large house in sussex which is let. _sunday night, march_ _th._ went down to woking to spend the day with solway in his cottage. he is composing a sonata for piano and violin. he played me the first movement. he said he thought there was a certain amount of good music being composed at the present day which nobody was taking notice of, but which would probably come into its own some day. he said mrs housman was the singer who gave him the most pleasure. he said: "her singing is _business-like_. she is divinely musical." _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ _sunday, march_ _th._ dearest elsie, i have been spending a perfect saturday to monday in london. i have had a busy week and was glad to see no one and do nothing all to-day, that is to say, comparatively no one and nothing, as i went to the play on saturday night, and to-day i went to a large luncheon party at alice's, who is back at bruton street. the news is that the shamier episode is over, quite, quite over. there is no doubt about it. she is madly in love with lavroff. i don't wonder. he is so intelligent and plays wonderfully. as for george, i don't think he cares. you will at once ask if there is no one else. nobody that i know of. i don't know who he sees and what he does. he hates going out, and talks every day of giving a dinner at his flat, but as far as i know he hasn't entertained a cat yet. i dined out every night last week, and gave one dinner at my flat. i think it was a success. freda macdonald, louise, lavroff and eileen hope, who sang quite beautifully. i asked godfrey mellor, but i really don't know if i can ask him again to that sort of party as he didn't utter a word. freda liked him. but it does ruin a dinner to have a gulf of silence in the middle of it, especially as when he does talk he can be quite agreeable. george has gone down to the country. his sister is here now, but she goes north next week. i believe london bores him to death and he is longing for the summer and for his yacht. i am sorry you can tell me nothing of mrs housman. i haven't seen or heard anything more of her. thank you very much for the _langues de chat_. they added to the success of my dinner. yours, etc., guy. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, march_ _th._ i asked c. where he got his cigarettes. he said he got them from a little man who lived _behind_ the haymarket. everybody seems to get their cigarettes and their shirts from a "little man." the little man apparently never lives in a street but always _behind_ a street. my new piano, a cottage broadwood, arrived to-day. it is bought on the three years' system. _tuesday, march_ _th._ dined with my aunt ruth and uncle arthur last night, in eccleston square. a large dinner-party: a permanent under-secretary for foreign affairs, the french chargé d'affaires and his wife, the editor of _the whig_ and his wife, lord and lady saint-edith, professor miles, sir herbert wilmott and lady wilmott, mr julius k. lee of the american embassy, and mrs lovell-smythies, the novelist. as we were all waiting for dinner in the dark library downstairs a miss magdalen cross came in late, carrying a book in her hand. "this book," she said to us all, "is well worth reading." it was a german novel by sudermann. an old lady who was standing next to her, and who i afterwards discovered was the widow of the bishop of exminster, said: "you prepared that entry in your cab, dear magdalen." miss cross blushed. i took her in to dinner. she talked of sculpture, the chinese nation, german novels, and russian music. she has been three times round the world. she has no liking for most german music and cannot abide brahms. she likes wagner, chopin, russian church music and spanish songs. on the other side i had the wife of the french chargé d'affaires. she said: "j'adore l'odeur des paquets anglais." her favourite english author, she said, was mrs humphry wood. i did not like to ask her if she meant mrs humphry ward or mrs henry wood. she said the works of this novelist made her weep. when we were left in the dining-room after dinner, lord saint-edith, professor miles and hallam (of _the whig_) had a long argument about some lines in dante, and this led them to the baconian theory. lord saint-edith said he couldn't understand people thinking bacon had written shakespeare's plays. if they said shakespeare had written the works of bacon as a pastime he could understand it. he believed homer was written by homer. the professor was paradoxical and said he thought the odyssey was a forgery. "tacitus," he said, "was known to be one." after dinner upstairs there was tea but no music. uncle arthur is growing very deaf and forgetful and asked me how i was getting on at balliol. aunt ruth told me she had asked my new chief to dinner, but that he had refused. "of course," she said, "this is not the kind of house he would find amusing. but considering how well i knew his father i think it would be only civil for him to come to one of my thursday evenings." _wednesday, march_ _th._ i dined at the housmans' last night. it was a dinner for a. he was the guest of the evening. to meet him there were lady maria lyneham, who must be over seventy; a french lady of imposing presence called, if i caught the name correctly, the princesse de carignan and who, housman whispered to me, was a bourbon, and if she had her rights would be queen of france to-day; a secretary from the italian embassy; mr and mrs baines. mr baines is an official at the british museum and is half french. his wife, he told me, had once been taken for sarah bernhardt. there were several other people: sir herbert simcox, the k.c., and lady simcox, an art critic, a lady journalist and miss housman. a. sat between mrs housman and lady simcox. housman had the princesse de carignan on his right and lady maria on his left. i sat between lady maria and miss housman. lady maria told me she dined out whenever she could, and asked me to luncheon on sunday. "don't come," she said, "if you mind meeting lions; i like pleasant people. only i warn you i have an old-fashioned prejudice for good manners and i always ask their wives." mr baines talked beautiful french to the princesse. lady maria told me she was neither french nor a princess, but the illegitimate daughter of a levantine. "but very respectable all the same, i'm afraid," she added. after dinner a few people came. among others, housman's partner and esther lake, the contralto. she sang (she brought her own accompanist) some handel and _che faro_ and, by request of mr housman, gounod's _there is a green hill._ i drove home with a. he told me he had enjoyed himself immensely and he thought esther lake was the finest singer in the world. he said miss housman was a very clever woman and housman appeared to be quite a good sort. he said he liked this kind of dinner-party. _thursday, march_ _th._ the first day there has been a feeling of spring in the air. i went to st james's park on the way to the office. dined at the club. _friday, march_ _th._ a. asked me to spend sunday with him in the country. i told him i was sorry i was engaged to go out to luncheon on sunday. he said i must come the week after. _saturday, march_ _th._ c. said it was a great pity a. did not go out more. he used to go out a great deal, he said. "i suppose," he added, "it's because he doesn't wast to meet mrs shamier." i said i thought c. had told me he was fond of her. "yes," said c, "he was very fond of her, but that is all over now." _sunday evening, march_ _ _st. i went to st paul's cathedral in the morning. then to luncheon with lady maria in her house in seymour place. a curious luncheon. there were two actors and their wives, father seton, and mr le roy, who writes detective stories, and his wife, and sir james croker. i sat next to mrs le roy, who is, she told me, a greek. she told me her husband had written one hundred and ten books, but that she had read none of them. she said it worried him if she read them. she said it was a great sacrifice as she doted on detective stories and was told his were very good. the actors, who were both actor managers, told us about their forthcoming productions. mr vane said there was going to be a real panther in his next production (a shakespearean revival). mr jones acre is producing a play which is translated from the swedish, and which deals with the question of a man who has inoculated himself and his whole family with a fatal disease, in the interests of science. father seton took a great interest in the stage, and said he considered the church and the stage should be close allies. the clergy took far too little interest in these things. it was a pity, he said, to let the romans have the monopoly of that kind of thing. this surprised mrs le roy, who said she thought he was a roman catholic. he laughed and said rome would have to capitulate on many points before any idea of corporate reunion could be entertained. sir james croker told stories of early days in the foreign office and lord palmerston. we sat on talking until half-past three. i then went home and read _jane eyre_. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ halkin street, _march_ _th._ dearest elsie, i start on thursday and shall arrive thursday evening. i have got rooms at the ritz. let us have dinner together thursday night, and _not_ go to a play. i shall stay in paris a week and then go for four days to mentone. then i shall come back to paris for three days, and then home. i suppose we shall have to dine at the embassy one night. george is going to the country for easter with his sister. i want a really nice screen (a small one). you must help me to find one, not too dear. i also want something for the dining-room, which at present is coo bare. i won't write any more now. yours, g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _sunday, march_ _th. hôtel st romain, rue st roch, paris_ went to a concert at the _cirque d'Été_ this afternoon, not a very interesting programme. a great deal of wagner, and _l'après-midi d'un faune_. dined by myself at a duval. start for florence to-morrow morning. _tuesday, march_ _th. villa fersen, florence_ arrived this morning before luncheon after an exhausting journey second-class. in the carriage there was a soldier belonging to the _garde républicaine_. he said he was on duty at the opera and had he known i was passing through paris he could have given me a _billet de faveur_. the housmans' villa is at the top of a hill on the bellosguardo side. it is rather a large house, covered with wistaria, with high windows with iron bars. it has a large empty _salon_ with a piano. a fine room for sound. the garden is beautiful. _wednesday, march_ _st_. i walked down into florence very early in the morning. i reached the town before anything was open and met a party of men in shorts and flannels running back to a hotel. they were eton masters taking exercise. i didn't go to any picture galleries, but i walked about the streets and went into the duomo, an ugly building inside. i got back for luncheon. housman said that they must leave cards in the afternoon and take a drive in the cascine. they went out in a carriage and pair. i went for a walk to the boboli gardens. at dinner housman said they had met several friends, and he is giving a dinner-party on sunday. _thursday, april_ _st_. the housmans took me to luncheon with a banker called baron strong. what the explanation of this title is i do not know. they live in the modern part of the town. he was a genial host, portly, with long white whiskers. his wife, the baroness, an italian, a distinguished lady. there were present a marchese whose real name i was told was goldschmidt, and his wife, a retired and talkative english diplomatist, a russian lady, an italian, who talked english, french and russian with ease, called scalchi, professor johnston-wright, who is spending his holiday here, and a frenchman. when the latter heard scalchi talk every language successively he said to him: "vous êtes une petite tour de babel." in the afternoon we left cards at several houses and villas and then went for a drive in the cascine. some people called at tea-time, but i escaped. after dinner mrs housman sang some schumann, _frühlingsnacht_, and the _dichterliebe._ these songs, she said, suit florence. _friday, april_ _nd_. i had a talk with the italian gardener as far as my italian permitted me to. i pointed out a plant, a mauve-coloured plant, i don't know its name, that seemed to grow in great profusion. he said: "fiorisce come il pensiere dell' uomo." more calls in the afternoon, and another drive in the cascine. housman has bought a large modern statue representing _the triumph of truth,_ a female figure carrying a torch, with a serpent at her feet. she is triumphing, i suppose, over the snake. _saturday, april_ _rd_. we went to see the easter saturday ceremony at the duomo, and then to luncheon at the villa michael angelo. it belongs to a rich american called fisk. there were present besides mr and mrs fisk an english authoress, a picture connoisseur, scalchi, an american archæologist, an italian man of letters, and a miss sinclair, also an archæologist. housman said afterwards this was the cream of intellectual florence. i sat between two archæologists. i found their conversation difficult to follow. after luncheon we called on the british consul's wife, whose day it was. then after a drive in the cascine we went home. _easter sunday, april_ _th._ mrs housman went to mass early. went for a walk with housman. on the ponte vecchio we met ayton and his sister, mrs campion. mrs campion, he said, had insisted on him taking her to florence. housman asked them to dinner to-night; they accepted. a great many people came to tea. the dinner-party to-night was quite a large one. baron and baroness strong, lord ayton, mrs campion, mr and mrs fisk, scalchi and the marchese and his wife, whom we met lately. i sat between mrs campion and baron strong. after dinner mrs fisk played chopin with astonishing facility, but without any expression. a. intends to stay here another fortnight. housman said he received a telegram which will necessitate his meeting his partner at genoa. his partner is on the way to the riviera. he may have to go to paris too, but he hopes not, and intends to be back in a few days if possible. _monday, april_ _th._ housman left to-day for genoa. i went with mrs housman to san marco and the accademia in the morning. in the afternoon to the certosa with mrs housman, a. and mrs campion. _tuesday, april_ _th._ mrs campion and a. came to luncheon. mrs campion, who is an expert gardener, told me the names of all the flowers in the garden. they have not remained in my mind. _wednesday, april_ _th_. we all spent a morning sight-seeing and had luncheon at a restaurant. in the afternoon we drove to fiesole. _thursday, april_ _th._ housman is not coming back. he is obliged to go to paris and he will go straight to london from there. we drove to fiesole in the morning. had luncheon with some italian friends of mrs campion, count and countess alberti. nobody there except the host and hostess and their three children. a fine villa and no garden. countess alberti said it was no use having a garden if one lived here in summer, as everything dried up. she is a charming woman, natural and unpretentious, and talks english like an englishwoman. she asked a if he had met many people, and a. said he was a tourist and had no time for visits. countess alberti said he was quite right and that she knew nothing in the world more--_seccante_ was the word she used, than florentine society. she asked us all to come again next week. i am leaving on sunday, and a. and mrs campion are going to paris on monday. mrs housman remains here another week. _friday, april_ _th._ mrs housman had a headache and did not come down. i went to the town and did some shopping and went over the bargello. mrs housman came down to dinner and sang afterwards, schubert, schumann and brahms. i had never heard her sing _o versenk o versenk dein leid mein kind, in die see_ before. _saturday, april_ _th._ we went to a great many churches in the morning and saw a number of frescoes. mrs housman received a great many invitations, but refused them all. a. and mrs campion and the albertis came to dinner. countess alberti persuaded mrs housman to sing. she sang some english songs: _passing by, lord randall_, etc., gounod's _chanson de mai_, and some lully. countess alberti said it was a comfort to hear singing of which you could hear every word. a. liked _passing by_ best, and he made her sing it twice. he asked me who the words were by. the tune is edward purcell's. the words, although generally attributed to herrick by musical publishers, are by an anonymous poet, and occur in thomas ford's _music of sundry kinds_, . they are as follows:-- there is a ladye sweet and kind, was never face so pleas'd my mind, i did but see her passing by, and yet i love her till i die. her gestures, motions, and her smile, her wit, her voice my heart beguile, beguile my heart, i know not why; and yet i love her till i die. there is also a third stanza. _letters from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ villa beau site, mentone, _thursday, april_ _th_. dearest elsie, it is divine here and this villa is a dream. we went to monte carlo yesterday and i won francs and then lost it again. i saw hundreds of people, _monde_ and _demi-monde_. among the latter celia russell, having luncheon with rather a gross-looking shiny financier. i asked who he was and found out that he was housman of housman & smith. apparently c.r. has been living with him for some time, ever since, in fact, l. went to india. but the interesting thing to me is that housman is the husband of that beautiful mrs housman i told you about. m. knows them and knows all about them. mrs housman was a canadian, very poor, with no one to look after her but an old aunt. he married her about ten years ago. since then he has become very rich. carrington-smith is now his partner. housman supplies the brains. they live somewhere in the suburbs and she never goes anywhere. i am not coming back till next monday. i shall be able to stop two or three days in paris, very likely longer. yours, g. halkin street, _sunday, may_ _th._ dearest elsie, i have had a busy week since i have been back. monday i dined with george at his flat. a man's dinner to meet some french politicians who are over here for a few days. i told you i was determined to make mrs housman's acquaintance, and i have. i had luncheon on tuesday with jimmy randall, a city friend of mine. you don't know him. he knows the housmans intimately. i told him i wanted to know them and he asked me to meet them last night. we dined at the carlton, randall, the housmans and myself. i think she is even more beautiful than i thought before. i couldn't take my eyes off her. she was in black, with one row of very good pearls. i never saw such eyes. housman is too awful; sleek, fat and common beyond words, but sharp as a needle. he has an extraordinary laugh, a high, nasal chuckle, and says, "ha! ha! ha!" after every sentence. they have asked me to dinner next tuesday. i will write to you about it in detail. mrs h. is charming. there is nothing american or colonial about her, but she is curiously un-english. i can't understand how she can have married him. i caught sight of her again this morning at the oratory, where i always go if i am in london on sundays, for the music. randall told me she is very musical, but i didn't get any speech with her. the flat looks quite transformed with all the paris things. they are the greatest success. yours, g. _wednesday, may_ _th._ dearest elsie, the dinner-party came off last night. they live in campden hill. i was early and the parlour-maid said mrs housman would be down directly, and i heard housman shouting upstairs: "clare, clare, guests," but he did not appear himself. i was shown into a large white and heavily gilded drawing-room, with a candelabra, a steinway grand, and light blue satin and ebony furniture, a good many palms, but no flowers. the drawing-room opened out on to an oriental back drawing-room with low divans, small stools inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and a silver lamp (from a mosque) hanging from the ceiling, heavy curtains too, behind which i suspect stained-glass windows. over the chimney-piece an alma tadema (a group on a marble seat against a violet sea). at the other end of the room walter bell's picture. it _was_ the picture i saw before, but more about that later. on another wall over a sofa a most extraordinary allegorical picture: a precipice bridged by a large serpent, and walking on the serpent two small figures, a woman in white draperies and a knight dressed like mephistopheles, all these painted in the crudest colours. the housmans then appeared, and housman did the honours of the pictures, faintly damned the alma tadema, and said the snake picture was by mucius of munich in what he called _moderne_ style. he had picked it up for nothing; some day it would be worth pots of money. ha! ha! then the guests arrived. sir herbert simcox, k.c., lady simcox, dressed in amber velvet and cairngorms; housman's sister miss sarah, black, and very large, in yellow satin, with enormous emerald ear-rings; carrington-smith, housman's partner; mrs carrington-smith, naked except for a kind of orange and red _reform kleid_, with a green complexion, heavily blacked eyebrows, and a _lalique_ necklace. then, making a late entrance, as if on the stage, a princesse de carignan, a fine figure, in rich and tight black satin and a large black ruff, heavily powdered. housman whispered to me that she was a legitimate bourbon. i think he meant a legitimist. we went down to dinner into a dark gothic panelled dining-room, with a shiny portrait of mr housman set in the panelling over the chimney-piece. i sat between mrs housman and mrs carrington-smith. i talked to mrs housman most of the time. mrs carrington-smith asked me if i liked henry james's books. i said i liked the early ones. she said she preferred the later ones, but she could never feel quite the same about henry james again since he had put her into a book. she was, she said, _kate_ in _the wings of the dove_. after dinner housman moved up and sat next to me. he talked about art and _bric-à-brac_. i asked him if i could possibly have seen bell's portrait of mrs housman in america. he said, "certainly." he had bought it cheap and sold it dear, anticipating a slump in bell, which was not slow in coming. he had then bought it back directly bell died, anticipating a boom, which had also occurred. "it is now worth double what i gave for it. ha! ha! ha!" randall said he liked a picture to tell a plain story and he could make nothing of the snake picture upstairs. housman laughed loudly and said it was the oldest story in the world: the man, the woman, and the serpent. ha! ha! we went upstairs, where there was a crowd. i was seized upon by the princesse de carignan, and she whispered to me confidential secrets about europe. she preened herself and displayed the deportment of a queen in exile. then we had some music. esther lake bawled some rubinstein, and ronald solway played an interminable sonata by haydn with variations and all the repeats. some of the guests went downstairs, but i was wedged in between the princesse and a mrs baines, a fluffy, sinuous woman, dressed in a loose byzantine robe. her husband, who is an expert in french furniture, told me she was once mistaken for _sarah_, and she has evidently been living up to the reputation for years. he was careful to add that it was in the days when sarah was thin--mrs baines being a wisp. after the music, which i thought would never stop, we went downstairs again for a stand-up supper and sweet champagne. i was introduced by housman to ronald solway. housman told him i was a musical connoisseur, so he bored me with technicalities for twenty minutes. i couldn't get away. he had no mercy on me. housman has got a box at the opera. he told me i must use it whenever i like. how can she have married that man? yours, g. _wednesday,_ may _th_. dearest elsie, thank you for your most amusing letter. i have been busy and not had a moment to write. we have had a good deal of work to do. last friday i had supper at romano's after the play. housman was there with celia russell. i spent saturday to monday with the shamiers. lavroff was there. last night i went to the opera to the housmans' box. it was _bohème_. during the _entr'acte_ who should come into our box but george. he stayed there the whole time, talking to mrs h., and came back during the next _entr'acte_. the next day at the office when i was in his room i said something about the housmans and began telling him about my dinner. he froze at once and said mrs housman was an extremely nice woman. i said something about housman, and george said: "oh, not at all a bad fellow." so i saw i was on dangerous ground. housman has asked me to spend next sunday at his country house, a small villa on the thames near staines. i am going. they are dining with me on thursday. i asked george, too, and he accepted joyfully. yours, g. _monday, may_ _th._ dearest elsie, i am just back from the country. but first i must tell you about my dinner. i had asked the housmans, george, eileen hope, and madame de saint luce who is staying in london for three weeks. just before dinner i got a telegram saying that mrs housman was laid up and couldn't possibly come. housman arrived by himself. george was evidently frightfully annoyed and hardly spoke. madame de saint luce was amazed and rather amused by housman, and after dinner eileen sang beautifully, so it went off fairly well except for george. saturday i went down to staines. housman had got an elegant villa on the river. very ugly, with red tiles, photogravures, and green wooden chairs and a conservatory, full of calceolaria. but i must say his food is delicious. george was there, lady jarvis, and miss sarah. after dinner on saturday there was a slight fracas. george asked mrs housman to sing. she didn't much want to, but finally said she would. miss sarah, who is a brilliant pianist, said she would accompany her (she evidently hates being accompanied). she sang a song of schubert's, _gute nacht_. miss sarah played it rather fast. mrs housman said it ought to be slower. miss sarah said it was meant to be fast, and that was her conception of the song in any case. mrs housman said she couldn't sing it like that, and didn't, and then she said she couldn't sing at all. afterwards she did sing some english ballads and accompanied herself. she sings most beautifully, her voice is perfectly produced and you hear every word. there is nothing throaty or operatic about it but her voice goes straight through one. george was entranced. sunday afternoon george and mrs h. went out on the river and stayed out all the afternoon. i spent the afternoon with lady jarvis, who is most clever and amusing. she told me all about the housmans. mrs h. is not canadian but irish. she was brought up in a convent in french canada. directly she came out of it her marriage with h., who was then in a canadian firm, was arranged by her aunt (her aunt was an imbecile and quite penniless). they lived several years in canada, california and other parts of america, and came to england about three years ago. housman was unfaithful from the first. lady jarvis knew about celia russell. i asked her if mrs housman knew. she said she--lady jarvis--didn't know, but it wouldn't make any difference if mrs h. did or not. she said: "there is nothing about albert housman that clare doesn't know." then she said that unless i was blind i must of course have seen george was madly in love with her. i said i agreed. she said she thought mrs housman was madly in love with him. i said i wasn't sure. lady jarvis said she was quite sure. they came back very late from the river and mrs housman didn't come down to dinner. she said she had a headache. we had rather a gloomy dinner although miss sarah and lady jarvis never stopped talking for a moment, but george was silent. you know he sees nobody now except the housmans. yours, g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, may_ _rd. gray's inn_. a. returned to london a day sooner than he was expected. his secretary, tuke, had not returned. he had left his address with me. he spent his holiday in the guest house, fort augustus abbey, a benedictine monastery. he returned this morning. a. asked me on saturday where he was. when i told him, a. showed great surprise. he said: "he has been with me six years and i never knew he was an r.c. it's extraordinary when a thing once turns up, you then meet with it every day. i seem always to be coming across catholics now." _tuesday, may_ _th._ alfred riley telegraphed to me to know whether i could put him up to-night. i have answered in the affirmative, but he will be, i fear, most uncomfortable. _wednesday, may_ _th._ riley arrived last night. he has been in paris for the last three months working at the _bibliothèque nationale_. he told me he had something of importance to tell me: that he was seriously thinking of becoming a roman catholic. i was greatly surprised. he was the last person i would expect to do such a thing. i told him i had no prejudice against roman catholics, but it was very difficult for me to believe that a man of his intellectual attainments could honestly believe the things he would be expected to believe. also, if he needed a church i did not understand why he could not be satisfied with the church of england, which was a historic church. he said: "do you remember when we were at oxford that we used to say it would be a great sell if we found out when we were dead that christianity was true after all? well, i believe it is true. i believe, not in spite of my reason, nor against my reason, nor apart from my reason, but with my reason. well, if one believes with one's reason in the christian revelation, that is to say, if one believes that god has uttered himself fully and uniquely through christ, such a belief has certain logical consequences." i said nothing, for indeed i did not know what to say. riley laughed and said: "don't be alarmed; don't think i am going to hand you a tract. for heaven's sake let me be able to speak out at least to one person about this." i begged him to go on, and he said he thought catholicism was the only logical consequence of a belief in the christian revelation. anglicanism and all forms of protestantism seemed to him like the lopped off branches of a living tree. i asked him what there was to prevent him worshipping in roman catholic churches if he felt inclined that way without sacrificing his intellectual freedom to their tenets. he said: "you talk as if it was ritual i cared for and wanted. one can be glutted with ritual in the anglican church if one wants that." as for giving up one's freedom, he said i must agree that law, order and discipline were the indispensable conditions of freedom. he had never heard catholics complain of any loss of freedom, indeed catholic philosophy, manners, customs, and even speech, seemed to him much freer than protestant or agnostic philosophy, and what it stood for. he asked me which i thought was freest, a sunday in paris or rome or a sunday in glasgow or london. i suggested his waiting a year. he said perhaps he would. _thursday, may_ _th._ riley talked of music, wagner, _parsifal._ he quoted some frenchman who said that _parsifal_ was "_moins beau que n'importe quelle messe basse dans n'importe quelle Église_." i said that i had never been to a low mass in my life, but that i disliked the music at most high masses i had attended. i said i disliked wagner, especially _parsifal_. he said he agreed about wagner, but i did not understand what the frenchman had meant. i confessed i did not. he said: "it is like comparing a description of something to the reality." i told him that i envied people who were born catholics, but i did not think it was a thing you could become. he said it was not like becoming a mussulman. he was simply going back to the older tradition of his country, to what melanchthon and dr johnson called and what in the highlands they still call the old religion. i told him that i had once heard a man say, talking of becoming a roman catholic, "if i could tell the first lie, all the rest would be easy and follow naturally down to scapulars and holy water." _friday, may_ _th._ riley left this morning. he has gone back to paris. he is not going to take any immediate step. _sunday, may_ _th_ i went to see mrs housman yesterday afternoon. i told her what riley had told me. i asked her if she thought people could _become_ roman catholics if they were not born so. she said she wished that she had not been born a catholic so as she might have become one. she envied those who could make the choice. i asked her if she did not consider there was something unreal about converts. she said she thought english converts were in a very difficult situation which required the utmost tact. many perhaps lacked this tact. she said that in canada and america, where she had lived most of her life, the anti-catholic prejudice as it existed in england did not exist, at any rate it was not of the same kind. "the nursery anti-catholic tradition doesn't exist there." she asked me what i had advised riley to do. i told her i had dissuaded him from taking such a step and had begged him to wait. she said: "if he is to become a catholic there will be a moment when he will not be able to help it. faith is a gift. people do not become catholics under the influence of people or books, although people and books may sometimes help or sometimes hinder, but because they are pulled over by an invisible rope---what we call _grace_." i told her i would find it difficult to believe that a man like riley would believe what he would have to believe. she asked me whether i found it difficult to believe that she accepted the dogmas of the church. i said i was convinced she believed what she professed, but that i thought that born catholics believed things in a different way than we did. i did not believe that this could be learnt by converts. she said i probably thought that catholics believed all sorts of things which they did not believe. such at least was her experience of english protestants, who seemed to imbibe curious traditions in the nursery, on the subject. i asked her if mr housman believed in catholic dogma. she said: "albert has been baptized and brought up as a catholic, but he is an agnostic. he is very charitable towards catholic institutions." she asked me more about riley and whether he had any catholic friends. i said: "not to my knowledge." "poor man, i am afraid he will be very lonely," she said. she said that she herself knew hardly any catholics in england, that is to say she had no real catholic friends, and that she felt as if she were living in perpetual exile. "you see," she said, "your friend ought to realise that he will have to face the prejudice and the dislike not only of narrow-minded people but of very nice intelligent and broad-minded people, who agree with you about almost everything else. the church has always been hated from the beginning, and it always will be hated. in the past it was people like marcus aurelius who carried out the worst persecutions and hated the church most bitterly with the very best intentions, and it is in a different way just the same now." i said that to me it was an impossible mental gymnastic to think that catholicism was the same thing as early christianity. she said: "because the tree has grown so big you think it is not the same plant, but it is. when i go to mass i feel as if i were looking through the wrong end of a telescope right back into the catacombs and farther." i told her riley would take no decisive step. he had promised to wait. she said there was no harm in that. there were many other things i wished to ask her, but a. arrived, and after talking on various topics for a few moments i left. _monday, may_ _th._ a. told me he had been invited to dinner by aunt ruth next thursday and that he was going. he asked me whether i was invited. i said i was invited. _tuesday, may_ _th._ cunninghame said he was dining at the housmans' to-night. _wednesday, may_ _th._ i asked c. whether he had enjoyed his dinner. he said it was very pleasant, but that the music was too classical for his taste. a. was not there. _thursday, may_ _th._ i dined last night with a. in his flat. nobody but ourselves. a. played the pianola after dinner. he said i must come and stay with him in the country soon. he would try and get the housmans to come too. _friday, may_ _th._ a. dined with uncle arthur and aunt ruth. so did i. it was a dinner for the american ambassador. i sat next to a miss audrey bax, a lady of decided views and picturesque appearance. she talked about joan of arc, and asked me whether i had read anatole france's book about her. i said i had not, but i had read an english translation of joan of arc's trial which i thought one of the most impressive records i had ever read. she said: "ah, you like the stained-glass-window point of view about those sort of people." i was rather nettled and said i preferred facts to fiction. i thought joan of arc as she appeared in her trial was a very sensible as well as being a very remarkable person. she had not read this. she said anatole france told one all one wanted to know from a rational point of view. it was a comfort to read common-sense about this sort of hallucinated people. a man who was sitting opposite her joined eagerly in the conversation, and said that the two people in the whole of history who had made the finest defence when tried were mary queen of scots and joan of arc. miss bax said she supposed he looked upon mary queen of scots as a martyred saint. the other man, whose name i found out afterwards was ashfield, an american who is now at the american embassy, said that he regarded mary queen of scots as a woman who was tried for her life and who had defended herself without lawyers without making a single mistake under the most difficult circumstances. he said he had been a lawyer, and spoke from a lawyer's point of view. miss bax went back to joan of arc and anatole france and said his book was as important a work as renan's _vie de jésus_. mr ashfield said he thought that work no improvement on the gospel. i said i had not read it. miss bax again said that if we preferred sentimental traditions we were at liberty to do so. she preferred rational writers untainted by superstition. ashfield said he regarded renan as a sentimental writer. miss bax said: "no doubt you prefer dean farrar." ashfield said he did not think renan's book was a more successful attempt to rewrite the gospels than dean farrar's although it was better written. she said that proved her point, and as she seemed satisfied, we talked of other things. but throughout her conversation she struck me for a professed free-thinker to be singularly dogmatic and sometimes almost fanatical. _saturday, may_ _th._ spent the afternoon and evening with solway at woking but came back after dinner. _sunday, may_ _th._ went to see mrs housman in the afternoon, but she was not at home. this is the first time she has not been at home on sunday afternoons for a very long time. _monday, may_ _th_. a. said he was going to the opera to-night. housman, whom he had seen yesterday, had told him it would be a very fine performance. _tuesday, may_ _th._ went to the opera in the gallery. some fine singing. cunninghame had been in the housmans' box. _wednesday, may_ _th._ was going to dine with the housmans to-night, but mrs housman is unwell. _thursday, may_ _th._ lady jarvis has asked me to stay with her sunday week. _friday, may_ st. this morning a man called barnes came to the office. he is an acquaintance of cunninghame's; he is in the f.o. he talked of various things, and then he asked cunninghame whether he knew mrs housman. he said she was playing fast and loose with a.'s affections. she was doing it, of course, to convert him. catholics didn't mind how immoral they were in such a cause. he said that she was well known for it. she had refused to marry housman till he had been converted. he had been so much in love with her that he could not refuse. i said that i happened to know that housman had been baptized a catholic when he was born. cunninghame bore me out and said it was all nonsense about a. he was sure catholicism had nothing to do with it. he knew mrs housman quite well and she had never mentioned it to him. barnes said we could say what we liked, but all london was talking of a.'s unfortunate passion and mrs h.'s behaviour. "one sees them everywhere together," he said. c. said: "where?" barnes said: "oh, at all the restaurants and at the opera." cunninghame said he had expected mrs housman to dinner, but she had been unable to come. _saturday, may_ _nd_. called on mrs housman to inquire. they have gone to the country until monday. _monday, may_ _th._ i had luncheon with a. to-day at his flat. he said he had been staying with the housmans at their house on the thames. he said he had put his foot in it. on saturday night at dinner they were talking about ireland, and he said he had no wish to go to a country full of priests. mrs housman told him, laughing, she was a catholic. he asked me if i had known this. i told him i had always known it. he asked me whether she was very devout. i said i knew she always went to mass on sundays, that she had never mentioned the subject to me except once when i asked her a question with reference to a friend of mine. he asked me whether housman was a catholic too. i told him what i knew. _tuesday, may_ _th._ went to the opera, in the housmans' box. housman and cunninghame were there. mrs housman did not come. a. looked in during the _entr'acte_. _wednesday, may_ _th._ a. gave a dinner at his club. all politicians except myself and cunninghame. _thursday, may_ _th._ tuke asked me to take a ticket for a concert at hammersmith at which his sister is performing on the piano. i have done so. _friday, may_ _th._ luncheon with a. at his club. he is staying with lady jarvis on saturday. the housmans, he said, will be there. cunninghame is going also. a. told me mrs housman has not been well lately. i said i thought she did too much. he asked me in what sort of way. i said she attended to a great many charities and that as housman entertained a great deal i thought it tired her. mrs housman had told him i was very musical. he asked me if i played any instrument. i said none except the penny whistle. he asked me if i did not think mrs housman a very fine singer. i said i did. he also said that he supposed she knew a lot of priests. i said i had never met one in her house. _sunday, may_ _th. rosedale, surrey._ i arrived rather late last night. besides the guests i knew i was to meet, was a frenchman, m. raphael luc, and a mrs vaughan. after dinner we had some music. m. luc sang several french songs, by lully, and others that i had heard mrs housman sing. his singing was greatly appreciated and applauded, and it is, i confess, as far as it goes, perfection itself, as regards quality, taste and art, but i could not help thinking the whole time that it would be impossible for him to interpret schubert. this morning i sat in the garden and read the newspapers. mrs housman drove to church which was some distance off. mr winchester hill, the novelist, arrived for luncheon and brought with him miss ella dasent, the actress. at the end of the meal she gave us some vivid impersonations of contemporary actors and actresses. we sat talking for some time in the verandah. then lady jarvis took housman to show him the garden, and cunninghame walked away with mrs vaughan and m. luc. miss housman, mr hill, miss dasent, and myself remained on long chairs underneath a large tree. miss dasent and mr hill discussed at great length a play that he is adapting for her from one of his novels. the story seemed to me absurd--it was something about an italian nobleman strangling his wife's lover with a silk handkerchief. towards five we had tea and after tea mrs vaughan took me for a stroll round the garden. i found her a well-read woman who has lived a great deal in paris and is familiar with the bohemian world in more than one continent. at dinner i sat between mrs housman and cunninghame. mrs housman said that luc's singing made one despair, and she felt she could never sing again after hearing him. i told her i doubted if he could interpret german music. she was annoyed with me and said i was missing the point, and that the songs he sang were exquisite. we sat in the verandah after dinner, while luc sang to us from the drawing-room. he sang fauré's settings to verlaine's words. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ _monday, may_ _st_. dearest elsie, i have just come back from rosedale, where i have been staying with lady jarvis. it is an old tudor house that was bodily transported from the west of england. i believe it is quite genuine, but it looks unreal and the rooms are like show rooms at a second-hand dealer's. the garden is quite beautiful. we had a most amusing party. jane vaughan (looking very pretty), raphael luc, george, the housmans. raphael sang both nights quite divinely after dinner. on saturday night we all sat in the big downstairs room, but after he had sung two songs mrs housman went out on the verandah. she is so musical that one could see it was more than she could bear. i am certain she felt she was going to cry. sunday morning i had a long talk with lady jarvis. she told me mrs housman is a very strict and devout catholic. we both agreed that there is no doubt that george is very much in love with her. she thinks she _is_ in love with him. i am still not sure lady jarvis is right about her. i sat next to her (mrs h.) at dinner on saturday night, and george was on her other side. she was perfectly natural, but i thought miles _away_. during the whole time we were there she didn't pay much attention to him and she didn't avoid him. she went to church by herself on sunday morning and stayed in all the afternoon. i think she likes him, but nothing more than that. godfrey mellor, the silent secretary, is devoted to her too. the other morning at the office a man came to see us and said all sorts of most absurdly silly things about mrs h. i could see he was furious. he has known the housmans quite a long time. more people came down to luncheon on sunday, but nobody interesting. george says he will be able to yacht now. i think mrs h. is delightful. i like her more and more. i have been to the opera twice, to a good many dinners, and some balls. there may be a chance of paris for a few days later. yours, g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, may_ _st_. i travelled back from rosedale with a. he asked me if i was fond of yachting. i said i was a moderate sailor. he asked me to go next saturday to his house near littlehampton. his sister is going to be there, and perhaps the housmans. dined at the club. _tuesday, june_ _st._ there is going to be a large concert at the albert hall for the albemarle relief fund. tuke brought the programme and placed it on my table this morning. esther lake is singing, and the housmans and a. are among the patrons. dined with a. at his club. he told me he thought mrs housman was far from well. he said what she wants is sea air. _wednesday, june_ _nd_. cunninghame told me he had dined at the housmans' last night. he said there was no one there but himself and carrington-smith. he said mrs housman talks of going away soon. london tires her. dined at the club. _thursday, june_ _rd_. i have just come back from a dinner-party at aunt ruth's. a great many diplomats and politicians. i sat between thornton-davis, who is at the f.o. now, and mrs vernon, who is french and a legitimist and talks of the place de la concorde as the _place louis xv_. aunt ruth said she heard a. was doing very well and spoke well in the house. it's a pity, she said, that he is such a tory. _friday, june_ _th._ went this afternoon to the concert at the albert hall for the relief fund in the housmans' box. miss housman and mrs carrington-smith were there, but neither mrs nor mr housman. miss housman says that mrs housman has not been well lately. she said she goes out far too much. i enjoyed nothing in the programme. dined at the club. _saturday, june_ _th._ a. told me he expected me at littlehampton, but that i would find it dull, as he had no party. _sunday, june_ _th. littlehampton_. a. has a nice and comfortable little house. his yacht, a small cutter with room for two to sleep on board, is here. he took mrs campion and myself out this morning. there was what is called a nice breeze. i cannot say i enjoyed it very much. he told me that he had asked the housmans, but they could not come, mrs housman is going to cornwall soon for the rest of the summer. she has not been well, and the doctors told her she must leave london. a. said he would miss them very much. he liked them both exceedingly, and he thought miss sarah was such a good sort. a. said the truth was that mrs h. worked herself to death over charities and things like that. he was sure the priests were greatly to blame for this. _letters from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _monday, june_ _th._ dearest elsie, there's not the slightest chance of my coming over to paris now. i am not going to ascot at all this year. the housmans thought of taking a house for ascot week, but she has not been well, and they are staying out of london till they go down to cornwall. they have taken a house somewhere near the lizard, and when she goes she will stay the whole summer. both george and poor little mellor are in low spirits. i had a very nice letter from mrs h. asking me to go down there in august and to stay as long as i liked. housman has lent me his box for the whole of ascot week. there is such a rush that i haven't time to write properly to you. yours, g. london, _friday, june_ _th_. dearest elsie, i have spent the most perfect ascot week in london. i have enjoyed every moment of it. i went to the opera every night in the housmans' box, which besides being fun was most convenient as i was able to ask people who had done things for me. i dined on saturday with jimmy randall, who had been at ascot all the week. he says that housman has fallen violently in love with a mrs rachel park. you may possibly have heard of her. she used to sing at concerts under the name of rose sinclair. she was quite beautiful, with enormous eyes and flaming hair, but quite brainless and quite unmusical. she married a barrister who is now park, k.c. he works like a slave, but she spends money more quickly than he can make it. this explains the cornwall arrangement. jimmy r. says that h. has violent scenes with celia r. and that the end of that idyll is only a question of hours. he says mrs p. will lead him a dance. she is mercenary, stupid, common and a real harpy. poor "bert," as jimmy randall calls housman. he is so good-natured. and poor mrs h.! mellor hardly speaks at all now, and george doesn't say much. he goes nowhere, but talks of yachting on the west coast during the summer. yours, g. _p.s_.--just got your telegram. i am delighted you are coming to london. i particularly wanted you to meet mrs housman--and "bert." you must come. and now i shall just be able to manage this if you will dine with me on monday night. she leaves for cornwall on tuesday morning. i've asked george too. he stays in london till parliament is over, and then he is going away and i shall be free. how much leave will jack get? three weeks at least, i hope. the shamiers want you to stay with them sunday week, and lady jarvis wants you to go down there. if you don't want to stay there, we might go down for luncheon one day. i shall be in london till the end of july. then i am going to worsel for a fortnight. the housmans have asked me to go to cornwall, and i shall try and fit that in between worsel and the shamiers. they have been lent a lodge in scotland and have asked me to go there in september. i have promised to stay a few days at edith's as well. there is a parcel for me at the embassy. it is too big for the bag. could you bring it with you? _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _tuesday, june_ _th._ dined with cunninghame last night to meet his cousin, mrs caryl. she is the wife of a diplomat who is second secretary at paris. a pleasant dinner. the housmans were there, and a. and his sister. _friday, june_ _th._. received a letter from mrs housman to-day. she says the change of air is doing her good. she hopes i will come to cornwall some time during my holiday. _monday, july_ _th._ dined with housman last night. miss housman was there, and the carrington-smiths, and a mrs park who used to be a professional singer. she sang after dinner. miss housman accompanied her. she sang tosti's _ninon_, some lassen, some bemberg, a song by lord henry somerset, and e. purcell's _passing by_. miss housman said it was a comfort to accompany someone who had a sense of time. she has a powerful voice and has been well trained, but _passing by_ did not suit her style of singing, and i regretted that she had attempted that song. she was not always in tune. housman enjoyed it, and accompanied her himself afterwards in some coon songs which he played by ear. housman asked me to stay with them for the whole of august. he said he was very anxious that i should go, as he would not be able to be much in cornwall and he was afraid mrs housman would be lonely. he asked cunninghame also. i accepted. a. spends all his spare time now on his yacht. i am going to stay with him next saturday. _monday, july_ _th._ a. is going to the cowes regatta. he asked me to go with him, but i am leaving on the st of august for cornwall. _sunday, august_ _st. grey farm, carbis bay, cornwall_. i arrived here last night. a pleasant spot near the sea and not far from a golf links. mrs housman and housman are here alone. housman is greatly perturbed because mrs carrington-smith is bringing a divorce suit against her husband for infidelity. the other person concerned is miss hope, whom i met at dinner one night at cunninghame's flat. housman says that miss hope is neurotic and unhinged. mrs housman has never met miss hope. housman said he hoped i would be able to stay on here, as he would not be able to spend much time in cornwall. carrington-smith was so greatly upset by this wretched business that he could not attend to the affairs of the firm. he was afraid mrs housman would be lonely. lady jarvis had promised to come later, and cunninghame also, but he did not know when. miss housman had been obliged to go to vichy to take the waters. housman played golf in the afternoon with a member of the club. i am not a golf player, unfortunately. i told him that cunninghame was an admirable player. _monday, august_ _nd_. housman has been telegraphed for and left this morning. in the afternoon we went for a long drive and had tea in a farm-house. the climate is warm and agreeable. _tuesday, august_ _rd_. bathed in the sea this morning and went for a long walk in the afternoon with mrs h. after dinner she tried some new songs by tchaikovsky. we did not care for them much and fell back on schubert. schubert is her favourite composer. she sang the _gruppe aus tartarus_. _wednesday, august_ _th._ we went for an expedition to the lizard. mrs housman told me that when she was a girl she had much wanted to become a professional singer, and that she was studying for the concert stage when she met housman. _thursday, august_ _th._ we sat on the beach all the afternoon. it was extremely hot and enjoyable. mrs housman read _consuelo_, by george sand, aloud. she reads french with great purity of accent. father stanway, the local priest, came to dinner, a cheerful man with a venerable appearance. when we were left alone, after dinner, talking of men in public offices, he said he knew bowes, in the foreign office, who had spent his easter holidays here. i asked him whether he thought converts of that description made satisfactory catholics. he said he thought bowes would be an admirable catholic. i said i thought it must be very difficult for a man of his upbringing, as bowes had been brought up in a rigid church of england family, and his father often wrote to _the times_, condemning ritualistic practices and innovations. father stanway said it was not so complicated as i thought. there were only three things indispensable to a man if he wished to become a catholic: to believe in god, to follow his conscience, to love his neighbour as himself. if he did that all the rest was easy. he said he admired bowes greatly for taking the step. _friday, august_ _th._ we went to the land's end, where there were a great many tourists. mrs housman continues to read out loud _consuelo_ in the afternoons and evenings. it is an interesting book, but i prefer _jane eyre_. _saturday, august_ _th._ i received a letter from riley this morning. he has been in london nearly a month, and was there a fortnight before i left, but he did not come to see me for the following reason. he has taken the step and has been received into the roman catholic church, and he says his first intention was not to tell anyone of his conversion. he did not come to see me because he knew he would not be able to help discussing it. he is no longer making a secret of it now. he found this too difficult. two or three days after he had been received he happened to be dining out and it was a friday. his hostess said to him, in the course of conversation: "you are not a catholic, are you?" he resolved then and there to keep it secret no longer. he tells me in his letter, "your philosophy of the first lie is quite right. only i regard what you call the first lie as the _first truth_. once this is so, all the rest follows." he says that after he left me in gray's inn in may he resolved to put the matter from him for a time and not to think about it. he went back to paris and pursued his research. one morning he woke up and felt he could not delay another moment. he took the train for london the next day, where he intended to go soon in any case for his holiday, and the day after his arrival he called at the brompton oratory and asked to see a priest, as he knew no priests. he sat in a small waiting-room downstairs, and presently an elderly priest, father x., arrived and asked him what he could do for him. he told him he wished for instruction prior to becoming a catholic. he called the next day. father x. told him after they had talked for some time that he did not think he would need much instruction. but he continued to see him for the next three weeks. he was then received. he says that what seemed before a step of great difficulty now appeared quite extraordinarily simple, and he cannot conceive why he did not take it a long time ago. _sunday, august_ _th._ mrs housman went to mass. i sat in the garden; when she returned from mass i told her about riley. she asked me how old he was. i said i thought he was about thirty-five. i told her he was a brilliant scholar, and had taken high honours at oxford. he had a post at the liverpool university. she said she had felt certain he would come into the church. lady jarvis is coming here next week. _monday, august_ _th_. we spent the whole day on the beach, reading aloud. housman has written to say that mrs carrington-smith will insist on bringing their affairs into court. carrington-smith is much worried. mrs housman says that mrs carrington-smith is an absurd woman. _tuesday, august_ _th._ we spent the morning at st ives, shopping. i bought _the pickwick papers_ and an old silver teapot. we sat on the beach in the afternoon, reading _consuelo._ after dinner mrs housman sang a beautiful french-canadian song. _wednesday, august_ _th._ just as we were sitting down to luncheon a. walked into the room; he had sailed here from cowes in his yacht, which is anchored in the bay. he could not stay to luncheon as he was lunching at the golf club with a friend. mrs housman asked him to dinner. he accepted. he said he had spent a most enjoyable week at cowes in his yacht, but had not won any races. his sister had been with him, only as she is a bad sailor she had not enjoyed the sailing as much as he would have liked. cunninghame has been at cowes for three days on board a mr venderling's steam yacht (an american). a. says that he intends to spend some time here cruising about the coast. _thursday, august_ _th._ lady jarvis arrived this morning. she says she thinks that if mrs carrington-smith goes into court she will get a divorce. she has substantial evidence. carrington-smith is most uneasy. a. came to luncheon and proposed that we should all go for a sail in the afternoon together. lady jarvis and i declined, as we are both moderate sailors. mrs housman went with him. they came back at six and she said she had enjoyed it immensely. _friday, august_ _th_. mrs housman received a telegram from housman this morning, telling her she must ask a. to stay here in the house. she had written to tell him--housman--a. was here. a. came to luncheon and mrs housman invited him to stay. he said he would be pleased to do so for a few days, but that he is due in his yacht early next week at plymouth. mrs housman has received a letter from cunninghame, asking whether it would be convenient for him to come next week. she has telegraphed to him that she would be glad to receive him. _saturday, august_ _th._ the weather was so beautiful and the sea was so smooth that we were all persuaded to go on board the yacht, where we had luncheon. we went for a short sail in the afternoon. although i did not feel ill i cannot say i enjoyed it, i prefer the dry land. lady jarvis said she enjoyed it greatly, although she is a bad sailor as a rule. mrs housman is an excellent sailor. _sunday, august_ _th._ i am finishing _consuelo_ by myself as we are not able to read aloud any more. we all went for a drive in two carriages in the afternoon through disused mines, and had tea in a farm-house. a. says he is enjoying his holiday immensely. cunninghame arrives here to-morrow. we had some music in the evening. a.'s favourite composer is sullivan, but his favourite song is offenbach's _chanson de fortunio_, which mrs housman sang to-night. _letters from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ grey farm, carbis bay, cornwall, _tuesday, august_ _th._ dearest elsie, i arrived here from worsel last night, and found mrs housman, lady jarvis, george, who sailed here in his yacht from cowes, and godfrey mellor. it is the most delicious place. a blue sea with pink and purple streaks in it, and a soft west wind, and wonderful sand beaches, thick with people. it is the height of the season. the housmans have got a comfortable little house near a golf links. housman has had to go to london to see his partner, carrington-smith, who has been threatened with divorce by his wife, who accuses him of infidelity with--who do you think?--eileen hope. "bert" is by way of coming down here on saturday. george is radiantly happy. i don't think she's thinking about him. he wanted us all to go out in his yacht this afternoon, but as it was blowing half a gale mrs housman was the only one who faced the elements. she is a passionately good sailor and the rougher it is the more she enjoys it. i played golf with a general york who lives here. godfrey mellor doesn't play, which is tiresome. we are having the greatest fun. lady jarvis is in the most splendid form. she told us some killing stories about mrs carrington-smith. she says that the whole of last year she would only eat raw roots and uncooked fruit because she says in a former existence she was a priestess of i sis, and that was the rule. lady jarvis pointed out to her that she is not a priestess of i sis now, but she said that if she ate meat it would spoil her chance of serving isis again in her next existence. she said, too, that it would displease the elementals. mrs housman seems perfectly happy and cheerful. mellor is depressed, but i am terribly sorry for him. i feel he was having such a divine time here before we all came. grey farm, _monday, august_ _rd_. dearest elsie, "bert" came down on saturday night, but went away this morning. he is completely upset about carrington-smith, who says his wife is bent on divorcing him. now that he is gone one can laugh, but while he was there we simply didn't dare. eileen was apparently a most imprudent correspondent. housman says she will win her case without any doubt if she brings it into court. i played golf with him all sunday. we had great fun after dinner last night. mrs housman sang songs out of the gilbert and sullivan operas, and some offenbach, too, the _chanson de fortunio,_ too beautifully. george _is_ desperately in love--but i still don't think _she_ is. yours, g. grey farm, carbis bay, _tuesday, august_ _th._ dearest elsie, i am going to stay another week as edith can't have me yet. george was leaving to-day, as he has got to be at plymouth for a regatta somewhere, but he has put off going till to-morrow because of the weather. i am enjoying myself immensely. i have got to like godfrey mellor very much. i went for a long walk with him one afternoon. when one gets him quite alone like that he talks quite a lot and is delightful. mrs carrington-smith _is_ going to insist on divorce. i am going to the shamiers' on the st of october. i told you they have been lent a lodge in scotland on the coast. yours etc., g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, august_ _th. grey farm, carbis bay._ cunninghame arrived late in the evening. we talked at dinner a great deal about the likelihood of the carrington-smith divorce. we discussed divorce in general. mrs housman was of course against divorce, but she said that the rules of the church were terribly hard on the individual in many cases. she said: "we are allowed to separate." _tuesday, august_ _th._ we all went for an expedition to the land's end. _wednesday, august_ _th_. we all bathed in the morning. mrs carrington-smith has refused to relent in spite of housman's attempts at mediation--apparently she found some letters addressed by miss hope to her husband and miss hope was an imprudent correspondent. lady jarvis and i wondered why people kept letters, especially when they were compromising. mrs housman said she quite understood this. she never could bring herself to burn old letters, although she never looked at them. _thursday, august_ _th._ we had luncheon on board the yacht, but after luncheon we left a. on board and went for a walk on the cliffs. _friday, august_ _th._ i went for a walk with cunninghame in the afternoon. he talked a great deal about a. he said he ought to marry. he said he thought mrs housman was one of the nicest people he had ever met in his life. _saturday, august_ _st_. housman arrived in the evening. it poured with rain all day, so we sat indoors. lady jarvis played patience. mrs housman played some old songs she found in the house. there is nothing, i think, more melancholy than old or, rather, old-fashioned music. _sunday, august_ _nd_. housman announced his intention of going to mass with mrs housman this morning. he said he always did so at the seaside, he thought it right to support poor missions. housman said at luncheon that father stanway had preached an excellent sermon. he had said in his sermon that man was a ridiculous animal, and that every time we slip on a piece of orange-peel or sit down on a hat by mistake, we should give thanks for the grace of god that is teaching us humility. in the afternoon cunninghame and housman played golf. housman lost. he says cunninghame is a very fine player. _monday, august_ _rd_. housman left for london this morning. a. leaves to-morrow for plymouth, but the weather is still very unsettled and it has been blowing hard, and i wonder whether he will be able to start. last night after dinner mrs housman suggested reading aloud. a. asked her to read some stories by an american called o. henry, whose works have not been published in england, and whom i had never heard of. a. has travelled in america. mrs housman did so. she said she thought we would find them difficult to understand as we did not know america. we did, that is to say, cunninghame and myself. but a. was greatly amused, and lady jarvis said she thought they were clever. _tuesday, august_ _th._ it is still blowing hard and a. has put off going to plymouth altogether, as he would not get there in time for the regatta. cunninghame and a. played golf to-day with a retired indian general, who lives in a house about three miles from here. his name is york. they brought him back to tea, a brisk, direct man. he said something about his wife and mrs housman asked if she might call on her. general york said they would be delighted. more o. henry was read out in the evening. i prefer mrs housman's readings in french literature. a. enjoyed it immensely. _wednesday, august_ _th._ mrs housman called on mrs york this afternoon. mrs york greeted her with the words: "this is very unusual." mrs housman did not understand what was unusual. mrs york said she did not recollect having called. she was the oldest inhabitant and had discovered the place. mrs housman apologised. she has asked the general and mrs york to luncheon on sunday. _thursday, august_ _th._ cunninghame played golf with the general. i went for a walk with lady jarvis in the afternoon. she talked of a great many things; of music and musical education abroad. she considers mrs housman a fine artist. she talked of a., of his work and mine and my prospects for the future. i told her i enjoyed routine work and had no ambition to do anything else. she talked of marriage. she said a. ought certainly to marry soon as he would be very lonely otherwise. his sister, mrs campion, could not look after him, as she had her own children to look after. her eldest daughter would soon be out. she asked me whether i had ever thought of marrying. she is a most intelligent and agreeable woman. _friday, august_ _th._ a. was obliged to go to penzance to-day for the day. we all went for a walk in the afternoon. it is finer and quite warm, but the sea is still very rough. mrs housman received a letter from mrs york this morning saying that she was unable to come to luncheon on sunday, but that she had no doubt the general would accept the invitation with pleasure. mrs housman wrote back to say she would be delighted to see the general on sunday. the o. henry book is finished. mrs housman is now reading us some stories by another american author, richard harding davis. i wish she would return to european literature. but a. enjoys these american books. _saturday, august_ _th._ the wind has gone down and a. went out sailing. cunninghame played golf. mrs housman spent the day at a convent which is some miles off, and she did not come down to dinner. lady jarvis took me into the town in the morning, and in the afternoon we went for a drive. we had no reading in the evening. _sunday, august_ _th._ general york did not come to luncheon after all, he wrote a note excusing himself. mrs housman went to mass in the morning. a. and cunninghame played golf. mrs housman read out loud a story by kipling after dinner. i wonder what an e.p. tent means. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ grey farm, carbis bay, _august_ _th._ dearest elsie, the weather has been too awful, but now, thank heaven, it is fine again. george was obliged to put off going to plymouth by sea as it was too rough. the shamiers have put me off. they can't have the lodge that was going to be lent to them, so they won't go to scotland at all this year. this changes all my plans. mrs housman asked me to stay on another week here, and i am going to as there is now no hurry to get to edith's. i shall then go back to worsel for three days if they can have me, and then stay with edith for the rest of my holiday. she has got the whole family there at this moment, so i shall enjoy going there later better. i shall be back in london the first week in october. there is a charming old man here who plays golf with me, general york. his wife, who was huffy because mrs housman "called," paid a call in state this afternoon. she came in a barouche with an indian servant on the box. she is organising a bazaar and asked lady jarvis to help at her stall. she said the bazaar was in the cause of the church; she did not ask mrs housman. she stayed seven minutes by the clock and refused tea, which she said she never took as it was trying for the nerves. she was dressed in black jet, and brought with her a small pomeranian dog. she said she and her husband had lived here eight years and that it used to be a charming place when they discovered it. write to me here and then to edith's, but not to worsel as that is uncertain. yours, g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, august_ _th_. i am glad to say cunninghame has put off going for a week. mrs york called chis afternoon. i was introduced to her, but she addressed no remark to me. _tuesday, august_ _st_. a. has gone away for a night as he is staying with someone in the neighbourhood. mrs housman took cunninghame to the lizard, which he had not yet seen. lady jarvis and i spent a lazy day in the garden and on the cliffs. it is extremely hot. _wednesday, september_ _st_. cunninghame and a. played golf with general york and suggested his coming back to tea, but he declined with much embarrassment. mrs housman returned mrs york's visit, but she was not at home. mrs housman sang after dinner. a. does not care for german music, which limits the programme; he is fond, however, of old english songs. _thursday, september_ _nd_. a beautiful day for sailing, so they said. a. took mrs housman for a sail. _friday, september_ _rd_. i find a.'s spirits a little boisterous at times. he took us out fishing this afternoon. after dinner he insisted on mrs housman playing some american coon songs. _saturday, september_ _th._ housman arrived unexpectedly with carrington-smith this afternoon. carrington-smith seems depressed about his coming divorce. mrs housman was out sailing with a. and they did not come back until just before dinner. carrington-smith is a great expert on boxing and gave us a sparring exhibition after dinner. that is to say, he explained at great length the nature of a straight left, and upset some of the furniture in so doing. after dinner housman, carrington-smith, cunninghame and lady jarvis played bridge. _sunday, september_ _th._ housman played golf and met general york, knowing nothing of what had occurred, and asked him and mrs york to luncheon. the general was much embarrassed and said his wife was an invalid. housman then asked him to come by himself. the general stammered and said they were having luncheon out. but housman would take no refusal and asked them to dinner. the general said they didn't dine out on sundays! his wife----and then he got dreadfully confused, and cunninghame came to the rescue and said housman had forgotten we were dining on board the yacht, which we were of course not doing. cunninghame leaves, i regret to say, to-morrow. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ grey farm, carbis bay, _sunday, september_ _th._ dearest elsie, i leave to-morrow for worsel. i am only stopping here a week. then i go on to edith's where i shall stay to the end of the month. most of the family have gone. i spent a whole day with mrs housman on tuesday and we went to the lizard. this is the first time i have had a real talk alone with her since i have been here. we were talking about my plans and i said that i had been going to stay with the shamiers. she said: "oh yes," and paused a moment and then said: "she's a charming woman, isn't she?" i could see she knew. later on she talked of george and said how nice mrs campion was and what a good thing it would be if george married. i said: "yes, what a good thing. it was the greatest mistake his not marrying." upon which she said: "do you think he will?" and then in a flash i knew that lady jarvis had been quite right and i had been utterly wrong. what an idiot i have been! it must have been quite obvious to a baby the whole time! i can't tell you how i mind it. i think it is the greatest pity and really too awful! what are we to do? that's just it--one can do nothing: there is nothing to be done, absolutely nothing. of course godfrey mellor must have seen it clearly the whole time. i am sure he is miserable. it is all the greatest pity and how i can have been so blind, i don't know, not that it would have made any difference if i hadn't been. housman, of course, sees nothing and has begged george to stay on. as a matter of fact he (george) is going away quite soon as he has to sail his yacht back and he is stopping somewhere on the way. he will be back in london in october. it is all very depressing and i am quite glad to be going. lady jarvis has said nothing to me but i can see that she sees that i see. godfrey mellor is staying on. housman leaves to-morrow. write to me at edith's. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, september_ _th._ housman and cunninghame both left this morning. a. goes away on wednesday. a stormy day--too rough for sailing. carrington-smith, who is remaining on, played golf with a. _tuesday, september_ _th._ mrs housman and a. went out for a sail. i went for a walk with lady jarvis. carrington-smith played golf: after dinner he sang _i'll sing thee songs of araby,_ mrs housman accompanied him: he has a tenor voice. _wednesday, september_ _th_. a. left in his yacht this morning. lady jarvis took carrington-smith for a walk. i went out with mrs housman. she suggested finishing _consuelo_: i told her i had already finished it. miss housman arrives on saturday. _thursday, september_ _th._ mrs housman received a telegram from mrs baines, who is in the neighbourhood with her husband, proposing themselves. mrs housman has asked them to stay. they will arrive to-morrow. carrington-smith sang tosti's _good-bye_ after dinner. i went for a walk with mrs housman in the afternoon. she said she likes cunninghame particularly. she said that a. ought to marry. _friday, september_ _th._ a rainy day, we remained indoors. carrington-smith went for a walk by himself. mr and mrs baines arrived in the afternoon. after dinner they played bridge: lady jarvis, carrington-smith and mr and mrs baines. mrs baines said she greatly admired the works of mrs ella wheeler wilcox. "she is," she said, "a true poet, or perhaps i should say a true poetess." she said theatrical performances affected her so much that she could seldom "sit out a piece." she had been obliged to take to her bed after seeing _the only way_. carrington-smith said he preferred a prize fight to any play. mr baines did not care for the english stage, but he always went to a french play when there was one to see in london: he had greatly admired sarah bernhardt in old days. his wife, he pensively reminded us, had once been taken for her. mrs baines protested and said that it was in the days when sarah bernhardt was quite thin. "such a beautiful voice," she said. "quite the human violin in those days. now, of course, she rants and appears in such dreadful plays--so violent." _saturday, september_ _th._ mr and mrs baines left this morning. miss housman arrived in the afternoon. carrington-smith played golf and i went out with mrs housman. after dinner miss housman suggested bridge, but there were only three players, as mrs housman does not play. miss housman said i must play. i said i did not know the rules. she said she would teach me. i played--i was her partner. she became excited over what is called the "double ruff," a point i have not yet grasped. carrington-smith, who is an excellent player, explained me the rules with great patience. _sunday, september_ _th._ mrs housman went to mass. in the afternoon she went for a walk with miss housman. we played bridge again after dinner. miss housman was annoyed with me as i neglected to finesse. _monday, september_ _th._ the last week of my holiday. it becomes finer and warmer every day. miss housman said she must see the land's end. mrs housman took her there. i went for a walk with lady jarvis in the evening. more bridge after dinner: i revoked, but my partner, carrington-smith, was most amiable about it. _tuesday, september_ _th._ miss housman took mrs housman into the town as she said she needed help with her shopping: she did not make many purchases. as far as i understood, only two yards of silk. i went out with carrington-smith in the afternoon. bridge in the evening--i do not yet understand the "double ruff." _wednesday, september_ _th._ we all went to the lizard in two carriages. miss housman said she must see the lizard. she, mrs housman and myself went in one carriage; lady jarvis and carrington-smith in the other. bridge in the evening; miss housman lost, which annoyed her. _thursday, september_ _th._ a wet day. miss housman practised all the morning (fantasia in c sharp minor, chopin); her touch is very metallic. we played bridge in the afternoon after tea, as well as after dinner. _friday, september_ _th._ my last day. it cleared up. we all went out on to the beach. miss housman read aloud a novel, which she had already begun and which we will certainly not have time to finish, called _queed_, by an american author. after dinner we played bridge. _saturday, september_ _th._ arrived at gray's inn. travelled up with carrington-smith. _sunday, october_ _rd. gray's inn_. stayed at home in the morning and read the sunday newspapers. in the afternoon i went for a walk in kensington gardens. _monday, october_ _th._ a. and cunninghame returned to the office. a. told us that his sister, mrs campion, had invited both of us to stay with her next saturday at her house in oxfordshire. we have both accepted. _tuesday, october_ _th._ cunninghame asked me to dinner. we dined at his flat and sat up talking until nearly one o'clock in the morning. i had a letter from lady jarvis telling me she has returned to london and inviting me to visit her in mansfield street whenever i felt inclined. _wednesday, october_ _th_. dined with a. at his club. he told me that mrs housman arrives to-morrow; he met housman in the street this morning. _thursday, october_ _th._ i called on lady jarvis late this evening and found her at home. she said cornwall had had a beneficial effect on mrs housman's health. i stayed talking till nearly seven. _friday, october_ _th._ received a note from mrs housman asking me to dine there next tuesday. went to a concert with lady jarvis at the queen's hall: the programme was uninteresting, but i enjoyed my evening nevertheless. _saturday, october_ _th. wraxted priory, oxfordshire_. i travelled down with a. and cunninghame and found a party consisting, besides ourselves, of mrs campion and her three children, fräulein brandes, the governess, miss macdonald, cunninghame's cousin, and a miss wray. i sat next to mrs campion at dinner: she said she hoped they would go to florence again next easter. after dinner we played consequences and the letter game. _sunday, october_ _th._ everyone went to church this morning except cunninghame and myself. at luncheon i sat next to fräulein brandes. she said shakespeare was badly performed in england and that she preferred the german translation of the plays to the original; she considered it superior. "_aber das_," she added, "_will kein engländer gestehen_." she was shocked to hear i had never read shakespeare's plays. i told her i had no taste for verse. she said this was _unglaublich_. i told her i was fond of german music. in the afternoon mrs campion took me for a walk. cunninghame went out with his cousin. at dinner i sat next to miss wray. i found her most agreeable. she has travelled a great deal and seems to have a real appreciation of classical music. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _monday, october_ _th._ dearest elsie, we had a delightful sunday at mrs campion's. a lovely old house not very far from oxford: grey stone walls, a hall with the walls left bare and a few bits of good tapestry and another panelled room. freda was there, and lavinia wray, who has just come back from south america. she is looking so well, her lovely skin whiter than ever and those huge eyes--george liked her enormously. he had never met her before. how wonderful it would be if that could come off. it would be exactly right. of course i am sure mrs campion wants it and is not likely to do anything stupid. i shall get edith to help later if possible. she is still in the country now. mrs housman has come back to london and i hear from randall that housman is mad about mrs park. i shall go and see her next week. george is in good spirits. when i got back i couldn't bear the sight of my flat with those glaring curtains and i have committed the great extravagance of changing them. the new ones are coming next week. i hope they will be a success as i shan't be able to change them again. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, october_ _th._ dined at the club. _tuesday, october_ _th._ had luncheon with cunninghame to meet his sister, mrs howard. she is older than he is and less communicative. her husband is on the stock exchange. she was only in london for the day but she said she hoped i would come and see her when she settled in london later. she has a house in chester street. _wednesday, october_ _th._ dined with the housmans last night. a. was there, miss housman and mrs park. i sat next to mrs housman. mrs park contradicted a. when he mentioned music and said something about the gross ignorance of english amateurs. after dinner she asked miss housman to accompany her. she sang some operatic airs and gounod's _ave maria_. i drove home with a., who told me he could not bear mrs park. _thursday, october_ _th._ i am just back from dining with lady jarvis. a. was there, miss wray and several other people. lady jarvis asked me if i had seen the housmans. i told her about my dinner there. she said that mrs park was an intolerable woman: she knew her when she was a singer and she said she had never met anyone who gave herself such airs. walked home with cunninghame, who was dining there too. he is dining with the housmans on sunday. the carrington-smith divorce case is in the newspapers. _friday, october_ _th._ dined at the club. mrs carrington-smith has got her divorce. _saturday, october_ _th._ spent the day at woking with solway. he has finished his sonata. _sunday, october_ _th._ i went to see mrs housman this afternoon and found her at home. after i had been there about five minutes a great many visitors arrived and i left. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ halkin street, _sunday, october_ _th._ dearest elsie, i am having a quiet sunday in london. george is staying with the prime minister. i dined last night with the housmans. mrs park was there, randall and miss housman. mrs park is incredible: a magnificent figure, hair dyed a rich bronze with flaming high lights, dressed in a flowing robe of peach-coloured satin with a necklace of fire-opals and a large diamond lyre on her shoulder; the semi-royal manner of an ex-prima donna, at the same time making it quite clear that she no longer mixed with the artistic world--she had soared to the top of it and out of it. she said: "years ago when i was at balmoral the dear queen told me she reminded me of grisi." i said: "i suppose you mean you reminded her of grisi," and she drew herself up stiffly and said she meant what she said. she told me that madame cosima had implored her to sing at bayreuth but of course she couldn't think of doing such a thing. poor theodore (her late husband) hated wagner. after dinner she sang, miss housman accompanied her, a song out of _cavalleria._ they had a fierce argument about the time. mrs park said she was playing too fast, which she was, although i don't believe mrs park knew this. miss sarah stuck to her guns and played, if anything, faster. mrs park then refused to sing. housman asked his wife to accompany her, which mrs housman most good-naturedly said she would be delighted to do. this was more than miss housman could bear--she said mrs housman was playing too slow and mrs park agreed. miss housman tore mrs housman from the piano and sat there herself, and the song was sung to the end. all seemed to be peaceable but miss housman unfortunately couldn't refrain from saying that mascagni's music was rubbish, upon which mrs park burst into a furious passion. who was miss housman to judge? she screamed. miss housman said she had studied music for five years under the best musicians in the world at leipzig. mrs park said she had sung to patti, who had said she was the only english artist worthy of the name of "artist." miss housman, in a sardonic voice, said that patti was so kind. mrs park said that the arrogance of amateurs knew no bounds. she had sung before the most critical public in two continents. miss housman said she did not consider the americans a critical public. mrs park then said she would never sing again in the housmans' house as long as she lived, not if everyone went down on their knees to her. housman became greatly agitated and fussed about the room, saying: "never mind, never mind; we are all very tired to-night, it's the east wind." mrs park said she always sang her best in an east wind. i caught mrs housman's eye and we were seized with a fit of uncontrollable laughter. we laughed till we shook. randall caught it too. this made things much worse. mrs park said she was being insulted and swept out of the room, housman running after her. he came back alone gibbering with agitation, and miss housman then attacked him and said of course if albert (rolling the "r" with a rapid guttural) would invite such awful people, what could one expect? then "bert" got really angry and we all sat in dead silence while he and miss sarah abused each other like pickpockets. then the door opened and mrs park came back saying she had left her fan behind. she took no notice of us but disappeared with housman into the oriental lounge, and there we heard spirited skirmishes of talk going on in an undertone. miss housman sat down defiantly at the piano and played, or rather banged, the _rapsodie hongroise._ when this was over they both came back and housman suggested, with a nervous chuckle, that we should all have some lemonade. we jumped at the idea and the evening ended peaceably enough, but mrs park ignored miss housman, was icy towards mrs housman, and made all her remarks to me and randall. i then left the house. housman followed me nervously to the door and said that mrs park had the artistic temperament and that i mustn't mind, and that it was too bad of sarah to provoke her. yrs. g. _p.s_.--i suppose you read about the carrington-smith case in the newspapers. mrs housman and i laughed a good deal about it when "bert" wasn't listening, but i am very sorry for eileen. aren't you? _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, october_ _th._ a. has been staying with the prime minister. he does not appear to have enjoyed himself very much. he asked me if i had seen the housmans lately. _tuesday, october_ _th._ a. and i dined with cunninghame. miss wray was there, mrs howard and lady jarvis. a. said afterwards that miss wray was a charming girl--it was a pity that she did not marry. _wednesday, october_ _th_. i called on mrs housman late, but she was not at home. housman came out of the house as i was standing at the door. he asked me to dinner on sunday. i accepted. _thursday, october_ _st._ dined at the club. _friday, october_ _nd_. dined with mrs howard. a. was there, cunninghame, miss wray, miss macdonald, and others. mr howard is half-irish and very boisterous. i sat next to miss wray; she said mrs campion was the nicest woman she knew. uncle arthur and aunt ruth have come back to london and are starting their thursday evenings. they have asked a. and myself to dinner on thursday week. _saturday, october_ _rd_. a. has gone to the country to stay with a general; a military party. _sunday, october_ _th._ i had luncheon with lady jarvis. she told me she did not think mrs housman would stay long in london, as the london winter was bad for her; she said she thought she would most likely go to florence. i dined with the housmans. a strange party. mrs park was the only person there i had met before. there was a south african magnate and his wife, a retired indian official, and a mr perry, an australian, and his wife, who were apparently intimate friends of mrs park's, at least she called him tom. i sat next to mrs perry, who told me that paris had been a disappointment to her. she told me, also, that the women in england were, according to australian standards, dowdy. on the other side of me was lady bowles, the wife of the indian official. she told me she was mrs park's greatest friend; she said she lived at cannes and only spent a few weeks in london every year; they were staying at the hyde park hotel. she found london dreadfully slow: she was accustomed, she said, always to smoke between the courses at dinner, and not to do so was a great deprivation. she also said she was a great gambler and was used to gambling all night. "of course i find this exhausting," she said; "and i always tell harold i shall take to cocaine some day." housman seemed rather embarrassed. miss housman was not there. after dinner lady bowles suggested a game of poker. they all played except mrs housman and they were still playing when i left. _monday, october_ _th._ i had luncheon with cunninghame at his club. he said a. had come back from the country in a very bad temper and had said that nothing would induce him to pay a visit anywhere again. _tuesday, october_ _th._ went to a concert at the queen's hall. saw the housmans in the distance, and to my astonishment i met a. in the interval. he said he had been dragged there by his sister. i met them again as we were going out. a. asked me to dinner on friday. _wednesday, october_ _th._ had luncheon with a. he seems in high spirits. he told me that his sister had come up from london for the winter--she had taken a house in pont street. he said the housmans and cunninghame were dining on friday and it would be a cornwall party. _thursday, october_ _th._ dined with aunt ruth--a large political dinner; the f.o. largely represented, as usual. a. was there and sat next to the wife of the french military attache, and on the other side of aunt ruth. i am afraid he found the dinner tedious, but after dinner he talked to miss wray: i sat next to her at dinner. she asked me if i had known a. long. she said he was so like his sister. uncle arthur has not yet grasped i am working in a public office. he asked me how i was getting on in the city. _friday, october_ _th_. dined with a. at his flat. mr and mrs housman, lady jarvis, miss wray, cunninghame and miss macdonald, mrs campion was coming but had been obliged to go down to the country. mrs housman said she was very likely going abroad for the winter. _saturday, october_ _th._ a. was engaged to go somewhere in the country but he has put off going. he left a telegram at the office to his hostess but forgot to fill in the address. tuke brought it to me. it was to mrs legget, miss wray's aunt. she is not in _who's who_, but i rang up lady jarvis on the telephone and she knew. _sunday, october_ _st_. i went to call on mrs housman but she was not at home. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _monday, november_ _st_. dearest elsie, i spent sunday in london and had luncheon with lady jarvis. she told me the housman _ménage_ was all upside down owing to mrs park, who refused to let housman see any of his old friends, insulted them all, and quarrelled every day with miss housman, and insisted on her friends being asked nightly to dinner--and what friends! fast colonials, lady jarvis says, and the dregs of the riviera! poor mrs housman is utterly worn out. mrs park behaves exactly as if it were her house, orders the servants about, complains of the food, and is always there! the result is mrs housman has gone to florence; she was to leave this morning and she is going to stay there the whole winter. i did not know how george would take this bit of news, but he knew already and seems, oddly enough, in good spirits! edith thinks he is fond of lavinia wray and that he will end by marrying her, but lady jarvis does not agree, although she said that his sister thinks the same thing. they can't understand his being in such spirits otherwise. last friday we all had dinner at george's flat. after dinner, so lady jarvis told me, before we came out of the dining-room they were playing the game of saying who you could marry and who you couldn't, and after mentioning a lot of people, godfrey mellor among others, freda macdonald said: "george." lady jarvis and freda said: "oh yes; we could marry him." mrs housman and lavinia wray said: "no--quite impossible." except lady jarvis, they are all extraordinarily optimistic about george and think that there is nothing in the housman thing and that it will pass off and he will marry lavinia. i am sure they are wrong, and i am more depressed about it than words can say. lavinia is fond of him, too, and that is all that has been gained. there are now three miserable people, instead of two! no letter from you this week, but i hope to get one to-morrow. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, november_ _st. gray's inn_. received a letter from mrs housman saying that she was leaving for florence this morning, she was sorry not to have seen me yesterday. she is going to stay in florence until the end of may. _tuesday, november_ _nd_. had dinner with a. alone at his flat. he was in low spirits and said that he hates official life. _tuesday, december_ _st_. my christmas holidays begin to-morrow. i am going to aunt ruth's. cunninghame is staying with lady jarvis. a. said he would most probably spend christmas with his sister, but he was not sure. _thursday, december_ _rd_. received a telegram from aunt ruth saying the party was put off as uncle arthur has got bronchitis. a telegram arrived for a. at the office this morning. i telephoned to tuke at his flat to know where to forward it. tuke said a.'s address for the next week would be hotel grande bretagne, florence. _christmas day_. dined at the club. _tuesday, december_ _th_. tuke telephoned to say not to forward any more letters to a. he was on his way home. _saturday, january_ _th_, . received a letter from a. from his sister's house. he is coming up next week. riley has written to me from paris to know whether i could put him up next month. he is going to spend a month in london. i have told him i would be glad of his company. _letters from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ rosedale, _saturday, january_ _st_, . dearest elsie, i have been staying with lady jarvis for christmas. there is a very small party, only jane vaughan and winchester hill besides myself. just before i came down here housman asked me to dine with him at the carlton. i went and he was alone. after talking nervously on ordinary topics, he told me he did not know what to do. it gradually came out that mrs park is making his life quite unbearable. she won't let him see any of his friends; she quarrels with sarah, and has the most violent scenes; she makes scenes every day, and not long ago, he said, broke a fine piece of venetian glass. he is miserable; he says he can't call his soul his own. i told lady jarvis all about this and she said the only thing to be done would be for housman to get mrs housman to come back. she has been away two months, and if she comes back at the end of the month the worst of the winter will be over. she is very much worried about mrs housman and says this is most unfortunate, as it would be better really in every way if she were to stay out there. you see edith and mrs campion and freda all think that it is only a passing fancy of george's and that he will get over it and marry lavinia wray! lady jarvis says this is wrong; she knows they are wrong. she thinks george and mrs housman are desperately in love with each other and she doesn't know how it will end. she is so worried that she nearly went out to florence last week. she had heard from mrs housman quite lately. she said in her last letter that george had suggested coming out to florence for christmas with mrs campion. she had told him that she would most likely not be in florence as the albertis had asked her to spend christmas with them at ravenna; she was not sure, however, whether she would go or not. whether george went or not, i don't know. he told me he was going to spend christmas with mrs campion at the priory. i am going back to london at the end of next week. yrs. g. london, _wednesday, january_ _th._ dearest elsie, i came back to london on monday. i asked housman to dinner with me and told him that he had much better get mrs housman back. he said he quite agreed that it was the only thing to do. things were now worse than ever. mrs park was impossible. poor little "bert"! the worst of it is, that directly this is over there is quite certain to be someone else and perhaps someone worse. however, let us hope for the best. george came to the office yesterday. he said he had been staying with his sister; he said nothing about florence. he is in low spirits. i shall certainly go abroad at easter and spend a few days in paris in any case. lady jarvis is back in london, and the shamiers. i dined there last night. lavroff was there and louise is just as fond of him as ever. poor godfrey mellor is terribly melancholy. he has got a friend staying with him now and i don't see much of him. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _tuesday, february_ _th_, . alfred riley arrived last night. he is now professor at shelborough university and is editing _propertius_. he has come to consult some books at the british museum. _wednesday, february_ _th_. sat up very late last night talking with riley. he was amused by a conversation he had overheard at a club. two men were talking about someone who had become a roman catholic. someone he didn't know. one of them said to the other that it was a very pleasant solution if you could do it. the other one said: "certainly; no bother, no responsibility ... everything settled for you." i said that i did think the confessional must be the negation of responsibility. riley said that by becoming a catholic you became responsible for all your actions. he said that before he was a catholic he felt no responsibility at all to anything or anyone, but that the moment you were a catholic everything you did and said counted. every time you went to confession you acknowledged and confirmed your assumption of responsibility. i mentioned a common friend of ours, o'neil, who had been a catholic all his life and who, though he was married, had never ceased to live with a miss silvia thorpe, whom i had known as an artist. he didn't hide it, neither did she. riley said that this proved his point. o'neil never dreamt of going to confession; he knew it would be useless, because he had no intention of giving up miss thorpe, and that being so, he knew he couldn't get absolution, it was a sacrifice to him, a very great sacrifice, as he was a believing catholic. "that shows," he went on, "that you don't understand how the thing works. you and all protestants think that one can stroll into the confessional, wipe the slate clean and go on with what you are doing, however bad it is, with the implied sanction of the church. but the fact remains that practising catholics who are living in a way which the church condemned do not go to confession. going to confession entails facing responsibility instead of evading it." he said that if what i thought was true, people like o'neil would go to confession. i must face the fact that he did not go to confession and was extremely unhappy on that account. he would like to go to the sacraments but he had made this great sacrifice with his eyes open. i said that i had always thought the church was lax about such matters. he said individuals might be lax. the church was not responsible for the conduct of individuals, but the rule of the church was absolutely uncompromising. i said o'neil might be an extreme case, but supposing a devout catholic married woman had a great man friend, supposing he was very much in love with her, but she was a virtuous woman, faithful to her husband, she could go on seeing the other man as much as she liked? would the church forbid it? riley said the church would forbid _sin_. any priest would tell her that if she thought it might lead to sin, she must cut it out of her life. i said that was quite clear, but he was not telling me what i wanted to know. he said: "what is it that you want to know?" i said i must give it up. i couldn't put it into words. i said roman catholics were always so matter-of-fact. they handed one opinions and ideas like chocolates wrapped up in silver paper. he said: "you think that, because you would sooner walk naked in the streets than think things out, or call things by their names. you like leaving them vague. 'le vague,' renan said, 'est pire que le faux.'" i said, going back to the question of responsibility, that i had often heard catholics themselves complain of the want of responsibility of catholics. riley said that might very well be; they might lack a sense of responsibility, just as they might lack a sense of charity or honesty. "you think," he said, "that the church is perpetually arranging comfortable compromises. nothing is further from the truth. nothing is harder on the individual than certain of the commandments of the church with regard to marriage: for instance, divorce, and the bearing of children. some of the church's views were just as hard on the individual as it was hard on a man, who is going to catch a train to see his dying child, to be delayed by a policeman holding up the traffic, but in order to make traffic possible, you had to have a policeman, and the individual couldn't complain however much he might suffer. "i know a much harder case than o'neil's," he said: "a colleague of mine who is married and has been completely neglected by his wife. on the other hand, he has been looked after devotedly for years by another woman, who nursed him when he was ill and saved his life. he wants to become a catholic, but he knows quite well that the church will not receive him unless he were to give up this woman, whom he adores, and go back to his wife, who is indifferent to him. what you don't understand," he said, "is that the church is not an air cushion but a rock." he said i accused the church of being lax, but many people that he knew found fault with what they called the _hardness_ of the church. but as a matter of fact they had generally to admit that as far as the human race was concerned the church in such matters of morals was always right. he cited instances of what the church was right in condemning. i said that one did not need to be roman catholic to know that immorality was bad for the state, and that vice was noxious to the individual. the ordinary laymen reach the same conclusions merely by common-sense. riley said there were only two points of view in the world: the catholic point of view or the non-catholic point of view. all so-called religions which i could mention, including my layman's common-sense view, were either lopped-off branches of catholicism or shadows of it, or a blind aspiration towards it, or a misguided parallel of it, as of a train that had gone off the rails, or a travesty of it, sometimes serious, and sometimes grotesque: a distortion. the other point of view was the materialist point of view, which he could perfectly well understand anyone holding. it depends, he said, whether you think human life is casual or divine. i said i could quite well conceive a philosophy which would be neither materialist nor catholic. he quoted dr johnson about everyone having a right to his opinion, and martyrdom being the test. catholicism, he said, had survived the test; would my philosophy? as far as i was concerned i admitted that i held no opinion for which i was ready to go to the stake, except, possibly, that _jane eyre_ was an interesting book. _monday, february_ _st_. i heard from mrs housman this morning. she returns to-morrow. _saturday, february_ _th._ called on mrs housman, and found her in. housman was there also. they asked me to dinner next monday. _sunday, february_ _th. rosedale_. i am staying with lady jarvis. there is no one else. lady jarvis said she was glad mrs housman had returned to london. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _tuesday, march_ _st_. dearest elsie, i dined with the housmans last night. only myself, miss sarah, lady jarvis, and godfrey mellor. everything as it used to be. carrington-smith came in after dinner. he has not been inside the house for months. i don't know what mrs housman did nor how it was done, but it _was_ done, and done most successfully and quickly! she only came back a week ago. "bert" looks quite different and is perfectly radiant. george, i gather, hasn't seen her. they asked him to dinner last night, but he had an official dinner and couldn't come. he asked me whether i had seen her. he said he had been there several times, but she had always been out. he is still most depressed and goes nowhere unless he is absolutely obliged to. the housmans have asked me to spend easter at their villa. lady jarvis is going, and godfrey; and housman told me he was going to ask george. i am going and i shall stop two or three days in paris on the way. lavinia wray has gone to the south of france with her aunt. the shamiers are going to paris next week. they will tell you all the news, not that there is much. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, february_ _th._ a. told me he had not been to the country after all on saturday. _tuesday, march_ _st_. dined with the housmans, a very agreeable dinner. mrs housman played and sang after dinner: brahms' _lieder_, and some grieg. _wednesday, march_ _nd_. a. asked me to luncheon. he told me he had been so sorry not to be able to go to the housmans' last night. he said he had not seen them yet. he was so busy. he asked me how mrs housman was and whether florence had done her good. _thursday, march_ _rd_. i told riley i had been reading renan's _souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse_, and that renan said in this book that there was nothing in catholic dogmas which raised in him a contrary opinion; nothing either in the political action or in the spirit of the church, either in the past or in the present, that led him to doubt; but directly he studied the "higher criticism" and german text-books his faith in the church crumbled. i asked riley what he thought of this. he said people treated german text-books superstitiously then and they still did so now. if german text-books dealt with shakespeare people could see at once that they were talking nonsense, and that mountains of erudition were being built on a false base, a base which we knew to be false, because we were english; but when they dealt with things more remote, like the gospels, people swallowed what they said, and accepted any of their theories as infallible dogma. in twenty years' time, he said, nobody will care two straws for the "higher criticism." riley is going away to-morrow. _friday, march_ _th._ mrs housman has written to ask me to come and see her on sunday afternoon if i am in london. dined with cunninghame at a restaurant and went to the palace music hall afterwards. _saturday, march_ _th._ a. is much annoyed at having to stay with the foreign secretary. dined at the club. _sunday, march_ _th._ spent the afternoon at mrs housman's. there was nobody there until housman came in late just when i was going. housman said we must all meet at florence. he said he was going to ask a. "but we never see him now," he added. he asked me what a. was doing. i told him he was staying with the foreign secretary. he said, of course he was right to attend to his official and especially to his social duties. he said he would ask him to dinner next week. he asked me to dine on wednesday. mrs housman asked me to go to a concert with her on tuesday. _monday, march_ _th._ dined at the club. _tuesday, march_ _th._ went to a concert in chelsea with mrs housman, housman and miss housman. solway played, and an excellent violinist, miss bowden; beethoven sonata (g major) and schubert quartet (d minor). we all enjoyed the music and the playing. during the interval we went to see solway. housman asked him to dinner to-morrow. _wednesday, march_ _th._ dined with the housmans. lady jarvis, mrs campion, solway, cunninghame, mrs baines, and a. and miss housman were there. i sat between lady jarvis and mrs campion. after dinner mrs housman asked solway to try a song with her, a new english song by a boy who has just left the college of music. she sang this and after that she sang all the _winterreise_. housman asked a. and mrs campion to stay with them in florence. mrs campion cannot get away this easter. a. accepted the invitation. _thursday, march_ _th._ went after dinner to aunt ruth's. uncle arthur is quite restored to health. he asked me whether i had been appointed to paris, still thinking that i was in the f.o. there were a great many people there. aunt ruth spoke severely about a. and said she heard he only went out in the bohemian world. i said he had stayed with the foreign secretary last week. _friday, march_ _th._ dined with mrs campion. a. was there and the albertis, who are over in england. a. said he was much looking forward to florence. easter is early this year. _saturday, march_ _th._ a. has gone to littlehampton. he has asked the housmans and cunninghame. i am going to woking. _sunday, march_ _th._ spent the day with solway, who played bach. returned by the late train after dinner. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _monday, march_ _th._ dearest elsie, i have just come back from littlehampton, where i spent sunday with george and his sister. the housmans were asked and housman went, but mrs housman was not well. i start on thursday morning and shall be in paris thursday night and stay there till monday. let us do something amusing. i should like to go to the play one night. but you have probably seen all the best things hundreds of times. i am going on co florence on monday. i don't think george has seen much of mrs housman. i dined there last wednesday. mrs housman sang the whole evening so that he did not get any talk with her. godfrey has been much more cheerful lately and even suggested going to a music-hall one night. mrs campion is coming to florence too. i'm sorry i've been so bad about writing lately. i seem to have had no time and yet to have done nothing, and there have been a series of rather tiresome episodes at the office. au revoir till thursday, yours, g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, march_ _th_ a. came back from the country in a gloomy state of mind. he said it was a great mistake to go to the country in march and that his party had been a failure. he said bachelors should not give parties. he asked me to dine with him, which i did. he says he is leaving on wednesday but will stop two nights in paris. mrs campion is travelling with him. _tuesday, march_ _th._ mrs housman rang up on the telephone and told me that a young vocalist was dining with them to-morrow night. she wanted a few people to hear her. would i come? solway was coming. dined with cunninghame at his club. he says he has never seen a. so depressed. _wednesday, march_ _th._ dined with the housmans. miss housman, solway and lady jarvis were there. the vocalist, a miss byfield, did not arrive till after dinner. mrs housman said miss byfield was shy and had refused to dine at the last moment. after dinner she sang some songs from the classical composers. she was extremely nervous. mrs housman and solway say she has promise. housman said to me confidentially that he was sure there was no money in her. the housmans leave to-morrow. a. left to-day. _thursday, march_ _th._ cunninghame left to-day. i had dinner with lady jarvis. she asked me to travel with her on saturday. we are both stopping sunday night in paris. _friday, march_ _th._ lunched and dined at the club. packed up my things. am taking some music with me. _saturday, march_ _th. paris._ arrived at the hôtel saint romain. had a pleasant journey with lady jarvis. _sunday, march_ _th._ lady jarvis took me to see a french friend of hers, madame sainton. it was her day. there was a large crowd of men and women in the drawing-room and the dining-room, where there was tea, madeira and excellent sandwiches. the french take just as much trouble about preparing a good tea as they do to write or to dress well. i was introduced to a famous composer, who talked to me technically about boxing. i was obliged to confess that i knew nothing of the art. it was a pity, i thought, carrington-smith was not there. i was also introduced to a french author, who asked me what was the place of meredith in modern literature, what _les jeunes_ thought about him. i was obliged to confess i had never read one line of meredith. the french author thought i despised him. he asked me: "quest qu'on lit en angleterre maintenant avant de se coucher?" i said that i had no idea what _les jeunes_ read but that i personally, for a bedside book, preferred _jane eyre_. the french author said "_tiens_!" he then asked me what i thought of bernard shaw. i had again to confess that i had never seen his plays acted. i told him that when i had time to spare i went to concerts. he said: "ah! la musique," and i felt he was generalising a whole movement in young england towards music. in the evening we went to the opéra comique and heard _carmen_, which i greatly enjoyed. _monday, march_ _st. florence. villa fersen._ we arrived at florence this morning. cunninghame and a. and mrs campion were in the same train. the housmans had been there some days already. _tuesday, march_ _nd_. cunninghame, mrs housman, a. and mrs campion went out together. lady jarvis stayed at home. i went later in the morning to the pitti. in the afternoon they went to fiesole. housman went to call on some friends. lady jarvis and i went for a walk. _wednesday, march_ _rd_. we were invited to luncheon by a mr eugene lowe, a friend of lady jarvis. he has a flat in the town on the pitti side of the river. the housmans and cunninghame and myself went. a. and his sister had luncheon with the albertis. mr lowe's flat had the peculiarity that everything in it had been ingeniously diverted from its original purpose. the only other guest besides ourselves was an ex-diplomatist whom i met last year. _thursday, march_ _th._ lady jarvis has gone to venice, where she is staying with friends until next monday. while we were sight-seeing this morning we met a lady called mrs fairburn, who claimed to be an old friend of mrs housman. mrs housman told me she had met her in america soon after she married, but that she had never known her well. she asked us all to luncheon on saturday. mrs housman accepted for herself and housman. cunninghame and i also accepted. a. and his sister were engaged. in the afternoon mrs housman said she was going to hear a dominican preach. cunninghame and i asked if we might accompany her. a. said it was no use his going as he did not understand italian. he was most eloquent. _friday (good friday), march_ _th._ mrs housman spent the whole morning in church. i went with cunninghame for a long walk. _saturday, march_ _th._ we had luncheon with mrs fairburn, who has a villa on the fiesole side. she is a widow and always, she says, lives abroad; so much so, she told us, that she had difficulty in speaking english correctly. she gave us no evidence that she spoke any other language with great correctness. she told me she was overjoyed at meeting mrs housman, who was her oldest friend. housman asked her to dinner to-morrow night. _sunday (easter sunday), march_ _th._ i went for a walk by myself. when i got back i found various people at the villa and escaped to my room. mrs fairburn came to dinner. when housman said he had been suffering from a headache she exclaimed: "_poveretto_!" and said she was feeling-rather "_moche_" herself. looking at mrs housman, she said to me: "she is _ravissante, che bellezza! e vero?_" _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ villa fersen, florence, _easter monday, march_ _th._ dearest elsie, we arrived safely and we are a very happy party. lady jarvis has gone to venice to stay with the lumleys, but comes back to-morrow. george is, of course, immensely happy at being here, but it isn't really satisfactory. we haven't seen many people, though we have been out to luncheon twice: once with that terrible bore, eugene lowe, who lives in a flat which is the most monstrous ind absurd thing i have ever seen. the walls are hung with turkish carpets; the chairs and tables with church vestments; the books turn out to be cigarette lamps and cigar cases; the writing-table is a gutted spinet; and in the middle of the room there is a large venetian well, which he uses for cigarette ashes. on saturday we had luncheon with a mrs fairburn, who professed to be an old friend of mrs housman's. this turned out to be a gross exaggeration. she is an affected woman who dresses in what are meant to be ultra-french clothes, and she speaks broken english on purpose. she pretends to be silly, but is far from being anything of the kind. i can see now that she has got her eye on housman. he was quite charmed by her. she has arranged an outing next week. i can see that she is going to stick like a leech, and she will be, unless i am very much mistaken, much worse than mrs park or any of them. godfrey mellor is, i think, liking it, but he insists on going out by himself, and every day he goes to some gallery with a baedeker, all alone. we always ask him to come with us, but it is no use. he says he has got things to do in the town and off he goes. we go about mostly all together except for godfrey, who always manages to elude us. i am staying till monday, then two days at mentone, and then home (via paris, but only for a night). yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday (easter monday), march_ _th._ we all had luncheon with the albertis. lady jarvis returned in the afternoon from venice. _tuesday, march_ _th._ went to the uffizzi. housman said he was going to spend the day in visits. _wednesday, march_ _th._ mrs fairburn came to luncheon. housman said when she had gone that she was a very remarkable woman, so cultivated, so well read and widely travelled. he said she ought to have held some great position. she should have been an empress. i went to the pitti in the morning and to the boboli gardens in the afternoon. _thursday, march_ _st_. the albertis came to luncheon. baroness strong and mrs fisk called in the afternoon. they both asked us all to entertainments, but housman explained that we had guests ourselves every day. he asked them to dinner on sunday, but they declined. _friday, april_ _st_. housman has bought some miniatures by a young artist recommended by mrs fairburn. i do not think they are well done, but i am no judge. a. and mrs campion left. _saturday, april_ _nd_. mrs housman suggested having luncheon in the town and going to fiesole afterwards, but housman explained, with some embarrassment, that he had promised to go with mrs fairburn to see a studio and to have luncheon with her afterwards. i leave for london to-night. i am going straight through. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ villa beau site, mentone, _wednesday, april_ _th_. dearest elsie, just a line to say i shall arrive the day after to-morrow, and i can only stay one night. godfrey mellor left florence on saturday, and george and his sister are on their way back. george was very sad at going--i think he feels it's the end--mrs housman and lady jarvis are staying on till next monday, and i think housman also. what i fore-saw has happened more quickly than i expected. housman is now the devoted slave of mrs fairburn, and she has announced her intention of coming to london in the summer, so this will make fresh complications. i am having great fun here. the shamiers are here, i am travelling back with them. i am sorry not to be able to stop more than a night in paris, but it really is impossible. i can't dine at the embassy on friday, i am dining with the shamiers that night. but i will come and see you in the morning, and we might do some shops and have luncheon together. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, april_ _th. london_. back at the office. tuke came this morning and said a. would not come to the office till to-morrow. cunninghame does not return until friday. _tuesday, april_ _th._ a. came to the office. he says that housman has returned to london, but that mrs housman and lady jarvis will not be back before next tuesday. _thursday, april_ _th._ dined with aunt ruth. i sat next to a mrs de la poer. she told me she knew the housmans. i said i had been staying with them in florence. she said: "i suppose lord ayton was there." i said that a. and his sister always spent easter in italy. she said: "and he spends the summer in cornwall when mrs housman is there. it is extraordinary how far virtuous roman catholics will go." i said mrs housman was an old friend of mine and i preferred not to discuss her. she said: "ah, you are right to be loyal to your chief, but all london knows about it." i changed the subject. _thursday, april_ _th._ mrs housman has put off coming till next week. lady jarvis spoke to me on the telephone. _wednesday, april_ _th._ mrs housman returned on monday. she has asked me to dinner on sunday. _thursday, april_ _th._ a. dined with aunt ruth. i went there after dinner. uncle arthur told us he thought a. would go far, but he thinks he is in the army. a. is going to the country on saturday. _friday, april_ _th._ dined with lady jarvis. the housmans were there, and cunninghame. cunninghame told me as we walked home that he had seen housman with a party of people at the carlton last night. mrs fairburn was among them. he says it is a great pity a. does not go out more. it annoys people. i told him a. had dined with aunt ruth last night. the housmans are not staying long in london. they have taken the same house they had last year on the thames near staines. housman can go up every day to his office as it is so close to london. _saturday, april_ _th._ dined with cunninghame. he is staying in london this sunday. i asked him if he thought a. was likely to marry. he said: "not yet." _sunday, may_ _st_. dined with the housmans. cunninghame was there, mrs fairburn and miss housman. after dinner mrs fairburn asked mrs housman to sing. she said she remembered her singing in america. mrs housman sang a few scotch ballads. then miss housman played. the housmans are letting their london house for the season. they go down to their house on the thames at the end of this week. housman told me i must come down often. mrs fairburn was very gushing about mrs housman's singing. i do not think she is very musical. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _monday, may_ _nd_. dearest elsie, i have got two pieces of news for you. ralph logan proposed to lavinia wray and she has refused him. i don't think you know him; he is in the army. but he is sir walter logan's heir and will inherit, besides a lot of london property, a most beautiful old house in essex, tudor. besides that, he is charming and has been devoted to her for years. this is for you only, of course. he told me himself. he has just come back from india, where he has been for five years. the first thing he did was to fly to lavinia, who has come back from france and is now in london. he came to see me yesterday afternoon and told me all about it. i said something about her perhaps changing her mind if he was persistent. he said there was no chance of this, he felt sure. lavinia told him she would never marry, and she said she was not going out after this year. i believe she is going to be a nurse. she used to talk of this some time ago. the second piece of news is that george has been offered to be governor of madras. that is also a secret, of course. i don't know whether he will accept it or not. sir henry, who is george's godfather, is, george tells me, tremendously keen about his accepting it. i don't think he has been seeing much of the housmans since she has been back. she only came back last week. i don't think she wants to see him. i dined there on sunday. there was no one there except that extremely tiresome mrs fairburn, who now does what she likes with housman. they are not going to be in london during the summer at all and are letting their house. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, may_ _nd_. mrs shamier has asked me to dinner next thursday. the invitation surprised me as i scarcely know her. _tuesday, may_ _rd_. a. asked me to luncheon to meet sir henry st clair. sir henry is an old man, over seventy, with very strong views and a fiery temper. he is his godfather. mrs campion was there. he lives in scotland and said he had not been to london for the last five years. but he said he was enjoying himself and meant to go to the derby. he looks surprisingly young for his age, not more than sixty. _wednesday, may_ _th._ went with the housmans to hear the gilbert & sullivan company at hammersmith: _patience_; we enjoyed it greatly. _patience_ is a classic. the performance was adequate. my enjoyment was marred by the comments of mrs fairburn, who went with us. she said she thought it _vieux jeu_, and preferred debussy: a foolish comparison. _thursday, may_ _th._ i dined with the shamiers. they live in upper brook street. mrs vaughan, whom i had met staying with lady jarvis, was there; a young guardsman and a miss ivy hollystrop, an american, who, i believe, is a beauty. i sat next to mrs shamier. she asked me where i had spent easter. i told her. she said she did not know the housmans, but had heard a great deal about her. cunninghame had told her that she sang quite divinely. i said that mrs housman had received a very sound musical education. she asked me what kind of man housman was. i said he was a very generous man and did a lot for charities. she asked me if i had known them a long time. i said yes, a long time. she said she remembered walter bell's picture perfectly and if it was at all like her she must be a very beautiful woman. i said it was generally considered to be a faithful portrait. she asked me if the housmans bad any children. i said no. mrs shamier said she would like to meet mrs housman very much, but she understood they did not go out much. i said they were living in the country. _friday, may_ _th._ i dined with lady jarvis. she was alone. she asked me to spend sunday week with her in the country. she told me that sir henry st clair had gone back to scotland, much displeased. he has had a difference with a. he is, she said, a very dictatorial man. _saturday, may_ _th._ went down to the housmans' villa on the thames. mrs fairburn was there, but no other guests. mrs fairburn asked mrs housman to sing after dinner, but she declined. _sunday, may_ _th_. mrs fairburn and housman went out on the river. i sat with mrs housman in the garden. she read aloud from chateaubriand's _rené_. it sounded, as she read it, very fine. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _monday, may_ _th._ dearest elsie, george has refused madras. sir henry, who had heard about the offer from h., who is an intimate friend of his, came up post haste from scotland. he told george he _must_ accept it. george said he would think it over, and did so for forty-eight hours, then he made up his mind, and he settled to refuse it. sir henry stormed and raved and said it would have broken george's father's heart if he had been alive, but it was no use. george was as obstinate as a mule. he said he liked his present work and he did not want to leave england. sir henry went straight back to scotland. the housmans have left. i spent sunday at rosedale with lady jarvis. she says that mrs fairburn is always there and was staying there this saturday quite apart from anything else she is a very tiresome woman. but she is no fool. in housman she had found a gold-mine. the shamiers are back. i am dining there next week. george is depressed. he is fond of old sir h. and doesn't like having annoyed him. sir h. says he will never forgive him. i can't understand why people can't let other people lead their own lives. the _compagnie de cristal_ haven't sent my little chandelier. if you are passing that way could you ask about it? yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, may_ _th_. i was trying to remember the date a french colonel had called at the office, and i consulted tuke. he did not remember, but said he would refer to his diary. i asked him if he kept a diary regularly. he said he had kept his diary without missing a day for the last five years, but he always burnt it every new year's day. _tuesday, may_ _th._ a. asked me to dinner. he said he very seldom saw the housmans now, but housman had asked him to stay there on sunday week. he was going next sunday to rosedale. he told me he had been offered the governorship of madras, and had refused it. he said he could not live in tropical climates. they made him ill. he said he hated the summer in london. he would have a lot of tedious dinners. there were several next week he would be obliged to go to. _wednesday,_ may _th._ i dined with cunninghame. he talked of the madras appointment, and said it was absurd offering it to a. the tropics made him ill. he was ill even in egypt. he said housman had a small flat in london, where he stays during the week. _thursday, may_ _th._ cunninghame dined at aunt ruth's. i went after dinner. so did a. i could see aunt ruth was pleased. uncle arthur confused cunninghame with a. and congratulated c. on his answers in the house of lords. _friday, may_ _th._ lady jarvis gave a small musical party, which was what i call a large musical party. someone sang russian songs, and bernard sachs played mozart on the harpsichord. it would have been very enjoyable had there not been such a crowd. housman was there, but not mrs housman. _saturday, may_ _th. rosedale_. went down to staines this afternoon. mrs housman, a., cunninghame, miss macdonald, and mrs campion were there. housman was expected and had told mrs housman he was coming by a later train, but he sent a telegram saying he had been detained in london. _sunday, may_ _th. rosedale._ it poured with rain all day, so we sat indoors. mrs housman played and sang. she drove to church in the morning in a shut fly. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _monday, may_ _th._ dearest elsie, i have just come back from rosedale, where we had a most amusing sunday, rather spoilt by the incessant rain. of course it cleared up _this_ morning, and it's now a glorious day. the housmans were asked and she came, and he was expected by a later train, but chucked at the last minute. nobody was there except mrs campion, freda, and godfrey. we had a lot of music. mrs housman never let george have one moment's conversation with her. he is quite miserable. it is quite clear that she has cut him out of her life. i think it would have been better if he had gone to madras. it's too late now, they've appointed someone else. last tuesday i went to a huge dinner-party at lady arthur mellor's, godfrey's aunt. sir arthur is quite gaga and took me for george the whole evening. i sat between an english blue stocking and the wife of one of the russian secretaries. she told me rather pointedly that these were the kind of people she preferred. "ici," she said, "on voit de vrais anglais, des gens vraiment bien." there was no gainsaying that. but of course the chief news, which you probably have heard, is that louise shamier has left her husband, and she is going to marry lavroff--that is to say, if she gets a divorce. he apparently refused to do the necessary in the way of making a divorce possible, so she has left him and has gone to italy with lavroff. everybody thinks it is the greatest pity, and i, personally, am miserable about it. the only comfort is that it might have been george. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, may_ _th._ caught a bad cold at rosedale from walking in the wet. _tuesday, may_ _th._ cold worse. saw the doctor, who said i must go to bed and not think of going to the office. _wednesday, may_ _th._ stayed in bed all day and read a book called _sir archibald malmaison_, by julian hawthorne. _thursday, may_ _th._ better. got up. _friday, may_ _th._ went to the office. _saturday, may_ st. went down to staines to the housmans'. found lady jarvis, a. and mrs fairburn. at dinner mrs fairburn talked of the shamier divorce. mrs housman said she admired people who behaved like that, and she thought it far better than a hidden liaison. mrs fairburn agreed, and said there was nothing she despised so much as dishonesty and concealment. _sunday, may_ _nd_. it again rained all sunday, so we were unable to go on the river. it cleared up in the evening. housman took mrs fairburn out in a punt. housman told us he had taken for the summer the same house they had last year at carbis bay. he invited a. to come there and to stay as long as he liked. a. said he would be yachting on the west coast this summer and he would certainly pay them a visit. housman said lady jarvis must come, and he is going to ask cunninghame. mrs fairburn said it was a pity she would not be able to come, but she always spent august and september in france. _monday, may_ _rd_. i had luncheon with cunninghame at his club. he said that a. does not seem quite so depressed as usual. dined at the club. _tuesday, may_ _th._ a. is giving a dinner to some french _députés_ at his club. cunninghame and i have both been invited. _wednesday, may_ _th._ dined at the club with solway. went to the opera afterwards, for which solway had been given two places. debussy's _pelléas et mélisande_. we both enjoyed it. _thursday, may_ _th._ dined with aunt ruth. i had a long talk with her after dinner. she asked after riley, whom she knows well. "i hear," she said, "he has become a roman catholic; of course he will always have a _parti-pris_ now. i wonder if he has realised that." uncle arthur joined in the conversation and thought we were talking of someone else, but of whom i have no idea, as he said it all came from not going to school. riley has been to three schools, besides oxford, heidelberg and berlin universities, and has taken his degree in french law. he, riley, is staying with me to-morrow night. _friday, may_ _th._ i told riley that i had heard a lady discussing his conversion lately, and that she had wondered whether he realised that he would have a _parti-pris_ in future. riley said: "i rather hope i shall. do you really think one becomes a catholic to drift like a sponge on a sea of indecision, or to be like an Æolian harp? don't you yourself think," he said, "that _parti-pris_ is rather a mild term for such a tremendous decision, such a _venture_? would your friend think _parti-pris_ the right expression to use of a man who nailed his colours to the mast during a sea-battle? it is a good example of _miosis_." i asked him what _miosis_ meant. he said that if i wanted another example it would be miosis to say that the french revolution put marie antoinette to considerable inconvenience. besides which, it was putting the cart before the horse to say you would be likely to have a _parti-pris,_ when by the act of becoming a catholic you had proclaimed the greatest of all possible _parti-pris_. it was like saying to a man who had enlisted in the army: "you will probably become very pro-british." "you won't," he said, "think things out." i said that it was not i who had made the comment, but my aunt, lady mellor. _saturday, may_ _th._ a. has gone to the country. dined at the club. _sunday, may_ _th._ had luncheon with lady maria. the company consisted of hollis, the play-wright, and his wife, miss flora routledge, who, i believe, began to write novels in the sixties, sir hubert taylor, the academician, and his wife, and sir horace main, k.c. i was the only person present not a celebrity. lady maria asked me how the housmans were. she had not seen them for an age. i said the housmans were living in the country. she said i must bring a. to luncheon one sunday. "who would he like to meet?" she asked; "i am told he only likes musicians, and i am so unmusical, i know so few. but perhaps he only likes beautiful musicians." i said i was sure a. would be pleased to meet anyone she asked. she said: "i'm sure it's no use asking him; he's sure to be away on sundays." i said a. usually spent sunday at littlehampton. "or on the thames," lady maria said. she said she hadn't seen the housmans for a year. she heard mr housman had dropped all his old friends. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ _monday, may_ _th_. dearest elsie, i have been terribly bad about writing, and i haven't written to you for a fortnight. i got your letter last week, and was immensely amused by all you say. sunday week i stayed with edith, a family party, but rather fun all che same. i went to the opera twice this week and once the week before. nothing very exciting. the housmans haven't got a box this year. yesterday i stayed with them at staines. there was no one else there except miss housman. thank heaven, no mrs fairburn! george, by the way, hasn't the remotest idea of "bert's" infidelities. i believe he thinks him a model husband. he is still in low spirits, but rather better because he is fearfully busy. he has been going out more lately, which is a good thing, and he has been entertaining foreigners and official people, too. people are now saying he is going to marry lavinia wray that story has only just reached the large public. they are a little bit out of date. as a matter of fact, lavinia has quite settled to go in for nursing, but she hasn't broken it yet to her relations. louise will, i believe, get her divorce. they have left italy and gone to russia, where lavroff has got a large property. i have got a terribly busy week next week, dinners nearly every night, besides balls. so don't be surprised if you don't hear from me for some time. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, may_ _th._ heard to-day from gertrude. she and anstruther arrive next week for three months' leave from buenos aires. they are going to stay at the hans crescent hotel. anstruther does not expect to go back to buenos aires. they hope to get christiania or belgrade. they ask me to inform aunt ruth and uncle arthur of their arrival, which i must try to remember to do, as gertrude is aunt ruth's favourite niece. _tuesday, may_ _st_. a. is not at all well. he says he has got a bad headache, but he has to go to an official dinner to-night. he is also most annoyed at having been chosen as a delegate to the conference that takes place in canada in august. this, he says, will prevent his doing any yachting this year as he will not be back before the end of september. _wednesday, june_ _st_. riley came to see me at the office and asked me whether i could put him up for a few nights. i would with pleasure, but i warned him that i should be having most of my meals with solway, who is up in london for a week. _thursday, june_ _nd_. went to aunt ruth's after dinner and remembered to tell her that gertrude was arriving next week. aunt ruth was glad to hear the news and said she hoped edmund would get promotion this time. he had been passed over so often. i said i hoped so also, but i suppose i did not display enough enthusiasm, as aunt ruth said i didn't seem to take much interest in my brother-in-law's career. i assured her i was fond of gertrude and had the greatest respect for my brother-in-law. uncle arthur said: "what, anstruther? the man's a pompous ass." aunt ruth was rather shocked. _friday, july_ _rd_. solway has arrived in london. he is staying at st leonard's terrace, chelsea. he is taking me to a concert to-morrow night. riley has also arrived. he said he would prefer not to go to a concert. _saturday, june_ _th._ the concert last night was a success. miss bowden played bach's _chaconne._ solway was greatly excited and said loudly: "i knew she could do it; i knew she could do it." _sunday, june_ _th_. a. hasn't been at all well this week, and he has put off staying with the housmans to-day. they asked me, but as solway and riley were here i did not like to go. cunninghame has asked me to dinner next week to meet his cousin, mrs caryl. i shall have to conceal from gertrude that i am going to meet them, as caryl was promoted over his head and she would think it disloyal on my part. solway and riley had luncheon with me at the club. in the afternoon i went to hear miss bowden play at a mrs griffith's house, where solway is staying. we could not persuade riley to come. i had supper there with solway. riley went to more literary circles and had supper with professor langdon, the shakespearean critic. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _monday, june_ _th._ dearest elsie, please write down in your engagement book that you are dining with me on thursday as well as on monday. i have asked godfrey mellor to meet you on thursday. george is laid up with appendicitis, and i am afraid he is _very_ bad indeed. the doctors are going to decide to-day whether they are to operate immediately or not. he is at a nursing home in welbeck street. his sister is looking after him. he was going to canada in august. i don't suppose he will be able to now. i am looking forward to seeing you quite tremendously. yours, g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, june_ _th._ a. has got appendicitis and has been taken to a nursing home. i have just heard he is to have an operation to-morrow morning. _tuesday, june_ _th._ a.'s operation was successfully performed, but he is still very ill. cunninghame has been to welbeck street this morning and saw his sister. she is most anxious. he was, of course, not allowed to see a. _wednesday, june_ _th._ i sat up late last night talking to riley. _thursday, june_ _th._ cunninghame went to welbeck street and saw the doctor. he says there is every chance of his recovery. apparently the danger was in having to do the operation at once, while there was still inflammation. it was not exactly appendicitis, but cunninghame's report was too technical for my comprehension. i dined with cunninghame to-day to meet mrs caryl. i had not met her husband before. he is, i thought, slightly stiff. lady jarvis was there also. she was much disturbed about a.'s illness. _friday, june_ _th_. gertrude and edmund anstruther arrived yesterday. i dined with them to-night. edmund said the way diplomats were treated was a scandal. the hard-working members of the profession were always passed over. the best posts were given to men outside the profession. no conscientious man could expect to get on in such a profession. if he was passed over this time he would not stand it any longer, but he would leave the service altogether. the foreign office, he said, was so weak. they never backed up a subordinate who took a strong line. they always climbed down. i wondered what edmund had been taking a strong line about in buenos aires. gertrude agreed. she said they had been there for three years without leave, and if they did not get a good post she would advise edmund to retire and get something in the city. there were plenty of firms in the city who would jump at getting edmund. she mentioned the housmans and said she knew they were friends of mine, and didn't want to say anything against them, but she had met many people in buenos aires who knew mrs housman intimately, and said she was rather a dangerous woman. i asked in what way she was dangerous. gertrude said: "perhaps you do not know she is a roman catholic." i said i had known this for years, but she never talked of it. "that's just what i mean," said gertrude; "they are far too subtle, and i am afraid too underhand to talk of it openly. they lead you on." i asked gertrude if she thought mrs housman wished to convert me. she said most certainly. her friends in buenos aires had told her she had made many converts. it was the only thing she cared for, and even if she didn't, roman catholics were obliged to do so. it was only natural, if they thought we all went to hell if we were not converted. i said i was not sure roman catholics did believe that. gertrude and edmund said i was wrong. i could ask anyone. gertrude repeated she had no wish to say anything against mrs housman, and she was convinced she was a good woman according to her lights. edmund said there had been many conversions in the diplomatic service. he was convinced this was part of a general conspiracy. if you wanted to get on in the diplomatic service you had better be a roman catholic. of course those who did not choose to sacrifice their conscience, their independence, their traditions, and were loyal to the church and the state, suffered. i said i didn't quite see where loyalty to the state came in. edmund said: "how could you be loyal to the state when you were under the authority of an italian bishop?" i must know that the italian cardinals were always in the majority. i said that, considering the number of catholics in england, compared with the number of catholics in other countries, i should be surprised to see a majority of english cardinals at the vatican. i said edmund wanted england to be a protestant country, and at the same time to have the lion's share in catholic affairs. edmund said that was not at all what he meant. what he meant was that an englishman should be loyal to his church, which was an integral part of the state. i said there were many englishmen who would prefer the state to have nothing to do with the church. edmund said there were many englishmen who did not deserve the name of englishmen. for instance, caryl, who was now second secretary at paris, had been promoted over his head three years ago. what was the reason? mrs caryl was a roman catholic and caryl had been converted soon after his marriage. i foolishly said that the caryls were now in london, and when edmund asked me how i knew this i said that aunt ruth had told me. this raised a storm, as it appears that aunt ruth does know the caryls and asks them to dinner when they are in london. edmund said he would talk to aunt ruth about them seriously. i asked him as a favour to do no such thing. and gertrude told him not to be foolish, and added magnanimously that mrs caryl was a nice woman, if a little fast. for a man who has lived all his life abroad edmund anstruther is singularly deeply imbued with british prejudice. they are staying in london until the middle of july. then they are going on a round of visits. edmund is confident that he will get christiania. i feel that it is more than doubtful. riley went back to shelborough to-day. _saturday, june_ _th._ received a telegram from housman, asking me to go to staines. i went down by the afternoon train, and found lady jarvis, miss housman and carrington-smith. housman was anxious for news of a. i told him i believed he was now out of danger, but that it would be a long time before he was quite well again. housman said he must certainly come to cornwall. i said he had intended to go to canada for a conference, but would be unable to do so now. housman said that was providential. _sunday, june_ _th._ a fine day, but the river was crowded and hardly enjoyable. i sat with mrs housman in the garden in the evening. the others went on the river again. mrs housman asked me if i had seen a. i said he was not allowed to see anyone. _monday, june_ _th._ a. is getting on as well as can be expected. there appears to be no doubt of his recovery. cunninghame is going to see him to-day. _tuesday, june_ _th._ cunninghame says that a. wants to see me. i am to go there to-morrow. dined with hope, who was at oxford with me. he is just back from russia, where he has been to make arrangements for producing some play in london. he thinks of nothing now but the stage, and a play of his is going to be produced at the court theatre. i promised to go and see it. he spoke of riley, and i told him he had become a roman catholic. hope said he regarded that as sinning against the light. he said no one _at this time of day_ could believe such things. _wednesday, june_ _th_. i went to see a. at welbeck street. he has been very ill and looks white and thin. his sister was there, but i had some conversation with him alone. i told him all the news i could think of, which was not much. he said he liked seeing people, but was not allowed more than one visitor a day. he had got a very good nurse. housman had sent him grapes and magnificent fruit every day. he said he would like to see mrs housman, but supposed that was impossible, as she never came to london now. he said cunninghame had been very good to him, and had put off going to ascot to look after him. i wrote to mrs housman this evening and gave her a.'s message. _thursday, june_ _th._ dined with aunt ruth. gertrude and edmund were there. edmund said to aunt ruth that he had heard the caryls were in london. aunt ruth said she had no idea of this, and she would ask them to dinner next thursday. aunt ruth asked a good many diplomats to meet edmund, and they had a long talk after dinner about their posts. they called edmund their "_cher collègue_." edmund enjoyed himself immensely. uncle arthur cannot bear him, nor, indeed, any diplomats, and it is, i think, the chief cross of his life that aunt ruth asks so many of them to dinner. aunt ruth asked after a. and said that she had been to inquire. _friday, june_ _th_. received a letter from mrs housman, saying she was coming up to london to-morrow, and was going to stay with lady jarvis till monday. she would go and see a. on sunday afternoon if convenient. she asked me to ring up the nurse and find out. i did so and arranged for her to call at four o'clock. _saturday, june_ _th._ i dined with lady jarvis. there was no one there but mrs housman and myself. cunninghame is staying somewhere with friends of the caryls. _sunday, june_ _th_. i had luncheon with aunt ruth. edmund and gertrude were there, but no one else. edmund has been appointed to berne. it is not what he had hoped, but better than any of us expected. he said berne might become a most important post in the event of a european war. _monday, june_ _th._ dined with the caryls at the ritz. cunninghame was there and miss hollystrop. mrs vaughan asked me whether it was true that a. had become a roman catholic. she had heard mrs housman had converted him. cunninghame deftly turned the conversation on account of mrs caryl. we all went to the opera--_faust_. _tuesday, june_ _st_. i went to see a. he told me mrs housman had been to see him. he is still in bed, but looks better. _wednesday, june_ _nd_. barnes of the f.o. came to the office this morning. he asked after a. he said he had heard that the real cause of his illness was his passion for mrs housman, who would have nothing to do with him unless he was converted. cunninghame said he wondered he could talk such nonsense. _thursday, june_ _rd_. went to aunt ruth's after dinner. the caryls were there, and gertrude and edmund came after dinner. heated arguments were going on about the situation in russia, edmund taking the ultra-conservative point of view, much to the annoyance of aunt ruth and uncle arthur, who felt even more strongly on the matter because he thought they were discussing the french revolution. _friday, june_ _th_. dined with lady jarvis; she was alone. she said mrs housman was coming up again to-morrow. the fact is, she says, staines is intolerable now on sundays. mrs fairburn comes down almost every sunday. she overwhelms mrs housman with her gush and her pretended silliness. housman thinks her the most wonderful woman he has ever met. _saturday, june_ _th._ went down to s---- to stay with riley. riley lives in a small villa surrounded with laurels. a local magnate came to dinner, who is suspected of being about to present some expensive masterpieces to the public gallery. _sunday, june_ _th_. riley went to mass in the morning. i sat in his smoking-room, which is a litter of books and papers and exceedingly untidy. a geologist came to luncheon, professor langer, a naturalised german. when we were walking in the garden afterwards, he said he could not understand how riley reconciled his creed with plain facts of geology. but riley's case surprised him less than that of another of his colleagues, who was a great authority on geology, and nevertheless a devout catholic, and not only never missed mass on sundays, but had told him, langer, that he fully subscribed to every point of the catholic faith. it was true he was an irishman, but politically he was not at all fanatical, and not even a home-ruler. in the afternoon we had tea with the magnate, whose house is full of academy pictures. i now understand what happens to that great quantity of pictures we see once at the academy and then never again. an art critic was invited to tea also. he had, i believe, been invited here to persuade the magnate in question to present some very modern piece of art to the city. he seemed disappointed when he saw the pictures on the walls, and when the magnate asked his opinion of a composition called _a love letter_, he said he did not think the picture a very good one. the magnate said he regretted not having bought _home thoughts_, by the same painter, which was undoubtedly superior. we dined alone, and i told riley what professor langer had said. he said: "most protestants, whether they have any religion or not, attribute protestant notions to the catholic church. what these people say shows to what extent the conception of rome has been distorted by their being saturated with protestant ideas. mallock says somewhere that the anglicans talk of the catholic church as if she were a _lapsed protestant sect_, and they attack her for being false to what she has never professed. he says they don't see the real difference between the two churches, which is not in this or that dogma, but in the authority on which all dogma rests. the professors you quote take for granted that catholics base their religion, as protestants do, on the bible _solely_, and judged from that point of view she seems to them superstitious and dishonest. but catholics believe that christ guaranteed infallibility to the church _in perpetuum: perpetual_ infallibility. catholics discover this not _at first_ from the church as doctrine, but from records as trustworthy human documents, and they believe that the church being perpetually infallible can only interpret the bible in the right way. they believe she is guided in the interpretation of the bible by the same spirit which inspired the bible. she teaches us _more_ about the bible. she says _this_ is what the bible teaches." he said: "mallock makes a further point. it is not only protestant divines who talk like that. it is your advanced thinkers, men like langer and his colleagues. they utterly disbelieve in the protestant religion; they trust the protestants in nothing else, but at the same time they take their word for it, without further inquiry, that protestantism is more reasonable than catholicism. if they have destroyed protestantism they conclude they must have destroyed catholicism _a fortiori_. with regard to langer's geological friend, it doesn't make a pin's difference to a catholic whether evolution or natural selection is true or false. neither of these theories pretends to explain the origin of life. catholics believe the origin of life is god." he had heard a priest say, not long ago: "a catholic can believe in evolution, and in evolution before evolution, and in evolution before that, if he likes, but what he must believe is that god made the world and in it _mind,_ and that at some definite moment the mind of man rebelled against god." _monday, june_ _th_. a. telephoned for me. i saw him this afternoon. his room was full of flowers. he will not be allowed to get up till the end of the week. as soon as he is allowed to go out the doctor says he ought to go away and get some sea air. there is no question of his going to canada. the housmans have asked him to go to cornwall and he is going there as soon as he can. he asked me when i was going. i said at the end of the month, if that would be convenient to him. _tuesday, june_ _th._ finished renan's _souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse_. he says: "je regrettais par moments de n'être pas protestant, afin de pouvoir être philosophe sans cesser d'être chrétien. puis je reconnaissais qu'il n'y a que les catholiques qui soient conséquents." riley's argument. dined at the club. _wednesday, june_ _th._ dined with hope at a restaurant in soho. quite a large gathering, with no one i knew. we had dinner in a private room. two journalists--hoxton, who writes in one of the liberal newspapers, and brice, who edits a weekly newspaper--had a heated argument about religion. brice is and has always been an r.c. hoxton's views seemed to me violent but undefined. he said, as far as i understood, that the eastern church was far nearer to early christian tradition than the western church, and that by not defining things too narrowly and by not having an infallible pope the greeks had an inexpressible advantage over the romans. upon which someone else who was there said that the greeks believed in the infallibility of the first seven councils; they believed their decisions to be as infallible as any papal utterance, and that dogma had been defined once and for all by the councils. brice said this was quite true, and while the greeks had shut the door, the catholic church had left the door open. besides which, he argued, what was the result of the action of the greeks? look at the russian church. as soon as it was separated it gave birth to another schism and that schism resulted in the rise of about a hundred religions, one of which had for one of its tenets that children should be strangled at their birth so as to inherit the kingdom of heaven without delay. that, said brice, is the result of schism. the other man said that there was no religion so completely under the control of the government as the russian. the church was ultimately in the hands of gendarmes. hoxton said that in spite of schisms, and in spite of anything the government might do, the eastern church retained the early traditions of christianity. therefore, if an englishman wanted to become a catholic, it was absurd for him to become a roman catholic. he should first think of joining the eastern church and becoming a greek catholic. the other man, whose name i didn't catch, asked why, in that case, did russian philosophers become catholics and why did solovieff, the russian philosopher, talk of the pearl christianity having unfortunately reached russia smothered under the dust of byzantium? brice said the greek church was schismatic and the anglican church was heretical and that was the end of the matter. hoxton said: "my philosophy is quite as good as yours." brice said it was a pity he could neither define nor explain his philosophy. hope, who was bored by the whole argument, turned the conversation on to the russian stage. _thursday, june_ _th._ dined with aunt ruth. after dinner i sat next to a russian diplomatist who knew riley. he said he was glad he had become a catholic--he himself was orthodox. he evidently admired the catholic religion. he said, among other things, how absurd it was to think that such floods of ink had been used to prove the gospel of st john had not been written by st john. he said, even if it wasn't, the church has said it was written by st john for over a thousand years. she has made it her own. he himself saw no reason to think it was not written by st john. uncle arthur, who caught the tail end of this conversation, said the authorship of _john peel_ was a subject of much dispute. gertrude wasn't there; they have gone to the country. _friday, july_ _st_. dined with lady jarvis. cunninghame was there and a large gathering of people. more people came after dinner and there was music, but such a crowd that i could not get near enough to listen so i gave it up and stayed in another room. lady jarvis told me mrs housman is going down to cornwall next monday. _saturday, july_ _th. grey farm, carbis bay._ arrived this evening after a hot and disagreeable journey. the housmans are here alone. housman goes back to london on tuesday. a. is coming down here as soon as he is fit to travel. he is still very weak. _sunday, july_ _st_. the housmans went to mass. father stanway came to luncheon. he said he had been giving instruction to an indian boy who is being brought up as an r.c. i asked him if it was difficult for an indian to understand christian dogma. father stanway said that the child had amazed him. he had been telling him about the trinity and the indian had said to him: "i see--ice, snow, rain--all water." _monday, august_ _st_. housman played golf. mrs housman took me to the cliffs and began reading out _les misérables_, which i have never read. _tuesday, august_ _nd_. housman left early this morning. we sat on the beach and read _les misérables_. _wednesday, august_ _rd_. lady jarvis arrives to-morrow. we continued _les misérables_ in the afternoon and after dinner. mrs housman said that some conversations and the reading of certain passages in books were like _events_. once or twice in her life she had come across sentences in a book which, although they had nothing extraordinary about them and expressed things anyone might have thought or said, were like a revelation, or a solution, and seemed to be written in letters of flame and had a permanent effect on her whole life; one such sentence was the following from _les misérables_: "ne craignons jamais les voleurs ni les meurtriers. ce sont là les dangers du dehors, les petits dangers. craignons nous-mêmes. les préjugés, voila les voleurs; les vices, voila les meurtriers. les grands dangers sont au dedans de nous. qu'importe ce qui menace notre tête ou notre bourse!" she said: "of course this has never prevented me from feeling frightened when i hear a scratching noise in the night. that paralyses me with terror." _thursday, august_ _th._ we continued our reading. the weather has been propitious. lady jarvis arrived in the evening. we continued our reading after dinner. _friday, august_ _th._ a. arrived this evening. he was exhausted after the journey and went to bed at once. housman arrives to-morrow--he is only staying till monday. _saturday, august_ _th._ a. sat in the garden and mrs housman read out some stories by h.g. wells from a book called _the plattner story,_ which we all enjoyed. housman arrived in the evening. a. is not yet strong enough to walk. he sits in the garden all day. the weather is perfectly suited to an invalid. _sunday, august_ _th._ housman invited father stanway to luncheon. he and housman talked of politicians and popularity and the press and to what extent their reputation depended on it. housman said it was death to a politician not to be mentioned. a politician needed popularity among the public as much as an actor did. father stanway said it was a double-edged weapon and that those who lived by it risked perishing by it. housman said gladstone and beaconsfield had lived by it successfully. father stanway said it depends whether you want to be famous or whether you want to get things done. a man can do anything in the world if he doesn't mind not getting the credit for it. father stanway said nobody realised this better than lord beaconsfield. he said somewhere that it was private life that governs the world and that the more you were talked about the less powerful you were. a. is a little better. i went for a walk with father stanway in the afternoon. i asked him a few questions about the system of confession. he said the sacrament of penance was a divine institution. i asked him if the practice did not lead to the shirking of responsibility and the dulling of the conscience on the part of those who went to confession. he said confession was not an opiate but a sharp and bitter medicine, disagreeable to take but leaving a clean after-taste in the mouth i gave him a hypothetical case of a man being in love with a catholic married woman. if the woman was a practising catholic and faithful to her husband, and if she continued to be friends with the man who was in love with her, would she confess her conduct and, if so, would the priest approve of the conduct? father stanway said it was difficult to judge unless one knew the whole facts. if the woman knew she was acting in a way which might lead to sin or even to scandal--that is to say, in a way which would have a bad effect on others--she would be bound to confess it. if a woman asked him his advice in such a case he would strongly advise her to put an end to the relationship. i said: "you wouldn't forbid it?" he said: "the church forbids sin, and penitents when they receive absolution undertake to avoid the occasions of sin." he said he could not tell me more without knowing more of the facts. cases were sometimes far more complicated than they appeared to be, but however complicated they were, there was no doubt as to the attitude of the church towards that kind of sin and to the advisability of avoiding occasions that might bring it about. _monday, august_ _th._ housman went back to london. cunninghame arrives to-morrow. a. walked as far as the beach this morning. in the afternoon lady jarvis took him for a drive. mrs housman went into the town to do some shopping. _tuesday, august_ _th._ we all went for a drive in a motor to a village with a curious name and had tea in a farm-house. cunninghame arrived in time for dinner. he has been staying at cowes. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ carbis bay, _wednesday, august_ _th_. dearest elsie, i arrived last night from cowes. i found mrs housman, lady jarvis, george and godfrey. george is very much better, but he is still weak and can't get about much. he is not allowed to play golf yet. he sits in the garden, and goes for a mild walk once a day. lady jarvis says that mrs housman is very unhappy. in the first place, her home is intolerable. mrs fairburn makes london quite impossible for her. it is a wonder that she is not here, but as housman is in london there is nothing to be surprised at. in the second place, lady jarvis thinks that mrs housman would much rather george hadn't come, but she couldn't help it as housman asked him. we do things mostly altogether now. i am staying a fortnight, then i go to worsel for a week and to edith's till the end of september; then london. lady jarvis says that she is sure mrs housman will not spend the winter in london. write to me here and tell me about the mont dore. i have been there once and think it is an appalling place. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _wednesday, august_ _th_. a. has been doing too much, the doctor says, and he is not to be allowed out of the garden for a few days. mrs housman and lady jarvis take turns in reading to him aloud. we have finished the wells book and we are now reading _midshipman easy_. _thursday, august_ _th._ i went for a walk with cunninghame. he said his favourite book was _john inglesant_ and was surprised that i had not read it. he has it with him and has lent it to me. _friday, august_ _th._ it rained all day. we spent the day reading aloud. _saturday, august_ _th._ a. is much better and went for a walk with me this morning. _sunday, august_ _th._ housman was coming down yesterday but telegraphed to say he was detained. mrs housman went to mass. in the afternoon we received a visit from an american who has come here in a yacht and met cunninghame and myself in the town this morning. his name is harold c. jefferson. when i was introduced to him he said he did not quite catch my name. i said my name was "mellor"; he said: "lord or mister?" cunninghame told him where he was staying and he said he would call--he knew the housmans in america. he asked us all to go on board his yacht to-morrow. mrs housman, cunninghame and myself accepted. lady jarvis said she would stop with a. who is not up to it. _monday, august_ _th_. we had luncheon on board mr jefferson's yacht, a large steam vessel. it has on board a piano and an organ, both of which are played by electricity, which is in some respects satisfactory, but the _tempo_ of the _meistersinger_ overture which was performed for us was accelerated out of all recognition. _tuesday, august_ _th_. a miss simpson called in the afternoon to ask mrs housman to help with some local charity; she lives at the hotel. she said she found it very inconvenient not being able to go to church. we wondered what prevented her doing so, but she soon gave us the reason herself. she said that the local clergyman was so low--no eastward position. a. is much better and went for a walk with lady jarvis. _wednesday, august_ _th._ housman has written to say that he will not be able to come down until late in september. carrington-smith is unwell and he is overwhelmed with business. he, housman, may have to meet a man in paris. _thursday, august_ _th._ a rainy day. cunninghame and i went out in spite of the rain. _friday, august_ _th._ cunninghame played golf with general york. _saturday, august_ _th._ lady jarvis, mrs housman and myself went for a drive. a. played golf with cunninghame. i began _john inglesant_ last night. mrs housman has never read it. after dinner we had some music. mrs housman played schubert's _prometheus_ and hummed the tune. she says it is a man's song. _sunday, august_ _st_. a. says he is going to have his yacht sent up here--he will be able to sail back in her. mrs housman went to mass. in the afternoon we sat in the garden and read out aloud _cashel byron's profession,_ a novel by bernard shaw. a. enjoyed it immensely. _monday, august_ _nd_. we drove to the lizard in a motor and had luncheon at the hotel. a. misses his yacht very much but he has sent for her. after dinner we played clumps. _tuesday, august_ _rd_. cunninghame was going to-morrow but he is staying till saturday. mrs housman went to newquay to the convent for the day. lady jarvis took a. for a drive. _wednesday, august_ _th._ this morning a., cunninghame and myself walked down to the town. we met a friend of cunninghame's called randall, who is yachting. he has just come from france. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ grey farm, carbis bay, _thursday, august_ _th._ dearest elsie, i am stopping here till saturday, then worsel, then edith's. you had better write to edith's. yesterday morning we were in the town, george, godfrey and i, and we met jimmy randall, who has come here in the goldberg's yacht. they had been to st malo and other places in france. when we said we were staying with the housmans, randall said there was not much chance of our seeing housman for some time as he was having the time of his life with mrs fairburn at a little place near deauville. this came as a revelation to george, who had no idea of housman's adventures. he has scarcely spoken since. we are having a very happy time and i am miserable at having to go away. george is quite well. he has sent for his yacht, but he is not staying on very long as he has got to go to one or two places before he goes back to london. the weather has been divine. godfrey is quite cheerful. i shan't write again till i get to edith's. i shan't stop more than a night at worsel on the way. edith is clamouring for me to come. the caryls are staying there. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _thursday, august_ _th._ i went out for a walk with cunninghame; he asked me whether i had liked _john inglesant_. i said i had it read with interest but it gave me the creeps; it had the chill of a dream world; i preferred the character of eustace inglesant to that of his brother john. cunninghame said he had read it five times; that _john inglesant_, flaubert's _trois contes_ and anthony hope's _the king's mirror_ were his three favourite books. i had read neither of the others. mrs housman and a. went for a walk in the afternoon. after dinner lady jarvis read out a story by stevenson. _friday, august_ _th._ mrs housman went to the town in the afternoon. a. and cunninghame played golf. i went for a walk with lady jarvis. she talked about mrs housman. she said it was wonderful what comfort she (mrs h.) found in her religion. as far as she herself was concerned, she had never ceased to appreciate the luxury of not going to church on sunday, so much had she disliked being made to go to church before she was grown up. i said mrs housman had told me that roman catholic children enjoyed going to church. she said: "yes, and their grown-up people too. clare will probably go to church this afternoon. if i was a catholic i could understand it." she said it was the only religion she could understand. "unhappily to be a catholic," she said, "one must believe. i am not talking of the ritual and the discipline--i mean one must _believe_, have faith in the supernatural, and i have none." she said that she thought religion was an instinct. her religion consisted in trying not to hurt other people's feelings. that was difficult enough. she said she had once come across this phrase in a french book: "aimez-vous les uns les autres, c'est beaucoup dire supportez-vous les uns les autres, c'est déjà assez difficile." some people, she said, arrived at religion by disbelieving in disbelief. she didn't believe in dogmatic _disbelief but_ that didn't lead _her_ to anything positive. she said she was glad for mrs housman that she had her religion. i asked her if she thought mrs housman was very unhappy. she said: "yes; but there comes a moment in unhappiness when people realise that they must either live, or die. clare passed that moment a long time ago." people often made god in their own image. mrs housman had a beautiful character. she, lady jarvis, had no stuff in her to project a deity with. she thought that religion seldom affected conduct. she thought mrs housman would have been just the same if she had been brought up as a free-thinker or a presbyterian. she thought her marriage and her whole life had been a gigantic mistake. she ought, she said, to have been a professional singer. she was an artist by nature. i said i was struck by mrs housmans strong common-sense and her tact in dealing with people. "that would have made her all the greater as an artist," lady jarvis said. "in all arts you want to be good at other things besides that art. riding needs mind." she said it was no good wishing to be otherwise but she thought it was very tragic. she said: "if i believed there was another life, this sort of thing wouldn't matter, but as i don't it matters very much." i said it struck me the other way round. if one didn't believe in a future life i didn't see that anything could matter very much. i asked her if she positively believed there wasn't another life. she said: "i don't know. i only know i don't believe in a future life." i asked her if that wasn't faith. she said very possibly, but she at any rate hadn't the fervent faith in no-god that some atheists had. in any case she was not intolerant about it. i asked her if it had not often struck her that agnostics and free-thinkers were still more intolerant than religious people and that they had least business to be. she said that was exactly what she had meant. the religion of other people irritated them; they wanted people to share their particular form of unbelief. she never did that. she thought dogmatic disbelief intolerable. she had the greatest respect for catholics and would give anything to be able to be one. mrs housman never spoke about her religion. we talked about reading. i said i always read the newspapers or rather _the times_ every day. i had done so for fifteen years. she said she never did except in the train but she knew the news as well as i did. we talked about what is good reading for the train and about journeys. i told her of a journey i had once taken in france in a third-class carriage. she said it was lucky one forgot physical discomfort at once unlike mental discomfort. she said something about the appalling unnaturalness of people when they had to deal with death, and then of the misery in seeing other people suffer, of the hardness of some people, and of a book she had just been reading, called _katzensteg_, by sudermann, and then of germans, and so, to music, of housman's great undeveloped musical talent, of jews, how favourable the mixture of jewish and german blood was to music. i said something about jews being rarely men of creation or action. she said they were just as persistent in getting what they wanted as men of action, so she supposed that it came to the same. disraeli was a man of action, she supposed, and all the great socialists, marx and lassalle, they got what they wanted. "un de nous a voulu être dieu et il l'a été," she said a jewish financier had once said. this led her to heine. he was her favourite writer, both in prose and verse. had i ever read his prose? i ought to read _geschichte der religion und philosophie in deutschland._ it was the most brilliant book of criticism she knew. it was the jews who had invented all great religions, and socialism was the invention of the jews. some people said the russian revolution was jewish in idea and leadership and might very likely lead to a new political creed. she said she hated anti-semitism. this led us to christianity. christianity to her meant catholicism. she could not understand any other form of it. she thought there was nothing in the world more silly than attempts to make a religion of christianity without the church--there could only be one church. "but," i said, "you disbelieve in it." she said: "yes; but the only thing that could tempt me to believe in it is the continued existence of the catholic church." she said: "it's there; it's a fact, whether one believes in its divine origin, as clare does, or whether one doesn't, as i don't. it must either all hang together or not exist. you can't take a part of it and make a satisfactory and reasonable religion." not only that, nothing seemed to her more foolish than the attempts to make a religion of christianity without the divine element, in which christ was only a very good man. i said if she did not believe in the divinity of christ the story could be nothing more to her than a fable. she said: "if one only regards it as a fable, as i suppose i do--but again i have no dogmatic disbelief in it--it is still the most beautiful, impressive, wonderful and tragic story ever invented and it seems to me to lose its whole point if christ was only a man with hypnotic powers and a head turned by ambition or illusion." she quoted a frenchman, who had said that he adored jesus christ as his lord and god, but "s'il n'est qu'un homme je préfère hannibal." napoleon too had said that he knew men and jesus christ was not a man. regarded as a story the whole point and beauty of the gospel were lost in all modern versions, rewritings, explanations and interpretations, and none of them held together. she said it was as if one rewrote the fairy tales and made the fairies not fairies but only clever conjurers. by this time we had reached home. _saturday, august_ _th._ cunninghame went away early this morning. mrs housman told me that she was not going to spend the winter in london; she was going to florence, and it was possible she might be away for a whole year. a. went out this afternoon with lady jarvis. _sunday, august_ _th._ mrs york called in the afternoon. mrs housman was out with a. lady jarvis and myself entertained her. she was most affable and not at all stiff, as she was last year. she said she had known several of a.'s relations in india. as she went away she said to lady jarvis, in the hall: "you never told me mrs housman was an _american_--that makes _all_ the difference." _monday, august_ _th._ we all went to the land's end for the day. _tuesday, august_ _th._ a.'s yacht has arrived. we had luncheon on board and went for a short sail in the afternoon; the sea was reasonably smooth, but lady jarvis said that the sea under any conditions gave her a headache. _wednesday, august_ _st_. mrs housman and a. went out for a sail in the morning and came back for tea. a. says he will have to go away in a day or two. after dinner mrs housman read out burnand's _happy thoughts_. _thursday, september_ _st_. a rainy day. mrs housman called on mrs york and has asked her and the general to luncheon next sunday. i went out for a walk in the rain by myself and got very wet. mrs housman said that the indian servant stood motionless behind mrs york's chair during the whole of the visit. this embarrassed her. she felt inclined to draw him into the conversation. _friday, september_ _nd_. mrs housman went to the convent by herself. lady jarvis and a. went out for a walk and i stayed at home. it is quite fine again. a. leaves next monday. _saturday, september_ _rd_. a. wanted to go out sailing but mrs housman thought it was too windy. we all went for a drive instead. _sunday, september_ _th_. general york and mrs york came to luncheon. the general was a little nervous, but mrs york was affable and friendly. she said she had never got used to the english climate. lady jarvis asked mrs york if she had been to church. mrs york said they had a church quite close to their house in the village but she always drove to our village church, although it was three miles off. she could not go to their church as she did not approve of the clergyman's ritualistic practices. he used white vestments at easter, changed the order of the service, and allowed a picture in church. all that, of course, made it impossible. they went away soon after luncheon. i went for a walk with lady jarvis. after dinner a. asked mrs housman to sing, but she said she would rather read. she read _happy thoughts_ aloud. _monday, september_ _th._ a. left in his yacht. he said he would be back in london by the first of october. he is stopping at plymouth on the way. _tuesday, september_ _th._ mrs housman asked me if i had finished _les misérables_. i said i had not gone on with it. she read aloud from it in the afternoon. _wednesday, september_ _th._ i leave to-morrow to stay with aunt ruth. i have to be in london on the th. lady jarvis went to the village, we stayed in the garden. after dinner, mrs housman sang some schubert. she leaves cornwall at the end of the month and then goes to florence, where she stays rill easter or perhaps longer. _monday, october_ _rd. london, gray's inn_. cunninghame and a. both came back to-day. cunninghame asked me to dine with him to-morrow. _tuesday, october_ _th._ dined with cunninghame alone in his flat. he said that he knew i had some r.c. friends, perhaps i knew a priest. i said the only priest i had ever spoken to was father stanway at carbis bay. he said he wanted to consult a priest about certain rules in the r.c. church. he wanted to know under what conditions a marriage could be annulled. a friend of his wanted a married woman to get her marriage annulled as her husband was living with someone else. he wanted to know whether the marriage could be annulled. i said i knew who he was talking about. he said he had meant me to know. he had promised a. to find out from a priest. a. had been told by her that it was out of the question to get the marriage annulled. it had been a marriage entered into by her own free will and performed with every necessary condition of validity. of course she was very young when she was married and didn't know what she was doing, but that had nothing to do with it. her aunt and the nuns in the convent where she had been brought up had thought it was an excellent marriage, as he was well off and a catholic. cunninghame begged me to go and see a priest. i said i did not know how this was done. i suggested his asking his cousin, mrs caryl. he said she was in paris and that would be no use, it would not satisfy a. i said i would think about it. _wednesday, october_ _th_. i asked tuke where and how one could find a priest who would be able to tell one the rules of the church with regard to marriage. tuke said any of the fathers at farm street or the oratory. in the afternoon i went to the oratory, sent in my card and asked to see a priest. i sat in a little waiting-room downstairs. presently a tall man came in with very bright eyes and a face with nothing but character left in it. i told him i had come for a friend. it was a case of divorce, or rather of annulment. i knew his church did not tolerate divorce. i was, myself, not a catholic. it was the case of a lady, a catholic, who had married a catholic. the husband had always been unfaithful and was now almost openly living with someone else. could the marriage be annulled? the priest asked whether she desired the marriage to be annulled. i told him she had said it was impossible. he asked whether the marriage had been performed under all conditions of validity. i said i did not myself know what these conditions were, but that she had expressly said that the marriage had been performed with her own free will, with every necessary condition of validity. i knew she thought it was out of the question to think of the marriage being annulled, but there was someone who was most devoted to her and wanted to marry her, and he was not satisfied with her saying it was impossible. he wanted the decision confirmed by a priest and that was why i had come. the priest said he was afraid from what i had told him that it was no use thinking of annulment. it was clear from what i had said she knew quite well the conditions that make it possible to apply for the annulment of a marriage. he said he was sure it was a hard case. if i liked he would lend me a book which went into the matter in detail. i said i would not trouble him. it would be enough that i had seen him and heard this from him. i then went away. i went straight back to the office and told c. the result of my visit. he was most grateful to me for having done this. he said he was dining with a. to-night. he said a. was in a terrible state. _thursday, october_ _th_. cunninghame told me that he had dined with a. and given him the information i had procured for him. he said a. was wretched. mrs housman arrives in london on saturday. she is only staying till monday; she then goes to florence. _friday, october_ _th._ cunninghame told me that housman has come back to london. they have got their house back. mrs fairburn is in london also. _saturday, october_ _th._ a. has gone down to littlehampton. _sunday, october_ _th._ i went to see mrs housman in the afternoon--she was in. she leaves for florence to-morrow. she told me she was going to stay there a whole year. she asked after a. and was pleased to hear he was still in good health. miss housman came in later after we had finished tea. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _sunday, october_ _th._ dearest elsie, thank you for your long letter. i am most worried about george. mrs housman goes to florence to-morrow and is not coming back for a whole year. george has told me about the whole thing. she knows all about housman and has always known. george has implored her to divorce housman and to marry him. she can't divorce, as you know better than i do, and she told george it was not a marriage that could be annulled. however, this didn't satisfy him. he insisted on getting the opinion of a priest. i thought of writing to you, but there wasn't time, and then i didn't know whether it was the same in france or not. i got the opinion of a priest, who said there wasn't the slightest chance of getting the marriage annulled. i told george this and he won't believe it, even now. he keeps on saying that we ought to go to rome, but i don't suppose that would be of the slightest use either, would it? in the meantime he is perfectly wretched. mrs housman didn't see him after cornwall. george won't see anyone, or go anywhere now. he is at this moment down at littlehampton by himself. if you can think of anything one could do, let me know at once, but i know there is nothing to be done. if the marriage could be annulled i think she would marry him to-morrow. i can't write about anything else, because i can't think about anything else. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, october_ _th._ heard from mrs housman from florence. she says the weather is beautiful and she is having a very peaceful time. _monday, november_ _th._ heard from mrs housman. she has been to rome, where she stayed a fortnight. _wednesday, november_ _th._ i met housman in the street this morning. he said he had given up the house near staines. it was dismal in winter and not very pleasant in summer. he had taken a small house in the north of london, not far from hendon. he could come up from there every day and the air was very good. i was not to say a word about this to mrs housman, as it was a surprise. he said he was going to florence for christmas if he could. he said i must come down one saturday and stay with him. _saturday, november_ _th._ staying with riley at shelborough. _monday, december_ _th._ heard from mrs housman. she is going to spend christmas at ravenna with the albertis. housman has written to me saying he will not be able to get to florence at christmas and asking me to spend it with him at his house near hendon. i have told him that i was staying with aunt ruth for christmas. _letters from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ _monday, october_ _th._ dearest elsie, thank you for your letter. i quite understand all you say and i was afraid it must be so, but thank you for taking all that trouble. george is just the same. he sees nobody except godfrey and me. i have heard from mrs housman twice and i have written to her several times and given her news of george. i haven't set eyes on housman nor heard either from him or of him. yrs. g. london, _monday, october_ _st_. dearest elsie, i saw jimmy randall yesterday. he tells me that housman is in london but has taken a house near hendon and comes up every day. he is just, as infatuated as ever with mrs fairburn and has given her some handsome jewels. i heard from mrs housman on saturday. i am afraid she is quite miserable. george won't even go to stay with his sister. he dines with me sometimes. yrs. g. london, _november_ _th._ dearest elsie, lady jarvis is back from ireland. i went down to rosedale on saturday. there were a few people there, but i managed to have two long and good talks with her. she is of course fearfully worried. she hears from mrs housman constantly, she never mentions g. lady jarvis thinks of going out there, only, apparently, mrs housman will not be at florence for christmas. she tried to get george to come to rosedale, but he wouldn't. i have seen housman for a moment at the play. he said i must see his house at hendon. he said he had meant it as a surprise for mrs h., but he had been obliged to tell her. he says he has bought a lot of new pictures and that the house is very _moderne_ in arrangement. i can see it. he wanted me to go there next saturday. i said i couldn't. yours, g. london, _tuesday, november_ _th_. dearest elsie, i am sorry to have been so bad about writing, but we have been having rather a busy time, which has been a good thing for george. i am going to stay with lady jarvis for christmas. she asked george and he is going too. there is no party. he seems a little better, but he isn't really better, and he talks of giving up his job altogether and going out to africa again. will you choose me a small christmas present for lady jarvis, something that looks nice in the box or case. yrs. g. london, _monday, december_ _th._ dearest elsie, housman asked me so often to go down to hendon that i was obliged to go last saturday. the house is decorated entirely in the _art nouveau_ style. there is a small spiral staircase made of metal in the drawing-room that goes nowhere. it is just a serpentine ornament. the house is the last word of hideosity, but the pictures are rather good. he gets good advice for these and never buys anything that, he thinks won't go up. it was a bachelor party, randall, carrington-smith and myself. we played golf all the day, and bridge all the evening. he said mrs housman was enjoying florence very much and that we must all go out there for easter again. i heard from her three days ago. she said very little, and asked after george. he never hears from her. he dines with me often. yrs. g. rosedale, _saturday, december_ _st_. dearest elsie, we have had rather a sad christmas, only george and myself here, but lady jarvis has been too kind for words, and quite splendid with george. she has heard regularly from mrs housman and she thinks she will go out to florence in january if she can. godfrey is staying with his uncle. lady jarvis says that miss sarah housman makes terrible scenes about mrs fairburn, so much so that sarah and he are no longer on speaking terms. i go back to london just after the new year, so does george. the christmas present was a great success. lady jarvis gave me a lovely table for my flat. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, january_ _nd_, . received a small dante bound in white vellum from mrs housman. it had been delayed in the post. _tuesday, january_ _rd_. cunninghame came to the office to-day. a. also. _tuesday, april_ _th._ riley is spending easter in london. he wishes to attend the holy week services. he is staying with me. _wednesday, april_ _th_. sat up with riley, talking. i told him about hope having said that he considered that to become an r.c. was to sin against the light. riley said that hope might very likely end by committing suicide, as views such as he held led to despair. he said: "if the catholic religion is like what hope and you think it to be, it must be inconceivable that anyone whose character and whose intelligence you respect could belong to such a church, but, granting you do, does it not occur to you that it is just possible the catholic religion may be unlike what you think it is, may indeed be something quite different?" i said that i did not at all share hope's views. indeed i did not know what they were. i said that i agreed with him that when one got to know r.c.'s one found they were quite different from what they were supposed to be, and i was quite ready to believe this applied to their beliefs also. i said something about the complication of the catholic system, which was difficult to reconcile with the simplicity of the early church. he said the services of the early church were longer and more complicated than they were now. the services of the eastern church were more complicated than those of the western church, and to this day in the coptic church it took eight hours to say mass. the church was complicated when described, but simple when experienced. _saturday, april_ _th._ went with riley to the ceremony of the blessing of the font at westminster cathedral. riley said he was sorry for people who had to go to maeterlinck for symbolism. received a postcard from florence. housman did not go out after all. _monday, may_ _st_. cunninghame told us that housman is laid up with pneumonia. _thursday, may_ _th._ housman is worse, and mrs housman has been telegraphed for. he is laid up at hendon. they don't think he will recover. _friday, may_ _th._ mrs housman arrived last night. housman is about the same. _monday, may_ _th._ had luncheon with lady jarvis yesterday. she says that housman was a shade better yesterday. he may recover, but it is thought very doubtful. mrs housman has been up day and night nursing him. _wednesday, may_ _th_. housman has taken a turn for the better, but he is not yet out of danger. _saturday, may_ _th._ the doctors say housman is out of danger. _monday, may_ _th._ cunninghame says housman will recover. he has been very bad indeed. the doctors say that it is entirely due to mrs housmans nursing that he has pulled through. _saturday, may_ _th._ went to see mrs housman at hendon. i was allowed to see housman for a few minutes. he likes visitors. mrs housman looked tired. cunninghame says that housman has a weak heart. that was the danger. _saturday, june_ _th._ the housmans have gone to brighton for a fortnight. _letters from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _monday, may_ _nd_. dearest elsie, i am delighted to hear you and jack are coming to london so soon, but very sad of course that you won't be going back to paris. but i believe copenhagen is a delightful post, and they say it always leads to something. perhaps you will let me come and stay with you in the summer? yrs. g. _saturday, june_ _th._ dearest elsie, your letter made me laugh a great deal. i expect you will get to like the place. i am writing this from rosedale, where i am in the middle of a large musical and artistic party, one painter, two novelists, and two pianists. they all hate each other like poison, and it is pain to all the others when one of them performs. but the rest of us are enjoying it immensely, and lady jarvis is being splendid. the housmans have gone to brighton for a fortnight. bert is quite well again, but mrs housman looks fearfully ill. write to me again soon. yrs. g. _monday, june_ _th._ dearest elsie, i have just come back from oakley, the housmans' place, near hendon. he has quite recovered, and everything was going on there just as usual. jimmy randall was there, and mrs fairburn. housman said nothing about the summer, but mrs housman told me she was not going to cornwall this year. i asked her if she was going to stay all the summer at oakley, the hendon house. she said that housman had hired a yacht for the summer and asked several people. she said she couldn't bear steam yachting with a large party, and she has taken a small house on the west coast of ireland, with lady jarvis. they would be there quite alone; she was going there quite soon: "albert would probably go to france." she told me housman had wanted to take the house in cornwall and ask us all again, but that she had told him this was impossible. george has seen her once or twice, and he is of course happier, but things are where they were. she won't think of divorcing. i shall start for copenhagen at the end of july. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _tuesday, june_ _th._ london. housman has asked me to go to oakley next saturday. he has asked a. also. _wednesday, june_ _th._ london. dined with a. and his sister. a. said he would be unable to go to oakley next week. he had some people staying with him. _thursday, june_ _th._ london. dined with aunt ruth. apparently gertrude is still annoyed at the caryls having got copenhagen. she complains of this weekly. _friday, june_ _th._ london. solway is staying the night with me, his concert is to-morrow afternoon. _saturday, july_ _st_. london. went with mrs housman to solway's concert in the afternoon, and she drove me down to hendon afterwards in her motor. mrs housman is going to spend the summer in ireland. _sunday, july_ _nd. oakley (near hendon)_. mrs fairburn and carrington-smith are staying here. mrs housman leaves to-morrow for ireland. * * * * * _saturday, october_ _th. london, gray's inn_. mrs housman returns from ireland to-day. she spends sunday in london, and goes to oakley, near hendon, on wednesday. i have not heard one word from mrs housman since her long absence in ireland. _sunday, october_ _th._ went to see mrs housman in the afternoon. ireland has done her a great deal of good, and she looks quite refreshed and rested. she asked after a. i told her he was due to arrive from scotland to-morrow, and that we expected him at the office. she asked me if i was going to stay with lady jarvis next saturday. she said we would meet there. she said nothing about her plans for the future. _monday, october_ _th._ a. has arrived from scotland, and cunninghame from copenhagen, where he has been staying for the last three months with his cousin. i called on lady jarvis. she told me she thought mrs housman would not remain long in england. she might go to italy again. _tuesday, october_ _st_. a. is going to rosedale on saturday. _wednesday, november_ _st_. dined with a. and cunninghame. we went to a music hall after dinner. _thursday, november_ _nd_. cunninghame and i went to aunt ruth's after dinner. when cunninghame said he had been at copenhagen, aunt ruth said that she knew, of course, caryl was a brilliant diplomatist, but that edmund anstruther ought to have had the post. uncle arthur said: "what, edmund? copenhagen? he would have got us into war with the danes." _friday, november_ _rd_. dined alone with a. he asked after mrs housman's health. _saturday, november_ _th. rosedale_. a.. cunninghame, myself, and mrs vaughan are here. the housmans were unable to come at the last moment. _monday, november_ _th._ housman asked me to go to oakley on saturday, november th. mrs housman has gone to folkestone for a fortnight to stay with miss housman. cunninghame says that housman and his sister have quarrelled, and that she no longer goes to the house. _saturday, november_ _th. oakley_. lady jarvis, a. and carrington-smith are staying here. cunninghame comes down to-morrow for the day. housman was obliged to go to paris on urgent business for a few days. _sunday, november_ _th._ cunninghame and carrington-smith played golf. i went for a walk with lady jarvis. _monday, november_ _th._ dined with a. and went to the play, a farce. a. enjoyed it immensely. i have written to aunt ruth to tell her i shall not be able to go there this year. i shall remain in london, as riley wishes to spend christmas with me. _tuesday, november_ _th._ dined with lady jarvis. mrs housman has gone back to folkestone. she stays there till christmas, then she returns to london. a. is going abroad for christmas. _wednesday, december_ _th._ a. goes to paris to-morrow night. cunninghame is going to spend christmas with the housmans at oakley. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ halkin street, _friday, december_ _nd_. dearest elsie, as you see, i write from london. all my plans have been upset by an unexpected catastrophe. i will try and begin at the beginning and tell you everything in order as clearly as possible, but the fact is i am so bewildered by everything that has happened that i find it difficult to think clearly and to write at all. i think i told you in my last letter that housman asked me to spend christmas with them at oakley. i was to go down yesterday, thursday, and george was going to paris by the night train. i think i told you, too, that ever since we stayed at oakley in november, george has been a _changed man_ and in the highest spirits. on thursday we had luncheon together. i thought it rather odd that he should be going to paris, but he said he was tired of england and felt that he must have a change. i wondered what this meant. i could have imagined his wanting to go away if he had been like he was before, that is to say miserable, but now that he seemed to be enjoying life it was rather extraordinary. i said i was going to oakley. he said nothing, and talked about his journey. after luncheon he went to the office to give mellor some final instructions. he said he might be away for some time. i left him there at about half-past three. i asked him why he was going by the night train, and he said he hated a day in the train and always slept well in the train at night. i said good-bye and went down to oakley in a taxi. housman had not arrived, and the butler (who has taken the place of the nice parlour-maid there used to be at campden hill) told me that mrs housman had gone up to london. her maid thought she was staying the night at garland's hotel, but he, the butler, knew nothing of her arrangements. this astonished me, but i supposed there were no servants at campden hill. at a quarter to five housman arrived in a motor with carrington-smith. he looked more yellow than usual. i met him in the hall and while we were talking the butler gave him a letter which he said mrs housman had left for him. he said we would have tea at once in the drawing-room. then he said to carrington-smith: "i just want to show you that thing," and to me: "we will be with you in one minute." he took carrington-smith into his study and i went into the drawing-room. tea was brought in. i again tried the butler and asked him whether mrs housman was coming back to-morrow morning. he said that she had left no instructions, but mr housman was probably aware of her intentions. he went out and almost directly i heard someone shouting and bells ringing, violently. carrington-smith was calling me. i ran out and met him in the hall; he said housman had had a stroke, he thought it was fatal. it was like a thing on the stage. a breathless telephone to the doctor. the motor sent to fetch him. servants scurrying with blanched faces. housman lying on the sofa in the study, his collar undone, his face ghastly. carrington-smith said: "we must telephone to campden hill for mrs housman." i said: "she isn't there." then told him about garland's hotel. he seemed _dumbfounded_, sent for the butler, who confirmed this, and then got on to the hotel. mrs housman was in. he spoke to her and told her housman was dangerously ill and she must come at once. he said he would get on to miss housman and tell her to bring mrs housman down in her motor. this was arranged and he told miss housman the whole facts. in the meantime the doctor arrived--an australian. he examined housman and said it was heart failure and that he had always feared this. they had known he had a weak heart after his last illness. it might have happened any day. then carrington-smith told me how it had happened. when they went into the study housman had sat down at his writing-table and read a letter through twice quite slowly, torn it up and thrown it into the fire. he had then said: "we will go," and at that moment fallen back and collapsed on the sofa. he told me that housman had had a terrific row with mrs fairburn yesterday and had talked of nothing else on the way down. probably the letter was from her, he said. i said: "yes, very likely"; but as a matter of fact i knew it was from mrs housman. he had not noticed that, or if he had he was lying on purpose. mrs housman and miss housman arrived about six. mrs housman almost _frighteningly_ calm. she wanted to know every detail. she had a talk with carrington-smith alone and then i saw her for a moment before going away. she asked me if i had seen housman before he died. then she made all the arrangements herself. i went back to london by train. i don't know what to think. why did she go to london? why did she stay at garland's hotel? the campden hill house isn't shut up. miss housman talked about going there. did the letter which she left for housman play a part in the tragedy? i sent george a telegram. possibly you may see him. yours, g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _friday, december_ _nd_. i was rung up last night by cunninghame, who had returned to london unexpectedly. he had bad news to tell me. a tragedy had occurred at oakley and housman had died suddenly of a heart attack. mrs housman was informed at once and reached oakley an hour after the tragedy occurred. cunninghame has informed a. by telegram. not unconnected with this tragic event a small incident has occurred to me which leaves me stunned. i have unwittingly violated a.'s confidence, and as it were looked through a keyhole into his private affairs. i am literally appalled by what i have done. but after reviewing every detail and living again every moment of yesterday, i do not see how i could have acted otherwise than i did, nor do i see how things could have happened differently. these are the facts: a. arrived at the office at half-past three on thursday afternoon with cunninghame. cunninghame left him. a. remained in his room until five o'clock, writing letters. at five he sent for me and told me he was leaving for paris that night by the night train. tuke, he said, had gone on his holiday. he asked me if i was going away. i said i should be in london during all the christmas holidays, as i had a friend staying with me. he said he would most probably be away for some time, and he would be obliged if i could look in at the office every now and then. he had told the clerks to forward letters, but he wanted me to make sure they did not forward circulars or any other useless documents to him. i was to open all telegrams, whether private or not, and not to forward them unless they were of real importance. "but," he said, "there won't be any telegrams. don't forward me invitations to luncheon or dinner." this morning i went to the office. there was a telegram for a. the clerk gave it to me. i opened it. it had been sent off originally at five yesterday afternoon and redirected from stratton street. its contents were: "albert dangerously ill. fear worst. cannot come. clare." i forwarded it to the hôtel meurice. he will know of course that i have read it. i read it at one glance before i realised its nature. then it was too late. and so unwittingly i am guilty of the greatest breach of confidence that i could possibly have committed. it was a fatality that this telegram should have missed him. the clerks say he left the office soon after i did, a little after five. they say the telegram did not reach the office till later. they didn't know where a. was and he had told them not to forward any telegrams till i had seen them. i remember his saying that he was not returning to his flat. that he was dining at a club and going straight from thereto the station, where his servant would meet him. i am truly appalled by what i have done, but the more i think over it, the less i see how it could have been otherwise. i had some conversation with cunninghame on the telephone last night. he had been talking to lady jarvis on the telephone. she had at once offered to go to oakley, but mrs housman said she would rather see no one at present. cunninghame went down to rosedale at her urgent request this morning. he did not call at the office on the way. _letters from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ rosedale, _friday, december_ _nd_. dearest elsie, i came down here early this morning. lady jarvis heard the news from miss housman last night and at once offered to go, but mrs housman said she would rather see no one at present. carrington-smith was making all the arrangements. the funeral is to be on tuesday. i told lady jarvis about mrs housman being in london. she said mrs housman often went up to garland's hotel. she found it a complete rest and the house at campden hill was very cold and there was no cook there. lady jarvis said it was the most natural thing in the world. i told her about the letter. she said mrs housman had no doubt written to housman saying she had gone to garland's hotel and was coming back. i also told her what carrington-smith had said about mrs fairburn. she said: "that was it. it was those terrible scenes which used to shatter him and no doubt caused his death." lady jarvis says it will be a shock to mrs housman in spite of everything. the fact of housman having made her very unhappy, or rather of her having been very unhappy as his wife, will make no difference to the shock. lately lady jarvis says he had made things very difficult for her. mrs fairburn was always there. one can't help thinking--well you know, i needn't explain. i wonder what will happen in the future. i have heard nothing from george yet. there is no one here. housman must have left an enormous fortune. he was very canny about his investments, and very lucky too. randall told me he had almost doubled his fortune in the last three years, and he was rich enough to start with. yours, g. _p.s._.--lady jarvis' explanation of the letter does not quite satisfy, but what _did_ happen? what does it all mean? london, _monday, january_ _st_. dearest elsie, i came up to-day for good. i went to housman's funeral last tuesday. mrs housman went down to rosedale directly after the funeral. she is going to florence next week and means to stay on there indefinitely. george has come back. he never wrote and i did not hear from him till he arrived at the office this morning. he is just the same as usual except for being subtly different. housman left everything to her. yrs. g. _p.s._--i told godfrey everything that had happened at oakley. he said _nothing._ he appears incapable of discussing the matter. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _monday, january_ _st_, . a. arrived last night from paris. he came to the office and he thanked me for what i had done in his absence. "everything was quite right," he said. he conveyed to me without saying anything that i need not distress myself about the telegram and that he still trusted me. he did not mention mrs housman nor the death of housman. _wednesday, february_ _th_. i heard to-day from mrs housman. she tells me she has entered the convent of the presentation and intends to be a nun. i cannot say the news surprised me, but to hear of the death in life of anyone one knows well, is almost worse i think than to hear of their death. _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _wednesday, february_ _th._ dearest elsie, i have just had a short letter from lady jarvis telling me that mrs housman is going to be a nun. i have not set eyes on her since housmans funeral, and have only heard of her, and that not much, from time to time from lady jarvis. i confess i am completely bewildered, and i hope you won't be shocked if i tell you that i' can't help thinking it rather _selfish_. do as i will, i cannot see any possible reason for her taking such a step. mrs housman seems to me the last person in the world who ought to be a nun. whether it will make her happy or not, i am afraid there is no doubt that she will be causing a lot of intense misery. george is worse than ever. he hasn't in the least got over it, and he never will, i feel sure. he knows what has happened, but he can't even bring himself to talk about it. i think he must have known of it for some time. in any case he hasn't for one moment emerged from the real fog of gloom and misery that has wrapped him up ever since christmas. what is so extraordinary is that just before christmas he was in radiant spirits after all those months of sadness! i can't see that it _can_ be right, however good the motive, to destroy and shatter someone's life! his life _is_ destroyed, shattered and shipwrecked! we must just face that. i tried to think that we had always been wrong and that my first impressions were right, that she had never really cared for him. but i know this is not true. you will forgive me saying that i think your religion has a terribly hard and cruel side. nobody appreciates more than i do all its good points, and nobody knows better than i do what a lot of good is often done by catholics. but it is just this sort of thing that makes one _revolt_. i was reading boswell last night before going to bed, and i came across this sentence: "madam," dr johnson said, to a nun in a convent, "you are here not from love of virtue, but from fear of vice." even this is not a satisfactory explanation in mrs housmans case. it is obvious that she had nothing to fear from vice. i can't help thinking she has been the victim of an inexorable system and of a training which bends the human mind into a twisted shape that can never be altered or put straight. frankly, i think it is _more_ than sad, i think it is positively _wicked_; not on her part, but on the part of those who have led her to take such a mistaken view of ordinary human duty. after all, even if she wants to be a nun, isn't it her duty to stay in the world? isn't it a more difficult duty? what is one's duty to one's neighbour? forgive me for saying all this. you know in my case that it isn't inspired by prejudice. it is cruel to think that most probably george will never get over this, and that she has sacrificed the certain happiness of two human beings and the chance of doing any amount of good in the world. what for? for nothing as far as i can see that can't be much better done by people far more fitted to that kind of vocation. i am too sad to write any more. yrs. g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _thursday, march_ _st_. i dined alone with cunninghame at his flat last night. he had heard the news about mrs housman. he was greatly upset about it, and thought it very selfish. i said i believed the step was not irrevocable, as one had to stay some time in a convent before taking final vows. he said: "that is just what i want to talk about, just what i want to know. how long must one stay exactly?" i said i did not know, but i could find out. he said i want you to find out all about it as soon as possible. a., he said, was in a dreadful state. he had dined with him last night. he had said very little; nothing personal, not a word about what he felt about it, but he had asked him, cunninghame, whether he knew what the rules were about taking the veil. c. said he did not believe mrs housman would take an irrevocable decision. he had told a. he would find out all about it. i could of course ask riley, but i don't know whether he would know. i decided i would apply to father stanway, the priest i met at carbis bay, for information. i wrote to him, saying i wished to consult him on a matter, and suggested going down to cornwall on saturday and spending sunday at carbis bay. _friday, march_ _nd_. received a telegram from father stanway, saying that he will not be in cornwall this week-end, but in london, where he will be staying four or five days; and suggesting our meeting on sunday afternoon. i sent him a telegram asking him to luncheon on sunday. _sunday, march_ _th._ father stanway came to luncheon with me at the club, and we talked of the topics of the day. after luncheon i suggested a walk in the park. we went for a walk in kensington gardens. i asked him first for the information about the nuns. he said, as far as he could say off-hand, it entailed six months' postulancy, two years' "habit and white veil," three years' _simple_ vows of profession; and then solemn perpetual vows. but he said he could write to a convent and get it quite accurate for me. in any case he knew it was a matter of five years. i then said i would like, if he did not mind, to have his opinion on a case which i had come across. he said he would be pleased to listen. i then told him the whole housman story as a skeleton case, not mentioning names, and calling the people x. and y. very possibly he knew who i was talking about, almost certainly i think, although he never betrayed this for a moment. i felt the knowledge, if there were knowledge, would be as safe as though given in the confessional. i told him everything, including a detailed account of housman's death which cunninghame had given me. i referred to housman as x., to mrs housman as mrs x. and to a. as y. i then asked him if he thought mrs x. was justified in taking such a step, and whether it would not be nobler, a more unselfish course, to remain in the world and to make y. happy. i asked him whether, in his opinion, people would be justified in calling mrs x.'s step, were it to turn out to be irrevocable, a _selfish_ act. and, thirdly, i asked if in the case of mrs x. changing her mind she would be allowed by the church to marry y. father stanway said if i wished to understand the question i must try and turn my mind round, as it were, and start from the point of view that what the world considers all-important the church considers of no importance _if it interferes with what god thinks important_. he said i must start by remembering that mrs x.'s conduct proceeded from that idea--what was important in the eyes of god: she believed in god _practically_ and not merely theoretically. this belief was the cardinal fact and the compass of her life. he added that this did not mean the church was unsympathetic. no one understood human nature as well as she did, nobody met it as she did at every point. that was why she helped it to rise superior to its weakness and to do what it saw to be really best. he said it was no disgrace to be weak, and vows helped one to do what might be difficult without them. then he said that if mrs x. felt she was called to the religious life, this vocation was the result of supernatural grace; that she would not be thinking of what was delightful or convenient to her, but of what was pleasing and honourable to god. she was bound to follow the appointment of god, if she felt certain that was his appointment, rather than her own desire, and before anything she desired. here i said the objection made (and i quoted cunninghame without mentioning him) was that her desire might be for the calm and security of the religious life; but might it not be her duty, possibly a more difficult, a more unselfish and less pleasant duty, to stay in the world and not to shatter the happiness of another human being? father stanway then said it was very easy to delude oneself in most things, but not in following a religious vocation. one might in _not_ following it. it would be easy to pretend to oneself one was staying in the world for someone else's sake. one's merely earthly happiness was not a reason for _not_ following a vocation, nor was anyone else's, because the religious life belonged not to things temporal but to things eternal. however, if it were her duty to remain in the world she would feel no call to leave the world. it was impossible for a human being to gauge the vocation of another human being. a vocation was a "categorical imperative" to the soul, and there was no mistaking its presence. mrs x. would know for certain after she had spent some time in the convent, she probably knew already, whether or no what she felt was a vocation or not. nobody else could judge, though her director might help her to decide. he would certainly not allow her to stay if he felt she had no vocation. i said: "so, if after she has lived through her first period, or any period of probation, she feels uncertain as to her vocation, there would be no objection to her leaving the religious life, and marrying y.? would the church then allow her to marry y., and allow her to go back to the world, knowing she would in all probability marry y.?" father stanway said: "of course, and the church would allow her to marry y. now." i said, perhaps a little impatiently: "then why doesn't she?" "i think," said father stanway, "you are a musician, mr mellor?" i said music was my one and sole hobby. he said he would try and express himself in terms of harmony. "perhaps mrs x. has a great sense of harmony herself," he said. "if she married y. that would make a legitimate harmony certainly. but her very feeling for the _full_ harmony of life would make it impossible" (and he said this with startling emphasis) "_for her to use x.'s death as a means for doing rightly what she had meant to do wrongly_, for her intention to do it wrongly had in a measure caused his death. within the harmony of her marriage the memory of that discord would always be present. and perhaps she is a woman who is able to have a vision of perfect love and harmony. in that case she could not put up with an imperfect one. she is now free to enter upon a perfect harmony and love, by marrying christ, which i imagine she always wanted to do, even in the normal married state, in fact by means of the normal married state, for it is a sacrament and unites the soul to god by grace. "but i understand from you that her marriage was such a travesty of marriage that she felt she couldn't worship christ through that, and so swung across and decided she couldn't be in relation with him at all. then comes this catastrophe and the pendulum swings back and stops up. "there is nothing selfish about this. for all we know it was the will of god that all this should happen (the shipwreck of her marriage, y.'s love and present misery) solely to make her vocation certain, and as far as y. is concerned we don't know the end. even from the worldly point of view we don't know whether his marriage with mrs x. would have made for his ultimate happiness or for hers. his present unhappiness may be an essential note in the full and total harmony of _his_ life. it may be a beginning and not an end. it may lead him to some eventual happiness, it may be welding his nature and his life for some undreamed-of purpose, a purpose which he may afterwards be led to recognise and bless 'with tears of recognition.' if mrs x. is certain of her vocation, and continues to be certain of it, you can be sure she is right, and that whatever the world says it will be wrong. "the only way in which peace comes to the human soul is in accepting the will of god, 'in la sua volontate e nostra pace.' "mrs x. knows that, and perhaps y. is on the road to learning it. i daresay mrs x. may have an element of fear of life _too_, but it will thin out and float off and away from her; her act in choosing the religious life will not be an escape nor a _flight_, but a positive acceptance of the love of christ. she is getting to and at the mysterious spiritual thing which is in music, and which is as different from sounds as sounds are different from printed notes. it is you musicians who know." i said that although i did not pretend to understand the whole thing, and the whole nature of the motive, i could understand that it could be as he said, and i thanked him, telling him that i for one should never cavil at her act nor criticise it, but always understand that there was something to understand, although probably it would always be beyond my understanding. i felt during all this conversation that the real problem was not why she had become a nun, but what terrible thing had happened inside her mind to make her take that step at christmas, and decide on what seemed to contradict all her life so far. i said something about religion not affecting conduct in a crisis. father stanway seemed to read my thoughts. he said: "after a long stress sometimes a tiny accident will suffice to make a nerve snap _suddenly_. i should say that in this case long stress had pushed and pushed a soul out of its real shape and pattern; an unknown factor sufficed to force it into a coherent but false pattern; a new shock sufficed to liberate it wholly and let it fall back into its original _true_ pattern. that may account for half of it." _wednesday, march_ _th._ i dined alone with cunninghame last night, and told him what i had ascertained respecting the rules for the period of probation of nuns. he appeared to be relieved. i warned him that mrs housman's step might very well prove to be irrevocable, as i didn't think she was a person to change her mind easily. he said: "that's what i am afraid of. they never do let people go. i feel that once in a convent they will never let her go. but it will be a relief to a. to know that the step is not yet irrevocable." _letters from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _wednesday, march_ _th_. dearest elsie, godfrey dined with me last night. i feel he thinks that mrs housmans step will be irrevocable, although he didn't actually say so. he said he didn't pretend to understand it, but he was convinced she knew best. i talked of george's acute misery. he said it was all very difficult to understand, and i saw he didn't want to discuss it, so i didn't say any more. i feel he knows something that we don't know, but what? he told me that he knew on good authority that going into convent doesn't mean she takes the veil for five years. an r.c. who knows all about it had told him. i suppose this is right? do ask a priest. i have seen george once or twice. i don't talk about it to him. in fact, the rules about nuns is the only point that has been mentioned between us as i see he simply can't talk about it. he looks ten years older. yours, g. london, _monday, march_ _th._ dearest elsie, thank you very much for your letter and for the detailed information. i told george at once that you had confirmed what godfrey had said, and he was really relieved. but he doesn't yet look like a man who has had a _reprieve_, only a respite. i feel that he feels it is all over, but personally i shall go on hoping. lady jarvis is away. i long to talk about it with her. yours, g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _sunday, august_ _th. rosedale_. i am staying with lady jarvis. there is no one here but myself and cunninghame. she told us she had heard from mrs housman, who has finished her postulancy and received the novice's white veil. she had seen her. she says she is quite certain that it is irrevocable and that mrs housman will never change her mind now. cunninghame said he had hoped up till now this would not happen (though he had always feared it might happen) and that mrs housman would think better of it. he thought it very wrong and selfish and quite inexcusable on the part of the church authorities. lady jarvis said it must appear so to him. she herself would have no sympathy with a vocation such as this one must appear to be to the world in general, and even to people who knew mrs housman well, like cunninghame and myself; so mrs housman's act had not surprised her. "but," said cunninghame, "do you approve of it?" "the person concerned," said lady jarvis, "is the only judge in such a matter. nobody else has the right to judge. it's a sacred thing, and the approval or disapproval of an outsider is i think simply impertinent." we then talked of it no more. but in the afternoon i went out for a walk with lady jarvis and she reverted to the question. she said: "i hope you understand i'm so far from disapproving of clare's act. i understand it and approve of it; but i don't expect you or anyone else to do the same." i said she need not have told me that. i knew it already. she then said: "clare knew you would understand, even if you didn't understand." i said that was my exact position: "i did not understand, but i knew there was something to understand, and that therefore she was right." _letter from guy cunninghame to mrs caryl_ london, _monday, august_ _th._ dearest elsie, i have just come back from rosedale. there is no one there except godfrey. lady jarvis told us that mrs housman has finished the first period you told me about, and has taken the veil, though it isn't irrevocable yet, but for all intents and purposes it is, as we are all certain now that she will never leave the convent. you know what i think about it. i haven't changed my mind, but lady jarvis doesn't disapprove, or is too loyal to say so. george knows, he is going to ireland with his sister. i can't help thinking it is all a great, a wicked mistake, and i can't help still thinking it _selfish_. george talked about mrs housman, at least he just alluded to her having become a nun, as if it were a fact and quite irrevocable. he said: "once the priests get hold of someone they will never let them go, and in this case it was a regular conspiracy." but somehow or other this did not seem to me to ring quite true, from _him_, and i felt he was using this as a shield or a disguise or mask. i said so to godfrey, but found it impossible to get any response. he won't talk about it. yours, g. _from the diary of godfrey mellor_ _sunday, august_ _th. carbis bay hotel_. i have come down here to spend a week by myself. it is three years ago since i came here for the first time to stay with mr and mrs housman. i hesitated about coming down here again, but i am now glad that i did so. i went to father stanway's church this morning and heard him preach. he is a good preacher, clear and unaffected. he quoted two sayings which struck me. one was about going away from earthly solace, and the other i cannot remember well enough to transcribe, but i have written him a post card asking who said them and where i could find them. in the afternoon i went for a walk alone along the cliffs and passed the place where we began _les misérables_. i am re-reading it, not where we left off, but from the beginning. _monday, august_ _th_. father stanway called this morning while i was out. he has left me the quotations on a card. they are both from thomas à kempis. one of them is this: "by so much the more does a man draw nigh to god as he goes away from all earthly solace." the other: "whosoever is not ready to suffer all things and to stand resigned to the will of his beloved is not worthy to be called a lover." _tuesday, august_ _th_. i have resolved to give up keeping this diary. the worn doorstep by margaret sherwood boston little, brown, and company _copyright, _, by little, brown, and company. _all rights reserved_ published, september, reprinted, october, november, (five times) december, (five times) february, printers s. j. parkhill & co., boston, u.s.a. the worn doorstep august , . at last i have found the very place for our housekeeping; i have been searching for days: did you know it, dear? the quest that we began together i had to follow after you went to the front; and, through the crashes of tragic rumours that have rolled through england, i have gone on and on, not running away or trying to escape, but full of need to find the right corner, the right wall against which i could put my back and stand to face these great oncoming troubles. i have travelled by slow trains across quiet country which does not as yet know there is war; i have driven in an old-fashioned stage or post wagon,--you never told me that there were such things left in your country,--past yellow harvest fields in calm august weather; i have even walked for miles by green hedgerows, which wear here and there a belated blossom, searching for that village of our dreams where our home should be, quiet enough for the work of the scholar, green for two lovers of the country, and grey with the touch of time. i knew that now it could be almost anywhere; that it did not matter if it were not near oxford, and it seemed to me that i should rather have it a bit--but not too far--away from the "dreaming spires." so i went on and on, with just one thought in my mind, because i was determined to carry out our plan to the full, and because i did not dare stay still. there's a great strange pain in my head when i am quiet, as if all the mountains of the earth were pressing down on it, and i have to go somewhere, slip out from under them before they crush me quite. often, at a distance, i thought that i had found it; thatched roofs or red tiles, or a lovely old norman church tower would make me sure that my search was done; but again and again i found myself mistaken, i can hardly tell you why. you know without telling, as you must know all i am writing before i make the letters, and yet it eases my mind to write. at no time did you seem very far as i searched hill country and level lands, watching haystacks and flocks of sheep, sometimes through sunny showers of english rain. but now i have discovered our village, the very one that i dreamed in childhood, that you and i pictured together, and i know that at last i have come home. i knew it by the rooks, for i arrived late in the afternoon, and the rooks were flying homeward to the great elms by the church,--groups of them, here, there, and everywhere, black against the sunset. such a chattering and gossiping, as they went to bed in the treetops! such joy of home and bedtime! i knew it by the grey church tower in its shelter of green leaves, and the ancient little stone church on the top of the gentle hill among its old, old, lichen-covered tombstones. the village homes, in a straggling row, looked half familiar; the grassy meadow that rolls to the village edge, still more so; and the quaint old inn, where i spent the night and where i am writing--surely some of my ancestors, centuries ago, slept at that very inn, for i half remember it all,--low ceilings, latticed windows, stone floor, and great, smothering feather bed. everywhere, indoors and out, i am aware of forgotten chords of sympathy. those small boys in short trousers, trudging home on tired legs and little bare feet--"did i pass that way a long time ago?" did some one back of me in the march of life--my ancestors came from this east country--grow tired and rebel in a village like this and run away to america? in some way, by memory, by prophecy, all seems mine; the worn paths; the hollowed door-stones; the ruddy faces moving up and down the walled streets, and the quiet under the grass in the churchyard. and you are everywhere, interpreting, making me understand, with that insight compounded of silent humour and silent sympathy. i am too tired to do anything to-night but have my tea and bit of toast and egg, and warm my fingers at the open fire, for the evening is chill; but to-morrow i shall go searching for our house, and i know i shall find it, for i have a curious sense that this is not only the place for my home with you, but that some far, far back sense of home broods here. the grey war-cloud drifts closer and grows darker. namur has fallen into german hands; there are rumours--god grant that they are not true!--that the french and the english troops are retreating. in spite of the entire confidence of the people here in their island security, there is fear in my heart for england, this england which seems so remote from cruel struggle, as if created in some moment of nature's relenting, when she was almost ready to take back her fell purpose,--it is so full of fragrances, of soft colours of flowers, of softer green of hedgerows and meadows. there is something in you, you englishmen of finer type, shaped by this beauty, quiet and self-contained, of hill and dale and meadow. surely in you too i know this quietness, this coolness, the still ways of the streams. august . past the grey church, and down the hill, at the edge of the great green meadow, and a bit apart from the village, i found our house, with its wooden shutters and its white front door closed, a quaint old brick cottage, waiting for life to come to it again. it has a brick front walk, and a brick wall stands about it, save at the back, where the stream that skirts the meadow flows at the very garden edge. can you see it, the wistaria, the woodbine, the honeysuckle over the wee porch, the climbing, drooping, straggling vines that make the whole little house look oddly like a skye terrier? it is all unkempt; grass grows in tufts between the bricks, and weeds in the neglected grass. the chimney needs repairing; some of the little diamond panes in the latticed windows are broken, alas! i did not venture inside the wrought-iron gate, for the encompassing veneration for property rights is strong upon me; not in the british isles shall i be caught trespassing! can you not imagine, as i can, how a dainty order, satisfying even your fastidious taste, could grow out of its present desolation, with a little weeding here, a little trimming there, a nail, a bit of board, a few bricks,--surely we could find a few old weathered ones to match. there must be touches of the new, but careful preservation of all the old, of all the eloquent worn edges that tell of the coming and going of past life. something--anything--to keep away the thoughts i refuse to harbour. i can not, i can not even yet, think of the misery of this war. it beats in my ears, like great hard waves; it clangs and clamours, strikes, comes in imagined horrible shrill whistles and great explosions. there is nothing in me that understands war; new tracks will have to be beaten out in my brain before i can grasp any of it. it is a vast, unmeasured pain beyond my own pain. i have got to have a place of my own in which to face them both, for a little while, a little while, where i may stand and think,--perhaps even pray. no one was about, except a shaggy pony, grazing in the rich green meadow, with a rough lock of hair over his eyes. i find a little stone bridge across the stream and try to make his acquaintance. he lifts his head and looks at me through his forelock, seems to respond with cordiality to my overtures, whinnies, and even takes a step or two toward me as i draw near; then, when i can almost touch him, gives a queer little toss of his head, kicks up his heels, and dashes off to a rise of ground, where he stands with a triumphant air, his legs planted wide apart, seeming to say: "such be forever the fate of those who try to catch and harness me!" then he falls to grazing again, keeping one eye out to see whether i am coming near. presently came an old man with a rake, and i made some inquiries about the house, but the haymaker's dialect was as hard for me to understand as mine was for him. i learned only that the little 'ouse belonged to the 'all; that it had been occupied by one of the functionaries at the 'all;--it will be good for you, you englishman, to live in a little house once inhabited by an unimportant person, good for you to forget caste and class and bend a bit, if need be, at your own front door! like yourself, young master went with the first adventurers to the war, the old man said, and the 'all was closed. and he added, with significant gestures with his rake, what he would do to "they germans", if he once got hold of them. i judged, by the red satisfaction in his face, that the wooden rake in a shaking old hand constituted for him a vision of "preparedness for war." so there it stands, on the edge of a great estate that sweeps out to eastward; low-lying lines of green in the west mean forest, and that soft look of sky and cloud in the east means the sea. it is absolutely the place for which we looked so long and will satisfy the home sense, so strong in both of us. i wonder at my good fortune in finding it, as i carried on the search alone, and i refuse to entertain the idea that i may not have it for my own. the roof droops low over the windows; there is a tall poplar by the wrought-iron gateway; the brick wall, vine-covered in places, will shut us away from all the world, belovèd. within we shall plant our garden, and light our fire on the hearth, and live our life together, you and i, just you and i. august . but can i get it? i am in a prolonged state of suspense. nobody in the village seems to know anything, but everybody is of firm conviction that somebody higher up knows everything, and that all is well. i appealed to my landlady; she very pleasantly informed me with an air of great wisdom that it might be i could 'ave it, it might be i couldn't; nobody could say. no, she could not tell me to whom to apply, with the 'all closed, as it was, 'm, and the squire away. standing--there was barely standing-place--in her own over-furnished sitting room, filled to its low ceiling with bric-a-brac, whatnots with unshapely vases, tall glass cases with artificial flowers or alabaster vases under them, porcelain figures,--one a genuine purple cow,--she seemed, as many a more imposing person on this side of the water and the other seems, a victim of property. "an' i do 'ave difficulty, miss, in gettin' about," she said, as her apron knocked a dresden china shepherdess and a spanish guitar player off an over-crowded table; "but i don't quite know what to do about it." "a broom!" i suggested. "broom? oh, it's nicely swept, and everything dusted regularly once a week, 'm," she assured me. oh, for one german bomb! luncheon time, and no solution of my problem; a futile visit to the postmistress, who informed me that i should have to wait until the war was over, and master came home to the hall. i was meditating an inquiry at the vicarage, though that involved more audacity than i can easily summon, when my landlord came riding home on a big bony steed and had a conference with his wife in the kitchen. he, it seems, is temporarily agent for the property; he has the keys to the little red house and to my future destiny. i try hard to think what will be pleasing to so huge and so important a personage, as i walk down the village street at his side, two steps to his one. an unfortunate conjecture about the retreat of the british brings forth the emphatic statement that the british never retreat. with a train of thought of which i am, at the time, unconscious, i tell him that i am an american; he listens indifferently. i tell him that my uncle is at the head of an important new york banking house; he at once becomes responsive and respectful. we go through the little iron gate and up the brick walk; out of a vast pocket he takes an old wrought-iron key and unlocks the white front door. as we entered, i had a curious sense that you were inside; i never draw near a closed door without a feeling that it may open on your face. instead, there was only the blankness and the empty odour of a house long closed, and yet it seemed hospitable, as if glad to have me come. i examined every inch of it, peered into each corner, and explored every nook and cranny. it is just as it should be, with low ceilings, old brown rafters, and brick fireplaces,--the one in the kitchen has a crane. the little dining room is panelled, the living room wainscoted; i like the dull old oak woodwork and the solidity of everything, which seems to belong to an elder, stable order, not to this earth-quakey world of to-day. the living room, facing the south, and thus the meadow and the brook, is sunny, but not over-light, with its window seats and casement windows, diamond-paned. the stairs are narrow and a bit cramped, but my landlord of the inn gives me permission--ah, i forgot to say that he tells me i may have the house and grounds for fifty pounds a year; fifty pounds for all this and a running stream too!--permission to make a few changes which i hesitatingly suggested, and for which i shall pay, as the rent is low. there must be a bathroom--perhaps water can be piped from the stream; a partition is to be knocked down, and the stairs will then go up from the living room, not in the little box wherein they are at present enclosed. where can i find an old stair rail and newel post suitable for the old house? mine host will himself attend to the roof and the chimneys; and he says that there are some discarded diamond-paned windows lying in an outhouse at the inn, from which glass may be taken to replace those that are broken, if any one can be found to set it properly. he was amused that i wanted them, amused by my pleasure in the old and quaint. if he had his way, large new panes of glass should go into all windows wheresoever; he would like everything shiny and varnishy. naturally i did not confess, when he apologized for the lack of this and that, that i was glad of the inconveniences, glad of relief from the mechanical and tinkling comforts of our modern life; he would never understand! to speak of an old-fashioned american would be to him a contradiction in terms; yet in some ways we are one of the most conservative people on earth, holding certain old ways of thought most tenaciously. it is only our muscles that are modern! i am very like a pilgrim mother in my convictions of right and wrong. there is some deep reason why many americans care so profoundly for old buildings, old furnishings, old habits which we find here; they typify inner characteristics which we must not forget in a young land where changes come too swiftly. there is a steadfastness about it all; these old stone houses wear a look as if they had been built for something more immutable than human life. never as in these recent wanderings have i had this sense of england, innermost england, of that enduring beauty of spirit best expressed in westminster and the old gothic churches; that england of ancient faiths and old reverences. delicate carving and soft tinted glass bear witness to the richness of inherited spiritual life and make visible the soul of a people grown fine, old, and wise. old shields, grey with hoary dust, still hang on the tombs of those who have fought and conquered, or have been defeated; a sense of old sacredness lingers at oxford's heart,--and yours. there is something here which not all the sins and shortcomings and decadences of contemporary life can change; not the luxury and the selfishness of titled folk whose high glass-guarded walls shut miles of green land away from common people; not the mistakes--and they are many--of the government. back of all this, and beyond, is a something which means keeping, as no other nation keeps, the old and sacred fire, safeguarding civilization from the over-new, the merely efficient, the unremembering. my new abode is lowly and cozy, with a fine simplicity in the antique furniture, carved chest, and plain chairs. the fundamental things are here; you should see the walnut table in the living room, with its deep glow of red-brown colour. there must be some new things, of course, fresh chintzes, linen, kitchen utensils, but for the most part only oil and turpentine and a pair of good red sturdy english arms are needed to remove a certain dinginess. so i've a home of my own, though earth crashes and kingdoms fall and a comet strikes against us and puts us out. for a little i have a fortified spot wherein to defy the worst that time can do. i am a householder, on my own plot of ground, crossing and re-crossing my own threshold; and the big wrought-iron key is in my hand. there are ashes still upon the hearth,--from whose fire? new flame shall go up from the old grey ashes,--the central spark of home shall be rekindled here; and that is the whole story of human life. how fortunate, and how unusual, in so small a house, that the hall leads all the way through from green to green! we shall get all the breezes that blow, for the house faces the west, as all houses should face; and always and forever we shall hear the stream. there's a step there at the back, down to the garden walk, that you must remember, you who are so absent-minded. --i keep forgetting that you are dead. september . i have been away for a week, a week in which i have not dared leave one moment unoccupied. to keep my sanity, i must be busy all the time; life cannot be cut short in this way. when great forces have begun to stir within you, like the gathering of all waters far and near, you cannot safely stop them all at once; i must have, in the weeks to come, some outlet for this surging energy. london is quiet, and awful with the self-control of great tension. the war-terror mounts, though few speak of it; the germans have crossed the marne; the french government has moved to bordeaux, and all the world seems tottering. back in my charmed village, i wait and listen. they would not take me at the front; did you know that, the day after you left, i made an attempt to follow? no training, and physically unfit, was the verdict. i thought that i could perhaps prove to you in act that of which i could not convince you by argument in our dispute the day we walked to godstow,--that women have the kind of courage possessed by men. i live at the inn during these days while my house is being put in order. a glazier has been found who can re-set the old diamond panes; carpenter and plumber are hard at work. the hideous wall-papers in the chambers have been scraped off; they were so ugly that they actually hurt. you always told me, you remember, that i minded too much the things that make for ugliness, that my eye was too sensitive to evil-coloured and unshapely things, and that i must live more in the world of thought. the contrast between these, in their wicked purples and magentas, and the wonderful cottage itself with its dim beauty of old brick and dusky panelling, makes one wonder at the potential depravity of the heart of modern man or woman! there's a shop in london,--i was going to take you there,--where they have reproductions of quaint old papers, the kind made a hundred years ago, with little landscapes, and sheep and shepherds, and odd flower designs. i chose three of these, and they are going on at this minute; i must go to see that they piece the two bits of the shepherdess together neatly and do not leave her head and her beribboned hat dangling several inches above her embroidered bodice. it is a relief to escape from the purple cow and the hundred and one china abominations in this sitting room. my landlady, fingering her black alpaca dress apron, assures me as i go, that the best of news, 'm, has come from the front; that the germans are in full retreat, and the french and the british are nearing berlin! if only this insular confidence that for britons there is no defeat be not too rudely broken! don went with me; i went to oxford to get him during my week away. i am so glad, so very glad that you let me have him when you went to war. he potters along behind me or runs ahead, with all his questing little fox-terrier soul in his eyes, sure, like myself, that around some corner, or on some blessed rise of ground, we shall meet you. at each fresh disappointment he turns to me with that look of perfect trust in his eyes that i, some day when it seems fit, will give you back to him. within five minutes, at his first visit to the little red house, he had sniffed every corner, and he dropped with a deep sigh of content on the warm brick walk, knowing the place for his own. the cloistered oxford gardens, with their incredibly smooth grass, were unchanged, but the immemorial quiet is broken. your oxford is a new oxford, awake, struggling, suffering, nursing the wounded, while the noblest of her sons follow you to the war. thinking of all these things as i walk, i decide not to go to the house, after all; there is a sound of hammering and an air of disquiet. i cross the little stone bridge and follow the stream; this, like the pony, is a new neighbour with which i must become acquainted, and it proves more friendly than that other. there is a touch of september gold everywhere, of autumn perfectness in things, that belies wrong anywhere upon the earth. and all the old days float down the stream; something, the way of the water with the grasses, the ripple of the water, brings back may, and my first english spring, and you. do you remember that my very first glimpse of you was at the union? you were debating, very convincingly, on the subject of disarmament, and proved the possibility, the practicability, of peace among nations. i was idly interested in you; gladys had whispered that you were one of her friends. that night,--but never again,--you were just one of a type to me, with the fine, lean, english look of race, the fine self-control of every nerve and emotion and muscle. i noticed that you were already beginning to have a touch of the scholar stoop, and that you were a shade, just a shade, too slender. it was quite a surprise, and something of a blow to me, to find you english men not, on the whole, so stalwart as the men in america. all our lives we have read of the hale and hearty john bull, yet our first glimpse of you makes us think that john bull and uncle sam will have to change places in the caricatures if this transformation keeps on. the hardest thing in the world for me to understand is that the great things of life may hang on mere trifles. if i had not, acting on a moment's impulse, promised to go into lodgings with gladys in oxford because she would go there to study celtic, icelandic, and greek, i should never have known you, never have walked with you in glory through an english spring, never have picked crocuses in iffley meadows and anemones in bagley wood, never have known that green rippling beauty of oxford stream and meadow and the piercing joy of life and love that came with you. and now---- the vastness of my loss i can not even grasp; my world is swept away from under my feet, and i am alone, with nothing to stand on, nothing to reach in space. dying myself could hardly mean such utter letting go; i am aware only of a great blankness. i have not even tried to measure my disaster, to understand. i shall have all the rest of my life to learn to understand; i come of a long-lived race. that which comes more often than my sense of loss is the sense of my part in letting you go, making you go! you remember that august afternoon when we drifted down the river, for you even forgot to row; the trailing willow branches ruffled our hair and gently took off my hat. it was a lazy, sunshiny, misty afternoon, such a happy afternoon, except for the war-cloud beyond the peace and the exquisite grey and green calm of oxford. you were wondering, idly enough, about war; how was it to be justified? what right had england, with her love of peaceful enlightenment, to take this swift plunge into the awful horror? and you went, my lord hamlet, with that deepening look which showed a soul drawn far within, into a long philosophic discussion as to whether war is ever justifiable; no one could adjust philosophic niceties of thought better than you. could a man of ethical conviction, without outrage to his better self, go into that barbaric hell? all the time that your intellect was balancing, weighing, and deciding "no!" old impulses were stirring, old heroic fingers were tugging from their graves, old simple-minded forebears were alive and awake, impelling you. the green, lovely banks grew dim; the shadows lengthened across the rippling water, and sunset flushed the western sky beyond the overhanging branches, while you fought it out. when you turned and asked me squarely, what could i say? it had seemed so piteously, cruelly simple to me from the first, so simple and so great! of course, i come of the practical american race. back of me lie generations of ancestors who have had to act and act quickly without exhausting the ultimate possibilities of thought on any subject. i do not mean that they have done unjustifiable things, but that they have had to take life at the quick. when the indian brandished his tomahawk inside the door at the baby in the cradle, some one had to shoot and shoot instantly, without stopping to ask any authority whether shooting was wrong. that actually happened in my family; it was a little great-great-great-great-great-grandmother of mine. her pilgrim father was quite right. even if his mind told him that it was wrong, which i judge was not the case, there was something in him deeper down and farther back than mere intellect; he did the right thing and did it instinctively, lord hamlet. of course, in reality, his intellectual problem had been settled when he loaded his gun. all life is transition, and always has been. as i understand it, with one's ancestor one has to load one's gun with one hand, while reaching forward with the other to one's descendant for the pipe of peace. one has to keep collected, centered, ready to do one's utmost in any need; the luxury of the last shade of reasoning is denied us as yet: our task is not to fail at the crisis. what could i say, when you asked me, except the cruelly hard thing which i did say? back of me, as back of you, lie the same fighting, plucky ancestors. the same heroic impulses that stirred their dust stir mine, and yours,--alas that it has but feminine dust to stir in me! to me, as to you, there is but one answer in the world to a question like that. there had never been any real doubt in my mind as to what you would do; i think that there had never been any real doubt in your own mind. in the great moments, life seems neither right nor wrong, but something greater; it seems inevitable. poor belgium and the baby in the cradle come back to my mind together, the highly "efficient" tomahawk replaced by the highly "efficient" siege guns. but even apart from the high justice of this issue, england was in trouble, england was fighting. what was there for you to do but help? i said only the one word "go," and even now i can recall the stillness and the wash of the ripples against our boat and through the grasses. the silence of perfect beauty rested on sky and tree and water, and the river no longer seemed a little inland stream flowing softly through grassy meadows with retarding locks, but a flowing passageway to some great sea. the days that followed i count off on my fingers as one counts a rosary; there were not many, not so many as our prayers. such little scraps of them, mere fragments, come to me, shining fragments which i treasure and shall always treasure like bits of priceless jewels: in all my mental store there is nothing quite so precious. i was busy every minute, trying to console your mother and your sister, who thought you ought not to go; trying to make them see. it is as if the sun were still illuminating those days, making them forever radiant. it seemed enough to live, to try, to give one's all, not knowing; it was not hard _then_; nothing could be hard in moments of exaltation like those. they were full too of homely toil; such queer things we had to do in getting you ready, dear. of course you were not a trained soldier; how to become a trained soldier in a week of short days is a harder problem than many a one in philosophy. when you decided that you would be a despatch bearer and join the motorcycle brigade, because thus you could go to the front sooner, i am proud that i did not say one word of protest, though i knew that it was the most dangerous task of all. being a despatch bearer seemed a fitting service for an intellectual leader. how we laughed as you practised riding! lord hamlet on a motorcycle, with no time for thought, no time for scruple! how we searched out rough bits of road and watched you try to cross a newly-mown meadow, where late poppies, i remember, were blossoming in the stubble. once you struck a stone and fell, and your mother amazed you by crying out. i laughed and horrified her; but i kissed its handles before you went. the motorcycle had been to me the most hateful of modern inventions, inexcusable, unmentionable. and here it became a symbol of dauntless courage and highest service; beyond the bravery necessary for a charge in battle is the bravery needed here; this evil, roaring, puffing thing might turn into the chariot that would carry you over the borders of the sun. that one brief hour that we found to steal away to bagley wood lingers yet. the anemones were gone, but all about was the soft midsummer murmur, and the ripe fulness of august life. what practical things we talked about! i think that we sent you out fitted up as well as any german soldier of them all. who, in the kaiser's army, had a more complete or smaller sewing kit? who had thread wound off on very diminutive bits of cardboard to save the space that spools would take,--white linen and black linen and khaki coloured, all very strong? what teuton could challenge you on the score of buttons? it was good, it was very good, in your mother to let me help. you thought i never wavered; when you were doubting, i was sure; when you were sure,--you never knew that i wrote you a note that last night and took back my decision, saying that thinkers had their own separate task, and that you should stay. i burned it.... i would not have you back, dear, if it meant giving up that inmost you i knew in those glorified few days. you have fulfilled yourself. september . who is going to keep house for me--that is the problem? somebody there must be to cook and clean and polish; a staff composed of one british female is what i need, for i can do many, very many things myself. mine host and my landlady took counsel; i let them do a great deal of thinking for me, for their minds are rusty from disuse; you can actually hear a kind of creaking when they try to make them go. they finally decided that i was to drive in a pony cart to a village off to eastward, to consult madge and peter snell, man and wife, both from a different part of the country, lately employed at the hall as under-cook and gardener, now out of work because the hall is closed. i readily agreed; yes, i was used to driving, and the directions--first turn at the left, then a bit of road and a turn at the right, 'm, and then a long stretch across a dike to a stone bridge and a stream and a village spire--seemed clear enough. but when my equipage is drawn up at the inn door, whom do i see but my wayward friend of the meadow, harnessed to an absurd little basket-cart as diminutive as he. i am delighted to see him; is the pleasure mutual? he gives me one look out of his eyes that seems to say he will be even with me yet; don leaps to a place of honour in the cart, and we go flying down the village street with sparks flashing from the iron-shod little hoofs. drive? yes, i am accustomed to driving _horses_, but not pucks, not changelings; i never, never drove a mischievous kitten fastened to a baby carriage! and that little "trap" was a trap indeed! what breed my pony is, as mortals reckon things, i do not know; he is too big for a shetland, too little for a horse; perhaps he is an exmoor pony, or the product of some northern heath. we go gaily to the left, somewhat perilously near a corner at the right, and we are out racing over a long dike built across what was once a low-lying sea-meadow. don looks up at me with vast enjoyment in his eyes, and that little quiver of the face that means a fox-terrier smile. about half-way across we come to a gate; there is nothing to do but for me to get out to open it, and this i do. swift as a flash, my puck whirls about and goes dashing for home; holding tightly to the reins, i run also, laughing as i have not laughed for days. don, with his paws on the edge of the cart, barks furiously. pulling and dragging with all my might, at length i stop the pony. the little wretch looks at me almost respectfully as i turn him about, and he trots meekly back; he was only trying me out, to see of what stuff i was made. he stood as firmly as the tower of london as i shut the gate and climbed into the cart. then came the stream and the stone bridge and the village spire; and a row of small garden plots with yellow, late summer things blossoming in them, and madge and peter standing by a garden gate. i knew at first glance that they must both come; now that i think of it, i have quite a garden, though it will seem little to one who has worked at the 'all; there are always heavy things to be done about the kitchen, and peter knows more than he will admit about the drudgery necessary to sustain human life. peter, it seems, has been a soldier, has served in the south african war, and is a time-expired man who has beaten his sword into a ploughshare,--or is it a pruning hook? but none of his accomplishments is my real reason; the half-belligerent affection on the face of husband and wife shows me that they should not be separated. madge, the look of anxiety already lifting from her smooth and comely face,--one sees that look here in many of the unemployed,--looks questioningly at peter when i extend my invitation. i assure him that i need a man to look after the garden and the pony; at this puck pricks up his ears and gives me a half glance. yes, i have decided to have him, if i may, for my very own. there is a remote something in peter's gait and bearing that suggests the soldier, but it is the soldier whose long leisure re-acts against the discipline. "but perhaps you were thinking of going to the war?" i ask. "no, miss," said peter, "i weren't." he spoke so emphatically that i may have raised my eyebrows; perhaps i shook my head. i shall be afraid of borrowing unconsciously some of the pony's gestures; these strong personalities always leave their impress. "war," said peter firmly, "is against my principles. i am a socialist." "it's a fine way to keep from serving king and country, being a socialist," said madge unkindly. madge is evidently not progressive. "my fellow man," said peter, striking the gate post with a heavy fist, "is more to me than king or 'ouse of lords." "or fellow woman, either," murmured madge, thinking that i did not hear. from these advanced radical theories madge and i turn back, as women will, to the old and homely needs of human life. she fingers her apron. "i'm sure, miss, if the laundry could be put out----" "yes." "and a charwoman for the rough scrubbing----" "yes." "and if you wouldn't mind me knowing little about waiting at table----" "with but one person in the family, that isn't very complex," i say reassuringly. don looks reproachfully at me; was i forgetting him? i watched don to see how he would take them; his manner was perfection,--polite but distant, refusing any intimate advances, but refraining from growling. there was a certain approving condescension in his air, as if he thought they were quite well in their way. he never for a moment forgets that he is a gentleman's dog, and his flair for social distinctions is as fine as that of any of his fellow oxford dons. that delicate snobbery showed to-day in his air of connoisseurship while he weighed the matter with daintily snuffing nose and then assumed an air of invitation to these two to come and keep their place. i was delighted when they said that they would come, and we trotted merrily home to the shining companionship of the hearth fire, flickering on pewter pots and copper pans as on my landlady's red cheeks; to the comfort--ah, that i, a twentieth-century american, dare confess it--of a feather bed! september . here i live in mine own hired house, like the gentleman in the bible,--who was it,--paul? i hope only that he had one half the sense of entire possession that is mine. i look at madge and peter, busy in kitchen and garden, at don, guarding the little iron gate, at the pony grazing beyond the stream, and i feel like a feudal lord. especially do i feel so when we rout out the utensils in the kitchen,--knives, forks, skillets. some of them surely antedate the feudal era; they were probably left by the cave men; their prehistoric shape, in its ancient british clumsiness, looks as if it might have archæological, if not practical, value. i shall use them for gardening; the forks will be a great help in wrestling with mother earth. wrestle i do, indoors and out; i dare not be idle, and besides, i like to do these things. the vicar's lady, passing, is shocked to see me scraping the putty off of my new-old diamond-paned windows; but somebody had to get it off; madge couldn't, so why not i? madge watches me working about, torn between her old attitude of maid at the hall, with its fixed ideas as to what the gentry should do, and a something new that is slowly creeping into her mind. throughout england, i am told, the gentry are doing things they used not to do,--for economy, for possible service to the country in its day of need. and it is slowly dawning on us all that its need is great. the germans have been halted on the marne, and we breathe more easily, but it is rumoured that they have brought their great siege guns up to antwerp, and the poor belgians are flocking over here in hordes. madge, as she sees me toiling over my chintz curtains, and sees the bothersome things come down to my undoing, wants to know why i wished to come, quite by myself; why i didn't take lodgings somewhere,--it would be far less trouble. she doesn't understand in the least when i tell her that i cannot endure the irrelevance of lodgings, the antimacassars, the hideous bric-a-brac, the rooms packed full of horrors, where i cannot collect my mind. a home of your own is worth while, if only to keep it bare of human clutter; bad pictures intimidate me; ugly upholstery defeats my soul. of provincial england i could say, if it weren't profane, all thy tidies and thy ugly reps have gone over me. the publicity of hotel or boarding house i cannot endure, nor the kind of tissue-paper life that one must live there. not among gilt cornices but beside meadows and running waters i choose my lot. your relatives are kindness itself in inviting me to stay with them, but just now i cannot bear kindness; i want people to be as cruel as god! was i not lonely enough, after my own family had vanished into the silence; why did you come into my life only to leave me more alone? this is my _apologia pro domicilio meo_, but why, after all, should i need to explain a longing for my own rooftree, my own hearth, my own pathway leading to my own front door? i must have come into the world with a belief that for every woman born was intended a little nook or corner or cranny of her own. so here is mine, a quarter of a mile from the village, not many miles from the sea, seventy odd miles from london, and how far from that heaven where you are? can you tell me the way and the length of the road? sometimes it seems set on the very edge of eternity, and i keep expecting to see stray cherubim, seraphim, and angels stop to ask the rest of the way. i haven't begun on the garden; in a way i haven't let myself see it, there has been so much to do in the house; but, if you will believe it, and of course you will, being an englishman, a plum tree and a pear tree are espaliered on the sunny southern wall of the house, branching out a bit over one of the windows. there are two apple trees, a clump of holly, ferns in a corner, rosebushes, and climbing roses. i shall not know all the colours until next summer, though some of them bloom late; i have discovered white ones, and pale yellow, and one of a deep and lovely red. the garden is neglected, weedy, and grass-grown, but i find hollyhocks, foxglove, larkspur, and a forgotten violet bed. a small kitchen garden borders my lady's garden, and peter shall till this. don walks up and down the paths with a step so exactly fitted to your old pace in the college gardens that i feel always a little shock of surprise in not seeing you, as of old, just ahead. scraps of conversation drift to me from madge and peter when they happen to work together; upon the invincibility of the british they agree, and upon the fact that no foe will ever dare set foot upon the british isles, but in matters of social opinion they are hopelessly at variance. madge is a conservative, standing staunchly by the church, the 'all, the 'ouse of lords; peter is an extreme radical, a "hatheist", as he solemnly informed me, eager for anything new in word or thought, and usually misappropriating both. he reads american paper-covered novels, and a touch of transatlantic slang creeps now and then into his conversation, or a queer abstract phrase from some socialist lecturer whom he doesn't understand but accepts entire. many a bit of stubborn debate comes to me through open door or window, as peter defends his rights as man and scoffs at the social system. "wy _'im_ at the 'all? wy not me?" was the last i heard. "you!" said madge scornfully. "you couldn't even stand up on the floors, they are that shiny and polished." with the fragrance of ripening fruit, and the warmth of the brick wall about me,--september is september everywhere,--i sit here upon my own threshold, a worn old threshold made wise by the coming and going of life through unnumbered years. there is something comforting about a place where many lives have been lived; the windows have a strange air of wisdom, as if experience itself were looking out. i am tired, physically tired, with all the work, but i am well content with it: are you? all within is nearly finished. your books, for your mother gave me many of them, are in a set of shelves i had made by the fireplace; my own in a low case that runs all across one side of the room. the window seats have chintz cushions; two easy chairs flank the fireplace; the old walnut table with reading lamp is placed where it can command either the flame of the hearth or the sunset flame: do you like all this, i wonder? in the little dining room a stately armchair stands ready for you always, as befits the master of the house, and your place at table shall be always set, the cover laid. so begins our divine housekeeping, you on your side, i on mine--alas!--of the universe and life and time. last night i laid a scarf of yours, which i had been wearing, across your chair; don sniffed at it and whimpered, then jumped up into the chair and whined piteously. no, do not be afraid! i shall not whine, even if my heart break. i shall come to you smiling, belovèd, and whatever wrinkles are on my face shall not be worn by tears. everybody is _game_ in england now; i will be game too! there are no cowards among those who go to fight, or those who are left at home: my battlefield lies here. you need not think i am going to mourn in loneliness; i shall not let you go, though you are dead; i am going to live my life in and for you, and every least wish i ever heard you express shall be carried out. after dinner don and i sat on the rug in front of the fire and talked about you; it is sorry comfort for both of us, but it is all we have. for him, as for me, i think, the sense of you comes more strongly in favoured nooks and corners, by the fire on the hearth, or by the living room windows in the sunshine. he knows you better than anybody else does, except me, and i sometimes feel,--at least, he remembers farther back than i can, and i am envious of him and of every one else who knew you first. he has chosen his permanent abiding-place, for he went close to the right side of the hearth, sat down, wagged his tail beseechingly, and held up one paw as he does when he is begging for things. so i have closed my little iron gate,--madge, peter, don, and i inside, and all the world shut outside. perhaps i am moved by the instinct of the hurt animal to go away by itself and hide. it cannot be wrong--now; henceforth i must live in the past; the dropping of the latch will be the signal, and the old days will slip back one by one over the brick wall. i shall establish a blockade; haven't i a right? the pain, at times, is more than i can bear, and every face i see recalls the sight of happy people, the sight of wretched people alike. safe, with my sorrow, inside these walls; and outside, the surge of great sorrows, anguish, perplexity. october . of course i take long walks day by day, yet nothing more intensifies my sense of loss, perhaps, because we walked so much together. the country is as green as it was that july day when we stopped and helped the haymakers in the oxford meadows, and they jeered good-naturedly at our way of raking. i have found relief in watching the harvesting and the gathering of the fruit; looking resolutely at field and stream, centering mind and soul there, my grief softens and grows more kind. everywhere i see the picturesque and finished charm of english life. as i climb the hill past the church, the old, old woman who lives in the little house by the lych gate,--the churchyard gate, the gate of the dead,--and sells gingerbread, biscuit, and ginger ale, is putting out her wares. she is so old, so much a part of the other world, she lives so near the edge of this, that i half suspect her, as i catch a glimpse of the green mounds through the rusted wrought-iron bars, of ministering to those we cannot see. none but the english would think of selling gingerbread at heaven's gate! over the soft gurgle of ale from the stone jars we exchange greetings; she is only another of your daring and delightful incongruities, seen in the gargoyles on your cathedrals, the jokes in your tragedies, and the licensed mischief of your oxford students on commemoration day. the practical necessities of life take me, perforce, beyond my own domain. i have made the acquaintance of butcher and baker; that of the candlestick maker is still to come. the passing faces of people in the village street, even of farmers stopping at the inn, i begin to recognize; the latter look little more concerned about the present crisis than do their stout nags. life goes quietly on here, as it has always done, i fancy; steps are scrubbed, and brasses of knocker and door latch are polished until you can see your face there. is this encompassing calm mere apathy, or is it conscious strength? in his little shop the sleepy chemist wakens unwillingly to deal out his wares; the sleepy service goes on as of old in the little church. it is grey with dust; perhaps the caretaker does not think it worth while to dust in war-time, yet i doubt whether he knows there is war. in the bakeshop window day by day are displayed the great clumsy loaves of bread with the foolish little loaf tucked on at one side. why? there's neither rhyme nor reason nor symmetry in it; the force of custom may be wise and may be merely stupid. here one gets constantly an impression of the overwhelming power of old habit and has a feeling that unless these people are shocked out of some of their ancient ways, disaster will follow. as i collect my wares, i fall to wondering whether either this nation, which worships its past, or we, who worship our future, is wholly right. if, at times, a doubt intrudes in regard to this british clinging to the past, it is when the door of the one village shop tinkles at my entrance, and i ask in vain for the common necessities which it is supposed to supply. here are pictures of queen victoria and all the royal family, but no tapes, no trustworthy thread, no pins, at least no pins with points. i brought home a paper of these soft little british crowbars, but alas! fingers cannot drive them in; they but crumple if, in desperation, you urge them too vigorously. how can a nation rule the sea; above all, how can it conquer in a mechanical war when it cannot even make decent _pins_? my mood softens as i stroll toward home; the glow of the blacksmith's forge fascinates me; there at least is tremendous strength, which is also skill, welding in this most ancient art, blow upon blow, old-fashioned horseshoes, which i am told are the best. past quaint old doorways my path leads; the sight of these, and of fine old-fashioned faces behind the windowpanes, revives my normal mood of affection. what other people would, in reverence to wishes of those long dead, give out the dole of widows' bread at westminster, the daily dole at winchester, or administer the leicester charity at warwick in the spirit in which it was meant? what other people would be honest enough to do it? there is a basic honesty here which recalls the old tale of lincoln and the money he saved for many years, in order to give back the identical coins with which he had been entrusted. as i enter my own domain, i observe once more that my gate does not latch properly; all this time, when i have found it left open, i have reproached peter. "peter, you did not shut the gate." "no, miss," rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. "you must be more careful." "yes, miss." this has happened several times; today i found that no power could make it really latch, and i confided the fact to peter. "yes, miss, i knew it all along, miss." "but why--" there i stopped; i should rather never know why than to try to penetrate the wooden impenetrability of mind of the british serving-man. there are no "whys" in their vocabularies, no "whys" in their minds, only "thus and so." things are as they are; it has always been so; theirs to stand under the atlas weight of caste and class, prejudice and custom, not theirs to reason why, when they are blamed by their masters for things not their fault; theirs to go on digging, very respectfully digging. "peter, will you get some one to fix it, please?" "fix it, miss?" he does not understand americanese unless he chooses. "put it in order." i am quite red and haughty now, and as dignified as queen alexandra. "i'll try, miss. i expect that was broken a long time ago." peter half salutes and goes on spading the earth for next year's flowers. "peter," i say severely, "the most lamentable thing about you english is that you are always 'expecting' things that have already happened. it's both grammatically and politically wrong to expect things in the past." he has not the slightest idea of my meaning, but of course he assents. "you were a soldier once, weren't you?" "yes, miss. it's a nasty business." "slavery," i venture, "would be worse." "i can't say, really," answers peter. "sometimes i wonder that you do not volunteer for this war, peter," i suggest. stolid peter goes on digging. "there h'isn't any war, miss!" "but peter, what do you mean?" a fine look of cunning incredulity over-spreads peter's broad face, as he stops and wipes his forehead, for this october day is warm. "no, miss; it is just a scare got up by the 'ouse of lords to frighting the common people." "what for?" i ask stupidly. "to take their minds off the 'ouse of lords; we had threatened their power, 'm, and they wish to keep their seats. it is what you call a roose." "peter," i say severely, "day by day we hear through the newspapers of terrible fighting going on all the time; how can you say such a foolish thing?" "the newspapers, 'm," said peter, with frightful audacity, "are corrupted, bought by the 'ouse of lords. they say what they are hordered to." "the poor belgians are pouring into this country," i say in wrath. "beg parding, miss, but i haven't seen a belgian," answers doubting peter. "day by day we hear of recruits going by hundreds to the recruiting stations----" "i'm not denying that they may be making up the army, 'm, and that there may be war some day; but that a war is on, i deny, 'm." so this is what happens when the british lower classes begin to think! there really ought to be some better way of bridging the gulf between their old, automatic habits and the new working of their minds. "they are carrying soldiers across the channel by thousands," i say indignantly. "all bunkum, if you'll kindly excuse the word, miss. did robinson crusoe really happen? we 'ear of these things going on, but do _you_ know of anybody who has actually been killed, 'm?" asks peter. i looked at him, but i could not speak. where are you lying, dear, in that awful field of death? october . i was pruning and tying up rose vines, by my wrought-iron gate that stands ajar, when i heard a noise,--first, a skurrying of feet, and a shout, then a rush of something small and swift. the tiniest grey kitten imaginable had dashed in through the opening and was trembling in a corner under my rosebush. i picked it up and went quickly to the gate; there was a red-faced urchin waiting, his mouth open, a stone in one hand ready to throw at the kitten if it came out, but shy of entering,--the british respect for a gate! neither my pleas nor my scolding brought a shade of expression to his face; it was as guileless, as soulless, as a jack-o'-lantern. i give the boy tuppence, and tell him to go away, and to be kind to animals; the kitten curls itself about my neck and purrs, as i work in the earth. of course i shall keep it; i am glad that the latch will not hold, and i shall not even try to have it repaired. perhaps my garden may serve as a refuge for small hunted things, suffering things. i might have a ring put on my gate; you remember the ring upon the cathedral door at durham to which a fugitive could cling? all the village criminals--i wonder who the village criminals are? probably the ones who look least so!--could cling to it, and peter could rescue them, and madge and i could give them tea. and now to help on the millennium a bit by establishing an intimacy between the refugee kitten and snobbish little don. in his heart i think he wants to make friends; but when a common kitten, with no pedigree and no oxford training, spits at him, what is he to do? he looks piteously at me as i bid him be gentle; sniffs in half friendly fashion, and keeps his delicate nose well away from the claws. meanwhile, how can i teach the kitten _noblesse oblige_? i shall name it the atom, because, it being (so much of the time) invisible, like the scientists i am unable to tell whether or not it exists; and because at moments it seems only a "mode of motion." not long after came a little squeal, as of a tiny pig; my flower beds! i hurry down; the gate is farther open, and there is a huge baby, a gingerbread baby,--no, it is alive, but it has the shape of gingerbread babies in the shops, and it has the motions of a gingerbread baby,--not a joint in its body; "moving all together if it move at all." its round blue eyes, its round red mouth look frightened in don's presence and mine; then, with another little squeal, it flings itself upon don, who draws away, looks at me inquiringly, with that questioning paw uplifted, shivering a little, all his class-consciousness astir: must he make friends with _this_? it is a solid british lump, but friendly beyond belief. in feeling that it would further the _entente cordiale_ between the two peoples, i find myself making a playhouse, with tiny pebbles. the infant briton is not so phlegmatic, after all; it shouts with delight, flings itself upon my knees, and embraces them so suddenly and so lustily that i nearly fall over.... i must find out its name and send to london for a teddy bear and some toys. my gate is wide open, ever since peter started to escort home my uninvited guest.... it proves quite a day for adventure, and yet i have not been beyond my garden wall. as i sit on my threshold to watch the sunset, i see, pausing at that open gate, a tired-looking woman, with her baby in her arms. she starts to move away, but i speak to her, and she enters; at first glance i know that she is neither tramp nor beggar and half divine her errand. yes, she is a soldier's wife; he is going in a few days to the front, and she is walking a good part of the way from the north of england to his training camp at salisbury plain, to let him see and say good-bye to the baby on whom he has never set his eyes; it is only seven weeks old and was born after he volunteered. she had money enough to come only a certain distance by train. the mother is a north-country woman, with a touch of scotch about her, clean and sweet, though a bit dusty with the long road. of course i take her in for the night; we have a wee guest-chamber. don and the kitten and i try to make friends with the baby, but it merely howls. madge wanted to keep the travellers in the kitchen, but i would not permit this and said that my soldier's wife must dine with me. i forgot to say, i took it for granted that madge would know enough to lay another cover at table and was not prepared to see the stranger in your place. naturally, though i winced, i could not make any change, and there she sat, a bit awed; probably she would have been happier in the kitchen with the baby; but she brightened up and told me some of the border legends, when she found that i already knew some. my desire to take her out of your chair lasted through the soup and half-way through the modest roast; when we reached the salad, there was a hurt sense somewhere within me that it was right. i had become a christian by the time the dessert came on, and in the afterglow by the fire, while she sang her baby to sleep most enchantingly with an old north-country song, i resolved to do just this: keep your chair for wandering guests, fugitives from these highways and hedges. your intense present life with me, your subtle nearness needs, after all, no help from outer object or material thing. alas for my blockade!... forts are proving useless, the war news says. it sets me to thinking, and i sit by the fire long after my guests have gone to sleep. after all, it seems a pity to work so hard over a house and to get it ready, unless you get it ready for something. i don't know how it could be managed in a maiden lady's home, but what if i resolved that all the things that should happen in a house should happen here? in my heart of hearts i know, in spite of this blinding sorrow, that i do not want to be shut off from the main streams of human life. they used to tell me that i have a genius for home; suppose i establish this as a wee home in a warring universe for the use of whomsoever? not a home with a large h, but a little home, with a dog and a cat and a singing teakettle. the lord did not make me for great causes,--not for a philanthropist, nor a leader of men, nor a suffragette. i have no understanding of masses of mankind, and so am lost in this era, and hopelessly behind the times. life seems to me, as it did to my grandfather, primarily as the conscientious fulfilment of individual obligation, which inevitably reaches out to other lives. the troubles of individual men and women and children i used to understand, to try to help; perhaps i can again. though it means confessing that i belong to a type of woman rapidly becoming extinct, all my life long i have felt that i should be content with a hearthstone and threshold of my own, with natural relationships and real neighbours. if i can understand and pity and try to help, why am i not doing it now, pig that i am? birth, and death, and marriage, and hours of common life! ah, if the little red house could only lend itself once more to all human need! october . my jeannie deans is gone; she was in such haste that she could hardly wait for her breakfast. i got mine host to drive her to the station, for i shall not let her walk the rest of the way, and i gave her all the money i could find in the house, including all i could extract from madge's and peter's pockets, and from madge's broken teapot. unfortunately, it was not so much as i could have wished, but it will provide for a few days. now we haven't ha'pence in the house; so much the better, if the burglar with whom i am threatened by the boding village gossips should call; but i must drive over to shepperton, the market town, and call at the outland and county bank, and get some of those clean, crisp, dainty notes that are a delight to touch. it seems lonely without jeannie; peter has gone away over hill and dale to get fertilizer for my garden; my house is empty, swept, and garnished--i have been dreading the moment when everything would be done. i carry on madge's education, for i am trying to teach her english history. yesterday it was william the conqueror; she did not believe a word of it, but she very politely said: "just fancy!" most of these people know so little of their own history that they scorn the idea that anything unfortunate ever happened to england and scoff at a statement that she has ever been worsted in a fight. it has always been as it is, the king on the throne, the vicar in the pulpit, the squire at the hall, and the island secure from all attack. to butcher and baker and candlestick maker in the village, danger or threatened change is inconceivable; england's past defeats sound to them like fairy stories devised by enemies, though they lend a willing ear to the tale of england's triumphs. going back to ancient times, i told madge about the danes and their landing on this coast, about the burning and pillaging done by these wild folk: all that she remarked was: "how awkward!" i could not get her to entertain for a moment the idea, though we are only a few miles from the north sea, that the enemy could ever land on english shores. "hengland rules the seas," and that is all there is to it. antwerp has fallen, but even this does not shake the prevailing sense of security. antwerp is not england! in contemporary matters madge is quite interested; she thinks great scorn of the suffragettes: "breaking the windows, 'm, and biting mr. hasquith, 'm; it's not for ladies to be taking part in public matters; they 'aven't it in them!" i reminded her of queen elizabeth, but she had never heard of queen elizabeth, and refused to entertain the idea that any such woman had ever ruled england. even the tale of the virgin queen boxing the courtiers' ears she disbelieved with the rest. she admitted queen victoria, but said that it was "so different, 'm, and she a mother and a grandmother." some of this went on while madge was doing up the guest room; she wanted simply to spread the coverlid over the bed, as it probably would not be used again for a long time. i insisted, however, that the bed be made ready with fresh sheets; some one might stop at any minute, i explained. madge looked at me with question in her eye; her impression of me up to this point is that i am an amiable lunatic who may at any minute change to violence. after luncheon i made peter go and get the pony for me; yes, the pony is now exclusively my own, for as long a time as i wish. he is almost the most interesting personality i have ever known,--wilful, conscientious, full of conviction in regard to what he considers his duty and what he looks upon as his privileges. there are spurts, attended by dashing heels and swishing tail, of strict and spirited performance of his allotted tasks; there is peasant stubbornness, attended by stiffened legs and tenacious hoofs, of resistance to evil. he is british, or scotch, to the core. evidently he feels that his ancestors had a hand, a hoof, i mean, in the magna charta, and all the liberty that is coming to him he means to have, and all the obligations resting upon him he means to fufil, in his own way, at his own time. sometimes he will do far more than he is asked, scornful of other people's ideas; has he not his own? he is full of punctiliousness, decency, order, when he feels like it; of utmost freedom, even license also, when he feels like it. now and then he runs away, purely, i think, on the principle of: "british ponies never shall be slaves." gentle when you would least expect it, fractious when you are most unprepared, he looks upon whizzing motor cars with calm tolerance, so unlike my own feeling that i may well cultivate his acquaintance in order to learn that wise indifference. it is as if he were disdainful of anything the modern world could invent to frighten him or get in his way; here is an ancient british self-possession, a sense of ownership in the soil. his ancestors were here hundreds of years before these trifling modernisms appeared; william the conqueror and his norman steeds were but parvenus and upstarts to them. he will shy at a floating feather, but i doubt if he would shy at a zeppelin. like many another staunch character, he takes gallantly the real troubles of life, balking only at the trifles. "i should like to know," i said meekly, as we started, "whether it is one of my days for obeying you, or one of your days for obeying me? when i find out, i shall conduct myself accordingly." i got no answer, yet i soon discovered. there is really something uncanny about him; he seems to know more than horse or human should know; to have foreknowledge of events. i must not tell his master, or the charges will be raised from five shillings a week perhaps to eight; after all, eight shillings for supernatural wisdom would not be unreasonable! on the other hand, if it was just plain british contrariness, eight shillings would be too much, as there is such an over-supply of the commodity. i was driving out in the forest to westward, and it is very beautiful with its great oaks and birches, and its loveliness of yellowing fern. in spite of the mellow octoberness everywhere, i was thinking sad thoughts; all day you can drive here and yet hardly cross one man's possessions; much of the land lies idle, while people starve in england; much of it is preserved,--the poor tame pheasants are as friendly as domestic hens. the tax for charity here is one shilling four pence a pound; as i read this, i thought of london with its starving poor, its ribald poor, and i wondered if this great kingdom will vanish because the people do not pull together better. the blind selfishness of the upper class with their glass-guarded walls is a greater menace than the german siege guns. i came to a cross road, or cross path, grassy paths both, with creeping green moss among the roots of the trees on either side. it was hard to decide which way to go; i chose the right and pulled the rein; puck chose the left and started. i tugged at the right and told him to go on; he said he wouldn't; again i told him, and he shook his head, shook himself all over with his head down, until his harness rattled. when i told him a third time, he stamped, kicked, and pulled with all his might to the left. of course he got his way; some people passed; i was not going to be convicted of inadequate horsemanship, being only an american, so i assumed a calm and masterful british look, as if that were the way i had all along meant to go, and we jogged on. the self-satisfaction in that little creature's air! he turned his head around now and then, trying to see how i was taking it; having had his own way, he went at a jolly pace; he loves to start rabbits and make the pheasants fly up. presently, at a turn in the road, he shied; he did it quite theatrically, as if he had worked it all out in his mind and had achieved the intended effect. he expected me to be startled and to rein him in, fighting to control him, but i did nothing of the kind. i merely let the reins lie loose and watched him; he subsided very suddenly and dejectedly at having lost his fun. then i saw what he was shying at and stopped him; i think that he had known all along what he was going to find! there, under a great oak tree, partly hidden by tall bracken, lay a girl with her eyes closed, her hat partly off her head, looking like one who was very tired and had fallen in her tracks to go to sleep. in a minute i was at her side, holding tightly to the reins, for fear of what that little wretch might do, but he was as immovable as stonehenge. she was quite young, very wan and pale, fairly well dressed but crumpled looking. her hair was dark, and her eyes, when she slowly opened them, proved to be dark also. i do not know yet whether she had fainted, or whether she was asleep from exhaustion; her poor feet showed that she had walked many miles, for the soles of her shoes were worn through. at sight of me she sat up, looking frightened, but, evidently finding that i was not so terrible, at length smiled back,--a faint little smile. i knew enough to be silent at first; this is something that i have learned from animals: there are sympathies, understandings, that antedate words. when i asked her very softly if she were ill, she shook her head, not understanding. i tried french, and, though my french is odd, i know, she brightened, clasped her hands together, giving a great sigh, and then tears began to roll down her face. that villain of a pony looked around now and then as if to say: "_who_ was right about the road? you would never have found her if i had not had my way." if he had been commissioned by the government to help in giving first aid, he could not have acted with more sense of responsibility than he did in helping me take her home, standing motionless while she climbed into the cart, so weak with hunger, she confessed, that she could hardly move,--then speeding fast where the road was smooth, and going very slowly where the carters' wheels have left deep ruts in the mossy soil. he really has more than human sense at times! don, of his own accord, leaped in beside the fugitive; at times i think that his spirit is really becoming more catholic, and that he demands less in the way of credentials and introductions than of old. the girl's pluck interested me, for, though she could hardly hold herself upright, she refused my help. suddenly, from nowhere, a phrase flashed into my mind, "l'independence beige", and i knew--what afterward proved to be true--that she was one of the many belgian refugees in england, though why she was wandering about by herself in this remote corner of england i did not know until afterward. as we jogged on, over the meadows and through the village street, she held herself so bravely that nobody stared, though she was white to the lips. she even managed to walk into the house, but, once inside, sank down on the couch and fainted quite away. madge and i worked over her, giving her drops of warm milk with a wee bit of brandy, taking the shoes from her poor blistered feet, and bathing them. you should have heard madge when i told her that i thought the girl was one of the fugitive belgians; to take a red-hot poker to the kaiser seemed to be her lightest wish for vengeance. when our guest was in bed, all fresh and clean, with her hair brushed smoothly from her forehead, i could see that she was a sweet and wholesome maiden, with a comely, housewifely air, and my heart ached for her sufferings. she ate a little, then lay with her eyes full of tears that she would not let fall; she kept winking her long lashes to keep them back. don jumped up beside her and snuggled close; she smiled, lifted her hand to his head for a minute, then she went to sleep. such sleep i never saw,--deep, long, dreamless; hour by hour she lay there, not moving all night long, for i crept in now and then: i could not sleep. don kept watch until morning. she did not waken until after ten; there was a flush in her cheeks, and her eyes were starry, but in her face, young as she seemed, was a foreshadowing of the worn look of age and sorrow that the years should bring, not the german army! she wore an air of wistful questioning to which there is no answer, as she lay twisting weakly a simple ring about her third finger. we had a funny time trying to talk; la fontaine's fables and racine's _athalie_, as taught in a young ladies' finishing school, are not the best basis for a conversation on the practical needs of life. i wanted to ask her if she liked sugar and cream in her coffee; all i could think of was "c'était pendant l'horreur d'une profonde nuit, ma mère jézebel devant moi s'est montrée." i did succeed in telling her that this was probably not as good as belgian coffee; she sipped it gratefully and nibbled her toast, putting her hand on mine and saying that it was "delicious, mademoiselle, but delicious." my fugitive is still here; she was in bed two days, and then i let her get up. she is wearing one of my gowns, and she spends much of her time in the garden in the grapevine arbour, sitting very still, with the shadow of the leaves upon her face. don stays with her much of the time, and she seems to like this; and the country smell of the garden comforts her a little, i think,--the odour of the red apples ripening in the sun and of grapes that will not quite ripen. she rarely moves, except when a drifting autumn leaf falls on lap or shoulder; it is as if body, mind, and soul were exhausted by the awful shock of her experience, and she could not gather up her vital forces. i can only dumbly wonder what terrors she has gone through, what unspeakable things she has seen. her name is marie lepont; father and mother she has not, but she lived with an aunt in a little villa near brussels,--with a garden like this, only _plus grand_, and she had a lover; oh, yes, for two years she had been betrothed. i could not understand all that she said, but she told of their awful suspense in waiting for the germans and of their taking refuge in the cellar,--the french for cellar i had never learned, so she showed me my own. then came the flight, of old men, women, children, and pitiful animals; sickness, and falling by the way. her aunt died from sheer exhaustion in a peasant's hut and was hastily buried at night. she could hardly tell what had happened, only that she was quite lost and separated from everybody she had ever known. her lover was not in brussels when the crisis came, and she had had no tidings from him. evidently she had been swept over in a great wave of terrified humanity and had found herself on a steamer crowded with refugees. she can remember very little about the voyage, but with many others she reached a receiving camp near london, half ill and quite dazed. she searched vainly for her lover, and, not being able to discover any trace of him, stole away from the camp in a state of mental bewilderment to try to find him. for days she walked, growing more and more spent and hungry, for she was shy about asking for food, and the country people did not understand her, evidently mistook her for a gypsy, and treated her somewhat churlishly. when she reached the forest she was happy, it was so cool and shady there, but she had little to eat save mushrooms. if i had tried to pluck mushrooms for my sustenance, it would have ended all my troubles! when i found her, she had had nothing to eat for more than twenty-four hours. i watch her as she sits in the sunshine, and i multiply her by hundreds and thousands, innocent people, old folk and babies, old men and women lying down by the roadside to die, and the horror comes like a great tidal wave, sweeping all things before it, drowning all the joy of life and the old sweet ways of living. it breaks on the brick wall of my garden and is driven back; i will not be overwhelmed by any anguish of human fate, my own, or that of any one else. until some wandering star strikes the earth and shivers it to atoms, there is hope somewhere, and there are things to do! and marie lepont shall not be overwhelmed either, in spite of the terrible things she sees, waking or sleeping, for she starts up and cries out in the night; don gives a little comforting, reassuring bark, and she goes to sleep again. i've got to find her lover for her, and how shall i begin? i'll go and ask the pony! october . my fugitive fits quietly into our life in the little red house, saying little, trying to do much, and smiling more and more. i do not talk to her, but now and then i sit and sew with her; i know that she is most domestic, and that this will make her feel at home, but i should hate to have her examine my seams and hems, for i am no seamstress. i leave her much alone with the animals, and that seems to help more than anything else; the atom spends much of its time on her shoulder. she has begged to be allowed to feed the chickens, for madge has insisted on our having chickens, and peter has constructed a yard for them, with a little house for winter, a bit down the stream. sea gulls come sailing on wide beautiful white wings and descend to the chicken yard, walk about and steal food, to the helpless wrath of our fowls. even hengist and horsa retreat; they are two twin stately cocks, and william the conqueror is a bigger one, with spurs. he is quite the greatest coward in the yard, and entirely in awe of his matildas. it is thus that i am making history concrete for madge; my long line of british queens does credit to the dynasty, though they are a bit miscellaneous in ancestry. boadicea is a dark beauty, wild and fierce; my vainest, long-necked, red-brown hen is queen elizabeth; oh, the cackling when she lays an egg! the large, fat, rather stupid one is queen anne; i let madge choose and name queen victoria herself, and she selected a plump and comely grey fowl, rather diminutive, with an imperative and yet appealing cluck, who will make, i know, an excellent wife and mother. it is all very well to keep hens and to eat their eggs, but i have given notice to madge that not one of these companions of my daily life shall be sold to the butcher or served upon my table. the gingerbread baby comes giggling through the gate at least once a day, and it has taken a great fancy to marie. it proves to be the eleventh and youngest child of my friend the blacksmith, and it has early developed, probably from constant association with so many swift feet, an abnormal talent for running away. from morning until night i am busy with a thousand and one things, commonplace things mostly, in the house, or the village, or beyond. and wherever i go, you seem near, with your long, thin stride, and your preoccupied face, as if your feet had a bit of difficulty in keeping up with your mind. there is a strange sense always, when i walk in the forest, or along the highway, even when i go to farmer wilde's to see about butter and vegetables, that you are walking by my side. peter is very solicitous about the welfare of my guest, and i have seen him looking at her with vast pity in his eyes. "peter," i reminded him, "you can no longer say that you have not seen a belgian refugee." "no, miss," was his only answer. he digs and prunes, still arguing his country's lack of need of him in this pretence of war. "there's the british fleet, 'm," he observed, with fine scorn. "it was hordered out at the beginning of this so-called war, and told to sink the henemy's fleet. wot 'ave we 'eard of it since, 'm? nothing, nothing at all. it's just bluff, 'm; the fleet is out on the 'igh seas for pleasure, junketing at our expense. doubtless all the gentlemen enjoy a cruise." "peter," i say solemnly, "don't you really know that a german submarine sank three british cruisers on the twenty-second of september, the _hague_, the _cressy_, and the _aboukir_? do you think that the gallant men upon them went to the bottom for pleasure?" peter turned a trifle pale under the red of his forehead and cheeks. "i heard that rumour," he remarked, with an attempt at airy skepticism, "and i dessay you believe it. i dessay you think it actually happened. but i refuse to believe it; when was the british fleet ever defeated?" there was a tentative something, a touch of question, in the bravado of his denial. "peter," i suggest, "our fall gardening is not a national necessity; there is greater need of you elsewhere. why not be a bomb-sweeper; you like the sea, i believe?" madge listens, her broom suspended in mid-air, as if it were listening too. a look of embarrassment crosses peter's face, as he rubs his cheek. "the bombs are very explosive, i've 'eard, 'm." "peter," i say, "if this is an imaginary war, those are imaginary bombs and do not explode." "i'm not so sure of that, miss," says peter shrewdly. another british cruiser, the _hawke_, sunk october . there is wakening fear in the hearts of the english people, and there is deepening courage. the faces that i see here and in the near-by towns, the letters that i get, have one expression. party differences have almost ceased to exist in the political world, and in other ways, i think, the nation is being welded into one, as it has never been. even the voice of the vicar's lady has lost something of its condescension in speaking to common folk; i saw her at the blacksmith's as i took the gingerbread baby home for the eighth time, and she spoke with less of an air of coming down to the level of her audience than i should have believed possible. the gentry are behaving a bit less as if the earth were their private monopoly, and the subgentry, like our vicaress, are taking the cue. a few days ago i went to london, chiefly to get clothing for marie and to set on foot inquiries about her betrothed. nothing seemed greatly changed, save that there were fewer people in the streets and the restaurants, and that many uniforms are in evidence. the theatres are open, and people are going about their work and their play in quite usual fashion, but their faces wear a different expression, an impersonal look, and a certain quiet exaltation. oh, if the real england, that england that i know chiefly through the expression of her inmost self in her matchless literature, and through you, could only win over that other of high, excluding walls and ancient entailed rights of selfishness and of belittling snobbishness! you will admit that something needs righting in a social condition represented by the tale of the two sisters at oxford,--one married to a tailor, one married to a university professor,--who did not dare speak to each other in the street for fear of consequences. i am hopelessly democratic; the wonderfully good manners of the perfectly trained english servant seem to me vastly higher, as human achievement, than the manner of the superior who speaks brutally to him. the surprised gratitude of many of the maids and scrub-women here when one addresses them as if they really were human beings is piteous. yet i know that though these things be true, they reflect but the surface, not the depths. something in this crisis, something even in peter's crude attacks, has roused a deep race instinct in me, long dormant. though my forebears set sail for america in the 's, my sense of the identity of our destiny with that of england deepens every day. i am ceasing to say "your", and unconsciously slipping into "our"; perhaps i have been trying to criticize, to point out the things that are wrong, partly as a measure of self-protection, for i am growing sorry that the revolutionary war ever happened! i long for england's victory in this war, knowing that she is right; i dimly suspect that i should long for it were she right or wrong; and i feel a little thrill of pride that my home is in this england of yours, of ours. even i, who am often indignant in watching the englishman's manner toward those other englishmen whom he considers his social inferiors, can discern his profound sense of responsibility toward them. forgetting the mistakes of to-day, and thinking of the long development, one can but be aware in england of a stable, enduring spirituality, a practical idealism, unlike that of the earlier, idealistic germany,--a something tangential, disassociated with life,--in that it is a constant sense of inner values working out in everyday ways and habits. those mystical habits of dreaming fine things that are never done will not save the world. in my growing love for england, i am more and more aware of its disciplined, mellow civilization, treasuring the old and sacred in beliefs, in institutions, in buildings; its right, controlling habits; its thousand and one wise departures from the measure of rule and thumb; its uncodified, unformulated truth of action; its conduct far more logically right than its laws. in the very reproach oftenest brought against england i find the deepest reason for trusting her, that she allows human instinct a larger place and mere intellectual theory a smaller place than does any other nation in working out its destiny. i am deeply puzzled by my sense of the englishman's wrong attitude toward his supposed inferior while i recognize that inner instinctive sense of necessary adjustments, that genius for living that makes them the best colonizers in the world and makes their rule the most lasting anywhere. i consulted some of the chief authorities in the belgian relief work in regard to marie,--your england shows the real humanity at the heart of her in this magnificent hospitality to an outraged nation,--and i put advertisements into several papers. at home all was well, save that william the conqueror had choked, trying to swallow a piece of english bacon too large for him, and was dead. so perish all who lust for conquest! october . two days ago came a domestic, not to say a social crisis. two of the county ladies called on me, accompanied by the vicaress; they must have been told, i think, of my uncle the banker! forgive this gibe,--i could not resist making it; we always disputed, you remember, as to whether your countrymen or mine were the more devout worshippers of gold. to say truth, i have met these ladies at one or two committee meetings in our relief work, and i feel duly honoured by the call. i ring for madge; madge does not appear; going to the kitchen, i find it empty, the fire out, water dripping forlornly from the faucet. the coal in the sitting room grate i replenish myself and face the horror of the situation: three english ladies and no tea! no one knows better than i what blasphemy it would be to omit the sacred british rite of tea, which is even more established than the established church. rising to the occasion, i heat water in a little copper kettle on the coals in the sitting room,--"so resourceful, as all americans are," murmurs one lady. i concoct tea, and it proves very good tea indeed, served with appetizing little cakes from yesterday's baking. my guests go away mollified; not so am i! one of them had so many scathing things to say about england's policies at home and abroad, the political friendship with russia, the desertion of persia, the treatment of ireland, the mismanagement of the present war, that i was driven to an attitude of defence. surely there is something greater for english men and english women to do now than to stand aloof and criticize! when i told her that i thought it was a pity to confuse the soul of the english people with mistakes of contemporary statesmen, she looked at me blankly, nor could i make her understand. it is odd for me, who have so derided our anglomaniacs and superficial imitators of the english, to come so hotly to the defence of england. i hardly know myself what is going on within me. it is the england-in-the-long-run that i reverence, the england of the great poetry, that soul of england full of "high-erected thoughts", of sunny faiths, and sweet humanities. and of course, through you too, i know its very best,--the breeding that makes no boast; its fine reserve; its self-control; its matchless, silent courage. it is a chilly day; don and the atom cuddle side by side at the hearth; they are great friends now. marie returns with bright eyes and red cheeks from a walk. presently home comes peter, who has been away on some errand of his own, to a fireless hearth and an empty room. home and garden and adjacent field he searches in vain. "she will 'ave gone to one of her friends, miss," says peter stoutly, proceeding to lay a fire. i assent, but with misgiving. madge had never failed before, nor had she even gone away for half an hour without telling me. as peter helps me prepare a simple meal to serve instead of dinner, i turn the conversation toward military training and matters of war. my own contributions to the conversation, in regard to cavalry, infantry, and manoeuvering i should not care to have lord kitchener hear. very casually i remark that, if i were a man, i should like to be a soldier. "would you now, miss?" peter responds amiably, as he takes up the toasting-fork. "there's a recruiting station at shepperton," i suggest, as i cut the bread. "there are five thousand men encamped for training in wellington park; and i've been told that there are several hundred in the nearest village,--what is it, silverlea? i hardly see how you can go about so much without seeing them." "it is odd, isn't it?" peter answers wonderingly. i found out afterward that the villain had spent that very day at wellington park, watching the recruits drill. as it grew later, more chilly and darker on that autumn night, i could see the british husband's awful wrath growing within peter; he evidently thought that his wife had run away with some one. naturally i had no idea what had happened, but i had my doubts of this. in the first place, she was fundamentally good; in the second place, one briton was, i felt sure, enough for madge. don and the atom were the only members of the family who really enjoyed their evening meal that day. they lapped from the same saucer, though not at the same moment, each politely waiting a turn, the closest of allies, and doing a bit after in the way of washing each other up. marie watched me with big, sympathetic brown eyes, and said nothing. when nine o'clock came, i was as worried as was peter, though i did not admit it. we had decided that he should go to the inn for the pony, and that we would begin a systematic search. he went to his room to get ready and presently appeared, alternately red with wrath and pale with anxiety. "my clothes, 'm, my sunday clothes are gone. boots and all, 'm. and my 'at, my sunday 'at." despair could go no further than this intonation of peter's sunday 'at; would that any 'at had ever meant so much to me! "she 'as given them to 'im, miss." "to whom?" "that's just what i don't know, 'm." what could one think? had madge, the admirable, indeed a lover? that was unthinkable; there must have been some accident. at least, there was nothing to do but to notify mine host of the inn, and to present the case to the local dogberry. we were ready to start, when i heard a little click of my garden gate, and soft footsteps came up the brick walk, down which streamed the light of the porch lamp. red rage mounted to peter's eyes. "it's that man," he cried, "in my clothes!" i kept a detaining arm on peter's sleeve,--his second-best sleeve. where had his best been intriguing? the kitchen door opened softly, very softly; we stood breathless in the corner. if it were a burglar, we were ready; were not all the massive british kitchen utensils near? the lamplight fell full upon the face and form of a strange man, a very strange man, the strangest i ever saw, plump, round of face, with straggling, irregular locks of hair that had been newly shorn,--a decidedly strange man, in peter's clothes. "you--you hussy!" said peter, but the sorry epithet expressed a world of relief, even, i thought, of endearment. one would have supposed that madge could not grow redder; yet her face became even more a flame. "you, a respectable british female," said peter, advancing with slow heaviness of tread, as if madge's end would really come when he reached her and the sunday clothes; "you, a british female, and the wife of an honest man, out on the highway in a man's clothes, _my_ clothes." he took hold of her arm, but gently; he would not have dared do otherwise. his wife looked at him steadily; he could not meet her glance, and his eyes fell. "you're little better than a suffragette," he said weakly. "that may be," said madge, not without a certain loftiness, touching her hair with a novel feminine gesture, "that may be; but i _am_ better than an able-bodied man that doesn't hoffer himself to his country. the suffragettes are fighting for theirs." peter was stricken; he had nothing to say. don, arriving and unable to understand, barked wildly at madge, and she seemed to mind his remarks much more than she had peter's. i could help it no longer, and i burst out laughing. "madge," i asked, "where have you been?" "i've been to the recruiting station at shepperton, 'm," said madge, with one look at peter. "i could bear it no longer; not a finger raised for king or country." peter hung his head. "or the 'ouse of lords," madge added witheringly. "i've been a-reading and a-reading, 'm, in those papers of yours about the french women that they find, fighting side by side with the men, for their country, and about the russian women fighting too; but when i saw yesterday that german women had been found fighting, something gave way in my 'ead. i think you call it brain-storm in america, 'm. those barbarian women, from god knows where, fighting for king and country and their 'ouse of lords! i said to myself that the snell family should send one man to the seat of war." "i've been a-considering," said peter. "i've been a-thinking it out." "the present h'our," glared madge, "is no time to _think_!" "that was evidently the exact view of the european statesmen in august," i ventured, but madge and peter were too intent to catch my unkind whisper. "so i put on peter's clothes," said madge, "and i went and walked to shepperton and offered myself. your queen elizabeth would have done as much." _my_ queen elizabeth, indeed! "what did they say to you?" demanded peter. "i shan't tell you," said madge. and she never did. october . i am so excited that i can hardly write; my fingers tremble and make letters that look like bird-tracks. what do you think has happened? who do you think stopped this afternoon at my little iron gate? it seems a terrible thing, an incredible thing to say, but i could hardly have been happier about it if it had been you. i have so much to do, to think about, while marie--? her little world had all been swept away. i was weeding this neglected garden; peter, leaning on his spade, was eyeing me with some disapproval. "ladies shouldn't be doing that 'ard work, miss," he observed. "that's a queer opinion for a socialist," i remarked, tugging at a burdock root. he let me tug and went on with the exposition of his political opinions, quite unaware of my meaning. "this need not keep you from working, peter," i suggested. "i've no intention of spading that bed." he dug his spade in with a little grunt. "everybody ought to work; that should be the first article of your socialist creed." "it isn't, 'm," said peter eagerly. "wouldn't you respect the house of lords more if they actually worked, peter?" this brought him to a full stop. "they do less 'arm as it is, miss," he said darkly. here we heard the gate creak; the broken latch gives a little unnecessary click. an odd figure was standing there, looking like a tramp, with worn and battered clothing, a derby hat with holes in it, and dark hair straggling over his forehead. don, catching sight of him, barked furiously; i never heard him bark that way. it was as if the whole outraged spirit of the british upper classes were crying out upon the poverty and the misery they have helped create; it was a perfect yelp of class-consciousness. this naturally enlisted my sympathy on the side of the tramp, and i scolded don and even slapped him a little. i've told him often enough that there is really nothing so vulgar as display of a sense of social superiority, and i do not like these relapses from the democratic spirit that i am trying to cultivate in him. it was the way in which the tramp watched me that made me suspect that he was not a tramp at all; he had big, brown, appealing eyes, like those of a nice dog,--not don, but a friendly shepherd dog. the way in which he took off his battered hat enlightened me further, as did his little wistful smile. his face was a bit dirty, but my face has been dirty in times past; so, doubtless, has yours, lord hamlet. when i greeted him with good afternoon, he took a piece of paper from his pocket, and at first i wondered if he were an armenian with lace, going about with a letter of introduction from a pastor,--or don't you have them in england? but he did not look like an armenian, and he very evidently did not have lace, or any other kind of luggage. the paper proved to be the advertisement that i had put in a london paper,--and as i took it, it struck me that those holes in his hat might be bullet holes. "you're not really henri dupré?" "i am," he said simply. my french is fairly inadequate in my calmest moments; in times of excitement it is non-existent, but he must have understood the joy in my face, and the hand i held out in welcome. he shook his head; his hand was not clean; my own was less so, and i was so proud! as i told peter, if i had not been weeding, our guest would not have been properly greeted. don, the wretched little creature, taking his cue from me, was gaily barking a welcome in a wholly different tone of voice from that which he had used at first. you see, he never would have known that the wayfarer was respectable if he had not considered himself properly introduced by my handshake. "is marie lepont here?" i told him in my matter-of-fact way that she was, and i said nothing more; they might do their own explaining, i thought, as they understood their own language, not to speak of anything else, far better than i. so i only motioned to him and went on tiptoe to the corner of the house; marie was sitting in the garden, as she sits so often, in the rocking-chair, knitting, knitting for the soldiers. the air is full of the fragrance of ripening apples, of falling leaves, and fading fern. she is very quiet in the sunshine, and the shadows of the grapevine leaves upon her face hardly change for half an hour at a time. i motioned to him, and then i ran away, back to my weeding,--to anything. if it were really he! i wondered if even they felt an anguish so intense, a joy so intense as my own. it must have lent me greater power than i really have, for i tugged and tugged to relieve my feelings; the burdock came up, root and all, and i sat down rather suddenly, panting. peter remonstrated mildly, shaking his head. "you really shouldn't, miss!" "then why don't you?" i asked. "it was here all the time, and you have a spade." "i've 'ad no directions, miss," he said stiffly. "but i don't refer to the weeding; i dessay it is because you are an american and don't understand, but you really shouldn't let disrespectable people in that way. he may be a burglar; he may be robbing the 'ouse at this very minute. but why, if you don't mind me asking, are you crying, miss?" "i'm not!" i answered indignantly. "i never cry. peter, will you lend this man your precious sunday suit?" "never, miss!" declared peter, somewhat heated, and mopping his forehead. "a tramp like that!" "you believe in the brotherhood of man, don't you?" "of course i do; certingly i do." "madge," i called through the kitchen window, "please start the heater and get water ready for a bath. and please lay out peter's sunday suit; he wants to lend it to a brother man." "brother man, indeed!" ejaculated peter, and he went on digging. he is getting a bed ready for next spring's daffodils. "peter," i said with some severity, "i want to see if i can respect your social convictions; this is the first chance i have had to test them." "yes, miss," he answered, "but i don't see what that has to do with me sunday suit." not a sound came from the garden; i kept don with me,--not even he should break that moment. then i told peter who had come, how the lovers had lost each other in that mad rush for safety, and how, for days, i had been trying to find this man, for i was very sure that the right man had come. peter was spellbound, nor could he dig a stroke while i was talking. then he began to work, and he worked furiously, as i have not seen him since he came. "it's quite right, 'm, about the suit," he said presently. i worked for perhaps an hour, while peter dug like one inspired. madge heated water and got towels ready, peering out curiously to see why. a touch of evening chill came into the air; the rooks began to go home, and filmy rose-flushed clouds trailed over the sky at sunset. finally i shook the dirt off my hands, finding myself very stiff as i tried to stand. "peter," i asked, "what shall i do next?" "i think, 'm, i'd start making a wedding cake," he answered, after due reflection. "for a futile political theorist, you do have perfectly unexpected moments of insight," i told him. "yes, miss," said peter. silence, except for the rooks, the sound of the brook, and a little wayward flutter of the leaves where the wind was moving. i went to the kitchen and added something un-british and digestible to the supper menu, then walked up and down, wondering why a man probably famished did not appear. finally i decided that i must investigate and tiptoed my way to the corner of the house. marie was still sitting in her chair; her knitting was on the ground beside her. the shadow of the grapevine was gone, and her face was alive with light from within and without. the level shafts of sunlight that touched it fell too on the red brick wall behind her, where the espaliered pear tree was etched in dark lines, and all the garden was a soft glow of october gold. the stranger was sitting on the ground with his head against marie's knees, and her little shawl over his shoulders, sleeping like a child that had found its way home. as i crept near, marie looked up, and a heavenly smile came over her face. she took my hand and held it, kissing it more than once, and she said over and over: "mademoiselle; mademoiselle," and again, "mademoiselle." we let her lover stay as long as we dared on the brick walk, covering him warmly with steamer rugs. later we found that he had just reached england and had hardly slept for a week. the sunset faded, and the stars grew bright, and still he leaned his head against marie's knee and slept the sleep of exhaustion. presently we wakened him; there was a great sound of splashing water; marie ran up-stairs to do her hair over again and came down flushed like a rose, revitalized, alive as i had not dreamed she could be alive, and at last our guest appeared, clean and smiling. he was evidently amused by the odd fit of peter's clothes, but too tired and too happy to say much. i sped to the kitchen to make the french omelette; madge cannot do it,--no briton could; it has to be manipulated in just the right fashion, turned at the exact fraction of a second, and served in just the right way. you should have seen don, when he found the stranger in your place, apologizing, snuffing daintily, touching him with a friendly and beseeching paw, pretending that he had always known! of course the lovers were holding hands under the table; of course you, as an englishman, would have thought them effusive, but i should have been terribly hurt if they had not been effusive about that omelette. when i rise to the occasion like this, i like to be appreciated; i had nothing to complain of that night. tea and toast and jam; a few tears, and much laughter, and a sultana cake--the very kind that grew in oxford windows and graced our five o'clock banquets; a sultana cake calls to my mind the profoundest problems of life and destiny, so many of them we discussed over the crumbs,--this, i am afraid, meant a rather ascetic repast for the young belgians, but i thought that anything more, with their great draughts of happiness, would be indigestible. peter took henri to the inn and got a room for him. though he was there more than three weeks, mine host would not let me pay a farthing,--no, indeed! the belgians are the guests of the english nation, he said, and he was glad to have his chance to shelter one of them. november . war, unceasing war in the trenches, with rumours of a british naval defeat in south american waters, and little encouraging news save that the germans have failed to reach dunkirk and calais. england's best are dying, your kind,--england's noblest sons rushing to the danger places, foolishly, grandly brave. one can feel throughout the country the great purpose shaping itself to the needs of the moment, as it does slowly but surely in this land. that is the secret of this people: they can rise to a challenge, meet any crisis whatever when it comes; and though i know that unpreparedness has cost them much, they are greater and better than if they had devoted their best energy for five and twenty years to getting ready for war. enthusiasm kindles under the challenge of disaster; the finest have already answered the call; the less fine make the great refusal. you go, but peter stays, and peter's kind all over england stays.... november . peter does not stay! peter is going to the war! for several days he has been very critical of civilization, very severe upon his country and her rulers; at times he seemed to think himself the only real pillar of church and state. some struggle was going on within him; i have learned enough of him to know that if he expresses a feeling, it is one he does not have! for him, as for me, the horror of the present moment has been intensified by coming into contact with those who have actually suffered. all that i could understand of henri dupré's account i have translated into english for peter's benefit, and the sight of the bullet-riddled hat has plunged him in deep thought. he saw your picture, the picture of you in khaki. madge, unpermitted, had taken it into the kitchen to polish the frame of oak. peter looked at it uneasily. "a friend of yours, miss?" "yes, peter." "at the front, 'm?" "at the front, peter," i answered. i could not have said anything else, and even if i live to be a hundred, i shall not think of you any other way except as at the front, fighting if need be, carrying messages across the danger zone, with no thought of danger. it was a great advance in peter to admit the existence of a front; he has persisted in declaring the war a bit of sensational romance, devised by the house of lords for their own entertainment. it was a brooding peter who busied himself with rubbing up the knives,--he has been unusually attentive to madge since her escapade; his mind seemed to be running on troubles greater than his own. "do you know where our army is supposed to be now, 'm?" he asked, when i told him that we had no good news from the seat of war. _our_ army! we were getting on! i gave him my best information about our hard-pressed line in the west. "it's astonishing that those germans are able to fight at all, 'm, when they have once met the british," said peter gloomily, polishing a huge carving knife as if it were a sword. "meeting the french, that is different; they are a flighty people and very hexcitable." "your knowledge of history needs to be brought up to date, peter," i ventured. "anything less flighty than that magnificent people of france at this present moment the world has never seen." "it must be very difficult, 'm, fighting on the continent, for one who does not speak the foreign tongues. and i couldn't eat frogs, 'm; i'd almost rather 'ave the germans as allies; sausages aren't as bad as frogs by 'alf." later i heard him muttering to himself. "if the 'ouse of lords is really in trouble," said peter, fighting the great fight with self, "if the 'ouse of lords really needs me--of course, the throne is more or less a figure'ead, but i shouldn't like to see it fall just now, especially if the henemy is coming.... i should like to himpress them as much as possible." it was when he was sweeping the walk that i heard him say: "and i should like to see bobs once more." but one day determined peter's future destiny and his rank as a man and a briton. peter had gone to the coast, with puck and the cart, spending the night at a sister's on the way. he had some business at yarmouth, he said. i devised some errands for him and encouraged his going. i thought that it would perhaps prove to be his farewell to his sister before going to war. those were strange days, the days of peter's absence,--tense, full of nameless anxiety. that early-morning feeling of suspense, of expectancy, lasted into the afternoon; and one early morning had brought us the unmistakable sound of guns from the sea. peter came rattling home in the late afternoon, a pale, distraught peter, who seemed to have lost several pounds. he came into the garden where i was tying up rosebushes for the winter; at first he seemed unable to speak, but at last gasped out, "those ---- germans!" and the gasp ended in a little sob. as i watched him, i found myself sharing his trembling indignation. "german ships, 'm, men-of-war, standing off our coast, bombarding; it has never been attacked before. i saw them with my own eyes; i 'eard them with my own ears!" the firing, then, had had the significance that we dreaded. it began at about seven o'clock in the morning on november third, terrifying the peaceful folk of the seacoast town, shell after shell, report after report for nearly half an hour. peter, who was getting an early start for home, had taken puck and the cart to a house on the outskirts of the town, where he was getting a bag of very superior fertilizer. then came the great noise and the splashing; little if any actual damage was done to buildings or to people, yet peter contended that puck was actually struck on the shoulder by some fragment of splintering wood or flying stone dislodged by a shell. those shells may have missed their intended mark, but they went home to the heart of the time-expired man, peter snell. he knew at last that there was a war, and i knew--what he himself had not yet realized--that he was going to it. peter lacks descriptive powers; i got from him little idea of the actual scene in all the fright and confusion. when he had found that there was nothing he could do to help, he had sped toward home, intent on carrying out his unavowed purpose. asking how puck, now standing with drooping head at the gate, had behaved at the crisis, i got the account that i expected, and, as we petted this veteran of the war and dressed a small hurt on his shoulder, i heard how he, the most antic pony in the british isles, had held his ground, had jumped only moderately, had endured the crashing and the splashing, standing with his four legs braced in the sand, trembling all over, while peter, dazed a bit at first, came to his senses. "and i will say, 'm, that he showed more 'ead than i 'ad myself, for the reins were loose on his back, i 'aving dropped them to put in the bag of fertilizer. 'e never offered to run, 'm!" puck, the war veteran, took our praises modestly, making no claim to be recognized as a hero; he helps me understand the british temper, not to say the british constitution. no paper theories for him! the unwritten law of common sense available when needed is admirably embodied in him. that power of keeping your head while others lose theirs is what wins in the long run, and despite the discouragement of this present moment, i feel confident that the english will win in the end. the germans plan, theorize, show great forethought, but are lost without a programme. life does not go by plans and charts; no known precautions can foresee its emergencies. unless some chemical or electric invention of the teutons can remove the element of uncertainty from existence, surely victory will go to the people who can meet the unforeseen; pull themselves together and know, without forethought, what to do in an instant's danger. all these meditations passed through my head as puck shook his mane, making light of his adventure, and trotted away down the street to his stable with an unmistakable air of "england expects every pony to do his duty." the country thrills with indignation, surprise, and increasing resolution; the impossible has happened, and these inviolate shores have been desecrated by attack. peter is away, peter in khaki, with something already gone from his laggard step, with firmer and more self-respecting tread, recalling the old training which he was beginning to forget. surely, because of his experience as a soldier, they will let him go soon to the front. the sympathy and the admiration in the eyes of our fugitives have nerved him, as nothing else has done, for the great adventure. i heard henri giving him some french lessons, strictly along the line of requests for food and drink; the french will make up in swiftness of understanding what he lacks in pronunciation. his last days with madge have been funny and tragic too. her first remark, on hearing of the yarmouth incident, was along the old line of urging him to war. "some minds," she remarked firmly, "need shot and shell to open 'em." but i could not help noticing that when he began to talk about going, she stopped talking about it. her face has been tragically comic as she has watched him, in a falstaff "he-that-died-o'-wednesday" mood, packing his belongings. i heard the sound of loud sobbing in the kitchen as she made herself a cup of tea the afternoon he went away. could it be madge who was muttering questions as to why the king didn't go to war himself if he wanted war? november . a wedding, actually a wedding, in the little red house, which wakens gladly to its ancient responsibilities! weddings enough have i seen, but this is the first that i ever managed from start to finish; it was much more my own than if i had been married myself, for i had to do all the planning, coach the actors, superintend the catering, and do the decorating with my own hands. the only thing i did not attempt was performing the ceremony. we had such joyous weeks, after the banns were published! marie, i am sure, quite forgot her sorrow; i quite forgot you, most of the time,--i mean in my upper and superficial mind. down under, of course, in the vital part of my soul, you are i, i am you: there is no remembering or forgetting, for i am living your life and mine in a fashion profound and strange. we were busy every minute, busy with the outer things of life that ride on the surface of the deep currents,--bobbing up and down in the sunshine. first, there was marie's trousseau. she begged me with tears to get her nothing more; but a girl must have clothing, be she married or single, so we purchased much muslin,--"calico," they call it, oh, horrors! what can one think of a nation that calls cotton flannel "swan's-down calico"? we found a little sewing woman in the village, and she did her inefficient best on an ancient sewing machine. much of the finishing we had to do ourselves, so afternoons we sat in the garden and stitched. my buttonholes would not call forth commendations from any ladies' journal, but what they lacked in delicacy they made up in strength. buttonholes for war, i consoled myself, as i saw the barricades that i had erected round the little gashes, are a different matter from buttonholes for peace. marie's ready-made travelling suit, for which i sent to london, fitted fairly well; as did the boots for both of them. when they overwhelmed me with thanks, i had to talk very earnestly with them; at least i am growing more fluent, and they never laugh, only once or twice i have seen the corners of their mouths twitching uncontrollably, and once tears came into marie's eyes as she tried to keep from laughing. they are exquisitely courteous, and would die rather than be rude. i summoned all my resources from grammar, dictionary, and heroic plays; at last the world has faced an occasion that justifies the grandiloquence of french tragedy. i told them that we were honouring ourselves in being allowed to care for any members of this stricken, dauntless nation. more than anything that could be done for them had they done for the world; how could we ever repay our debt to this little people with its heroic young king? what i was doing i did, not for them (think of having sufficient french to be able to prevaricate in it already!), but for my country and their country--and for england; it was not a personal but an international matter. they may not have understood all my syntax, but my general meaning they understood perfectly, and don helped me very greatly by sitting on his hind legs and offering to shake hands, first with one and then with the other. _he_, at least, understands my academic french! there had to be a wedding dress; i insisted on a white one; it was only china silk, made with a simplicity which, i presume, outraged marie's grandmother's traditions. as i explained to her, if she goes back to london to help the authorities with the refugees, while henri returns to belgium to enter the army, she could doubtless loan this gown for other weddings, for among the fugitives many--i hoped many--another pair of lovers would perhaps be reunited. at this, her eyes filled with tears, and she uttered not another word of remonstrance; she starts on a quest to find others to wear it. so she wore the white frock at her wedding, and the house was brave in its bridal array! yellowing ferns, autumn leaves, and great golden chrysanthemums and white decked the living room; outside the dim red and gold of the autumn woods in hazy distance recalled the ancient manuscripts that you showed us in the sacred recesses of the bodleian. to think that i should live to see a roman catholic priest marrying two young folk by my fireplace! marie and henri were quite polite but very determined to be married according to the rites of their own church, and it was done. his reverence plainly did not want to officiate at my house, but not in vain have i associated with puck, choosing him for guide, philosopher, and friend, and obstinacy won. henri wore a new dark tweed business suit which peter insisted on giving him; he is a fine-looking man when you see him clothed and in his right mind, the torn hat vanished. both faces have a look of sorrow and of shock that should not be on faces so young, but there is also a look of intense and quiet happiness. even if they are separated again, they will have had something of the joy of life in these brief hours and days since they found each other. our wedding feast was the simplest ever set before mortals, unless possibly our pilgrim fathers and mothers had a simpler in starvation days in the old colony, with bride cake made perhaps of indian meal! we had tables in the garden, and a few simple things to eat and drink, centering in that wedding cake upon which peter had insisted. had not madge and i spent a whole morning over it, with its raisins and its currants, its spices and its chopped nuts? "leave off the frosting, 'm!" madge had ejaculated in horror. "that would be a heathing thing to do!" when i told her that for most people nowadays the frosting was rubbed off of life, she looked at me as if she thought me mad. so she does, but harmless mad. perhaps the mild november air, which harmonizes all things,--sad, soft and sweet,--helped harmonize the diverse elements at that wedding feast. there were the vicar and the roman priest peacefully grazing as one; the vicaress was affably chatting with mine host and hostess as on equal terms; one of my county ladies was entertaining the little dressmaker who cannot sew. i did my best in inviting them to outrage as many conventions as possible; they submitted to the necessities of the occasion, and still the house of lords stands, or sits, king george is on his throne, and the kingdom has not fallen. i hope it never will! it had been hard to induce the vicar to come, but i reminded him that our church had been a roman catholic church before queen elizabeth's day, and that, in the holy ground of the churchyard, roman catholic dust was mingled with church of england dust. how, at this cruel moment in the world's history, the truth cries out that there should be no struggle between christian and christian, only between christian and pagan! he came; high and low alike nibbled our little cakes and consumed our ices, and drank the simple beverage made of lemons and other ingredients served from a wonderful old blue punch bowl. ay, we were all allies that day! so they were married and fêted, and when it was all over, mine host drove them to the railway station, and i followed with puck and the pony cart, don sitting beside me, and the gingerbread baby with two of its brothers sitting on the other side. the village windows and doorways were crowded with friendly faces, for the story of the two re-united lovers had spread far, and many a kindly good-bye was spoken by people who had never met them. i had determined that puck, who had found marie, and to whom the happy outcome of the story was due, should have a place of honour at the parting moment, but marie's last glimpse of him showed him indignantly shaking off the white rosettes that had been fastened to his headstall. they waved back quite a merry farewell, and then they disappeared, vanishing behind the great cloud of tragedy that hangs so close. i can see only suffering ahead of them. they consented to take a loan from me, not to be repaid until their country is free, and they promised again and again to let me know if they came to want. * * * * * it is lonely to-night, belovèd, under my roof. december . winter is gentler here than at home, bringing at times enfolding grey mist and hours of rain; yet we have had many days of clear and sunny cold, and snow has fallen on the roof of the little red house. my royal family of fowls lives a subdued but happy life in the house of peter's making; puck has taken up his residence at the inn, for cold has come, and peter is far away. the english robin stays with us evidently throughout the winter; the rooks have not deserted; and we are visited daily by silver-winged gulls which come all the way from the sea for the food we put out. my home with the little "h" is seldom empty; for two of these winter weeks we had here two small belgian boys, eight and ten years old, very red of cheek and black of hair, and very much boy. what a two weeks! the atom immediately retreated to the loft over the kitchen, coming down only for its meals. it found a warm corner by the chimney where it cuddled in safety. don clung close to my side; he would not make friends. his dictum was that he would associate with either the aristocracy or the peasantry, but that the lower middle class he would not tolerate. those boys, who had tried to tie a tin can to his tail, _his_ tail, that organ of fine expressiveness, equal to english prose style at its best, were not gentlemen, and he would have nothing to do with them. i was glad to see that the suffering of the past weeks had not ruined their young lives, but i admit a failure in managing my guests. even madge could do nothing with them, though her hand is heavy; i do not approve of corporal punishment, but life in theory and life in practice seem amazingly different at times, and i looked the other way. they demanded the tail feathers of hengist and horsa for their play of american indian, and i discovered as i defeated their purpose that they thought they were living with an indian lady and were trying to garb themselves appropriately. i rose to the challenge as best i could; have i not vowed, whatever happens, never to be an "old maid"? i romped with them in the meadow, played "tag," and helped them make boats to sail on the stream, but i had no control over them. puck was the only perfectly successful disciplinarian, and whenever they tried to climb on his back, or ride by clinging to his tail, his quick little hind heels--fortunately only his fore feet are shod--accomplished what neither coaxing, admonition, nor enforced fasting could accomplish. they were not really bad, only dwelling in that stone age through which so many men-children pass. a neighbouring farmer and his wife wanted to adopt them, and i thankfully let them go, calling in the village carpenter to help madge and me make the necessary repairs. there was peace, we are told, for a few hours on christmas day in the trenches; but christmas should mean lasting peace! the attack, less than two weeks ago, on our undefended coast towns, hartlepool, scarborough, whitby, has enkindled as nothing else has done the dull glow of english wrath. the recruiting goes more swiftly; a number of young men have gone from our village in the last few days; the blacksmith's shop is closed, and the forge fire is out,--he has gone to work in a munition factory. we who stay are knitting for the trenches and sewing for the hospitals; i never dreamed that i should live to know such human anguish and human want,--yet it is good to learn that one need not stand alone, bearing the pain of life in solitude. i have joined every possible relief association and have pledged almost my uttermost penny. we are even selling eggs for the hospital funds; spite of cold weather, the matildas, queen elizabeth, queen anne, and queen victoria are rising magnificently to the crisis. the london people are using the house occasionally as a temporary shelter for one or two people at a time before permanent places are found for them. the inn also serves for this, and mine hostess and i have many a conference; fortunately, in the haste and confusion, some of the bric-a-brac is getting broken; one alabaster vase and one glass case covering artificial flowers have disappeared. madge has amused me by finding a way to express, in rather original fashion, her deepening sympathy with humankind. a courting is going on in our kitchen; every friday night the lovers come, she from the village, he from a farm lying beyond the hall; and every friday night madge either goes to bed early, or steps out to see her friends. the girl is a country lass rather ill-treated by a mistress who shall be nameless; she has no place to receive her lover, save the stone wall of the bridge across the stream. she steals here in the dusk on her one free evening; why not? the young man is a perfectly suitable wooer, and they are safer in my kitchen than out in the cold. yet i admit that i feel a bit guilty when i very formally return the very formal greeting of the unconscious mistress. just now, no one is staying with us, and there is blessed quiet. through the silences in the little house, old moods, old laughter, old half-merry tears come back; you blend with all my days. sometimes i feel, not as at first, that this is the end of things for me, but as if it were a little truce of god while i am waiting. to-day i found my first grey hairs; there were two, one on each temple; have you any to match them, i wonder? ah, i keep forgetting, forgetting; keep thinking of you as still alive and suffering in this war. remembering, i envy you; the many years ahead look formidable. do you remember the day we took our fifteen-mile walk from oxford in may, and sat to rest on the flat grey stones in an old, old village churchyard, with a tangle of wild vines at our feet, and primroses and violets blossoming near,--do you remember that we talked of immortality and decided that when one died it was death, that having lived was enough? at least you did; i always had "ma doots o' ma doots." i think it was just may that made us feel that way,--the fragrances, the bird songs, the sun-flecked clouds over the cumnor hills; you too were far more influenced by things outside the world of pure thought than you ever knew, my philosopher; have i not seen you mistaking a sunbeam for an optimistic syllogism? we doubted, dear, but we were wrong; you do not die; you are more intensely alive than ever. i am stealing a little time to try to do a portrait of you, though it is long since i have had a brush in my hand; you know that i was something but not much of an artist. what were the half-gifts meant for, i wonder, all the aspiration that goes into them, the denied hope? i used to suffer because i could not create the things i saw and dreamed, but that kind of suffering has vanished utterly,--life flows out in so many ways. there's a bit of attic with a north light near the atom's lair that i have fitted up as a studio, and i have unpacked there my easel and canvases. to-day i shut myself up and began my portrait of you, merely sketching, for the outlines blurred. i had a curious experience. so clear is my inner vision of you that it blinded my eyes, and that which was in my mind a perfect picture would prove, if i left the room and came back to look at it afresh, a set of meaningless lines. december . for three days i tried and tried in vain; then came sudden success, for your very mouth half smiled at me from the canvas where i had been putting random strokes. as i work, i feel that i never before really knew you; deeper understanding comes to me of your doubts, your resolutions, your long growth, and what you are. little things long forgotten come drifting back, concerning your boyhood in the old rectory, the hard awakening of an english public school. chance remarks that you made carelessly long ago waken in memory and reveal you to me anew. the first time i realized the depth of feeling within you was when i caught a glimpse of you listening to music at a concert in the sheldonian theatre; once, at least, your over-guarded face betrayed the real you. i learned to know your quiet sympathy, your concealed sensitive understanding of the needs of humankind, and to comprehend your difficulty in showing it, making it available. you built up the excluding barrier of an englishman's expression between you and the world; only animals and children dared break through. i can see them yet rubbing their fuzzy heads against you, from the big angora at grey friars, to little lady matilda at witton hall. december . i cannot finish this portrait, for the eyes baffle me, and each time i try you seem to be looking at me appealingly, as if you wanted me to express something that i but dimly see. my present knowledge of you seems in some strange way to outstrip your remembered face. my sketch--for i shall leave it a mere sketch--suggests all your suffering and all my sorrow, and yet not all is said. what knowledge have you now that i do not share? tell it very gently in the quiet, and i shall know; am i not always listening? i am hungry for your wisdom of death. january , . deepening cold drives us all closer to the hearth; perhaps it is only in winter that one gets the full flavour of home. don curls up by the fire with me, or takes glorious cross-country walks. the little old gingerbread woman of the lych gate has disappeared; i half suspect her of crawling temporarily into one of the graves to keep warm. in snug farmyards, by great sunny ricks of hay, the cattle of the countryside shelter themselves contentedly. now, even more than in summer, this land seems home from end to end; in every nook and corner is something of the appeal of the fireside; no other country so suggests from shore to shore one great threshold and hearth. its churchyards, with their dead softly tucked in, the comforting grass above; its low-roofed villages; its individual homes in their great loveliness wear one expression. there are wonderful sunsets over the brown earth or white snow. this is that england on whose domain the sun never sets, yet it sets most exquisitely day by day, did they but know. for a week we had with us a little nun, who prayed and prayed, looking about her with big, frightened eyes. luckily, my acquaintance with his reverence, who officiated at marie's wedding, solved the problem, and she went gladly to the shelter of a convent roof. then for a few days we cared for an old, old man, who swore and swore, softly, constantly, but with an air of question, as if no oaths could quite meet the need of the present moment. it was most incongruous, for he was very evidently a gentleman, and he very evidently thought that he was expressing himself politely, even if inadequately. my knowledge of the french language was greatly extended, but this new vocabulary is, alas! as unavailable for the uses of ordinary life as that which i learned from corneille! our fugitive was a most pathetic old creature whose mind had been somewhat unsettled by suffering and exile. fortunately a relative of his was discovered, a prosperous belgian merchant living in the outskirts of london, and my guest bade me a profane but grateful farewell. a few days' care seems but little to offer these flitting guests on their sorrowful journey, but it is a great relief to me to do even this little, and as each one goes, i feel like saying "thank you!" as the well-trained british waiter says when you deign to take something from the offered plate. we really need peter's advice,--think of that: peter's advice, which i have scorned to take! in our zeal we became victims of one bit of imposture, which, however, did not involve us in irretrievable loss,--only spoons! two dark-skinned folk presented themselves one cold, wintry day when all the desolation of the earth seemed dripping down in icy rain. they asked for food, telling us that they were belgian refugees in need of help; evidently the habits of this household have been rumoured abroad. we were a bit suspicious, but resolved to err upon the right side. while madge was cooking and i had gone to order fresh supplies, they decamped with my spoons and my purse, luckily a very lean purse. don had simply absented himself; he no longer trusts his instincts, finding himself in a world whose standards he does not comprehend. the old order changes, giving place to new; old caste distinctions are ignored, and he has not as yet had time to learn new mental habits. he has found for himself a little agnostic den in a corner behind the kitchen range, and he goes there when he cannot make up his mind. when we discovered our loss and began our search, he came out wagging his tail with a self-congratulatory air to say, "i told you so!" but he had not told us so; he had only deserted us when we needed him most. our light-fingered guests have been found in a gypsy tribe passing through to the north, but my spoons have not been found. must i lap my supper from a saucer with don and the atom? january . as i sit by the fire and toast my toes in my few minutes of blessed idleness, i cannot help living over old days and hours, and i see again the dusk of that evening when you and your family escorted me to hinksey to hear the nightingales; the sunshine of that afternoon when you and i searched in vain the meadows beyond iffley for pink-tipped english daisies. often i find myself again arguing things out with you, even getting a bit angry now and then, forgetting that you cannot answer. many and many a dispute we had, many and many a disagreement, with the invariable outcome of deeper understanding. sometimes the unshared jests hurt most of all; what has become of your humour, dear, that rare, dry humour that betrayed itself most plainly in your eyes? when first i knew you, i thought that you had no sense of humour; i soon found that it was deeper than my own, because of your insight into the irony of the human predicament. at times it touched the tragic. i learned to understand your quiet enjoyment in watching people, your wordless jests, and the silent drollery of your half smile. how you loved to tease me about the foibles of my countrymen. "no other people," you would say, "would come dashing into the courtyard of a french hotel, with flags flying from the carriage, singing their national hymn at the top of their voices; no other people would motor swiftly to the entrance of a french cathedral, crying out: 'you do the inside, and we'll do the outside, and it won't take us more than five minutes!' and there is always the pleasing memory of the lady from montana who deplored the inadequacy of the louvre because the pictures couldn't compare with the exhibition that they had had in the winter at wilkins bluff. but of course this represents a class of americans that you would not know." that was the day we had tea by the river; i was hot with helping you get the boat past the lock, hot with making the tea, and i grew hotter still. "i admit that we are vulgar, and loud-voiced, and ostentatious," i told you; "but we aren't selfish, and we aren't insolent. on the contrary, we are usually quixotically good-natured and generous. we do not look in blank surprise as the british do if any one questions their right to be served before all other people with the choicest of everything. you have little idea of what we suffer who meet many of the travelling english of to-day, with their quiet and total selfishness in securing and sitting upon all that is best. of course, this represents a class of the english that you would not know." this you forgave, but you never quite forgave, i fear, my wicked suggestion that the moat about the bishop's palace was preserved in order to keep out the poor and needy. but the things about which we quarrelled were only surface things; i knew and loved my england more than i ever admitted to you; and you, for all your criticism of my countrymen (much of it was abundantly justified), had divined the spirit of idealism in our democracy. the development of the individual in righteous freedom for you, as for us, was the great hope of the world. under all the crudeness of america, under the arrogance of england, lives, and has lived from earliest days, a something great and fine, shared by republican france,--a passion for liberty. the little things do not matter if the great convictions at the heart of nations are akin; have not people of late cared too much about little things? if our two peoples become aware of the greatness of their common destiny, will they not stop fussing about the american accent and english incivility? as i walk alone nowadays, i try to drive this haunting, insistent world-suffering from my mind by dreams of a great future wherein your country and mine go hand in hand, helping secure for all time liberty for the human race. each has something to contribute that the other lacks. i really think that we, in our sense of the dignity of the individual man, in willingness to forego shades and differences of taste for the sake of something greater, have outgrown you. you, with your keen insight, had divined the need of democracy, had accepted it in theory, but found the inevitable consequences hard to accept. nothing is more agreeable than good taste; perhaps there are things more profoundly important. dare i say that i think we have out-stripped you in generosity of act and of thought? but you are greater than we, and your life runs in deeper channels than our own, in that you keep faith with the past, refusing to let the hard-won spiritual achievement of the race be swept away by the externalism of the present. to you, as to no other people, we look to save the world from the terrible material forces, without conscience, without insight, which threaten to dominate the whole of life. you who refuse to give up fine standards of an elder day are the influence that we of america greatly need, for in matters intellectual, we are all too prone to be led, and have been too much cowed by this later germany--who forgets. february . we are living on, as best we may, through cold and thaw and cold again. the horror of that january night, when human beings and birds wakened, with fear dropping from the sky, when innocent women and children were killed by bombs from german zeppelins, lingers and grows deeper. the tension was greatest for those who could not hear what the birds heard, but listened to the great outcry of blackbirds, pheasants, and other winged things, to the loud cawing of the rooks, and wondered and waited in nameless anguish. there seems to be no refuge in earth or sky or sea. can this world of shot and shell and conquering chemicals be that world that was so beautiful, and that suddenly seemed so strangely _safe_ when you came into my life? march . such days of excitement and of strain! my little house has performed its supreme service,--has sheltered a body, while the soul was going out. it began three days ago; i was walking down the village street with don at my heels, when i noticed a large touring car at the inn, with a group of people very much excited, gesticulating and talking with a vehemence that usually means latin blood. mine hostess of the inn was running to and from the car with bottles and flannel cloths; turpentine on warm flannel is her cure for every human ailment. then i saw in the car an old, old lady--quite ill, evidently--leaning heavily on the shoulder of a younger woman. i shall not soon forget the look of that grey-white face under the snow-white hair and black widow's bonnet, set in a group of strange faces, among which i remember one of a little boy, watching breathlessly with his mouth wide open, and a smaller girl, staring apathetically with her eyes full of tears that looked as if they had long been there. i did not need to be told that this oddly-assorted set of people were refugees. i had seen too many utter strangers, from diverse surroundings, hastily gathered together, clad in velvet, clad in rags, to share one suffering. i found that they were being taken from london, where they had been cared z many weeks, to different destinations in the northern counties, but the man in charge had evidently lost his way and was making an unnecessary detour toward the coast. he could not speak their language, nor they his, and he seemed entirely at a loss in this dilemma. oh, the loneliness, and the desolation, and the bitter shame of it all! "the old lady's took ill, of a sudden, 'm," said the landlady, stopping her little trot near me. i asked the younger woman, whose face was very kindly, if this was her mother, but she shook her head. "i don't know who she is; i never saw her until we started." then i begged and pleaded; the chauffeur looked greatly relieved, and so did mine hostess, though she remonstrated that it would be quite too much for me. "are you sure, miss, that you want her? we don't know what it is; it may be contagious." "i don't care what it is!" i said so suddenly that don barked out; there was a little feeling of joy within me at the thought that there might be danger; it is hard to be shut out from the great danger that circles the world. so the big touring car was turned about, with much puffing and panting; my little iron gate was opened wide to let two men carry the poor old creature to my guest room, and i sent the others on, with such comforts as i could supply. the small boy went nibbling a cookie, the little girl with hers in her hand, too dazed to eat it. haven't you ever seen a frightened little bird holding something in its mouth, not daring to swallow? the village doctor and madge and i worked for hours over the fugitive. she only looked at us with eyes that had in them all the weariness of the world since the dawn of time. there was evidently no malady; actual physical pain did not seem to be there; only overwhelming mental pain or shock that means destruction of the very forces of life. she was not unconscious, nor was she fully conscious of what was going on around her. the comfort of warm water on her body, the comfort of soothing drink she hardly realized, nor could she swallow, except with great difficulty and reluctance. just once she stretched herself out at full length with a look of relief, and lay motionless. i shall never know what weary ways she had trodden in her escape from the swift ruin of war, nor how in her tottering age she had escaped at all. she seemed to be one who, her life long, had walked the same peaceful paths over and over, as her forefathers had done before. was she one of those who, driven from home and fireside, had lain down in the dust of the road, longing to die? contagious! heartbreak does seem contagious in these days; who shall escape? who can wish to, when other hearts break? life can never bring me anything so strange, perhaps it can never bring me anything so wonderful, as this silent companionship with a soul that had almost passed. she did not understand the words i used, but she did understand that we were trying to help her; though her lips were still, her eyes followed us,--eyes full of knowledge that can not come before the last. she did not try to thank us, dwelling in some world of instinctive understanding, making one feel that the long ages of much speaking were folly. she had let go of all tangible things and was no longer aware of time or circumstance; there was no look of fear in her eyes, no look of sorrow; she was done with earth and with feeling, having neither reproaches nor regrets. she had gone beyond pain, beyond joy, beyond those simple human affections that linger to the last, to some region of ultimate peace, or of quiet beyond peace. the falling of march rain upon the roof; sunshine, with the notes of the returning birds; the cawing of the rooks, and the soft ripple of the brook--even madge was subdued by the majesty of it all and forgot to rail at the kaiser, or to storm in misplaced aspirates at the germans. a world beyond hate was with us, where it was good to be. the end was hardly different from the days that went before; there was no motion, no outburst, only a quiet ceasing of that which had hardly been breathing. our departing guest folded her wrinkled hands upon her breast herself, as if to save us trouble, and so i found her. who was she? who belonged to her? where are the children and grandchildren who should have been gathered about her bed? the doctor and the village nurse took charge of her; when she was ready for burial, more quiet than earth itself,--one never knows quiet until one sees it so,--i put roses beside her; one of the county ladies keeps me supplied from her conservatory. yet i hesitated; it seemed wrong to recall in this presence any mere tangible and visible beauty, or aught from the world of things. the lovely contours and outlines, the perfume of the roses reproached me, as if i were pursuing her to bring her back to mere self, hampering her escape. with her we seemed to be swept away into some great consciousness that meant relief from individual sorrow,--sharing her rest, a repose so deep that it rested us for all the days to come. madge mourned over her as if it were her own mother,--i hardly know why: could it have been merely the three days of trying to care for her? or was she touched, in some depth of her nature never reached before, by the grandeur of that loneliness? there was a brief service in the little church on the hill, a sound of song, of praying; but nothing in the burial service could quite express the pathos of that moment when we buried some one's mother, not even knowing her name. we left her in the churchyard, within hearing of the stream, where deep shadows fall on grave after grave. this cold winter grass which grows above the other graves will soon, with the quickening of spring, cover hers also; already it is freshening, and crocuses peep out here and there. there is no name to put on a stone at her head. it is perhaps at best folly to mark the resting-places of the dead, yet i had a feeling that no token of respect must be lacking, and i begged that an old grey tombstone, standing by the churchyard wall, a stone so old that all that was carved on it has been worn away, might be placed at her head. it has told the passing of one human soul, and shall tell that of another; in its grey, fine-worn beauty it symbolizes the vast impersonality of the end. i come here now even oftener than i used. surely death has never appeared so gentle, so much a member of the family, as in these english churchyards with their sweet hominess. it seems fitting that we meet "my sister, the death of the body" on these grass-grown paths which wear a look of every day and common happenings. the little river, the lichen-grown stones, the sense of long continuance, give one a feeling that there are no gaps, no fissures between life and death, that the sight of the eyes slips inevitably into the vision of the soul. the sky seems near in england, with the crumbling grey of old norman tower and churchyard wall touching its veiled blue, and the low white clouds almost within reach; the old home-like look of the flat stones makes one feel as if the sleepers are still, as it were, sitting on the threshold, or on the old bench by the door. there is no sense of distance or separation, no feeling of far away. it is not sad to leave her here, now when the whole earth seems one great family of the sorrowing, where the children and the grandchildren of many other folk are so near. may . spring, with the thawing of the icicles, and the sunshine growing warmer on the southern wall of the house,--spring comes back in the old and lovely way to a world never in such anguish before. what an april, to bring the cowardly murder of soldiers in the trenches by volumes of poisonous gas! what a may, to bring the _lusitania_ massacre of hundreds of innocent men, women, and children at sea! what a germany, quite, quite mad: "o what a noble mind is here o'erthrown, the soldier's, scholar's----" but i am not quoting correctly and am too busy to look up the lines. i dare not even try to speak of my sense of these things; words are lacking to express it, but surely this marks the parting of the ways. to me it seems that the time has come for the nations of the earth--would that my own would join them--to band together once more in a holy crusade and do battle with the pagan, not for the tomb of our lord, but for the faith he taught. as time goes on, i see more clearly what the real england stands for. my mind works slowly, for i am but a practical american; it isn't as if i were a thinker like yourself, who could reason things out on purely intellectual grounds. the war between my great love of england and my indignant sense of things that are wrong gives way to something more impersonal, as i have more chance to see the way in which her customs serve humanity. complete fulfillment of her great purposes has not yet been achieved, yet surely the human race has got no further: liberty for the individual, fair play,--these watchwords of england are the hope of the human race. what other land could rule many alien peoples and make them so proudly content? as england has kept faith with the past, she has, barring some great mistakes, kept faith with humanity. the recent magnificent bravery of the canadians in the battles with flaming gas only intensifies the splendour of the voluntary tribute of england's colonies to england in distress. earth has not seen the like of this empire resting on the will of man; from the four quarters of the globe, canada, australia, new zealand, india, they come sailing swiftly home, counting it great gain to die for that for which she stands. it means that at the heart of england is something too precious to lose, a faith in the working possibility of human freedom. crude races, races old and outworn, need to learn at her feet the practical way of making good this immemorial hope of the race. under her rule, the individual has his chance of self-government; if he fails to take it, falling into the net of sloth and old habit as he often does in england, the fault is his own. his individual conscience is left him; he is not compelled to become a soulless cog in a gigantic conscienceless mechanism. i do not care what mr. asquith has done wrong; what mr. joseph chamberlain did wrong; what king george the third and all the georges have done or failed to do: i trust this people as i trust no other. guilty of sins and blunders they may be and are, but the blunder is followed by the honest effort to find again and do the right; you come down always to a groundwork of character, sincerity, integrity. england has been in a way the conscience of the world. what other race-name is a word to conjure with? all over the earth where confusion comes, it is whispered: "the troubles are dying down; the english are drawing near." and in the councils of the world, her voice has been the great arbiter of right and wrong. no one here now can doubt that england is going through that great anguish wherein the soul of a people is re-born. the unity, the calm, the quickening determination are part of a great spring-time that will lead, god grant, to harvest days of peace. there is slow knitting up of the sinews of war; more and more her sons respond to the call which still leaves them free to choose; old england is getting ready as ever, resolved, incredulous of defeat; the spring knows it; the rooks know it, busy in their elm tree parliament. the great sorrow and the great endeavour have turned the very soil of the country into holy ground. among my bonfires of spring,--for i like to keep that old, religious rite of purification,--i burned half a dozen volumes of recent english fiction, decadent, erotic; a volume or two of flippant and sensational criticism; and one of affected futurist poetry, or some brand like unto it. they belong to the england whose follies and foibles are being burned in a great fire of affliction; they are not worthy of this great england that is emerging from the flame. as i write, the tinkle of the english sheep bells from afar comes like the very sound of peace. february, with the vanishing of the icicles, brought snowdrops and crocuses. all kinds of growing things of which i had not dreamed came peeping up in this old garden: crocuses, purple and gold, grow in a little clump where the wind just fails to reach them; royal daffodils nod and sway, or stand erect and golden, those from new planting outshining the rest. in march the violets were out, and primroses followed; the pony's meadow is full of them, deep in the grass; and these are only a part of the lovely procession of flowers,--bluebells, anemones, and unnumbered others. to me it seemed that the birds came very early,--birds that are strangers to me, birds that i know; and we were glad once more in the companionship of wings. i was thankful when the swallows came, circling, flying high, flying low; wrens, old friends of mine, are building under my porch roof; a merry little blue tit, a friend quite new, disports himself among the leaves. i have heard the cuckoo calling, calling beyond the stream; you were the first to tell me that this was the cuckoo's note. english larks are very near neighbours; every day i can hear them singing at "heaven's gate." we have all been as busy as bees since the melting of the snow, humans and animals alike. back with the first suggestion of warmer sunshine hengist and horsa began to crow; alas for william the conqueror, who will never crow again! and my many queens of the hen-yard began to lay and cackle as boastfully as in times of peace. every living thing came crawling out of hole and hiding-place and took up its task; the little gingerbread woman came back to the lych gate to sit in the sun; puck, once more one of the family, as he grazes beyond the stream, trotted merrily to shepperton again and again to bring seeds and young plants, for i intend to have a garden that will astonish peter when peter comes back from the war. it seems to me that there is an added touch of determination in the pony's gait and in the toss of his shaggy head since he became a hero of the war, an upholder of the kingdom, a defender of the faith. madge is the busiest of all living things and will not be idle for a moment for fear of "thinking long." never was there such a be-scrubbed, be-polished, shining house as the little red house! i tremble for my own face when i see her with the soap and sand, the brass polish, the silver polish, the long-handled mop, and the wooden pail. it is madge with a changed face, with deepening lines between the eyes, a worrying, anxious madge, who steals the newspaper and reads it in the kitchen before she brings it to me. i cannot help noticing that she talks less and less of the glory of england and more and more about peter. laconic post cards with peculiar spelling tell us that peter is alive and well in the trenches. peter, because of his old experience as soldier, was allowed to go speedily to the front, and is now at close quarters with the enemy. in earliest april, the little red house sheltered the grand adventure, the greatest adventure, for death seems safe and easy by the side of the great adventure of being born. i had a whole family quartered here, father, mother, and two small winsome children, boy and girl; we tucked them away where we could. and a wee man-child came into the world during their stay here, with much pomp and circumstance and attendance of mine hostess from the inn, and of the village doctor, whose lot in life has evidently been to stand helpless and aghast, watching mortals who will venture into a world which seems to be no safe place for them. if it had rested with him, small jean would have had no chance at all; but madge and mine hostess came to the rescue, and all went well, on to that first little weird lonely cry. it was little bigger than the atom. it slept, during all its first days, a troubled, puckered sleep. don worshipped it, and whenever it cried, gave an anxious whine or a sharp short bark. in the atom's loft i unearthed a prehistoric cradle that may have been left by the danes or the saxons. of course i know that rocking is most unhygienic, but i thought that if this little, frightened fugitive mother found any comfort in rocking her baby by the fireside, rock it she should. it isn't, i believe, supposed to injure anything except the brain, and the brain counts for so little nowadays in the contemporary ideal of development that i am sure small jean will have enough left to play his part in the civilization of the future. he had, i noticed, square and sturdy little fists, and he may be some day one of the many who will fight for england, when england's guests defend the door so generously opened to shelter them. the atom insisted upon sharing the cradle; why not? it had discovered the cradle in the first place and had a certain right to it. so it curled up in a corner, and jean gurgled and grew fat and rosy in its companionship. it was a joy to have a real baby in the house while the birds were building, and the spring flowers budding, and the young ferns uncurling in the forest. the father of the family was a farmer whose house and barns had been wiped out of existence within ten minutes one cruel winter day. mine host has found a place for him; another man is needed on one of the farms belonging to the estate; a small house there was vacant, and thither they have moved, bag and baggage, baby and baby's cradle. they wanted the atom, but the atom and i have lived through such hard days together, cheek to cheek, that i could not let it go. the new house is not far, quite within puck distance, and don and i make frequent calls. may . may, with its young leaves, its radiance of blossoming fruit trees, its spring greenness,--never have i known such green,--lingers yet, with its sweet spring chill and its ripple of slow english streams among the grasses. such a world of beauty, and a world of sorrow! petals of apple blossom drift even through the open doorway, and everywhere is the murmur of the little wind among the leaves. i sit in my garden, under my apple trees, or walk where the sunshine filters down, clear and still, through the lime trees in the lane, thinking of many things. close by the stream, at my garden's edge, grow palest purple irises, and at times they seem spirit lilies, delicate as light, growing beside you in your far place. a few days ago don dug one of your books out of the case,--he loves to touch them with his faithful paw. it was dante's _paradiso_ and as it fell open i saw that you had marked certain words with my name: "dolce guida e cara," "sweet guide and dear." that was too beautiful a thing to say of a mere mortal woman. i find myself thinking consciously less about you as the days go on; a touch in the darkness, a gleam across the stars, a whisper by the river,--so you come back to me; but the different things we said and did do not return with quite such sharp distinctness and sharp pain. yet i exist more and more in you, living your life and mine too, spirit to spirit. loneliness seems forever impossible since you went out and left the gate ajar, and all the world came in, and all its sorrows. the griefs that enter, in some strange way solace my own, and this increasing sense of the anguish of the world is lightened and lifted by sharing it with other folk. it is good to feel so passionately and so utterly a part of all that lives and throbs and suffers. though the life that goes on in the little red house must inevitably lack something of the human warmth and joy that we should have known together, more life and greater enters, i think, than would have been ours if our old dream of happiness had come true. one can bear whatever happens, so long as it makes one understand. i started out in loneliness to tell my story, to you and to myself, for comfort in the long silences, and lo! i have no story; i do not seem to be merely i; i have gone out of myself and cannot find my way back. in this relieving greatness is, perhaps, dim foreknowledge of what is to come. i have nothing left to ask of life, no demands to make: a little service, work, and sleep,--and then? june . peter, can it be peter, with that expression upon his face? he is really here, and a transfiguring look of suffering has worn away forever a something of earth and of stubbornness,--a peter who seems to have gained greatly in strength and in stature, although one arm is gone, and an empty sleeve hangs by his side. if i had known how to salute i should have saluted peter when i saw him home from the war; mentally i do it whenever i see him working with his one poor hand in my garden beds. one of the first things he said to me when he came home was that he was going to shepperton to try to get work that a one-armed man could do, selling papers or something of the kind. but peter, who has faced the enemy and the poisonous gases, flinched before my countenance when i heard this. peter knows now that the little red house and the garden can never get on without him. it is odd to see the animals with him; don cannot be attentive enough, but you would expect a dog to understand. puck is a wonder, standing as meekly as a lamb to let himself be harnessed by a one-armed man, though he used to dance an ancient british war-dance as the straps went on. the old racial love of fair fighting shines out in him; man to man it used to be, or man to pony, when both were able-bodied, but he will take no advantage of a handicap. he seldom shies now, even at a feather or a floating leaf, but he watches constantly in every direction, waiting for some great danger in which he can comport himself with perfect self-control for the sake of a one-armed man; defying the whole modern era to invent a mechanism that can frighten him. i should like an equestrian statue of puck _not_ shying at a zeppelin! madge is pathetic; she has lost her old moorings of prejudice and conviction and sails in an uncharted sea of life. church and state are to her only a shade less reprehensible than the germans, since peter came home without an arm. while peter, completely changed, and loyal to the government, for the country he has served so well is his country indeed, sits with her on the bench by the kitchen door in the twilight, full of affectionate talk of "kitchener" and "bobs"--his grief over lord roberts' death was both sincere and personal--madge mutters fiercely against the 'ouse of lords for its selfishness and its incompetence. if women ruled, all would be different! her condemnation of the government would suggest that she is in a fair way to become both an anarchist and a suffragette. she never would have let peter go a step to war if she had supposed that he would be wounded. peter came home, not with a victoria cross, but with an iron cross, and i can never tell whether he is joking or in earnest when he explains his possession of it. when i asked him how he got it, he replied: "i bestowed it upon meself, miss." it seems that he had taken it from a german with whom he had fought in a terrible bayonet charge. "he was a man, he was," peter says admiringly. "if i got the better of the man who had earned it, it stands to reason that i'm a better man than him and fit to wear it." so peter wears his iron cross, to the wonder and admiration of the farmers baiting their horses at the inn, the blacksmith's eleven children, and the inhabitants in general of our village. how much he tells those eager listeners of the horrors he has seen i do not know, but sometimes from that bench by the kitchen door, i hear fragments of his tales of suffering that make me sick and faint. yet he is very reticent in regard to it, having evidently a feeling that he must protect others from knowing what he has known. as i make his acquaintance anew i realize that his great loss is truly exceeding gain; there is more of his real self in his wakened mind and soul than he lost in his arm. but peter, invalided home, returned not alone. it seemed to me, as he came up the walk, that he was over-heavily weighed down by luggage, though he had a brother soldier to help him. "if you please, 'm," said peter diffidently, when our first greetings were over, "i've taken the liberty of bringing some one 'ome." "nothing could please me better," i said, holding out a welcoming hand to the tall soldier at his side. "if you please, 'm," said peter, grinning,--if heroes can be said to grin,--"she's inside." he opened the big old-fashioned basket he was carrying, made of osier, a kind that i remember seeing in my grandmother's attic many years ago, and there--o pharaoh's daughter, how i understand you now!--was a little child of perhaps ten months, asleep. she had soft dark hair, hands a bit too thin for a baby, eyes that proved to be, when she wakened and opened them, big and brown; and a mouth that had learned and not forgotten, like so many sorrowful mouths to-day, how to smile. "where did you find her?" madge and i cried out in one breath. "she was in the village where i was taken when i was wounded; you will hexcuse me, 'm, but i cannot say its name, i really cannot. a woman had taken charge of her for weeks; she had been found quite deserted by the roadside, i believe, 'm, earlier in the war, when people were trying to escape from the henemy. the nurse used to bring her into the 'ospital just to let the soldiers see her." peter was disappointed that i could not speak, but speak i could not. "she's a french baby, 'm," he added. "i took a great fancy to her, and when i came away i told them----" "what did you tell them, peter?" i asked sternly. the little thing had grasped my finger and was trying to pull herself up. it was the first touch from any of my fugitives that seemed to come from my very own, and i knew that the french baby had come into my life to stay. "knowing your 'abits, miss, i told them i thought i knew a good 'ome for her, so they sent her on with a nurse who was coming back, reserved for me, as it were. they kindly allowed me to bring her down from london meself, but i 'ad difficulty in 'olding her, so i took out me clothes and put them in a paper, and she fitted very nicely in the basket." peter still mistook my silence for hesitation. "i thought if you didn't care to adopt her, i would, 'm; but from what they told me about her clothing and all and from the look of her, i fancy she's rather your class than mine, 'm." "i couldn't aspire to your class, peter," i said; "you belong among the heroes. we will all adopt her, you and madge and i and don and puck and the atom and our english queens. among us all she will get a well-rounded training." * * * * * the stream is rippling past with its old music; the pony is grazing in the meadow; my june roses glow within my garden, yellow, white, and deep red; and still the vast sea of human sorrow breaks, breaks against my garden wall, and no one knows whither its tides may draw. is it thus that the whole earth must gain the finer knowledge that comes alone through suffering and learn how false are the gods it has been following with swift feet? i hardly dare confess my foolishness, but when i saw peter that day of his return come down the village street with a tall khaki-clad figure beside him, i thought for one whole blissful, awful moment that he had found you, living, and had brought you home. through many such moments i could not live; all the joy and the anguish of time and of eternity were crowded into it. yet even in that flash i knew that no mere human contact could ever bring you so close as you are now to me. separated by walls of mere flesh and bone, there could no longer be this entire one-ness of soul with soul. you, belovèd, are forever too near to touch. what death may be i know not, but it is something far different from what we mortals think. then i saw that peter's companion was only another british tommy, who needed my hospitality; and i helped make ready his beef and beer with great gladness in my heart. ... content for you. men from old time have died for the faith they held, and men have died for dreams. i know no faith, no dream better worth dying for than this for which you gave your life, the dream of human freedom. it is our race pride that a passion for liberty was kindled early in our remotest forebears; there is no nobler task than keeping this divine spark alive upon the human hearth. in my moments of insight i know that life has no greater boon than a chance to die for one's faith, and you have died for this. i would not take from you, even if i could, your hour of glory, your great hour of death. the end https://archive.org/details/fifteendaysanext putniala transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). small capitals are presented as all capitals. fifteen days. an extract from edward colvil's journal. "aux plus déshérités le plus d'amour." [illustration] boston: ticknor and fields. . entered according to act of congress, in the year , by m. lowell putnam, in the clerk's office of the district court for the district of massachusetts. "yet once more, o ye laurels, and once more, ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, i come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, and with forced fingers rude shatter your leaves before the mellowing year." fifteen days good-friday evening, april , . no entry in my journal since the twenty-eighth of march. yet these seven silent days have a richer history than any that have arrived, with their exactions or their gifts, since those liberal ones of two springs ago came to endow me with your friendship. easy to tread and pleasant to look back upon is the level plain of our life, uniform, yet diversified, familiar, yet always new; but, from time to time, we find ourselves on little sunny heights from which the way we have traversed shows yet fairer than we knew it, and that which we are to take invites with more cheerful promise. i did not know last friday morning that anything was wanting to me. and had i not enough? my farm-duties, which restrict my study-time just enough to leave it always the zest of privilege; my books, possessed or on the way; my mother's dear affection; your faithful letters, true to the hour; selden's, that come at last;--these, and then the casual claims, the little countless pleasures infinitely varied, special portion of each human day! always something to do, something to enjoy, something to expect. and yet i would not now go back and be where i was last friday morning. beautiful miracle! our cup is always full, yet its capacity is never reached! since the day i stood at my gate, listening for the fading sounds of your horse's feet, many guests have crossed my threshold and recrossed it,--all received with good-will, dismissed with good wishes. last friday brought one whom i took to my heart and hold there. the first clasp of his firm hand, the first look of his sweet, frank eyes, bound me to him forever. keith, i have more to love than i had a week ago, and the world is more beautiful for me, life better worth living. we had had gray weather for a week before he came; the blue sky appeared with him, and smiled on us every day while he was here. i cannot now separate the thought of him from that of sunshine, nor can i tell how much of the glow and freshness of those days was of the atmosphere, how much from his happy nature. i had just come in from work, and was sitting near the window, watching the slowly clearing sky, when i heard a step coming down the road. you know i am used to listen to approaching footsteps, and to judge beforehand what manner of man is about to present himself at my door. this was a step that struck very cheerfully on the ear. firm, regular, it had no haste in it, yet a certain eagerness. my mother heard it, too. "the feet of him that bringeth good tidings," she said, smiling. the sun broke out full and clear as she spoke. "can it be dr. borrow?--it must be," i asked and answered myself; and my heart warmed to him as it had not when i was reading his praises in selden's letter. i heard the gate open and close again. i went to the door, and saw, coming along the path i guided you on that first dark night, a figure that agreed perfectly with the step, but not at all with what i had imagined dr. borrow. it was that of a man hardly more than twenty, who carried about with him, it seemed, a world of youthful happiness, but assuredly no great weight of learning. erect, vigorous, animated, his whole person spoke harmonious strength and freedom of soul and body. his head was uncovered,--or, rather, it was protected only by its masses of fair brown hair, whose curls the light wind that had sprung up to meet him lifted tenderly, as if to show them sparkling in the sunshine. this was no chance visitor; he walked as if he knew where he was going, and felt himself an expected and a welcome guest. he had come from far; his well-fitting travelling-suit of dark gray told of a very distant skill and fashion, and was a little the worse for the long road. he had a knapsack on his shoulders. from a strap which crossed his breast hung a green tin case, such as botanists carry on their tours. this, again, connected him with dr. borrow; but the wild-flowers in his hand had been gathered for their beauty, not their rarity, and the happy grace of their arrangement denoted rather the artist than the savant. he saw me as soon as i came to the door; for he quickened his step, and, from where i stood, i could see his face brighten. you do not know the face, and it is not like any other; how can you understand the impression it made on me? our hands were soon joined in a cordial clasp. he answered my warm welcome with a look full of youthful delight, behind which lay an earnest, manly satisfaction. the name which was in my mind came, though hesitatingly, to my lips: "dr. borrow----" i began. a flash of merriment passed over my guest's features; but they were instantly composed, as if he felt the mirthful thought a disrespect to the absent. "i am harry dudley. dr. borrow is coming. i walked on before to let you know." he laid his bouquet of wild-flowers in the shadow of the doorsteps, threw off his knapsack, flung down on it the felt hat he had carried crumpled up under his arm, and, turning, showed himself ready to walk off with me to meet the doctor. we had reached the gate, when he stopped suddenly and looked towards the house. "but do you not wish----?" "no,"--i understood him at once,--"my mother is prepared; we have been for some time expecting dr. borrow--and you," i ought in politeness to have added, but in truth i could not. i looked at him a little anxiously, fearing he might have remarked the omission, but his eyes met mine, glad and frank. dr. borrow had engrossed us. his visit, from the time it was first promised, had been the one theme here within doors and without. morning and evening i had consulted with my mother over his entertainment; tabitha had, more than once, in his behalf, displaced and reinstated every object in the house; hans and his boys had stimulated each other to unusual efforts, that the farm might find favor in such enlightened eyes. harry dudley! certainly i ought to have been expecting him. certainly selden's letter had told me he was coming. but the mention of him had been so slight, or, i will now rather say, so simple, that i had almost overlooked it. a line held it, after three full pages given to dr. borrow. "harry dudley goes with him,"--that was all. how little importance the name had for me which was to have so much! but, if no pains had been taken to prepossess me in harry's favor, full justice, i am sure, had been done me with him. he seemed to regard me not as an acquaintance newly found, but as an old friend rejoined: we were going out to meet and welcome the stranger whose comforts we were to care for together. "i suppose you will give dr. borrow your room, and you will take the little one down-stairs, that you had when selden was here? i shall sleep in the barn on the hay." i was, to be sure, just considering whether i should have one of our little impromptu bedsteads set up for harry, in a corner of the room--yours--which had been assigned to the doctor, or whether i should share my little nook down-stairs with him. in the end, he had it all his own way. it was not long before we came upon the doctor. i could not draw his full portrait at first sight, as i did harry's, for i had only a profile view of his stooping figure, until i was quite close to him. he, too, carried a knapsack;--a large russet one; harry's was black;--and strapped to it was a long umbrella, which protruded on either side. he was grubbing in a meadow, and was either really so intent that he did not see us, or thought it better not to let us know that he did until he had finished his work. we stood near him some minutes before he straightened himself up, booty in hand. he scrutinized his prize for a moment, and then, apparently satisfied, came forward and saluted mo in a very friendly tone. his dark-blue spectacles prevented me from seeing whether the eyes seconded the voice, and his other features are too heavy to be very expressive. when i had made known my satisfaction at his arrival, and he had acquiesced,--when i had inquired after selden, and he had answered that he had not seen our common friend for six weeks, we stood opposite each other, i looking for a subject which could not be disposed of so promptly, and he, apparently, waiting for me to bring it forward. but harry now spoke eagerly:-- "have you found it?"--holding out his hand at the same time for the poor little specimen which the doctor held between his thumb and finger. "yes." "the very one you have been looking for?" "the very thing." "shall i put it into the box?" harry received the little object respectfully, and deposited it in the tin case with care. he then relieved dr. borrow's shoulders of the knapsack and took it on his own, having first withdrawn the umbrella and placed it in the hands of the owner, who watched its extrication with interest, and received it in a way which showed it to be an object of attachment. the doctor gathered up some inferior spoil which lay in a circle round the place where he had been at work. harry found room for all in the box. he had entered so fully into his companion's success, that i thought he might after all be a botanist himself; but he told me, as we walked towards the house, that he knew nothing of plants except what he had learned in journeying with dr. borrow. "but i know what it is to want to complete your collection," he added, laughing. "we have been all the morning looking for this particular kind of grass. dr. borrow thought it must grow somewhere in this neighborhood, and here it is at last. the doctor has a great collection of grasses." "the largest, i think i may say, on this continent,--one of the largest, perhaps, that exists," said the doctor, with the candor of a man who feels called upon to render himself justice, since there is no one else qualified to do it. and then he entered upon grasses; setting forth the great part filled by this powerful family, in the history of our earth, and vindicating triumphantly his regard for its humblest member. when we came within sight of the house, harry walked rapidly on. by the time the doctor and i rejoined him at the door, he had disencumbered himself of the knapsack, had taken his flowers from their hiding-place, and stood ready to follow us in. i introduced dr. borrow to my mother in form, and was about to do the same by harry, who had stood back modestly until his friend had been presented; but he was now already taking her extended hand, bowing over it with that air of filial deference which we hear that high-bred frenchmen have in their manner to elder women. i wondered that i had before thought him so young; his finished courtesy was that of a man versed in society. but the next moment he was offering her his wild-flowers with the smile with which an infant brings its little fistful of dandelions to its mother, delighting in the pleasure it has been preparing for her. his name had made more impression on my mother than on me. she called him by it at once. this redeemed all my omissions, if, indeed, he had remarked them, and i believe he had not. the doctor, in the mean while, had lifted his spectacles to the top of his head. you have not seen a man until you have looked into his eyes. dr. borrow's, of a clear blue, made another being of him. his only speaking feature, they speak intelligence and good-will. i felt that i should like him, and i do. he did not, however, find himself so immediately at home with us as harry did. he took the chair i offered him, but sat silent and abstracted, answering absently, by an inclination of the head, my modest attempts at conversation. harry, interpreting his mood, brought him the green tin case. he took it a little hastily, and looked about him, as if inquiring for a place where he could give himself to the inspection of its contents. i offered to conduct him to his room. harry went out promptly and brought in the well-stuffed russet knapsack,--took the respectable umbrella from the corner where it was leaning, and followed us up-stairs,--placed his load inside the chamber-door, and ran down again. i introduced the doctor to the chair and table in my little study, where he installed himself contentedly. when i came down, i found harry standing by my mother. he was putting the flowers into water for her,--consulting her, as he arranged them, now by a look, now by a question. she answered the bright smile with which he took leave of her, when his work was done, by one tender, almost tearful. i knew to whom that smile was given. i knew that beside her then stood the vision of a little boy, fair-haired, dark-eyed, like harry, and full of such lovely promise as harry's happy mother could see fulfilled in him. but the sadness flitted lightly, and a soft radiance overspread the dear pale face. the name of our little charles had been in my mind too, and my thoughts followed hers backward to that sweet infancy, and forward to that unblemished maturity, attained in purer spheres, of which harry's noble and tender beauty had brought us a suggestion. it was the absence of a moment. i was recalled by a greeting given in harry's cordial voice. tabitha stood in the doorway. she studied the stranger with a long look, and then, advancing in her stateliest manner, bestowed on him an emphatic and elaborate welcome. he listened with grave and courteous attention, as a prince on a progress might receive the harangue of a village mayor, and answered with simple thanks, which she, satisfied with having performed her own part, accepted as an ample return, and applied herself to more practical hospitality. harry had been intent on some purpose when tabitha intercepted him. he now went quickly out, brought in the knapsack he had thrown down beside the door on his first arrival, and began to undo the straps. i felt myself interested, for there was a happy earnestness in his manner which told of a pleasure on the way for somebody, and it seemed to be my turn. i was not mistaken. he drew out a book, and then another and another. "these are from selden." he watched me as i read the title-pages, entering warmly into my satisfaction, which was great enough, i am sure, to be more than a reward for the weight selden's gift had added to his pack. "it does not take long to know harry dudley. dear, affectionate boy, in what arcadia have you grown up, that you have thus carried the innocence and simplicity of infancy through your twenty years!" this i said within myself, as i looked upon his pure forehead, and met the sweet, confiding expression of his beautiful eyes. yet, even then, something about the mouth arrested me, something of deep, strong, resolute, which spoke the man who had already thought and renounced and resisted. it does not take long to love harry dudley, but i have learned that he is not to be known in an hour. selden might well leave him to make his own introduction. i can understand, that, to those who are familiar with him, his very name should seem to comprehend a eulogium. tabitha gave dr. borrow no such ceremonious reception as she had bestowed on harry. she was hospitable, however, and gracious, with a touch of familiarity in her manner just enough to balance the condescension in his. as he had not been witness of the greater state with which harry was received, he was not, i trust, sensible of any want. we sat up late that evening. the hours passed rapidly. dr. borrow had laid aside his preoccupations, and gave himself up to the pleasures of discourse. he passed over a wide range of topics, opening freely for us his magazines of learning, scientific and scholastic, and displaying a power of graphic narration i was not prepared for. he aids himself with apt and not excessive gesture. in relating conversations, without descending to mimicry, he characterizes his personages for you, so that you are never in doubt. selden, telling me almost everything else about the doctor, had said nothing of his age; but he spoke of him as of a friend of his own, and is himself only twenty-seven; so i had supposed it to lie on the brighter side of thirty. it did, indeed, seem marvellous that the stores of erudition attributed to him could have been gathered in so early, but i made allowance for selden's generous faculty of admiration. dr. borrow must be forty, or perhaps a little more. he is of middle height, square-built, of a dull complexion, which makes his open blue eyes look very blue and open. you are to imagine for him a strong, clear voice, a rapid, yet distinct utterance, and a manner which denotes long habit of easy and secure superiority. i have never known the doctor in finer vein than that first evening. we were only three to listen to him, but it was long since he had had even so large an audience capable of admiring, i will not say of appreciating him. whatever his topic, he enchained our attention; but he made his power most felt, perhaps, when treating of his own specialty, or scientific subjects connected with it. he is, as he told us, emphatically a practical man, preferring facts to speculations. he propounds no theories of his own, but he develops those of others very happily, setting forth the most opposite with the same ingenuity and clearness. when, in these expositions, he sometimes approached the limits where earthly science merges in the heavenly, harry's face showed his mind tending powerfully forward. but the doctor always stopped short of the point to which he seemed leading, and was on the ground again without sharing in the fall he had prepared for his listeners. very entertaining to me were dr. borrow's accounts of his travelling experiences and observations in our own state and neighborhood. his judgments he had brought with him, and i soon found that his inquiry had been conducted with the view rather of confirming than of testing them. i felt myself compelled to demur at some of his conclusions; but i cannot flatter myself that i did anything towards shaking his faith in them: he only inculcated them upon me with greater zeal and confidence. when a little debate of this kind occurred, harry followed it attentively, but took no part in it. i sometimes felt that his sympathies were on my side, and my opponent certainly thought so,--for, when i pressed him a little hard, he would turn upon his travelling-companion a burst of refutation too lively to be addressed to a new acquaintance. the pleasant laugh in harry's eyes showed him amused, yet still far within the limits of respect. sometimes, in the course of his narrations, or of his disquisitions upon men and manners, american or foreign, the doctor turned for corroboration to harry, who gave it promptly and gladly when he could. if he felt himself obliged to dissent, he did so with deference, and forbore to urge his objections, if they were overruled, as they commonly were. i found, however, before the first evening was over, that, with all his modesty, harry maintained his independence. when the doctor, who is no utopist, found occasion to aim a sarcasm at the hopes and prospects of the lovers of humanity, or pronounced in a slighting tone some name dear to them, harry never failed to put in a quiet, but express protest, which should at least exempt him from complicity. and dr. borrow would turn upon him a satirical smile, which gradually softened into an indulgent one, and then take up again quietly the thread of his discourse. at times, harry was forced into more direct and sustained opposition. i observed that his tone was then, if less positive than his antagonist's, quite as decided. if the doctor's words came with all the weight of a justifiable self-esteem, harry's had that of deep and intimate conviction. i am persuaded that conversation would lose all zest for the doctor, if conducted long with persons who agreed with him. he kindles at the first hint of controversy, as the horse at the sound of the trumpet. to harry sympathy is dearer than triumph; he enters upon contest only when compelled by loyalty to principle or to friendship. the elder man needs companionship as much as the younger, and perhaps enjoys it as much, though very differently. the admiration he excites reacts upon him and stimulates to new efforts. harry's tender and grateful nature expands to affectionate interest, as a flower to the sunshine. the doctor has a certain intellectual fervor, which quickens the flow of his thought and language, and enables him to lead you, willingly fascinated, along the road he chooses to walk in for the time. when harry is drawn out of his usual modest reserve to maintain a position, his concentrated enthusiasm sometimes gives to a few words, spoken in his calm, resolute voice, the effect of a masterly eloquence. these words pass into your heart to become a part of its possessions. i think i never fully understood the meaning of the expression _personal influence_, until i knew harry dudley. what a divine gift it is, when of the force and quality of his! what a bright line his life-stream will lead through the happy region it is to bless! and he holds this magical power so unconsciously! here is another point of contrast between him and his friend. dr. borrow is very sensible of all his advantages, and would be surprised, if others were insensible to them. no one can do him this displeasure; his merits and acquirements must be manifest on first acquaintance. but harry dudley,--you do not think of asking whether he has this or that talent or accomplishment. you feel what he is, and love him for it, before you know whether he has anything. these two companions, so different, are yet not ill-assorted. harry's simplicity and strength together prevent him from being injured by his friend's love of domination, which might give umbrage to a more self-conscious, or overbear a weaker man; his frankness and courage only make his esteem of more value to the doctor, who, with all his tendency to the despotic, is manly and loves manliness. i shall not attempt to write down for you any of the doctor's brilliant dissertations. you will know him some time, i hope, and he will do himself a justice i could not do him. harry you _must_ know. he will go to see you on his way home, and, if he does not find you, will make a visit to you the object of a special journey. he will be a new bond between us. we shall watch his course together. it will not, it cannot, disappoint us; for "spirits are not finely touched, but to fine issues." they are gone. we have promised each other that this parting shall not be the final one. and yet my heart was heavy to-day at noon. when the gate fell to after they had passed out, it seemed to me the sound had in it something of determined and conclusive. i rebuked the regret almost before it had made itself felt. dudley is going out into the world, which has so much need of men like him, true, brave, steadfast. i can have no fear or anxiety for him. he must be safe everywhere in god's universe. do not all things work together for good to those that love him? saturday evening, april , . my date ought to be march th, for i have been living over again to-day the scenes of a week ago, and in my twilight talk with my mother it was last saturday that was reviewed, instead of this. last saturday! the friends who now seem to belong to us, as if we had never done without them, were then new acquisitions. the doctor we had not yet made out. how bright and pure that morning was! i was up early, or thought i was, until i entered our little parlor, which i had expected to find cheerless with the disorder that had made it cheerful the evening before. but tabitha, watchful against surprises, had it in receiving-trim. she was giving it the last touches as i entered. i had heard no sound from my mother's little chamber, which my present one adjoins, and had been careful in my movements, thinking her not yet awake. but here she was already in her place on the couch, wearing a look of pleased solicitude, which i understood. i was not myself wholly free from hospitable cares. selden had been so exact in forewarning me of dr. borrow's tastes and habits, that in the midst of my anticipations intruded a little prosaic anxiety about the breakfast. my mother, perhaps, shared it. tabitha did not. she heard some officious suggestions of mine with a lofty indifference. the event justified her. how important she was, and how happy! how considerately, yet how effectively, she rang the great bell! i did not know it capable of such tones. when it summoned us, harry was absent. the doctor and i took our places at the table without him. my mother made his apology: he must have been very tired by his long walk the day before, and had probably overslept himself. "not he!" cried the doctor, with energy, as if repelling a serious accusation. "it's your breakfast"--he pointed to the clock--"was ready four minutes too soon. i've known two punctual men in my life, and harry's one of them. he's never two minutes after the time, _nor_ two minutes before it." the doctor had hardly done speaking when harry's step was heard. it was always the same, and always gave the same sensation of a joy in prospect. nor did it ever deceive. dr. borrow's good-morning was very hearty. harry had arrived just one minute before the time. if he had come a minute earlier, or three minutes later, i do not know how it might have been, for the doctor does not like to be put in the wrong. harry brought in a bouquet for my mother. he did not fail in this attention a single morning while he was here. i could not but sometimes think of her who missed this little daily offering. i had determined beforehand to give myself entirely to dr. borrow during the time of his visit. i have often regretted the hours my farm took from you. i had forewarned hans of my intention of allowing myself a vacation, and had arranged for the boys some work which did not require oversight. they were to take hold of it, without further notice, as soon as the distinguished stranger arrived. i could therefore give myself up with an easy mind to the prolonged pleasures of the breakfast-table. the doctor was in excellent spirits,--full of anecdote and of argument. i was very near being drawn into a controversy more than once; but i was more willing to listen to him than to myself, and avoided it successfully. harry was in the same peaceful disposition, but was not so fortunate. a subject of difference between the friends, which seems to be a standing one, is the character of the french. how did the doctor bring it on the table that morning? i think it was à-propos of the coffee. he praised it and compared it with paris coffee, which he did not dispraise. but, once landed in france, that he should expatiate there for a time was of course; and he found himself, as it appeared, in a favorite field of animadversion. he began with some general reflection,--i forget what; but, from the tone in which it was given, i understood perfectly that it was a glove thrown down to harry. it was not taken up; and the doctor, after a little defiant pause, went forward. he drew highly colored sketches of the gaul and the anglo-saxon. harry simply abstained from being amused. dr. borrow passed to his individual experiences. it appeared, that, notwithstanding the light regard in which he held the french, he had done them the honor to pass several years in their country. this intimate acquaintance had only given him the fairer opportunity of making a comparison which was entirely to the advantage of the race he himself represented. he declared, that, walking about among the population of paris, he felt himself on quite another scale and of quite another clay. harry here suggested that perhaps a frenchman in london, or in one of our cities, might have the same feeling. "he can't,--he can't, if he would. no race dreams of asserting superiority over the anglo-saxon,--least of all the french." "if the french do not assert their superiority," harry answered, laughing, "it is because they are ignorant that it has been questioned." "that gives the measure of their ignorance; and they take care to maintain it: a frenchman never learns a foreign language." "because--as i once heard a frenchman say--foreigners pay him the compliment of learning his." the doctor burst out upon french vanity. "at least you will admit that it is a quiet one," harry replied. "the french are content with their own good opinion. the tribute that foreigners pay them is voluntary." the doctor arraigned those who foster the conceit of the french, first by trying to copy them and then by failing in it. he was very entertaining on this head. neither harry nor i thought it necessary to remind him that the pictures he drew of the french and their imitators did not precisely illustrate anglo-saxon superiority. he told the origin of several little french customs, which, founded simply in motives of economy or convenience, have been superstitiously adopted, without any such good reason, and even made a test of breeding, by weak-minded persons in england and this country. no one took up the defence of those unfortunates, but the doctor was not satisfied with this acquiescence. he had an uneasy sense that his advantage in the encounter with harry had not been decisive. he soon returned to the old field. harry continued to parry his attacks playfully for a time, but at last said seriously,-- "doctor, i know you are not half in earnest; but if i hear ill spoken of france, without replying, i feel as if i were not as true to my friends there as i know they are to me. one of the best and noblest men i ever knew is a frenchman. this is not to argue with you. you know better than anybody what the world owes to france. if you were to take up my side, you would find a great deal more to say for it than i could. i wish you would!" a pause followed, long enough for the bright, earnest look with which harry made this appeal to fade from his face. as i did not think there was much hope of the doctor's taking the part proposed to him, at least until he should find himself in company with persons who professed the opinions he was now maintaining, i tried to divert him to another topic, and succeeded; but it was only to bring about a yet warmer passage between him and his friend. i was not sorry, however; for this time the subject was one that interested me strongly. he had referred, the evening before, to some dangerous adventures harry and he had had among the mountains of mantaw county, which they crossed, going from eden to cyclops. i now asked him for the details. he turned to me at once, and entered upon the story with great spirit. i am familiar with the region in which the scene was laid, but, listening to him, it took a new aspect. i believe those hills will always be higher for me henceforth,--the glens deeper and darker; i shall hear new voices in the rush of the torrents and the roar of the pines. harry listened admiringly too, until the doctor, brought by the course of his narrative to the services of a certain slave-guide, named jonas, took a jocular tone, seemingly as much amused by the black man's acuteness and presence of mind as he might have been by the tricks of an accomplished dog. "a capital fellow!" interposed harry, with emphasis. "he showed himself intelligent and faithful, certainly. i sent his master a good account of him. he did his duty by us." this in the doctor's mildest tone. the answer was in harry's firmest:--"his duty as a man. it was real, hearty kindness that he showed us. we owe him a great deal. i am not sure that we did not owe him our lives that dark night. i regard him as a friend." "your other friends are flattered.--it is curious how these negrophiles betray themselves";--the doctor had turned to me;--"they show that they think of the blacks just as we do, by their admiration when they meet one who shows signs of intelligence and good feeling." ho looked at harry, but in vain. "here harry, now, has been falling into transports all along the road." harry kept his eyes on the table, but the doctor was not to be balked. "confess now, confess you have been surprised--and a good deal more surprised than i was--to find common sense and humanity in black men!" "no, not in black men. i have been surprised to find not only talent and judgment, but dignity and magnanimity, in _slaves_." "you must find the system not altogether a bad one which has developed such specimens of the human being,--out of such material, above all." "you must admit that the race is a strong and a high one which has not been utterly debased by such a system,--if it is to be called a system. i only wish our own race"---- "showed an equal power of resistance?" "that was what i was going to say." "you might have said it. yes,--the whites are the real sufferers." "i stopped because i remembered instances of men who have resisted nobly." "i am glad you can do justice to them. i thought you did not believe in humane slaveholders." "i was not thinking of them." "ah! to be sure not! my friend harvey, who entertained us so hospitably, is a bad man, i suppose?" "a mistaken man." "that is to be proved; he is trying to work out a difficult problem." "he is attempting an impossible compromise." "compromise! word of fear to the true new-englander! compromise? he is trying to reconcile his own comfort with that of his laborers, i suppose you mean." "he is trying to reconcile injustice with humanity." "see the stern old puritan vein! i doubt whether his ancestor, the model of massachusetts governors, ever carried a stiffer upper lip." and the doctor surveyed harry with a look from which he could not exclude a certain softening of affectionate admiration. "and he, a living exemplification of the persistence of race, is a stickler for the equality of all mankind! it is hard for one of that strict line to bend his views to circumstances," the doctor went on, in a more indulgent tone. "harry, my boy, you are in a new latitude. you must accept another standard. you cannot try things here by the weights and measures of the puritans of the north. but who are your examples of resistance, though?" "the puritans of the south. the men here who have but one standard,--that of right. the men here who are true to the principle which our country represents, and by which it is to live." "what principle?" "that the laws of man must be founded on the law of god." "you mean, to be explicit, such men as judge henley of virginia, dr. kirwin of south carolina, and, above all, shaler of this state?" "yes." "who, instead of living with the people among whom their lot had been cast, and protecting and improving them, scattered them to the four winds of heaven, and all for the comfort of their own sickly consciences!" "charles shaler does not look like a man of a sickly conscience." the doctor could not forbear smiling at the image harry brought before him. he was beginning to answer, but stopped short and turned to me with a look of apology. "the subject is ill-chosen," he said; "i do not know how we came upon it; though, indeed, we are always coming upon it. we have sworn a truce a dozen times, but the war breaks out again when we are least expecting it." "the subject cannot be more interesting to you than it is to me," i answered. "but your interest in it may be of a different sort from ours." "it is quite as impartial. i am not a slaveholder." "is it possible?" the doctor's voice betrayed that there was pleasure in his surprise, but, except in this involuntary way, he did not express it. he went on in his former tone. "well, that is more than harry here can say. since he has been in your state, he has become master, by right of purchase, of a human soul." i looked at harry. "yes," he said, gravely, "i have made myself my brother's keeper." "and very literally of a soul," the doctor continued. "the body was merely thrown in as an inconsiderable part of the bargain. we were on the road from omocqua to tenpinville, where we meant to dine. harry was a little ahead. i was walking slowly, looking along the side of the road for what i might find, when i heard, in front of us and coming towards us, a tramping and a shuffling and a clanking that i knew well enough for the sound of a slave-coffle on the move. i did not lift my head; i am not curious of such sights. but presently i heard harry calling, and in an imperative tone that he has sometimes, though, perhaps, you would not think it. i looked up, upon that, and saw him supporting in his arms a miserable stripling, who was falling, fainting, out of the coffle. harry was hailing the slave-trader, who brought up the rear of the train on horseback. i foresaw vexation, and made haste. the cavalier got there first, though. by the time i came up, he had dismounted, and harry and he were in treaty, or at least in debate. it was a picture! the poor wretch they were parleying over was lying with his wasted, lead-colored face on harry's shoulder, but was still held by the leg to his next man, who was scowling at him as if he thought the boy had fainted only to make the shackles bite sharper into the sore flesh of his comrade. harry held his prize in a way which showed he did not mean to part with it. 'name your price! name your own price!' were the first words i heard. it seemed the slave-dealer was making difficulties. i thought he would jump at the chance of getting rid of what was only a burden, and plainly could never be anything else to anybody; but no; he said he could not sell the boy, and seemed to mean it. harry is too much used to having his own way to give it up very easily, but i don't know whether he would have got it this time, if i had not interfered with my remonstrances:-- "'what are you going to do with him? where are you going to take him? who's to be his nurse on the road?' "i meant to bring harry to his senses. i only brought the slave-dealer to his. "'do you belong in this state?' asked he, growing reasonable as he saw a reasonable man to deal with. "'no; in massachusetts.' "'do you mean to take him off there?' "'yes!' cried harry, without giving me a chance to answer. "'how soon?' "'in a few weeks.' "'and what will you do with him in the mean while?' "harry seemed now to remember that i was a party concerned. he turned to me with a deprecating and inquiring look, but i was not prepared to make any suggestion. "'if you care enough about having the boy to pay part of his price in trouble,' says the dealer, 'perhaps we may manage it. i bought him with conditions. if i sell him to you, i make them over to you, too. if you'll engage to take him as far as omocqua to-day, and never bring him, or let him be brought, within twenty miles of tenpinville in any direction, you shall have him for fifty dollars; that will give me back what he's cost me. i don't want to make anything on him. i only took him to oblige.' "i knew by experience that there was no use in opposing harry in anything he had made up his mind about. i looked grim, but said nothing. so the bargain was struck; the money was paid; the boy unfettered. the slave-dealer moved on with his drove, leaving us his parting words of encouragement,-- "'if he lives, he'll be worth something to you.' "and there we were in the middle of the road, with a dying boy on our hands. "'_if he lives!_' harry's look answered,--'he will live!' "for my own part, i hoped it very little, and was not sure that i ought to hope it at all. "it was my turn to fume now; for harry, as soon as he had carried his point, was as calm as a clock. he had everything planned out. i was to go back to quickster and hire some sort of wagon to take our patient to omocqua, where harry had promised to have him before night. i had permission to stay at quickster, if i chose, until he came back,--or to go on to tenpinville, or even to harvey's, without him. but i had heard, since i left omocqua, of a remarkable cave, not five miles from there, which had some points of interest for me. i had had half a mind to propose to harry to go back and see it before we met with this adventure. so, as i must humor him at any rate, i thought it as well to do it with a good grace. i walked off to quickster, got my wagon, drove back, and found our godsend asleep, with harry watching by him like a miser over his treasure. we lifted him into the wagon without waking him,--he was no great weight,--and got him safe to the hotel we had left in the morning. "harry, when he was making his purchase, had his wits sufficiently about him to require the means of proving his title in case of question. the dealer promised to set all right at omocqua. i had doubts whether we should meet him again; but harry had none, and was right. the man arrived the next morning with his convoy, found us out, and gave harry a regular bill of sale. being now twenty miles from tenpinville, he was somewhat more communicative than he had been in the morning. it appeared the sick boy was a great musical genius. he could sing anything he had ever heard, and many things that never had been heard before he sang them. he played upon the piano without any instruction except what he had got by listening under the windows. indeed, he could make any instrument that was put into his hands, after a little feeling about, do whatever he wanted of it. but he had accidentally received a blow on the chest that had spoiled his voice, and had so injured his health besides, that his master, a tender-hearted man, couldn't bear to see him about. the family, tender-hearted too, couldn't bear to see him sold. so the master, to spare pain all round, decided that the boy should disappear silently, and that it should be understood in the house and neighborhood that he had been enticed away by an amateur from the north, who hoped to cure him and make a fortune out of his talent. "'how came the master's sensibility to take such a different turn from that of the rest of the family?' i asked,--and drew out that the boy, being a genius, had some of the ways of one, and was at times excessively provoking. he had silent fits, when he would sit dreaming, moving his lips, but making no sound. there was no use in trying to rouse him. you might have shaken him to pieces without his soul's giving the least sign of being in his body. not only this, but, sometimes, when he did sing, he wouldn't sing well, though perhaps it was just when he was most wanted. there were people he never would sing before, if he could help it; and when he was obliged to, he did himself no credit. some of his caprices of this kind were insupportable. his master was only too indulgent; but one day, it seems, the provocation was too much for him. in a moment of anger, he flung the unlucky boy down the door-steps, or over a bank, or out of the open window, i forget which. either the push on the chest or the shock of the fall did a harm that was not meant. the master was a good man, and was so accounted. he reproached himself, whenever he saw the ailing boy, and felt as if others reproached him. better out of sight and out of mind. "so harry became the owner, or, as he says, the keeper, of a fragment of humanity distinguished from the mass by the name of orphy: orphy for orpheus, i suppose; though harry is modest for him, and calls him orfano. he has splendid visions for his protégé, nevertheless. he sees in him the very type and representative of the african. i shouldn't wonder if he were looking forward to the rehabilitation of the race through him. he is to be a mozart, a beethoven, a bach, or, perhaps, something beyond either. the world is to listen and be converted." "i wish you could have brought him here," i said. "your house is within the twenty miles, and so is harvey's, or we should have taken him on there with us. but he is well off where he is. harry, by the aid of our innkeeper,--a northern man, by the way,--installed him in a comfortable home at omocqua. we are to take him up there on our return. we expect to be there again on the eighteenth of next month." "so soon?" i exclaimed; for, with the doctor's words the pang of parting fell on me prematurely. "we mean to stay with you, if you want us so long, until the fifth. we have a few excursions to make yet; but we shall guide ourselves so as to reach omocqua at the appointed time." "meet us there," cried harry. "meet us there in fifteen days from the time we leave you. let us keep the nineteenth of april there together." my mother, who had not hitherto taken any part in the conversation, spoke now to express her warm approbation of the plan. this was all that was wanting. the project was ratified. my happiness was freed again from the alloy of insecurity which had begun to mingle with it. the doctor divined my feeling, and smiling pleasantly,--"our leave-taking will not be so hard; it will be _au revoir_, not _adieu_." harry was the first to leave the breakfast-table. he had made acquaintance with karl and fritz that morning, and had promised to help them on a drag they were getting up for hauling brush. he was to join us again in two hours, and we were to have a walk to ludlow's woods. "he has been to the post-office this morning!" cried the doctor, as soon as harry was out of hearing. it was evident that my mother's unacceptable suggestion still rested on his mind. "he has been to the post-office: that was it! you remember he asked you last night how far to the nearest one? the first thing he does, when he arrives in a place, is to inquire about the means of forwarding letters." "how he must be missed in his home!" my mother said. "ah, indeed! he is an only son. but, contrary to the custom of only sons, he thinks as much of his home as his home does of him. he has not failed to write a single day of the thirty-five we have been travelling together. his letters cannot have been received regularly of late; but that is no fault of ours." "his parents must be very anxious, when he is so far from them," said my mother. "he knows how to take care of himself,--and of me too," the doctor added, laughing. "i thought that on this journey i was to have charge of him, but it turned out quite the other way. he assumed the business department from the first. i acquiesced, thinking he would learn something, but expecting to be obliged to come to his aid from time to time. i think it wrong for a man to submit to imposition. i never do. but harry, open-hearted and lavish,--i thought anybody could take him in. i did not find that anybody wanted to." "i can understand," said my mother, "that, with his trusting disposition and his force of character together, he should always find people do what he expects of them." "you are right,--you are quite right."--the doctor seldom contradicted my mother, and very considerately when he did.--"it is not your generous men that tempt others to overreach, but your uncertain ones. it seems he carries about with him something of the nature of a divining-rod, that makes men's hearts reveal what of gold they have in them. i have known a churlish-looking fellow, who has come to his door on purpose to warn us thirsty wayfarers off from it, soften when his eye met harry's, urge us in as if he were afraid of losing us, do his best for us, and then try to refuse our money when we went away. well, if son of mine could bring but one talent into the world with him, let it be that for being loved; it is worth all others put together." "how many does it not include?" asked my mother. "truly, there is perhaps more justice in the world than appears on the outside." i found this the place to put in a little apology for tabitha, who had persisted in treating harry with marked distinction, although i had tried to remind her of the elder guest's claims to precedence by redoubling my attentions to him. "oh, i'm used to it, i'm used to it," cried the doctor, cutting short my apologies very good-humoredly. "wherever we go, people treat him as if he had done them some great service, or was going to do them one. but i find my account in his good reception. i reap the practical advantages. and then i am something of a fool about harry myself; so i can hardly blame the rest of the world. think of his drawing me into complicity in that affair of the negro orpheus! i made a pretence to myself that i wanted to see a foolish cave at egerton, just to excuse my weakness in humoring his whims; but, in truth, by the time we were well on the road to omocqua, i was feeling as if the welfare of the world depended on our getting that poor wretch safely housed there. well, we shall see what will come of it! i remember, when harry was a little boy, saying to him once, after seeing him bestow a great deal of labor in accomplishing a work not very important in older eyes, 'well, harry, now what have you done, after all?' 'i have done what i meant to do,' said the child. i am so used now to seeing harry do what he means to do, that even in this case i can't help looking for some result,--though, probably, it will be one not so important in my view as in his, nor worth all that may be spent in arriving at it. i want to see him once fairly engaged in some steady career to which he will give himself heart and soul, as he does give himself to what he undertakes; then he'll have no time nor thought for these little extravagances." "does harry intend to take a profession?" "the law, i hope. he will study it in any case. this makes part of a plan he formed for himself years ago. he considers the study of law as a branch of the study of history, and a necessary preparation for the writing of history,--his dream at present. but when he once takes hold of the law, i hope he will stick to it." "harry has very little the look of a student." "yet he has already learned "'to scorn delights and live laborious days.' "but he has measure in everything,--and it is something to say of a boy of his ardent temper. he observes the balance between physical and mental exercise. he follows the counsel languet gave to sir philip sidney,--to 'take care of his health, and not be like one who, on a long journey, attends to himself, but not to the horse that is to carry him.'" "do his parents wish him to follow the law?" my mother asked. "they wish whatever he does. it seems they hold their boy something sacred, and do not dare to interfere with him. but i wish it. the law is the threshold of public life. i want to see him in his place." the doctor sat smiling to himself for a little while, nodded his head once or twice, and then, fixing his clear, cool blue eyes on my face, said, in an emphatic voice,--"that boy will make his mark. depend upon it, he will make his mark in one way or another!" a shadow fell over the eyes; the voice was lowered:--"i have only one fear for him. it is that he may throw himself away on some fanaticism." "how long have you known harry dudley?" i asked, when the pause had lasted so long that i thought the doctor would not begin again without being prompted. "all his life. our families are connected;--not so nearly by blood; but they have run down side by side for four or five generations. his father and i pass for cousins. we were in college together. he was my senior, but i was more with him than with any of my own classmates until he was graduated. he married very soon after, and then his house was like a brother's to me. i went abroad after i left college, and was gone three years. when i came back, we took things up just where we left them. dudley went to europe himself afterwards with his family, but i was backwards and forwards, so that i have never lost sight of them. i have nobody nearer to me." "i was surprised to learn, from what you said last evening, that harry had passed a good deal of time in europe." the doctor turned upon me briskly. perhaps my tone may have implied that i was sorry to learn it. "he has lost nothing by that. he has lost nothing by it, but that fixed stamp of place and time that most men wear. though i don't know whether he would have had it at any rate: he was always himself. you have seen some shallow fellow who has been spoiled for living at home by a few years of sauntering and lounging about europe. but rely on it, he who comes back a coxcomb went out one. never fear! harry is as good an american as if he had not been away,--and better. living abroad, he has had the simplicity to study the history of his own country as carefully as if it had been a foreign one, not aware that it is with us no necessary part of a polite education. as for its institutions, he has an enthusiasm for them that i could almost envy him while it lasts, though i know he has got to be cured of it." "how long was he abroad?" "more than seven years." "was he with his parents all the time?" "they were near him. his home was always within reach. but he was for several years at a large school in paris, and again at one in germany. at sixteen he had done with school and took his education into his own hands. he lived at home, but his parents did not meddle with him, except to aid him to carry out his plans. it was a course that would not answer with every young man, perhaps; but i don't know that any other would have done with him. he is one to cut out his own path. he chose not only his own studies, but, to a great extent, his own acquaintances; took journeys when he pleased and as he pleased. wherever he was, with whomever, he always held his own walk straight and firm. you would not think that boy had seen so much of the world?" "i could have thought he had been carefully guarded from it, and shielded almost from the very knowledge of wrong." "he has never been kept out of danger of any kind; but it seems there was none anywhere for him. he is now, as you say, just as much a simple, innocent boy as if he were nothing more." "his wings are grown, and shed off evil as the birds' do rain." the doctor started as this voice came from behind his chair. tabitha, who had disappeared as soon as her attendance on the table was no longer needed, had reëntered unobserved, and stood, her basket of vegetables poised on her head, absorbed in our conversation, until she forgot herself into joining in it. sunday, april , . the storm which has been gathering since friday evening came on last night. this morning the rain pelts heavily against the windows. this is not the easter-sunday i was looking forward to when i urged harry dudley to stay for it. he would have been glad to stay, i know; but he did not think it right to ask dr. borrow to change his plans again, and merely for a matter of pleasure. when i addressed the doctor himself on the subject, he showed me a paper on which he had planned out occupation for every day and almost for every hour of the two weeks that were to pass before our meeting at omocqua. i had not the courage to remonstrate. i am afraid we shall have none of the neighbors here to-day. but the table is set out with all the prettiest things the house affords, ready for the collation which is to follow the morning reading. this is a munificence we allow ourselves at christmas and easter. we keep ceremoniously and heartily the chief holy days, the religious and the national. in your large cities, where sources of emotion and instruction are open on every hand, where the actual day is so full and so animated that it is conscious of wanting nothing outside of itself, it is not strange, perhaps, that men should become careless of these commemorations or yield them only a formal regard. our life must widen and enrich itself, by stretching its sympathies and claims far beyond its material limits. we cannot forego our part in the sorrows and joys of universal humanity. it was a pleasure to me to find that harry, who has lived so long in countries where the public observance of the christian festivals is too marked to allow even the indifferent to overlook them, remembers them from affection as well as by habit. when i came into the parlor, early last sunday morning, i saw by the branches over the windows that he had not forgotten it was palm-sunday. he was sitting on the doorstep trimming some long sprays of a beautiful vine, which he had brought from the thicket. as soon as i appeared, he called on me to help him twine them round the engraving of the transfiguration. you did right to tell me to bring that engraving down-stairs. it hangs between the windows. i have made a simple frame for it, which answers very well; but next winter i am going to carve out quite an elaborate one, after an italian pattern which harry has sketched for me. if i could think that you would ever see it! harry and i had a walk before breakfast,--the first of the early morning walks that were afterwards our rule. he is not a great talker. the sweet modesty of his nature retains its sway even in the most familiar moments. he is earnest; sometimes impassioned; but never voluble, never excited, never diffuse. what he has to say is generally put in the form of simple and concise statement or suggestion; but he gives, and perhaps for that very reason, a great deal to be thought and felt in an hour. the bouquet that harry brought in that morning was of green of different shades, only in the centre there were a few delicate wood-flowers. "has dr. borrow seen these?" my mother asked, looking at them with pleasure. "no," the doctor answered for himself, laying down on the window-seat beside him the microscope with which he had been engaged. "no," he said, with a good-humored smile; "but i know harry's choice in flowers. he begins to have a nice tact as to what's what, when it is a question of helping me; but, for himself, he still likes flowers for their looks, or sometimes, i think, for their names. his favorites are the may-flower and the forget-me-not. they represent for him the new world and the old,--that of hope, and that of memory. but he is a friend of all wild-flowers, especially of spring wild-flowers,--and more especially of those of new england. he loves the blood-root, though he ought not, for it is a dissembler; it wears outwardly the garb of peace and innocence, but, out of sight, wraps itself in the red robes of tyranny and war." "no," harry answered; "red is the color of tyrants only because they have usurped that with the rest. red, in the old tradition, is symbolic of divine love, the source of righteous power. white is the symbol of divine wisdom, and is that of peace, because where this wisdom is there must be harmony." this talk of new-england wild-flowers, the mention of names once so familiar, was very pleasant to me. i must have the blood-root, if it will grow here. i could never see it again without seeing in it a great deal more than itself. for me, the pure white of the flower will symbolize the wisdom of god, always manifest; the red of the root, his love, sometimes latent, yet still there. the doctor, having made his protest, put the microscope into its case, and came to my mother's table to examine. when he spied the little flowers nestled in the green, he exclaimed,-- "where did you find these, harry? you must have gone far for them." "no; i found them where the old forest used to be, among the stumps." "waiting for a new generation of protectors to grow up about them," said the doctor, looking at them kindly; "this generous climate leaves nothing long despoiled. if nature is let alone, she will soon have a forest there again. but, harry, you must take me to that spot. we'll see what else there is to find." "are these flowers scarce?" harry asked. "they are getting to be." "i should have shown them to you, but they are so pretty i thought they must be common." "well, to do you justice, you don't often make a mistake now.--when we first set out," continued the doctor, turning to me, "he was always asking me to see this beautiful flower or that superb tree; but now he never calls my attention to anything that is not worth looking at." "i called you to see one superb tree that you found worth looking at," said harry,--"brompton's oak at omocqua. colvil, when you see that tree!" love of trees is one of the things that harry and i are alike in. "yes, that is one of the finest specimens of the live-oak i have met with," affirmed the doctor. "we will hold our meeting under it on the nineteenth," said harry. "colvil, come on the afternoon of the eighteenth. be there before sunset." "harry will bespeak fine weather," said the doctor. "you know how omocqua stands?" asked harry. "it is in a plain, but a high plain." "i have heard that it is a beautiful place." "it is beautiful from a distance," said the doctor; "and when you are in it, the distant views are beautiful. the hotel we were at,--the jefferson hotel, harry?" "the jackson, i believe, doctor." "no, the jefferson," decided the doctor, after a moment's thought. "we heard the two hotels discussed at cyclops, and decided for the oldest." "they are opposite each other on union square," said harry, waiving the question. "the hotel we were at," the doctor began again, "is on the northern side of the town. from the field behind it, where harry's tree stands, the prospect is certainly very grand. hills, mountains, to the north and east,--and west, a fine free country, intersected by a river, and happily varied with low, round, wooded hills, and soft meadows, and cultivated fields. harry drew me there almost against my will, but it needed no force to keep me there. i had my flowers to see to. harry brought out my press and my portfolios, and established me in a shed that runs out from the barn, at right angles with it, fronting west. he found a bench there that served me for a table, and brought me a wooden block for a seat. so there i could sit and work,--my plants and papers sheltered from the wind,--and look up at the view when i chose. harry is right. meet us there on the afternoon of the eighteenth. i wish it as much as he does; and the sunset will be worth seeing, if there is one." "come on the eighteenth," said harry,--"and if you arrive before us, wait for us under that tree; if after, and you do not find me at the door, look for me there. you go through the house by the main entry, across the court, through the great barn; the field is in front of you, and the tree." "or, if you like better," said the doctor, "you can enter by a gate on a side-street, from which a wagon-road leads straight to my work-shed. the street runs west of the hotel. in any case, don't fail us on the nineteenth. we'll hold your celebration under your tree, harry,--that is, if colvil agrees to it." there was no doubt about that. after breakfast, i went up into the study to prepare for the morning's reading. i had intended to choose a sermon suited to palm-sunday; but i happened to take down first a volume of south, and, opening on the text, "i have called you friends," could not lay it down again. what lesson fitter to read on that beautiful day, and in that dear company, than this, which aids us to comprehend the inexhaustible resources of the divine affection,--its forbearance, its constancy, its eager forgiveness, beforehand even with our prayer for it,--by drawing for us the portrait of a true, manly friendship? i have never been able to accept the doctrine that the great source of love is jealous of his own bounty, and reproaches us for bestowing again what he has freely bestowed. yet, though unassenting, i feel pain when i read in the works of pious men that a devoted regard yielded to a mortal is an infringement of the highest right, and i am grateful to the teachers who permit us to learn to love the father whom we have not seen by loving the brother whom we have seen. in those seasons which happen to us all, when a shadow seems to pass between the spirit and its sun, i have brought myself back to a full and delighted sense of the supreme benignity by supposing the generosity and tenderness of a noble human heart infinitely augmented; and i have invigorated my trust in the promises of god, the spoken and the implied, by calling to mind what i have known of the loyalty of man. human ties wind themselves very quickly and very closely round my heart. i cannot be brought even casually into contact with others so nearly that i am made aware of their interests and aims, without in some sort receiving their lives into my own,--sharing, perhaps, in disappointments, that, in my own person, i should not have encountered, and rejoicing in successes which would have been none to me. but friendship is still something very different from this,--different even from a kind and pleasant intimacy. nor can we create it at will. i feel deeply the truth of south's assurance, that "it is not a human production." "a friend," he says, "is the gift of god: he only who made hearts can unite them. for it is he who creates those sympathies and suitablenesses of nature that are the foundation of all true friendship, and then by his providence brings persons so affected together." last sunday was one of those days that are remembered for their own perfection, apart from the associations that may have gathered about them; and it seems to be one of the properties of these transcendent seasons to come attended by all harmonious circumstances. nothing was wanting to last sunday. it stands cloudless and faultless in my memory. harry proposed that we should hold our services in the open air. my mother approved. we took up her couch and carried it out to your favorite dreaming-ground, setting it down near the old tree that goes, for your sake, by the name of keith's pine. the place is not rough as when you were here. i have had the stumps cleared away, and your pine no longer looks so lonely, now that it seems to have been always alone. we brought out a bench and all the chairs in the house. we placed the bench opposite my mother's couch, about thirty feet off. we set the great arm-chair for the doctor, near the head of the couch, which we considered the place of honor. my straight-backed oak chair was put near the foot, with my mother's little table before it for the books. the other chairs were arranged in a semicircle on each side, with liberal spaces. tabitha assisted at these dispositions, and chose a place for her own favorite willow chair close to the trunk of the pine-tree, between it and the couch, where, as she said, she had a full view of the congregation. i understood very well that the poor soul had another motive, and was guarding her dignity by selecting a distinguished and at the same time a secluded station. when she saw that all was in order, she went back to the house to stay until the last moment, in order to direct late comers. harry, at first, sat down on the grass near me; but when karl and fritz came, they looked toward him, evidently divided between their desire to be near him and their fear of presuming. discretion prevailed, and they took their seats on the ground at a little distance from the bench. harry perceived their hesitation, and saw hans consulting me with his eyes. he was up in a moment, brought a chair and put it beside mine for the old man, who is getting a little deaf, and then exchanging a smiling recognition with the boys, took his own place near them. barton, the landlord of the rapid run, at quickster, came that morning. you cannot have forgotten quickster, the pretty village with a water-fall, which charmed you so much,--about five miles from tenpinville, to the north. and i hope you remember barton, the landlord of the inn that takes its name and its sign from the swift little river that courses by his door. he never sees me without inquiring after you. he shows the delights of his neighborhood always with the same zeal. he guided the doctor and harry about it for an hour or two the day they passed through quickster, coming from omocqua. it was to him the doctor had recourse, when he went back to hire a wagon for poor orphy. i thought at first that barton had forgotten the custom of our sunday morning, and had only meant to pay me a visit. but it was not so. he had his son with him,--isaac davis barton,--who is now ten years old, and in whom, he says, he wants to keep a little of the new-englander, if he can, and so shall bring him over to our reading every fair sunday. i did not know whether i ought to feel pleased or not. there is no church at quickster yet; but there is one at tenpinville,--two, i think. i have no doubt at all that i have done well to invite our few neighbors, who have no chance of hearing a good word in any other way, to listen to a chapter in the bible and a sermon here on sunday. i have had evidence that some of them have been made happier, and i almost dare to think better, by coming. but it is another thing when there is an opportunity of attending regular religious services. i did not think it well to discourage barton by telling him my scruples on this first occasion. it would have been rather ungracious after his ten miles' ride. i like the little boy very much, and hope we shall be good friends. i shall feel a better right to advise by and by. barton had a chair near dr. borrow's; his son sat in front of him on the grass. next to barton came an old man and his wife, who have established themselves in one of the empty houses on the shaler plantation,--whether by permission or as squatters i do not know, and nobody about here does. but as the man has a smattering of two or three trades through which he makes himself acceptable, and the woman some secrets in cookery and other household arts which she imparts very readily, no umbrage is taken at them. their name is franket. they have simple, honest faces, and bring nothing discordant with them. the next place in this semicircle was filled by a man who has not a very good name in the neighborhood. meeting him one day, i asked him to join us on sundays, only because i ask all who live near enough to come easily. i did it with a little trouble, expecting to see a sneer on his face; but he thanked me quite civilly, and, though several weeks passed without his taking any further notice of my invitation, it seems he had not forgotten it. he is not an ill-looking man, when you see him fairly. his expression is melancholy rather than morose, as i used to think it. after this, i shall never take refusal for granted, when i have anything to offer which i believe worth accepting. this man's name is winford. i assigned to him, as a stranger, one of two remaining chairs; but he declined it, taking his seat on the ground. the chairs were immediately after occupied by the wife and daughter of rufe hantham, a man tolerated for abilities convenient rather than useful. he is one of the class of parasites that spring up about every large plantation. he is a hanger-on of the westlake estate, which lies just beyond shaler's, between that and tenpinville. the wife is a poor little woman, whose face wears an habitual expression of entreaty. it is the daughter who brings her, i think. this young girl, of fifteen or less, has a look of thought and determination, as if she held in her mind some clearly formed plan which she will carry out to the end, towards which her coming here is possibly one of the first steps. she keeps her eyes fixed on the ground, but evidently is listening intently,--committing, as it seems, everything she hears to a memory that never lets go what it has once taken hold of. they have been twice before. when the reading is over, the mother looks as if she would like to have a little chat with somebody; but the daughter holds her in check with hand and eye,--not unkindly, but effectually. they wait until some one sets the example of going, and then follow quickly and silently. we have made no attempt to invade a reserve which seems deliberate. harvey's plantation is on the other side of tenpinville, more than eighteen miles from us; but it had a representative here, in young lenox, one of the sons of the overseer. he came for the first time. he sat in the opposite semicircle, next to harry, with whom he was already acquainted. the chairs on that side were occupied by the segrufs and blantys, respectable neighbors, whom you may remember. another new-comer was a little boy whom we met in our morning walk, and who joined himself to us at once with a confidence which was very pleasant. harry took a great fancy to him. i asked him to come to us at ten, hardly hoping he would accept; but he did, eagerly. he does not belong to our part of the world. he is the son of a carpenter who has work here for a few months. i was glad to see him come in, and another little fellow whose father has brought him once or twice, but who has not been alone before. the father is not often well enough to come. there are one or two persons whom i am always glad _not_ to see; and that morning my wishes were answered in those who came and in those who stayed away. of these last is phil phinn, who thinks to make up for the time of mine he uses in the adjustment of his neighborly differences by devoting an hour of his own, once in two or three weeks, to the penance of listening to me. i could well spare his vacant solemnity that day. his absence was of good augury, too, for he is strict in attendance when an occasion for mediation is imminent. at ten o'clock precisely we heard the great bell rung by tabitha, who until then kept watch at the house. while it was ringing, a family came in of which i must speak more particularly, because i feel already that i shall speak of it often. this family has only recently arrived in the neighborhood. the father, i think, is southern born; the mother must be from the north. they brought all their children, down to the baby, three years old, that listened with all its eyes, as the rest with all their hearts. they had been here only twice before; but the perfect unity of this little family, which seemed always influenced by one feeling, moved by one will, the anxious watchfulness of the parents, the close dependence of the children, had already greatly interested me. this man and woman have certainly known more prosperous, if not better days. the lines of their faces, their whole bearing, tell of successive reverses, worthily, though not resolutely borne,--of a down-hill path long trodden by patient, but unresisting feet. there are no signs of struggle against adverse fortune. but, in such a struggle, how often do the charm and joy of life perish, torn and trampled by their very rescuers! these people have maintained their equanimity, if not their cheerfulness. they have no reproaches for themselves or each other. the bench was for this family. the father, the mother with the baby in her lap, the daughter, and the second son filled it; the eldest sat at his mother's feet, and, when he was particularly moved or pleased by anything that was read, looked up to her to see if he was right. a great gravity held the whole group,--deepest on the elder faces, and gradually shading off into the undue tranquillity of the infantile look. when tabitha came, she brought the little white vase with harry's flowers, and put it on the table, where, indeed, it ought to have been. i seldom read the whole of a sermon. i like to keep more time for the bible. and then i omit those passages which i foresee might provoke questions which i should not dare to assume the responsibility of answering. i do not presume to take upon myself the office of religious teacher. i only strive, in the absence of one, to keep alive in myself and those near me a constant sense of god's presence and care, and of the bond which, uniting us to him, unites us to each other. this i do by reading the words of those who have had this sense most strongly and have expressed it most vividly. of the sermon i had chosen i read the first paragraph, and then, turning over nine pages, began with the privileges of friendship. i do not know whether this discourse of south's is to others what it is to me. perhaps there is something in it particularly adapted to my needs,--or perhaps it is because it came to me first at a time when i was very eager for the assurances it gives; but i never read it without feeling a new inflow of peace and security. at least some of those who heard it with me that day felt with me. harry i was sure of beforehand. when we broke up, and i went forward to speak to the strangers on the bench, it seemed to me that their anxieties were soothed by something softer than patience. an indefinable change had passed over the whole family. they all seemed lightened of a part of the habitual burden. i took them up to my mother. she asked them to be sure and come on easter sunday; they accepted in earnest; but with their poor little wagon and poor old mule they will hardly encounter the rain and the mud to-day. i was so intent on my letter, that i forgot the weather, until, writing the word _rain_, i looked towards the window. it does not rain, and has apparently held up for some time. and now i hear a racket in the road, and a stumping, that can come only from the poor little wagon and the poor old mule. afternoon, o'clock. it is raining again; but i think our friends had time to reach their homes before it began. we have had a happy day, notwithstanding its dull promise. i read an easter sermon,--"_because it was not possible that he should be holden of it_." the text itself is more than a thousand sermons. * * * * * the name of the family that was arriving this morning when i left off writing is linton. they are from western virginia. they stayed with us for an hour after the reading was over. our interest in them is still increased. winford came again. i asked him to stay; he declined; but i think he was pleased at being invited. the hanthams came, mother and daughter. they arrived at the last moment, and went at the closing of the book. the corner in which the table stood was curtained off, so that there was no visible sign of unusual hospitality; but they had perhaps heard of the custom of the day. mrs. hantham would not have been inexorable; but she was summoned away by a gesture a little too imperative, perhaps, from a daughter to her mother. davis barton came on horseback, without his father. i set him off again at one o'clock; for the sky threatened, and his road home was a difficult one at best. but let me go back to last sunday. i was just at the breaking-up of our little assembly by the pine. the lintons--they had no name then--were the first to go. the hanthams were the next. then the others dropped off, one by one and two by two: some taking leave as if they felt themselves guests; others withdrawing silently, as considering themselves only part of a congregation. barton went round shaking hands with one and another. i was surprised to see him show this attention to winford. barton likes to be well with the world,--that is, with as much of it as he respects; but he respects himself, and does not seek popularity at the expense of sincerity. i am confirmed in my belief that there is good in winford. when all the rest were gone, barton came up to have a talk with the doctor, for whom he evidently has a great admiration. harry remained with karl and fritz, who were holding him in conversation, apparently on some important matter,--old hans, a critical listener, completing the group. barton inquired after the success of the doctor's late excursions, and complimented him warmly on his powers of endurance, which seemed almost miraculous in a city man. this doctor borrow freely admitted, declaring that he had hardly ever undertaken an expedition with a party of people which had not turned out a disappointment,--that he seldom, indeed, found even a single companion who could walk with him, or who could rough it as he could. "you've got one now, though," said barton. "oh, for that," the doctor answered, laughing, "harry is a degree beyond me. i can bear as much as any man, but i know that i'm bearing, and like to give myself credit for it. harry never feels either heat or cold or damp or dust. nothing disagreeable is able to get at him. there is no such thing as hard fare for him; and if he knows what fatigue is, he has never confessed to it." "and yet i suppose he's something of a scholar, too?" asked barton; and he looked thoughtfully down at his son, who always kept close to him, and who had been drinking all this in eagerly. as the doctor hesitated to reply, barton added,--"i asked him, that day you were at quickster, if he had read a book that i had seen a good deal of talk about in the newspapers, and he said, no, that he had hardly read anything yet." "of course, of course, at his age! still, you need not precisely take him at his own estimate. his modesty misleads, as much as some people's conceit does the other way. he is not always up to the fashion of the moment in literature; does not try to read everything that is talked about; but he has read the best of the best." "is that the best way, do you think?" asked barton, anxiously. "what do you think yourself?" asked the doctor. "i should think it must be a good one." "it depends altogether on what you want to have," said the doctor, following the track of barton's thought, and fixing a searching look on davis, as if to ascertain what material was there. "the queen-bee is fed on special and choice food from the first; if you want a king-man, you must follow the same course." "you've seen some fine countries abroad, sir?" said barton, presently. "any finer than ours?" "finer than yours? no. you've a fine country here, mr. barton, and a fresh country: nature stands on her own merits, as yet. no 'associations' here; no 'scenes of historical interest' for sightseers to gape at and enthusiasts to dream over. you have your indian mounds, to be sure; but these are simple objects of curiosity, and don't exact any tribute of feeling: you've no 'glorious traditions,' and i assure you, it is reposing to be out of their reach." "we've only what we bring with us," answered barton, a little touched; "we don't leave our country when we come here." "colvil looks now as if he had something in reserve. but i'm not alarmed. if there had been anything about here that had a tinge of poetry, i should have heard of it long ago from harry. most people think this sort of folly is in good taste only in europe. but harry brought it home with him in full force. before he'd been on land a week, he'd seen concord and lexington." "had he, though?" cried barton. "i am an acton boy, you know," he added, in a subdued tone, a little abashed by his own vivacity. "upon my word, dudley has waked up the old-fashioned patriot in you already."--harry had now come up, and made one of the doctor's listeners.--"i saw he was getting hold of you that morning at quickster, when you were talking up your state to us. you were beginning to feel that you had something to do about it. it isn't the country that belongs to her sons, according to him, but her sons that belong to the country. take care! give him time, and he'll make a convert of you." "i will give him time," answered barton, laughing. "don't be too confident of yourself. i have to stand on my guard, myself, sometimes. and don't be misled into supposing that his notions are the fashion in the part of the world we come from, or in any other civilized part of it. harry, you were born some hundreds of years too late or too early. fervor in anything, but above all in public service, is out of place in the world of our day. "'love your country; wish it well; not with too intense a care: let it suffice, that, when it fell, thou its ruin didst not share.' "that's modern patriotism, the patriotism of europe. ours is of the same strain, only modified by our circumstances. our mother-land is a good housekeeper. she spreads a plentiful table, and her sons appreciate it. she wants no sentimental affection, and receives none. she is not obliged to ask for painful sacrifice; and lucky for her that she is not!" harry's cheek flushed, and his eye kindled:-- "let her only have need of them, and it will be seen whether her sons love her!" davis barton was in more danger of conversion than his father; his eyes were fixed ardently on harry; his face glowed in sympathy. "the nearest thing we have to a place with 'associations,'" i began quickly, preventing whatever sarcastic answer may have been ready on the doctor's lips, "is the shaler plantation." "yes," said barton, "the colonel was an old revolutioner." "the father?" asked the doctor. "yes." "to be sure. the son's title is an inherited one, like my friend harvey's, who, now he is beginning to get a little gray, is 'the judge,' i find, with everybody." "and he looks it very well," said barton. "i don't know whether it will go down farther." "and the present colonel is a _new_ revolutioner, probably," said the doctor, inquiringly. "i suppose some people might think he only followed after his father," barton answered. we were getting on delicate ground. barton is no trimmer, but he is landlord of the rapid run. he made a diversion by inquiring after orphy, and the doctor gave him the account of their journey as he had given it to me,--yet not forgetting that he had given it to me. the same in substantial facts, his story was amplified and varied in details and in ornament, so that i heard it with as much interest as if it had been the first time. "is musical genius of the force of orphy's common among the negroes of your plantations?" the doctor addressed this question to me. "not common, certainly,--nor yet entirely singular. almost all our large plantations have their minstrel, of greater or less talent. your friend, mr. frank harvey, has a boy on his place, who, if not equal to orphy, has yet a remarkable gift. did not mr. harvey speak to you of him?" "i dare say. he had several prodigies of different kinds to exhibit to us. but we were there so short a time! he introduced us to a blacksmith of genius; to a specimen of ugliness supposed to be the most superior extant,--out of guinea; and to a few other notabilities. but we had hardly time to see even the place itself, which really offers a great deal to admire. i could have given a few more days to it, but i saw that harry was in a hurry to be off." "i am sorry you did not see that boy. he would have taken hold of your imagination, i think, and certainly of harry's. airy has seen only the sunny side of life. he has all the _espièglerie_ of the african child." "orphy has not much of that," said the doctor. you ought to have seen little airy, too, keith. he was already famous when you were here. he is rightly named; a very ariel for grace and sportiveness. with the african light-heartedness, he has also something of african pathos. in his silent smile there is a delicate sadness,--not the trace of any pain he has known, but like the lingering of an inherited regret. his transitions are more rapid than belong to our race: while you are still laughing at his drollery, you see that he has suddenly passed far away from you; his soft, shadowy eyes are looking out from under their drooping lashes into a land where your sight cannot follow them. "if you were to go there again, it would be worth while to ask for him," i said to the doctor. "airy harvey is one of the wonders of our world." "airy harvey!" cried the doctor; "does harvey allow his servants to bear his name? westlake strictly forbids the use of his to his people. but then he supplies them with magnificent substitutes. he doesn't think any name but his own too good for them." "does he forbid them to take it?" asked barton. "i heard so, but thought it was a joke. why, there isn't a living thing on his place but goes by his name, down to that handsome hound that follows him, who's known everywhere about as nero westlake." barton seemed to enjoy westlake's failure, and so, i am afraid, did the doctor. he laughed heartily. "he's rather unlucky," he said, "considering it's almost the only thing he is particular about." "i don't believe mr. harvey could change the custom either, if he wished," i said; "but i do not think he does wish it. a name is a strong bond." "that's true," said the doctor. "harvey's a wise man; it's a means of government." "if i had to live under one of them," said barton, "westlake's haphazard fashions would suit me better than harvey's regular system: a life in which everything is known beforehand tells on the nerves. but, strangely enough, mr. harvey never loses one of his people, and westlake's are always slipping off." "if harvey carried on his plantation himself, as westlake does," replied the doctor, "he would be adored where now he is only loved. his rule would abound in that element of uncertainty whose charm you appreciate so justly. but he is wisely content to reign and not to govern." "mr. harvey has a good overseer, i understand," said barton,--"supervisor, though, i believe it is." "lenox; yes. he is able, perfectly temperate, cool, inflexible, and just." "you have learned his character from mr. harvey?" "and from what i have myself seen. the estate is really well ordered,--all things considered; harvey tells me it is rare that a complaint is heard from his negroes." "lenox takes care of that," said harry. "and he ought. i walked round among the cabins with harvey. not a creature but had his petition; not one but would have had his grievance, if he had dared." "do you suppose they have no real grievances, then?" "i suppose no such thing. i never saw the man yet--the grown man--without one; and as i did not expect to meet with him here, i didn't look for him. harvey allows no unnecessary severity; his plantation is governed by fixed laws, to which the overseer is amenable as well as the slaves. every deviation from them has to be accounted for. he sees that his people have justice done them,--that is to say, as far as justice ever is done on this earth. he has wrought no miracles, and probably did not expect to work any. he has run into no extravagances of benevolence; and i respect him for it all the more that i know he is by nature an impetuous man. i cannot but think our friend shaler would have done better to follow his example than to abandon his negroes as he has." "he gave them something to begin their new life with," said harry. "so much thrown away. just a sop to his conscience, like the rest; a mode of excusing himself to himself for shifting off his own responsibilities upon other people. two thirds of his rabble are paupers by this time." harry looked to me for the answer. "they have been free four years. two of them have fallen back on his hands,--two out of one hundred and seventy-three. he has not abandoned them. they still apply to him when they need advice or aid." "i was not so much arguing about this particular case, which i don't pretend to have much knowledge of, as reasoning upon general grounds. i still think he would have done better to keep his slaves and try to make something of them here." "the law would not let him make men of them here," harry answered. "a great deal may be done, still keeping within the law," replied the doctor, "by a man more intent on doing good than on doing it precisely in his own way." "even in what it allowed, the law did not protect him. where injustice is made law, law loses respect,--most of all with those who have perverted it to their service. you know mr. westlake's maxim,--'those who make the laws can judge what they are made for.'" "the power of opinion in what are called free countries," replied the doctor, "is indeed excessive. it has long been a question with me, whether a single hand to hold the sceptre is not preferable to this briareus. but we have chosen. i am not disposed to deliver myself up, bound hand and foot, to this fetich of public opinion. still, a man owes some respect to the feelings and principles of the community in which he lives. i may think the best way of disposing of old houses is to burn them down; but my neighbors will have something to say, and justly." harry did not reply; nor did i at that time. tabitha appeared and bore off three chairs,--one on her head and one in each hand. we understood the signal. harry and i took up my mother's couch; barton and his son loaded themselves with two chairs each; the doctor lifted the arm-chair with both hands, and, holding it out before him, led the way, somewhat impeded by his burden; and so we moved in slow procession to the house. in the afternoon, when barton and his son were gone, the doctor, harry, and i took a walk to the site of the old forest. we found a few more flowers like those harry had brought to my mother in the morning, but nothing else that the doctor cared for. on our way back, i told him the story of shaler's attempt and failure. i wonder i did not tell it to you when you were here. but we had so much to ask and to say, and the time was so short! i will tell it to you now. shaler did not wish to burn down the old house, nor even to pull it down. he wished to renew and remodel it so slowly and so cautiously that those who were in it should hardly be aware of change until they learned it by increase of comfort. he was not a self-centred, but a very public-spirited man. he had a great ambition for his state. he wished it to be a model of prosperity, material and moral. he saw that its natural advantages entitled it to take this position. the most practical of reformers, he began with himself. he found fault with nobody; he preached to nobody; he meant to let his plantation speak for him. his plan was simply to substitute inducement for coercion,--to give his men a healthy interest in their labor by letting them share the profits,--in short, to bring them under the ordinary motives to exertion. this does not appear to you a very original scheme, nor, probably, a very dangerous one. he entered upon it, however, with great precautions, having due regard to law, and, as he thought, to opinion. he did not pay his people wages, nor even make them presents in money. he gave them better food, better clothes, better houses, letting their comforts and luxuries increase in exact proportion to their industry. the result was what he had hoped,--or rather, it was beyond his hopes. the pecuniary advantage was greater and more speedy than he had expected. he did not boast himself. he waited for his abundant crops, his fine gardens and orchards, and his hard-working people to bring him enviers and imitators. the report, in fact, soon spread, that shaler was trying a new system, and that it was succeeding. neighbors came to inspect and inquire,--first the near, then the more distant. shaler forgot his caution. he was an enthusiast, after all. he saw proselytes in his guests. he laid bare his schemes and hopes. these aimed at nothing less than the conversion of the whole state, through his success, to more enlightened views; thence, a revisal of the laws, a withdrawal of the checks on benevolent effort; and finally, the merging of slavery in a new system, which should have nothing of the past but the tradition of grateful dependence on the part of the employed and of responsibility on that of the employer, rendering their relation more kindly and more permanent. among his visitors and hearers were generous men to be moved by his ideas, and wise men to appreciate their practical fruit; but the sensitiveness of delicate minds, and the caution of judicious ones, withholding from prompt speech and action, too often leave the sway in society to men of small heart, narrow mind, and strong, selfish instincts. such never hesitate. their sight is not far enough or strong enough to show them distant advantages or dangers. their nearest interest is all they inquire after. these men combine easily; they know each other, and are sure of each other. the sensitive shrink aside and let them pass on; the prudent deliberate until the moment for arresting them has gone by. men who are both good and brave come singly, and, for the most part, stand and fall alone. "great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, for goodness _dares_ not check thee!" shaler had not miscalculated so much as the result would seem to show: the opinion of the majority was perhaps with him; but the only voices raised were against him. the storm had already gathered thick about him before he was aware of its approach. the first intimations were not violent. he was admonished that his course was disapproved,--was advised to let things slip back quietly into the old track, and that so his eccentricities would be forgotten. this mildness failing, he was told that he was endangering the welfare of the community,--and, lastly, that he would incur peril himself, if he persisted. he was not a man to be driven from his ground by threats, nor by loss or suffering which he was to bear alone. his cattle died; his horses fell lame; his barns and store-houses took fire. he ignored the cause of these disasters and kept quietly on, still hoping to overcome evil with good. his great strength and courage, with his known skill in the use of arms, deterred from personal violence. but there were surer means: his people were subjected to annoyance and injury,--and, moreover, were accused of every offence committed within a circuit of twenty miles. his duty as their protector obliged him to give way: he took the only course by which he could provide for their welfare. "i have no quarrel with shaler," said the doctor, after he had heard the story, which i gave him much less at length than i have told it to you. "i have no quarrel with shaler. he had a right to do what he would with his own. i only ask the same liberty for my friend harvey, and for those who, like him, accept their lot as it is given to them." "mr. harvey is not happy," said harry, seriously. "there are lines of pain on his face. i do not think he accepts his lot." "well, submits to it, then,--the next best thing." "hardly even submits. i think he begins to doubt himself." "he is of the age for doubting himself. it is at twenty that we are infallible. to be sure, some happy men are so all their lives. shaler, i dare say, wouldn't have a doubt of his own wisdom, if the whole hundred and seventy-three were starved or hanged. if there are marks of care on harvey's face, reasons might be found for it without inventing for him an uneasy conscience." "i think he envies shaler, and would follow his example, if he had the resolution. it is strange to see a brave man under such a thraldom." "if frank harvey wants courage, it is something new." "there are men who have courage to face a foe, but not to stand up against a friend." "certainly, in such a project, he would have his wife's family to count with, to say nothing of his own children. i fancy he would hardly find a co-adjutor in fred. you know fred harvey, harry; he was at school with you in paris. what sort of a fellow was he then?" "i liked him." "i was not ill-pleased with him, when i saw him in paris four years ago. a fine-looking fellow; formed manners; modest enough, too. i thought he would fill his place in the world creditably. did you see much of him, harry, after you left school?" "for a year i saw him constantly. we went to the same lectures at the jardin des plantes." while this conversation was going on, a reminiscence had been waking in my mind. "did you ever take a journey with frederic harvey?" i asked harry. "yes, into brittany." "were you at a trappist monastery with him?" "at la meilleraie. we passed a night there." it was clear. i had been present once at a conversation between frederic and his sister, in which he spoke of his companion on this journey into brittany more warmly than i had ever heard him speak of any other man, and yet with a discrimination that individualized the praise, and made it seem not only sincere, but accurate. this conversation interested me very much at the time; but, as i had no expectation of seeing the person who was the subject of it, his name passed from me. i was glad to hear harry say he liked frederic harvey. it would have been hard, if he had not. and yet i am not sure that i like him very much myself. i am grateful for the preference he shows for my society; but i cannot meet as i would his evident desire for intimacy. how true is what south says:--"that heart shall surrender itself and its friendship to one man, at first view, which another has long been laying siege to in vain"! monday, april , . those full days must still furnish these.--my walk with harry was the first of last monday's pleasures. roaming over our fields with him, i found myself now in one, now in another european scene; and everywhere, hardly speaking of himself, he set his individual stamp on every object he called up before me. he had seen and felt with his own eyes and heart; and everywhere had been disclosed for him those special sympathies which nature and the works of genius hold for each separate human soul. florence will always be dear to me among italian cities because it was so dear to harry. he has taught me to love, beside those greatest names in art familiar to us all from infancy, and which we have chiefly in mind when we long for _europe_, others less universally cherished, and for which i had before only a vague respect which i should have found it hard to justify. rome is no longer for me merely the rome i have read of. with the distant historic interest is now mingled one near and familiar. harry's favorite spots are already mine. i would walk on the green turf where the altar to hercules stood, in that oldest time when monuments were raised to benefactors, and not yet to oppressors. i would bring away an ivy-leaf from the ruined heap, the ever "recent" tomb of the young marcellus. i would gather white daisies on the path along which saint agnes was borne to the grave, which was to become a shrine. i cannot, but you will for me. and you will find the little chapel on the appian way which marks the place consecrated in popular tradition as that where peter, escaping, met christ "going up to rome to be crucified again," and turned back to meet his martyrdom. you will look up from the ponte molle to the beautiful blue italian sky, where the symbol of suffering appeared as the sign of victory. when you are in europe, old europe, do not carry about with you among the monuments of its past all the superiorities of the nineteenth century. respect the legend. our age does not produce it, but it is the part of our inheritance we could least do without. be reverent before the monuments of the early christian martyrs: they are true shrines. with the people they have not yet lost their sacredness, and have not yet lost their use. faith in something stronger than violence and nobler than rank is kept alive by the homage paid to the courageous defiers of older usurpations and oppressions. when we came in, we found the doctor in excellent spirits and in excellent humor. he had not been idle that morning. he had been at work over his pressed flowers, and, owing to the dry weather of the last two days, had had no trouble with them. i proposed to take him, after breakfast, to a piece of marsh land where i thought he might find something to interest him. harry again left the table first. he had made an engagement with karl and fritz. we were to find him at the place where they were at work, which was almost on our way. the doctor wanted an hour or two more for his flowers. while he was busy with them, i occupied myself with the books which harry had brought me. we set off for the marshes. we walked the first part of the way in silence, or nearly so, only exchanging now and then an observation on the weather or scenery, not very earnest. "how we miss harry dudley!" i was just saying within myself, when the doctor made the same exclamation aloud. i wanted nothing better than to hear him talk of harry again. i saw he was ready, and turned to him with a look of expectation which he understood. "i told you i had known harry all his life; and so i have. but our friendship began when he was about five years old. the time before that has left me only a general remembrance of his singular beauty and a certain charming gayety that seemed to lighten the air all about him. but i went one day to his father's house in the country with some friends i wanted to introduce there,--strangers. there was no one at home, the man who answered our knock said, except---- he stepped back, and there came forward this lovely child, who received us in due form, regretted his father's absence, conducted us in, ordered refreshments for us, and, in short, did the honors of the house with the ease and courtesy of a man of society, and, at the same time, with a sweet, infantile grace not to be described. i was content with young america that day. harry and i have been intimates ever since then. we had our little differences from the first, just as we have now. i thought my twenty years' advantage in experience gave me a right to have my judgments accepted without being examined; but he took a different view of my claims. when i went out to his father's, i always used to look the little fellow up,--in the garden, or in the barn, or wherever he might be. as soon as i appeared, his eyes took a merry sparkle, as if he knew there was good sport ahead: and so there was, for both of us. he maintained his side with an originality and quaint humor that made a debate with him a very entertaining exercise. some of his childish sayings have stayed in my mind, though many wiser things have passed out of it." the doctor enjoyed his thoughts a little while; and then, with a graver, and something of a confidential tone,-- "if harry should talk to you about his future, do not encourage that little vein of quixotism that runs in his blood." "the enterprise of the pilgrim fathers was somewhat quixotic,--was it not?" "certainly it was; you would not have found me among them." again a silence, which i left the doctor to break. "at any rate, i need not begin to disturb myself already. he will not enter upon active life before he has prepared himself well. that i know. and preparation, as he understands it, involves long work and hard. but i sometimes almost think in good earnest that he has come into the world in the wrong age. he is made for great times, and he has fallen on very little ones. these are the days of the supple and the winding, not of the strong and the straightforward." "since he has been sent to these times," i answered, "without doubt his part in them has been marked out for him." dr. borrow's brow lowered. it seemed he had a misgiving that the part allotted to harry might not be that which he himself would have assigned to him. here some flowers at a little distance caught the doctor's eye, and he ran off to examine them. they were not to his purpose, and were left to nod and wave away their life unconscious that a great danger and a great honor had been near them. when he came back, the cloud had passed. he began talking pleasantly, and still on the subject on which i most wished to hear him talk. harry has not always been an only son. he had once a brother, to whom he was fondly, even passionately, attached. after his brother's death, a deeper thoughtfulness was seen in him. he was not changed, but matured and strengthened. "you still see the fun look out of his eyes at times," said the doctor, "and his laugh has a quality that refreshes and refines for us again the meaning of the good old word 'hearty'; but mirthfulness is no longer so marked a characteristic in him as it once was." when we came in sight of the little plantation prophetically known as "the grove," i could not help calling the doctor's attention to it. he took a much more flattering interest in it than you did, i must tell you. he turned his steps towards it immediately, commended the spaces which made full allowance for growth, and, seating himself on one of the benches,--according to you, such premature constructions,--gave me a dissertation on soils, very entertaining and very profitable. when he had finished, i would gladly have carried him back to the subject from which the sight of my trees had diverted us, but i felt that this required a little skill: i had known him repelled by a question of too incautious directness from a topic on which he would have been eloquent, if he had led the way to it himself. however, as soon as we were once walking forward on our former path again, his thoughts, too, returned to the old track. our intimacy had ripened fast on the common ground of sympathy we had found in the grove. he was more expansive than before, and revealed a latent gentleness i had begun to suspect in him. he went on to tell of harry's infancy and childhood, and to relate instances of his early daring, self-reliance, and generosity of heart,--smiling, indeed, a little at himself as he did so, and casting now and then towards me a glance of inquiry, almost of apology, like one who is conscious of being indiscreet, but who cannot resolve to refrain. i could not but observe that the anecdotes related with most pleasure illustrated that very side of harry's character which gave the doctor uneasiness. karl and fritz were employed that day in clearing a piece of ground overgrown with brushwood. we had found them at their work in our morning walk, and harry had promised to come back and take a hand in it. it was an animated scene that the doctor and i came upon. before we reached it, we heard a pleasant clamor of voices and laughter. my german boys are faithful workers, and generally cheerful ones; but now they carried on their task with an ardor and an hilarity which doubled their strength, and gave them an alertness which i had thought was not of their race. "will you let me finish my stint?" harry cried, as soon as we were near enough to answer him. the merry light in his eye and the gleeful earnestness of his manner brought up to me the little boy of whom the doctor had been talking to me. he was taking the lead. he could not have been practised in the work; but the strong sweep of his arm, his sure strokes, did not speak the novice. he directed and encouraged his assistants in familiar and idiomatic german, which made me feel that my carefully composed sentences must be somewhat stilted to their native ears. old hans found himself there, too, drawn by i don't know what attraction,--for a share in this work did not belong to his day's plan. he was not taking a principal part in it; he had a hatchet in his hand and chopped a little now and then in a careless and fitful way, but he was chiefly occupied in observing the amateur, whose movements he followed with an admiration a little shaded by incredulity. he stood like the rustic spectator of an exhibition of legerdemain, his applause restrained by the displeasure of feeling himself the subject of an illusion. but over the boys harry's ascendancy was already complete: not only did their bush-scythes keep time with his, but their voices, when they answered him, and even when they spoke to each other, were more gently modulated,--their very laugh had caught something of the refinement of his. when afterwards in my talks with him he unfolded, among his plans for the future, a favorite one of leading a colony to some yet unsettled region, i felt, remembering this scene, that he was the man for it. hans was won over before we left him. when we arrived, he had searched my face with a look which, at the same time that it asked my opinion of the stranger, gave me to understand that he himself was not one to be dazzled by outward show. as we were going, his eye caught mine again: he gave me a nod of satisfaction, which said that he had at last made up his mind, and that it was one with my own. perhaps he had been aided in coming to a decision by the care with which harry delivered up to him the tools he had been using, and by the frank pleasure with which the volunteer woodman received the words of approbation which the veteran could not withhold. i cannot write you the whole of last monday's journal to-night. i came in late. the weather is fine again, and i took a long day in the field to make up for lost time. tuesday, april , . we were on our way from the thicket to the marshes. the doctor had a successful morning. the tin case was always opening and closing for some new treasure. noon found him in high good-humor. i did not propose to go home for dinner. it had been arranged with tabitha that we should take it on the little knoll known in our level region as prospect hill. we found two baskets in the shade of its two trees. harry and i unpacked them, the doctor superintending and signifying coöperation by now and then putting his thumb and finger to the edge of a dish or plate on its way to the turfy table. harry filled our bottle from the cool spring that bubbles up at the foot of the mound. there was a log under one of the trees, affording seats for three, but we left it to the doctor, and took our places on the ground, fronting him, on either side of the outspread banquet. we talked of plans for the coming week. i told over our few objects of modest interest, and the names of such of our neighbors as could lay claim to the honor of a visit from dr. borrow, or could in any degree appreciate his society. the nearest of these was westlake. "we have been at westlake's," said the doctor; "we passed a day and night with him. he pressed us to stay longer, and i was very well amused there; but harry looked so plainly his eagerness to be on, and his fear lest i should allow myself to be persuaded, that i put your hospitable neighbor off with a promise to give him another day, if we had time, after we had been here. harry has all along wanted to secure the visit here as soon as possible, for fear something or other should interfere with it. i believe, if i had proposed it, he would even have put off going to the harveys, old friends as they are. you must know that you have been his load-star from the first." very much pleased, yet surprised, i looked at harry. his color deepened a little as he answered, "i have heard selden speak of you; but it was after we met mr. shaler that i had so great a desire to know you." here the doctor took up the word again:-- "we met shaler in a great forlorn tavern at mantonville, quite by chance. we hadn't been in the house half an hour before harry and he found each other out. i had just had time to give some orders up-stairs for making my room a little habitable,--for we were going to pass a day or two there,--and came down to look about me below. there i find harry walking up and down the breezy entry with a stately stranger, engaged in earnest and intimate conversation. presently he comes to ask me if it would be agreeable to me to have our seats at the table taken near mr. charles shaler's, who, it seemed, was by two days more at home than we were. of course it was agreeable to me in that populous no man's land to sit near any one who had a name to be called by. and the name was not a new one. i had never seen charles shaler,--colonel shaler, as he is called,--of metapora; but i had heard a great deal of him, for he is own cousin to the harveys. i felt sure that this was the man. his appearance agreed perfectly with the description given me, and then harry's foregathering with him so instinctively was a proof in itself. i found him very agreeable that day at dinner, though, and continued to find him so, except when he mounted his hobby; then he was insupportable. there's no arguing with enthusiasts. they are lifted up into a sphere entirely above that of reason. and when they have persuaded themselves that the matter they have run wild upon is a religious one, they're wrapped in such a panoply of self-righteousness that there's no hitting them anywhere. you may _demonstrate_ to such a man as shaler the absurdity, the impracticability, of his schemes: he seems to think he's done his part in laying them before you; he doesn't even show you the attention to be ruffled by your refutation, but listens with a complacent politeness that is half-way to an affront. however, i had my little occupations, and he and harry used to found utopias together to their own complete satisfaction, whatever good the world may derive from their visions.--does shaler ever come here now?" "from time to time he appears, unlocks the old house, and walks through the empty rooms." "i hear that his plantation is going to ruin." "yes; it is a melancholy sight." "we passed by it on our way here from westlake's. but we saw only the fine trees on the border. we did not enter. why doesn't he sell it, let it, have it occupied by some one who might get a support from it? or does he carry his respect for liberty so far that he thinks it a sin for a man to compel the earth to supply his needs?" "he is, as you say, an enthusiast. he regards the culture of the earth as a religious work, and thinks it sacrilege to carry it on in the frantic pursuit of exorbitant gain, watering the innocent soil with tears and the painful sweat of unrewarded labor. but he has not given up the hope of returning." "what! does he repent his rashness already?" "no; but he loves his native state, and believes in it." "nobody interferes with harvey; nobody objects to his reforms," said the doctor, after a little silence. "because they lead to nothing," answered harry. "they have led to giving him a splendid income, and to giving his people as much comfort as they can appreciate, and as much instruction as they can profit by. harvey is really a religious man. he regards his relation to his slaves as a providential one, and does not believe he has a right to break it off violently, as shaler has done." i had all along tried, in these discussions, to maintain an impartial tone, confining myself to a simple statement of facts, and leaving the controversy to the doctor and harry; but i had been gradually losing my coolness, and found myself more and more drawn to take a side. the repetition of this reflection upon shaler was more than i could bear. "there is certainly," i said, "a wide difference between shaler's view of the relation of the master to his laborers and harvey's. shaler believed that these dependent beings were a charge intrusted to him by their maker and his. as unto him more had been given than unto them, of him, he knew, more would be required. harvey supposes that these inferior creatures have been given to him for his use. his part is to supply them with sustenance, and to show them so much of kindness and indulgence as is consistent with keeping them in the condition to which they have been called; theirs is to serve him with all their soul and all their strength, to render him an unqualified obedience, to subordinate even the most sacred ties of nature to their attachment to him. here is, indeed, no danger to slavery. ameliorations, under such conditions, fortify instead of undermining it. the sight of an apparent well-being in this state pacifies uneasy consciences in the master-class; while the slave, subjugated by ideas instilled from infancy, not less than by the inexorable material force which incloses him, finds even his own conscience enlisted in his oppressor's service, steeled and armed against himself." "you wrong frank harvey, if you suppose he allows his slaves a mere animal support; he has them taught what is needful for them to know." "he has them taught just so much as shall increase their usefulness to him, without giving them a dangerous self-reliance." "precisely, so far as secular knowledge is concerned. and it is possible he may be right in view of their interests as well as of his own. but he allows them religious instruction to any extent,--takes care that they have it." "the religious instruction allowed by harvey, and by other humane slaveholders who maintain the lawfulness of slavery, inculcates the service of the earthly master as the fulfilment of the practical service of god on earth. for the rest, the slaves are allowed to look forward to another world, to which this life is a sorrowful passage,--whose toils, pains, and privations, however unnecessary and resultless, are, if only passively accepted, to be compensated by proportionate enjoyments." "this constitutes, then, the whole of the much talked-of religion of your negro christians?" "of too many; but the promise, 'ask, and ye shall receive,' was made to them as to all. even to the slave-cabin has been sent the comforter who teacheth all things. but we were speaking not so much of the religion of the slaves as of the religious instruction given or allowed them by their masters. it is necessarily circumscribed, as i have told you." "what was the creed inculcated upon colonel shaler's protégés?" "they were taught that life, even earthly life, is a sacred and precious gift, for which they were to show themselves grateful by keeping it pure and noble and by filling it with useful work. they were taught that duty to god consists not in mere acquiescence, but in active obedience. they were taught that there are earthly duties which no human being can lay down; that on the relation of husband and wife, of parent and child, all other human relations are founded. in short, shaler recognized men in his slaves. he attributed to them the natural rights of men, and the responsibilities of civilized and christian men." "and his neighbors unreasonably took umbrage! mind, i am no upholder of slavery. i am merely speaking of what is, not of what ought to be. a slaveholder, meaning to remain one, can yield nothing in principle, let him be as indulgent as he will in practice. what becomes of his title in the slave-family, if the slave-father has one that he is religiously bound to maintain and the rest of the world to respect? the master is the owner no longer. the property has died a natural death." so slavery dies before christianity without formal sentence. "but," the doctor began, in a different tone, passing lightly from a train of argument which might have led him where he had not meant to go, "i should never have taken shaler to be the lowly-minded man you represent him. i cannot imagine his people addressing him with the familiarity that even harvey permits; still less can i think of him as treating them with the good-natured roughness of your neighbor westlake." "i have never seen him followed about his place by a crowd of begging children, nor throwing down coppers or sugar-plums to be scrambled and squabbled for." "nor tweaking their ears, i suppose," broke in the doctor, laughing, "nor pulling their hair to make them squeal and rub their heads, and grin gratefully under the flattering pain of master's condescension. i have witnessed these little urbanities. i have not met with a case of the hailing with sugar-plums; but i have known westlake pelt his people with some pretty heavy oaths, which were as acceptable, to judge by the bobbings and duckings and mowings with which they were received. he is very fond of his people, he tells me, and especially of a distinguished old crone who was his nurse, and who is to be gratified with a majestic funeral. she was impartially graced with his emphatic compliments, and did her utmost to make an adequate return in 'nods and becks and wreathèd smiles.' so i suppose it was understood that he was expressing himself in the accepted terms of patrician endearment. probably shaler's affection for his wards was not so demonstrative?" "there was in his manner to them a considerate kindness,--not familiar, yet intimate; in theirs to him an affectionate reverence. he was well fitted to be the chief of a primitive people." "he would have been sure of election in the days when being taller by the head and shoulders than the common crowd was a qualification." "he had the qualification of the ordained as well as that of the popular leader: 'a comely person, and _the lord is with him_.' this last is the mark of the true rulers by divine right,--of the men who seem framed to be the conductors of higher influences. the less finely organized "'know them, as soon as seen, to be their lords, and reverence the secret god in them.'" harry's beautiful face was wonderfully illuminated. strange, this unconscious consciousness of the elect! "the relation of master and slave," i went on,--for the doctor did not offer to speak,--"is, in shaler's opinion, a most perverted and unnatural one; but he believes in that of protector and protected. the love of power, the instinct of dominion, is strong in him. perhaps it must be so in those who are to be called to its exercise. 'i know thy pride,' david's elder brother said to him, when the boy left the charge of his few sheep to offer himself as the champion of a nation. but shaler's ambition was directed by the precept, 'let him who would be greatest among you be your servant';--whether deliberately, or by the spontaneous flow of his large, generous nature, i do not know. whatever superiority he possessed, whether of position, education, or natural endowment, he employed for the advantage of the people under his care. all the proceeds of the estate were spent upon it. the land was brought into a high state of cultivation. its productiveness was not only maintained, but increased. nor was beauty neglected. groves were planted, marshes drained, ponds formed. the old cabins gave place to new and pretty cottages. the owners and builders were encouraged to employ their own invention on them; thus there was great variety in the architecture. vines planted about them, by favor of our kind climate, soon draped them luxuriantly, harmonizing the whole, and giving even to eccentricities of form a beauty of their own. while he took care that ability and energy should enjoy their just return of prosperity, the inferior, whether in body, mind, or soul, were not pariahs. as shaler believed the exercise of beneficent power to be the greatest privilege accorded to mortals, he made it one of the chief rewards of exertion." "was the privilege appreciated?" asked the doctor. "the slave of a tyrannical master is too often the most brutal of oppressors; but disinterestedness and tenderness have a sympathetic force, no less, surely, than rapacity and cruelty. besides, with a race in which sense of honor is so leading a characteristic as in the african, the glory of being the doer and the giver, the shame of being the mere idle recipient, are very potent. shaler was not too wise and good for dealing with ordinary human nature; he was considerate of innocent weaknesses, even of those with which his nature least enabled him to sympathize. he found, for example, that his people did not like to see the 'great house' on their estate surpassed in furniture and decoration by the mansions of neighboring planters. he respected their simple pride. he understood that his house was their palace, their state-house,--that their wish to embellish it was, in fact, a form of public spirit. he indulged them in what was no indulgence to himself." "harvey has rather the advantage of him there: he can please himself and his people at the same time. how long have you known the harvey plantation,--land's end, as judge harvey called it, when he first came to settle here?" wednesday, april , . "how long have you known the harvey plantation?" dr. borrow had just asked me. "ten years," i answered. "i was there for the first time about three years after mr. frank harvey came back from europe." "i was there nearly twenty-three years ago. frank and i had just left harvard. we were both going to finish our studies abroad. we were to sail together. frank must go home for a visit first, and asked me to go with him. i saw slavery then for the first time. i had heard enough about it before. we had just been through the missouri storm. i did not find it, as it showed itself on judge harvey's place, 'the sum of all villanies'; though, perhaps, looking back, i may think it was the sum of all absurdities. i did not reason or moralize about it then. i was hardly eighteen, and took things as they came. but to judge of what has been done on that plantation, you should have seen it as i saw it in ' . sans souci would have been the right name for it. not that i liked it the less. i made none of these wise observations then. on the contrary, i was fresh from the study of dead antiquity, and was charmed to find that it wasn't dead at all. it must be admitted, there is a certain dignity in the leisurely ease of primitive peoples, past and present. they seem to think that what they are doing is just as important as what they may be going to do. we moderns and civilized talk a good deal about immortality; but those simple folks have a more vital sense of it: they seem to be conscious that there will be time enough for all they shall ever have to do in it. old judge harvey was a sort of pristine man,--about as easy and indolent as the negroes themselves." "he was, indeed, of the old type. formerly, i believe, planters--at least the well-born and well-reputed--were content, if their estates yielded them the means of living generously and hospitably, without display or excessive luxury. they took life easily, and let their people do the same. i have heard that judge harvey moved off here, from one of the older slave states, when the money-making mania came in, hoping to keep up for himself and his people the primitive régime they had grown up under. i believe he was no advocate of slavery." "the only forcible thing about him was his dislike of it. he had the greatest compassion for the slave of any man i ever saw, and with the best reason, for he was one himself. he was as much the property of his worshippers as the grand lama. he always entertained the intention of emancipating himself. but there were legal forms to be gone through with. to encounter them required an immense moral force. his hundred tyrants were, of course, all as happy as clams, and had as little thought of a change of domicile. so there was nothing to stir him up, and there was never any more reason for acting to-day than there had been yesterday. i must do him the justice, however, to say that he made provision for his son's living in freedom, in case he should choose it. in spite of the loose way in which the estate was managed, it yielded, as of its own free will, a pretty fair income. the old man spent little, and so put by really a respectable sum, half of which was to be employed in securing an independence to his son, and the other half in compensating his natural proprietors for the loss of his valuable services. shaler was not original: the scheme he carried out in the end was old judge harvey's exactly,--if, indeed, it was his, and not his daughter's. i always suspected that it originated in the head of that little girl. you know shaler and she were own cousins. the abolition vein, they say, came down from a grandmother. at any rate, judge harvey's plan, as he detailed it to me, was to colonize his blacks in a free state, each with a pretty little sum in his pocket for a nest egg. he had taken into his confidence---- no, there was no confidence about it; the judge was as liberal of his thoughts as of everything else; there was not an urchin on the place that might not have known what was planning, for the fatigue of listening; but the gentle flow of the judge's words was heard as the notes of the birds and the frogs were,--with a little more respect, perhaps, but with no more inquiry after meaning. he had taken, not as the confidant, then, but as the partner of his day-dreams, a man who governed his estate for him,--as far as it was governed,--one of the blackest negroes i ever saw, and one of the cleverest, by name jasper." "jasper!" exclaimed harry. "he has fallen from his high estate,--a belisarius, only not quite blind. it is really almost touching to see him feebly fussing round doing little odd jobs of work about the grounds where he was once monarch of all he surveyed. at the time i speak of he was in his glory. it was worth while to see him holding audience,--according or discarding petitions,--deciding between litigating parties,--pronouncing sentence on offenders, or bestowing public commendation on the performer of some praiseworthy act. he carried on the farm in a loose, oriental sort of way,--letting the people eat, drink, and be merry, in the first place, and work as much as they found good for them, in the second. with all this, he made the estate do more than pay for itself. it was he who carried the surplus up to danesville to be invested. he was like the eldest servant in abraham's house, who ruled over all that he had. frank treated him with as much respect as, i dare say, isaac did eliezer. and i ought to mention that jasper kept his master's son very handsomely supplied,--paid off his college debts too, without a wry look, though it must have come hard to subtract anything from the hoard. our jasper missed it in not having their schemes carried into effect when he might. he could have prevailed, as he did in regard to some other matters, by getting his master embarked in the preliminaries, and then persuading him that 'returning were as tedious as go o'er.' but possibly jasper himself, having got the habit of power, did not like to lay it down; or perhaps he thought he must always have the store yet a little larger, seeing what frank's wants were likely to be. and then it probably never occurred to him that a daughter could die before her father. at any rate, it was decided that the judge should arrange the matter by will, things remaining as they were during his life. he never made a will, any more than he ever did anything else he meant to do. did you know him?" "i remember him only as a pale, exhausted old man, drawn about in a garden-chair by jasper, who was almost as sad and humble-looking then as he is now." "it was already over with his reign and his projects. all was at an end when constance died. her father broke down at once and forever. she was his very soul. when i was there she was only thirteen, but she was art and part in all her father's plans,--if, indeed, they were not hers. if she had lived, they would have been carried out;--though, as far as that is concerned, i believe things are better as they are. but her brother was as much her subject as her father was. there was a force about that gentle, generous creature! it was a force like that of sunshine,--it subdued by delighting. you did not know constance harvey?" "i have seen her at colonel shaler's." "she recognized what her father did not,--the necessity of some preparation for freedom. the law against letters did not exist then, i believe; i remember them, the great and little, painted on boards and put up round a pretty arbor she called her school-house. i don't know whether her pupils ever mastered them or not; but what certainly did prosper was the class for singing, and that for recitation. i had not seen much of men and things then, and had not learned to distinguish the desirable and the practicable. even i came under the illusion of the hour, and dreamed liberty, equality, and perfectibility with the best. not that constance talked about these fine things, but she had an innate faith in them of the sort that makes mole-hills of mountains. even now, looking back on that diligent, confident child, i seem to feel the 'almost thou persuadest me.' poor constance! she died, at twenty-two, of overwork. she wore herself out in efforts to bring her poor barbarians up to the standard her imagination had set for them." constance harvey had a spirit strong enough to have sustained a slighter frame than hers through all the fatigues necessary to the attainment of a great end. she died, not of her work, but of its frustration. she had all power with her father, except to overcome his inertness. to this, as years went on, other hindrances were added. her brother married a fashionable woman and lived in paris. his demands forbade the increase of the reserved fund, and soon began to encroach upon it. she urged her brother's return. he replied, that the delicacy of his wife's health made the climate of france necessary to her. his expenses increased, instead of lessening. constance saw, coming nearer and nearer, a danger far more terrible to her than mere pecuniary embarrassment. she saw that her father must either exercise a courage that she had little hope of, or break his faith with jasper,--with the faithful people who had worked for them, or rather, as she viewed it, with them, for the accomplishment of a common object. one half of the fund she regarded as a deposit,--as a sacred trust. until her brother's claims had exhausted the portion always intended to be his, she combated her anxieties, and kept up hope and effort. through her genius and energy the income of the estate was increased, the expenses diminished, and yet the comforts of the work-people not curtailed. jasper seconded her bravely. but the hour of dishonor came at last,--came hopeless, irretrievable. she struggled on a little while for her poor father's sake, and jasper exerted himself strenuously for hers, stimulating the people to renewed industry by his warm appeals. before, he had roused them with the hope of freedom and independent wealth; now, he urged them to rescue from ruin the generous master who had meant them so much good. but the demands from paris increased as the means of supplying them diminished. debt came, and in its train all the varied anguish which debt involves, where human souls are a marketable commodity. let dr. borrow give you the outside of this story, now that you have the key to it. "frank and i were not much together after we got to paris. our worlds were different. frank was going from ball to ball and from watering-place to watering-place after flora westlake, until they were married, and then they followed the same round together. his father wrote to them to come home and live with him, so frank told me, and i believe that was what he had expected to do; but madame harvey naturally preferred paris to the world's end; so there they stayed,--frank always meaning to go home the next year, for eight years. their establishment, by the way, did jasper great credit. then he heard of his sister's death: they could not go home then; it would be too sad. but soon followed news of his father's illness: that started them. on the voyage to new york, he met with this lenox, liked him, and engaged him for the place he has filled so satisfactorily. he judged wisely: frank has an excellent head for organizing, but no faculty for administration. once at home, he devoted himself to his plantation as his sister had done. i believe her example has had a great influence with him. but he has respected her practice more than her theories. he is content to take his people as they are, and to make them useful to themselves and to him. his father lived a few years, but did not meddle with anything. frank has shown an ability and an energy that nobody expected of a man of leisure and of pleasure like him. except a short visit to europe, two summers ago, here he has been steady at his post for twelve years through. his life here is not an hilarious one, for a man of his tastes; but, if doing one's duty is a reason for being happy, frank harvey has a right to be so. you think he looks sad, harry. he does,--and older than his age; but i am afraid there is a nearer cause than you have found for it." the doctor sat silent for a few moments with contracted brows; then, throwing off his vexation with an effort, began again,-- "frederic is expected home in a week or two. perhaps we shall fall in with him somewhere on our road. i should like to see you together and hear you have a talk about slavery. he is as great a fanatic on one side as you are on the other." "he was very far from upholding slavery when i knew him. at school he used to be indignant with northern boys who defended it. he used to tell me terrible things he had himself known. the first thing i ever heard of fred made me like him. a new-york boy, who made the passage to france with him, told me that there was on board the steamer a little mulatto whom some of the other boys teased and laughed at. fred took his part, used to walk up and down the deck with him, and, when they landed, went up with him to the school he was going to in havre." "you were not on board?" "no." "lucky for the mulatto, and for fred harvey, too, if he values your good opinion,--and he values everybody's. if you had taken the boy up, fred would have put him down." "i think not, then. i have heard that he has changed since i knew him." "he has changed, if he ever admitted anything against slavery. when you see him, you can serve up to him some of his own stories." "i would not do that; but, if he introduces the subject, i shall say what i think of slavery as plainly as ever i did." "he certainly will introduce it. and he would not be at all embarrassed, if you were to cast up his old self to him. he would admit freely that in his green age he entertained crude opinions which time and experience have modified. you must be prepared to be overwhelmed with his learning, though. he is a great political economist,--as they all are, for that matter, down here. he almost stifled me with his citations, the last time i was in his company. when he was in boston, about eight months ago, i asked him to dine. he exerted himself so powerfully to prove to me that slavery is the most satisfactory condition for ordinary human nature, and to persuade me in general of the wisdom, humanity, and christian tendencies of 'southern institutions,' that i determined not to invite him too often, for fear he should make an abolitionist of me. "however, i gave half the blame to shaler. his conduct was really a reflection upon his cousin harvey, who had been something of a celebrity. the harvey plantation was one of the sights of the state. fred knew that his father's humanity made a part of his own prestige in northern society. his filial piety took alarm. if shaler's style of benevolence became the fashion, harvey's would be obsolete. he must either follow the lead of another, and so take a secondary place, or count as one behind the times. fred appreciated the position: it was a question of condemning or being condemned; of course there was no question. but all has gone to heart's wish. shaler has passed out of mind, and harvey's is still the model plantation." "i should be glad to have nothing to find fault with in fred but his dogmatism and his pedantry," the doctor began again, lowering his voice. "after you left paris, harry, he fell in with intimates not so safe. he gives his father anxiety,--has, i very much fear, even embarrassed him by his extravagance." harry looked pained, but made no reply. the doctor expected one, but having waited for it a moment in vain, went back to the dinner which had left so unfavorable an impression. he gave some examples of frederic's strain of argument, rather shallow, certainly, and, for so young a man, rather cold-blooded. "i thought," harry exclaimed at last, with emotion, "that i had always hated slavery as much as i could hate it; but, when i see what it has done to men whom i like,--whom i want to like,--when i see what it has done"---- "when you see what it has done to women?" asked the doctor, as harry hesitated to finish his sentence. "ah, i understand. you are thinking of that garden scene." the doctor turned from harry and addressed himself to me, taking up his narrative tone. "you know we ought to have been here three days earlier. the delay was owing to that orpheus escapade i told you of. it took us back to omocqua, and, once there, we determined to give a day or two to egerton, which we had missed before. the cave was no great affair, after those we had seen; and the wonderful flowers that grow there turned out a humbug, as i knew they would. however, egerton proved to be something of a place, and who should be there but my friend harvey himself, to whose plantation we were bound. he had his carriage, and proposed to take us down there with him. we accepted, excusing to ourselves the breach of our rule, in consideration of the gratuitous tramp we had taken between omocqua and tenpinville. we didn't start until afternoon, so it was rather late when we arrived. however, madame received us charmingly, and we had a pleasant hour or two talking over the old times at paris and dieppe. nobody else appeared that evening, and i didn't inquire after anybody: i knew fred was away, and the other children _were_ children when i last heard of them. "i had a room that looked on the garden. harry was in early in the morning,--not too early for me. i was already some time dressed, had unscrewed my press, and was beginning to release my flowers, prizes of the day before. harry knew better than to interrupt me, and i sat working away comfortably and leisurely while he stood at the open window. without, not far off, an old man was dressing a border. the click, click, of his strokes, not very rapid and not very strong, made a pleasant accompaniment to the other pleasant sounds,--such as those of the birds, of the insects, and of a little unseen human swarm whose hum rose and fell at intervals. suddenly, notes before which everything else seemed stilled to listen,--those of a clear, rich voice,--a woman's voice. it chanted a morning hymn. every word was distinctly heard. the precision and purity of the tones told of careful training, and the simplicity of the delivery showed either high breeding or a fine artistic sense. was the charm received through the ear to be heightened or dissolved by the eye? to judge whether there was anything worth getting up for, i looked at harry. he had an expression--awe-struck shall i call it? yes, but with a soft, delightful awe. i took my place beside him where he stood looking down into the garden, as james of scotland looked down from the tower, upon the fair vision flitting among the flowers, and wondered what name could be sweet enough to call it by,--only harry was not wondering. it was i. 'margarita!' he said, under his breath, and quickly, to prevent my question. and margarita it ought to have been! all in white, soft white; fresh and cool as if a sea-shell had just opened to give her passage; her face of that lovely pallor which makes northern roses seem rude. what two years could do, if this were little maggie harvey! the song was broken off abruptly, just when, recounting the blessings of the season, it had come to the opening flowers. the theme was continued, but the tone was changed. the poor old man, in spite of an immense pair of iron spectacles, with half a glass remaining in one of the eye-holes, had failed to distinguish a plant of price from the plebeian crowd that had shot up about it. there it lay on the ignoble heap, its wilted flowers witnessing against him! behold our maggie a megæra! if half the promises she made the old offender were fulfilled, he never sinned again. but i don't believe they were:-- "'words are like leaves; and where they most abound, much fruit beneath them is not often found.' jasper trembled under hers, though. yet he still had thought for the honor of the family: he lifted his eyes meaningly to our window; she turned, perceived us; and you should have seen the shame on--harry's face!" thursday, april , . going home, we made a long circuit. we passed near piney's plantation. the slaves were in the field. we stopped to look at them. they all seemed to work mechanically,--seemed all of the same low type. we could not have discerned any differences of character or capacity among them. but the overseer, who stood by, whip in hand, evidently distinguished shades of industry or reluctance. "you see nothing of that at harvey's," said the doctor, as we walked on again. "you see nothing like it there," he repeated, as harry did not reply. "the force is there, whether we see it or not," said harry. "dr. falter told us that his negroes never thought of running away. presently we saw the bloodhounds." "he said that the dogs were never used." "that their being there was enough." "dr. falter is not an inhuman man, harry." "no, indeed. he is only not a free man." "you mean to say these precautions are a necessity of his position. it is true; and there is his justification. he has a good heart; he would rather be served through love than fear. as things are, he must base his authority on both." "is it not terrible, when law and opinion, which should restrain from tyranny, compel to it?" "let us talk of something else." the doctor himself led the way to a new topic. he stopped to admire the great plain which surrounded us. as we walked on again, he spoke of our magnificent prairies, of the pampas of south america, of the landes of gascony, of the pusztas of hungary, all of which he had seen, and of which he discriminated for us the characteristic features. he spoke of the love which the inhabitant of these immense extents feels for them,--equal to that with which the dweller on the coast, or the mountaineer, regards his home; a love, the intensity of which is due to the emotions of sublimity which they, like the ocean and grand highland scenery, excite, and debarred from which, he whose life they have exalted pines with a nameless want. the doctor passed to the campagna of rome, where harry was at home,--and i, too, through imagination. our conversation left its record on the scene we were passing through. the doctor, illustrating his descriptions, pointed out now this, now that feature of our own landscape. the name he associated with it rested there. fidenæ, antemnæ, have thus made themselves homes on beautiful undulations of our campagna, never to be dislodged for me. the doctor left us presently, as he was in the habit of doing on our walks, and went on a little before. harry and i continued to talk of italy,--of all that it has given to the world of example and of warning. we talked of its ancient fertility and beauty, and of the causes of its decline. we talked of its earlier and later republican days; of its betrayal by the selfish ambition and covetousness of unworthy sons; of the introduction of masses of foreign slaves; of the consequent degradation of labor, once so honorable there; of the absorption of landed property in a few hands; of the gradual reduction of freemen to a condition hopeless as that of slaves; of the conversion of men of high race--and who should have been capable, by natural endowment, of what humanity has shown of best and greatest--into parasites, hireling bravoes, and shameless mendicants; of the revival of its primitive heroism in its early christians; of its many and strenuous efforts after renovation; of the successes it attained only to be thrown back into ruin by its misleaders and misrulers. harry has as warm hopes for italy as i have, and his nearer knowledge of her people has not rendered his faith in them less confident than mine. we talked of the value of traditions, and especially of those which a people cherishes in regard to its own origin and early history. i found that harry had interested himself very much in the ancient history of italy, and in the questions concerning the origin of its different races. in the morning i had seen the poetical side of his mind, and had received an impression of his general culture. i now became aware of the thoroughness and exactness of his special studies. we came to blanty's farm. the doctor stopped at the gate and we rejoined him there. blanty was standing before his door, in conference with a tall, strong, self-reliant-looking black man,--a slave, but a slave as he might have been in africa: the respectful and respected aid, companion, adviser of his master. blanty, seeing us, came down to the gate and asked us to go in. we had not time; but we had a little talk where we were. blanty and i discussed the future of our crops. he was well content with the season and its prospects. he had seen dr. borrow and harry on sunday. a single interview at a common friend's makes intimate acquaintance out here. blanty was quite unreserved, and praised himself and everything belonging to him as frankly as ever ulysses did. he is a grand good fellow. dr. borrow's eye rested on the black man, who remained where his master had left him, in an attitude for a statue,--so firm was his stand, so easy, so unconscious. "he would make a good othello," said the doctor to blanty. "yes, it is othello. mr. colvil has told you about him?" "where did he get his name?" asked the doctor. "my mother gave it to him. he will not let himself be called out of it. he never knows himself by it, if it is shortened. he is a native african, though all of his life that he can remember he has passed here. his mother brought him away in her arms. they were carried to cuba first, and re-shipped. he is more of a man than i am," continued blanty, who is enough of a man to risk admitting a superior. "if i had his head and his tongue, i would have been in congress before this." "can he read?" asked the doctor. "can and does." "but how does that agree with your law?" "he's thirty years old," answered blanty. "the law hadn't taken hold of reading and writing when he had his bringing up. my mother gave him as careful teaching as she did her own boys, and he got more out of it. 'search the scriptures,' she said, was a plain command; and how could a man search the scriptures, if he couldn't read? but he works as well. things here look famously, as you say; i see it myself. it's more to his praise than mine. he has done well by me; i should like to do well by him. my farm's larger than i want. i might give him a piece, as you have your german; but i can't, you know. it's hard, in a free country, that a man can't do as he would with his own. i don't want to send him off, and he doesn't want to go. i married late; if i should be taken away, i should leave my children young. i'd as soon leave them to his care as to a brother's. i've talked it over with him; he knows how i feel. and then, he's married his wife on piney's plantation. foolish; but i didn't tell him so. i knew marriage was a thing a man hadn't his choice in. i sometimes think it was a providence for the easing of my mind." "you are a young man, mr. blanty," said the doctor. "i am forty-five." "you have thirty good years before you, at least." "i hope so, and in thirty years a great deal may happen. i mean right, and i hope god will bring things out right for me somehow." after we left blanty's, we walked on in silence for a time. then the doctor spoke abruptly,--in answer to himself, probably, for neither harry nor i had said anything:-- "what then? what then? here is an instance of a slave capable of taking care of himself,--that is to say, of a man out of place. there are cases of as great hardship elsewhere. are we not constantly hearing, even with us, of men who have never found their place? a southern planter would feel himself very much out of place anywhere but where he is,--and very much out of place where he is, in changed relations with his people. blanty is no example. blanty has half a dozen slaves perhaps at most, with whom he works himself. he might change them into day-laborers and hardly know the difference. but harvey, westlake, falter,--because they are provided for too well, as you seem to think,--will you dispossess them altogether? why all sympathy for the black? have not the whites a right to a share,--our own brothers by blood?" "yes, to a large share," harry answered. "but we are made to feel most for those who have fewest to feel for them; we offer our help first to the helpless. and would not mr. harvey be happier, if there were no whip or stocks on his plantation, seen or unseen? would not dr. falter be happier, if his bloodhounds were kept only as curiosities? i wish them both happier,--and i wish blanty happier, who seems all the more like a brother to me, since he can see one in othello." "let blanty talk, who has a claim. if he can find men enough in his own state who agree with him, they may be able to do something. we have no part in the matter." "we take a part, when we give our sympathy to the maintainers of slavery, and withhold it from such as shaler, our truest brothers,--from such as blanty, and thousands like him, whom it might strengthen and embolden." "harry, you are a northerner. you belong to a state where you need not know that there is such a thing as slavery, if you don't inquire after it. take your lot where it has been given to you, and be thankful." "i am neither a northerner nor a southerner: i am an american. if massachusetts is dearer to me than all other states, it is only as our little farm at rockwood is dearer to me than all other farms: i do not wish the rain to fall upon it or the sun to shine upon it more than upon others. when we met an alabamian or a georgian abroad, was he not our countryman? did we not feel ourselves good kentucks, walking through beautiful kentucky?" "how is it, harry, that you, who love your country so passionately, who take such pride in her institutions, such delight in her prosperity, will yet fix your eyes on her one blemish, will insist on suffering pain she hardly feels? there is enough to do. leave slavery where it is." "it will not remain where it is." "the principles on which our national institutions are founded, if they have the vital force you attribute to them, will prevail. let patience have its perfect work." "sloth is not patience." "the world is full of evils. you have not found that out yet, but you will. you have spied this one, and, young red-cross knight, you must forthwith meet the monster in mortal combat. every country has its household foe, its bosom viper, its vampire, its incubus. we are blessed in comparison with others; but we are not celestial yet. we are on the same earth with europe, if we are on the other side of it. we have our mortal portion; but, young and strong, our country can bear its incumbrance more easily than the rest." "she can throw it off more easily." "leave her to outgrow it. let her ignore, forget it." "prometheus could as soon forget his vulture!" "we will talk of something else." we talked of something else for about half a mile, and then the doctor, turning to harry, said,-- "there is enough to do; and you, of all persons, have laid out enough, without embarking in a crusade against slavery. write your histories; show the world that it has known nothing about itself up to this time; set up your model farm; aid by word and example to restore to the culture of the ground its ancient dignity; carry out, or try to carry out, any or all of the projects with which your young brain is teeming; but do not throw yourself into an utterly thankless work. i laugh, but i am in earnest. i do hope something from you, harry. do not disappoint us all!" "it is the work of our time. i cannot refuse myself to it." "who calls you to it? who made you arbiter here? from whom have you your warrant?" harry did not answer. i spoke for him:-- "'from that supernal judge who stirs good thoughts in every breast of strong authority, to look into the blots and stains of right.'" harry turned to me with a look, grateful, earnest, nobly humble: he longed to believe an oracle in these words, yet hardly dared. "i do not know yet whether i am called to it," he said, after a few moments of grave silence; "but i stand ready. i do not know yet what i am worth. it must be years before i am prepared to be useful, if i can be. but when the time comes, if it is found that i have anything to give, i shall give it to that cause." he spoke solemnly and with a depth of resolution which showed him moved by no new or transient impulse. the doctor's lips were compressed, as if he forbade himself to answer. he walked away and looked at some flowers, or seemed to look at them, and then strolled along slowly by himself. we observed the same pace with him, but did not attempt to join him. when we came near the grove, doctor borrow took his way toward it, and we followed him. he sat down on a bench; i took my place beside him, and harry his, as usual, on the grass near us. the doctor, refreshed by the little interval of solitude, was ready to talk again. "do not make me out an advocate of slavery. i am not fonder of it than you are, harry. it has brought trouble enough upon us, and will bring us worse still." "it can never bring upon us anything worse than itself." "when you have disposed of slavery, what are you going to do with the slaves?" "slavery disposed of, there are no slaves. the men i would leave where they are, to till the ground as they till it now, only better. there has never been a time or a place in which men did not work for their family, their community, their state. the black man will work for his family, as soon as he has one,--for his community, as soon as he is a member of one,--for the state, as soon as we admit him to a share in it." "you will not dare to say of these poor beings that they are capable of self-government?" "which of us would dare to say it of himself?" replied harry, reverently; "and yet god trusts us." "if he intends for them what he has bestowed on us, he will grant it to them." "through us, i hope." "in his own time. "'never the heavenly fruits untimely fall: and woe to him who plucks with impious haste!' remember the words of your favorite iphigenia:-- "'as the king's hand is known by lavish largess,-- little to him what is to thousands wealth,-- so in the sparing gift and long-delayed we see the careful bounty of the gods.'" "those are the words of a pagan priestess," harry answered. "the hand of our god is not known by its parsimony. he does not force on us what we will not accept, but his bounty is limited only by our trust in it. ask large enough!" he exclaimed, springing up, and standing before us,-- "'ask large enough! and he, besought, will grant thy full demand!'" "who says that?" asked the doctor. "the greatest religious poet of the old time, translated by the greatest of the new,--david, by milton." it was i who answered,--for harry, absorbed in his own thoughts, had not heard the question. "you uphold him!" cried the doctor, almost accusingly. he rose presently and walked off for home. harry and i followed, but at a little distance, for he had the air of wishing to be alone. i found that harry's interest in the question of slavery was not new. in europe, it had pained him deeply to see the injury done to the cause of freedom by our tolerance of this vestige of barbarism,--in truth, a legacy from the arbitrary systems we have rejected, but declared by the enemies of the people to be the necessary concomitant of republican institutions. he has studied, as few have, the history of slavery in the united states, and its working, political and social. it has not escaped him, that, though limited in its material domain, it has not been so in its moral empire: north, as well as south, our true development has been impeded. his great love for his country, his delight in what it has already attained, his happy hopes for its future, only quicken his sight to the dangers which threaten it from this single quarter. he sees that not only the national harmony is threatened by it, but the national virtue;--for a habit of accepting inconsistencies and silencing scruples must infallibly impair that native rectitude of judgment and sincerity of conscience through which the voice of the people is the voice of god. it is this perception, not less than the strong call the suffering of the weak makes upon every manly heart, that has brought harry dudley to the conviction that the obliteration of slavery is the work of our time. we talked of the slave; of his future, which depends not more on what we do for him than on what he is able to do for himself. we spoke of the self-complacent delusion cherished among us, that he brought his faults with him from africa, and has gained his virtues here; of the apprehension consequent on this error, that what is original will cleave to him, while that which has been imposed is liable to fall from him with his chain. we talked of the mysterious charm possessed by the name of africa, while its wonders and wealth were only divined and still unproved. we talked of henry the navigator; of the great designs so long brooded in his brain; of the sudden moment of resolution, followed up by a quarter of a century of patience; of the final success which was to have such results to the world,--in the african slave-trade, which he, of christian princes, was the first to practise,--in the discovery of america by columbus, to whose enterprises those of henry immediately led. if we could suppose that man ever, indeed, anticipated the decrees of providence, or obtained by importunity a grant of the yet immature fruits of destiny, it might seem to have been when henry of portugal overcame the defences of the shrouded world, and opened new theatres to the insane covetousness of western europe. we cannot suppose it. doubtless mankind needed the terrible lesson; and, happily, though the number of the victims has been immense, that of the criminals has been more limited. the history of early portuguese adventure--this strange history, full of the admirable and the terrible, attractive at the same time and hateful--owes nothing of its romance or its horror to the fancy of the poet or of the people. it does not come to us gathered up from tradition, to be cavilled at and perhaps rejected,--nor woven into ballad and legend. it has been preserved by sober and exact chroniclers. the earliest and most ample of its recorders, called to his task by the king of portugal, was historiographer of the kingdom and keeper of its archives. long a member of the household of prince henry, and the intimate acquaintance of his captains, he heard the story of each voyage from the lips of those who conducted it. he makes us present at henry's consultations before the fitting out of an expedition,--at his interviews with his returning adventurers. he gives us the report of the obstacles they met with, and the encouragements. we follow the long disappointment of the sandy coast; gain from the deck of the caravel the first glimpse of the green land, with its soft meadows, quietly feeding cattle, and inviting shade. we receive the first kindly welcome of the wondering inhabitants, and meet their later defiance. these earliest witnesses to the character of the black man are among the most sincere. they were not tempted to deny to him the qualities they found in him. they had no doubt of the validity of the principle, that the stronger and wiser are called upon to make property of the faculties and possessions of the weaker and simpler; they were as sincerely persuaded that the privileges of superiority were with themselves. they believed in the duty and glory of extirpating heathenism, and with it the heathen, if need were. they acted under the command of "their lord infant," to whose bounty and favor their past and their future were bound by every tie of gratitude and expectation. they had no occasion, then, to malign their victims in order to justify themselves. they did not call in question the patriotism of the people whom they intended to dispossess, nor its right to defend a country well worth defending. this people was odious to them for its supposed worship of "the demon," and for its use of weapons of defence strange to the invaders, and therefore unlawful. but, even while grieving for the losses and smarting under the shame of an incredible defeat, they admitted and admired the courage by which they suffered. if they seized and carried away the children left on the river-side in barbarian security, with as little remorse as any marauders that came after them, they made themselves no illusions in regard to the feelings of the father, who, discovering his loss, rushed down to the beach in a vain attempt at rescue, "without any fear, through the fury of his paternal love." they made no scruple of employing guile, when it served better than force,--the civilized and the christian are thus privileged in their dealings with the man of nature and the pagan,--but their report does justice to the loyalty of primitive society. nor does their chronicler feel any call to make himself their advocate. glorying in their exploits, he is not ashamed of their motives. he does, indeed, bestow higher praise on those with whom desire of honor is the more prevailing incentive; but he has no fear of detaching any sympathies by avowing that their courage was fired and fortified by the promise and the view of gain. i related to harry some scenes from this narrative. he asked me to write it out, and hereafter to continue it, by gathering from other early witnesses what indications are to be found of the original qualities of the black races; of their condition and civilization, and of the character of their institutions, before they had been demoralized and disorganized by foreign violence and cunning. i had already sketched to him my views on this subject. his historical studies, his knowledge of the laws and customs of primitive peoples, enabled him to draw at once, from the facts i stated, the inferences to which i would have led him, and to see titles to respect where more superficial minds might have found only matter for a condescending, or perhaps a disdainful, curiosity. harry's request came to confirm an intention whose execution i had continually put off to a more convenient season. i gave him my promise gladly, and determined to begin while he was still with me, that i might have the pleasure of reading over at least the first pages with him. dr. borrow likes to spend two hours or so after breakfast in arranging and labelling his pressed flowers; harry is pleased to have some active work in his day. it was agreed between us that he should give that time to helping karl and fritz, and that i should take it for writing. i resolved within myself, though, that i would not wait for the morning. dr. borrow was not in talking vein that evening. we broke up early. as soon as i found myself in my room, i took out my portfolio and began. it happened to me, however,--as it has often happened to me,--that what i wrote was not what i had meant to write. friday, april , . i was to tell the story of the finding of guinea. but let us leave the land of mystery and promise still lying in shadow, until we have first informed ourselves a little concerning the world with which the portuguese explorers are to bring it into relation,--the civilized and christian world, which is about to rush into the opened road, proposing, in exchange for dominion and gold, to share with its intended tributaries its own moral and spiritual wealth, and to endow them with the fruits of its social and political wisdom. we must be content to receive our accounts of africa from europeans: let us try to look at europe with the eyes of an african. let us suppose that the moorish traders, whose golden legends drew the eyes of europe southward, have excited in a ialof or fulah prince a desire to see the wonders of the north. or rather, let the traveller be a mandingo; for that people is as remarkable for good judgment as for truthfulness, and our observer of christian manners must be one who will not easily commit injustice. we will give him about a three-years' tour,--more time than most travellers allow themselves for forming an opinion of a quarter of the globe. it is the year schemes of african expedition are germinating in the brains of the portuguese infants. the mandingo has heard of portugal from the moors, and of the young prince who has questioned them of africa with so keen an interest. portugal, then, attracts him first. we may take it for granted that the representative of africa is well received. we may suppose him to be entertained with the superb hospitality that bemoy, the ialof prince, actually met with at the portuguese court something more than half a century later. all its magnificence is displayed for his admiration; and its most delightful entertainments, such as bull-baiting, feats of dogs, tricks of buffoons, and the like, are put in requisition for him as for bemoy. the mandingo traveller is, of course, very welcome to prince henry, as a living evidence of the existence of the hidden world he has dreamed of. the reports he receives of its resources, from so competent a witness, confirm his hopes and inflame his zeal. he expresses to the stranger his strong desire to see these interesting regions brought into communication with europe, and discloses those projects of maritime adventure whose execution afterwards gained him the surname of the navigator. the manners and conversation of henry are very acceptable to his foreign guest, who is especially won by his disinterestedness: for this prince, and his young brother ferdinand, not less ardent than himself, have the good of africa as much at heart as that of their own country. they wish, so they tell him, to aid its advance in science and the arts; above all, they wish to carry there a religion which has been revealed to them, and which cannot but prove an inestimable blessing. the mandingo is surprised, and at first a little disturbed, by this last announcement; for the account he has heard of the religions of europe is not such as to make him desire to see any of them transported to africa. but he learns that he has been grossly misinformed: it is not true, as the moors have reported, that the europeans are ignorant of a supreme being and worship only idols: they do, indeed, pay homage to the images of tutelary divinities, whom they call saints; but they are perfectly aware that these are subordinate beings. the africans themselves might, on the same evidence, be accused, by a superficial traveller, of a like deplorable ignorance. neither is it true that many of the states of europe worship an evil demon who delights in carnage and is propitiated by massacre. on the contrary, the christian religion, which prevails in the greater part of europe, teaches especially love to god and love to man; it is opposed to every form of violence, forbidding even retaliation, and requiring its followers to love not only friends and strangers, but even enemies. this account he receives from a good priest, who is appointed to give him instruction. he is greatly moved by the exposition of this sublime doctrine. far from dreading, he now ardently desires to see the influences of the religion of christendom extended to africa. he has arrived at a favorable time for studying its precepts; for portugal is at peace with itself and its neighbors: an unusual state of things, however, and not likely to last, as the stranger cannot but soon perceive,--for preparations unmistakably warlike are going on about him. he observes that the people are agitated by various apprehensions; he hears them murmur at their increased burdens, and at the prospect of having their sons taken from them to die in a foreign land. all this is very puzzling to our traveller. how reconcile it with the religion he was on the point of embracing? at the court he sees elation and mystery on the faces of the younger men; in those of the elder, grave concern. the people, he finds, are as ignorant as himself of the object of the military preparations: some saying that a new war with castile is impending; others, that the king is about to aid the father at rome against the father at avignon. he is more and more perplexed; but, mindful of the reserve and delicacy becoming a stranger, he is sparing of questions, and waits for time and a wider experience to enlighten him. in the mean time, he turns his attention to what seems to concern himself more nearly. he believes that henry, whom he perceives to be as resolute as adventurous, will one day carry out his schemes of maritime enterprise, and that he will thus exercise an influence on the destinies of africa. will this influence be exerted for good or evil? he sets himself to study the character of the young prince more carefully, makes diligent inquiry concerning his deportment in childhood, and tries to collect information in regard to his lineage,--for this is a point much considered among the mandingos. he is so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of an ancient nobleman, versed in the history and traditions of the country, as well as in those of the royal court, and fond of telling what he knows, when he has a safe opportunity,--for he is a man of experience, and does not make either the past or the future a topic of conversation with his brother-courtiers. to him the african addresses his questions, and not in vain. the old man knew the present king when he was only grand master of the order of avis, and the infant henry has grown up under his very eyes. all that the traveller learns in regard to henry himself is satisfactory; and he finds that king john, his father, is regarded as a just and wise sovereign. but, on nearer inquiry, he discovers that this great king is, in fact, a usurper; for, in portugal, the successor to the crown must be the son of his father's principal wife, and king john had not this advantage. he learns, with yet more regret, that this sovereign is of a family in which filial impiety is hereditary. the first of the dynasty, king alphonso, made war against his own mother, and imprisoned her in a fortress, where she died, having first, as the mandingo heard with horror, bestowed her malediction on her son and his line. she foretold that he should be great, but not happy; that his posterity should live in domestic strife and unnatural hatred; that success should only bring them sorrow, and even their just enterprises should turn to evil. the african asks anxiously whether the religion of the christians had already been revealed in the time of alphonso. his venerable friend replies that it had, and that alphonso, by his great piety displayed in the building of monasteries and in the slaughter of moors,--for he did not spare even the tender infants,--averted from himself some of the effects of the curse. but though he obtained the crown of portugal and was permitted to triumph over the infidels, yet it was remarked that his life was disturbed and unhappy, and that he met with strange disasters in the midst of his successes. the curse seemed to deepen with time. his grandson, the second alphonso, set aside his father's will, and seized on the inheritance of his sisters; a third alphonso, son to this second one, deprived his elder brother of his throne; the fourth alphonso rebelled against his father, and was rebelled against, in his turn, by his son peter, whose wife he had murdered, and who, in revenge, ravaged the country that was to be his own inheritance. when he came to the throne, peter caused the men who had been the instruments of his father's crime to be put to death by horrible and lingering tortures, which he himself superintended. this peter, surnamed the severe, was father to the reigning king, entitled john the great. the mandingo, hearing this history of the royal house of portugal, is made to feel that he is indeed in a country of barbarians: a fact which the pomp of their court, and the account he has heard of their religion, had almost made him forget. the old courtier becomes more and more communicative, as he sees the surprise and interest his narrative excites, and ventures at last, in strict confidence, to reveal that king john himself, before attaining to the crown, gave evidence of the qualities that marked his house. he assassinated with his own hand a man whom he considered his enemy, after inviting him to an amicable conference; he spread devastation and horror through the kingdom on his way to the throne, which, when he seized it, had several other claimants. one of these was, like himself, a son of peter the severe, and had the superiority of a legal birth; but he, having murdered his wife, went on foreign travel, and happening, when the throne of portugal was left vacant, to be in the dominions of the husband of his niece,--another of the claimants,--was seized and thrown into prison. in this state of the family-affairs, john, the grand master of avis, saw a chance for himself. he consented to act, until the true heir should be decided on, as protector of the kingdom, and in this capacity opened the prisons, offering pardon to all who would enter his service. he thus formed a devoted little army, which he provided for by giving it license to plunder the enemies of order, among whom, it seemed, were dignitaries of church and state, and holy recluse women: at least, their estates were ravaged, themselves murdered, and their dead bodies dragged through the streets in terror to others. there was no lack of recruits; the reformed convicts found the path of duty as congenial as that of crime, and all the ruined spendthrifts and vagabonds of the country were content to link their fortunes to those of the protector. no corner of the kingdom was left unschooled by summary executions. in fine, the adherents of the grand master played their part so well, that the people, tired of the interregnum, begged him to make an end of it and set the crown on his own head. he complied, and the country had the relief of being ravaged by the armies of his castilian competitor and of supporting his own forces in a more regular manner. but all this is now over; the kingdom has enjoyed an interval of peace, and begins to look with pride on the prince who won it so adroitly and governs it so firmly. the curse which hung over the royal line seems to have been baffled, or, at least, suspended, by his irregular accession. he has held his usurped sceptre with a fortunate as well as a vigorous hand. his five sons are dutiful, united, and of princely endowments. the mandingo then inquires about the descent of henry on the maternal side, and learns that his mother is a sister of the late king of england, a great and wise sovereign, whose son henry, the fifth of the name, now reigns in his stead. he must see the island-kingdom governed by prince henry's cousin and namesake. but he postpones this visit,--for he hears that in a certain city of the mainland the most illustrious persons of europe are assembled to hold a solemn council, whose decrees are to have force in all christian states. even the supreme pontiff himself is to be there, the head of the christian world, superior to all potentates. the african will not lose such an opportunity of studying the manners and institutions of europe. he hastens to constance, where the concourse and the magnificence surpass his expectations. he inquires earnestly if he may be permitted to see the great pontiff, and learns, to his surprise, that three sacred personages claim this title, to the great confusion and misery of christendom, which has already shed torrents of blood in these holy quarrels and sees new wars in preparation. nor is this the worst that is to be dreaded. the power of the rightful pontiff extends into the future life; and as each of the claimants threatens the followers of his rivals with terrible and unending punishment in the next world, the uncertainty is truly fearful. one of the pretenders is compelled by the council to renounce his claims, and is instantly thrown into prison, that he may have no opportunity of resuming them. a second withdraws his pretensions by deputy; and it is understood that the council intends to require a similar resignation of the third, that the anxiety of the world may be put to rest by the election of a fourth, whose rights and powers shall be unquestionable. there seems, however, no prospect of a speedy solution of these difficulties; and our traveller, having seen all the great personages of the assembly, with their equipages and attendants, begins to weary of the noise and bustle. but he hears that a ceremony of a very particular kind is about to take place, and stays to witness it; for he will neglect no opportunity of improvement. he is present, therefore, at the burning of john huss, which he understands to be a great propitiatory sacrifice. when he hears, the following year, that a holocaust of the same kind has again been offered in the same place, he, of course, feels justified in recording it as an annual celebration. he notes as a remarkable circumstance, that the victim, on both occasions, is taken from the same nation; but he cannot learn that any law prescribes this selection, or that the efficacy of the sacrifice would be affected by a different choice. another circumstance which seems to him noteworthy is, that, whereas, under their old religions, the people of these countries offered up, in preference, malefactors reserved for the purpose, or captives taken in war, the europeans of this newer faith, on the contrary, select men without spot or blemish, and possessed of all the gifts and acquirements held in highest honor among them. he hears vaunted, on all sides, the virtue and learning of huss, and, above all, his extraordinary eloquence,--for this gift is held in as much esteem in europe as in africa. he hears the same encomiums pronounced on the second victim, jerome of prague, and learns, at the same time, that the possession of these powers renders his doom the more necessary. he can but infer that the great, though mistaken, piety of the christians makes them conceive that only what they have of best is worthy to be devoted to so sacred a purpose. but these reflections were made a year later. we must go back to the summer of . saturday, april , . it is in the month of august that our african traveller arrives in england. the king is just setting off on a hostile expedition against a country whose inhabitants, though christian, like the english, are held by them in detestation and contempt. just before going, the king is obliged to cut off the head of one of his cousins. the cause of this severity is thus explained:--the late king, cousin to his own predecessor, dethroned and killed him; and it being a rule in england that what has been done once is to be done again, the present king lives in great fear of cousins. he finds the people considerate of these royal exigencies. he hears praises bestowed on the clemency of the young henry, who remits,--so it is reported,--in the case of his kinsman, a grievous part of the punishment which the law awards to treason, only suffering the sentence to be executed in full on a man of inferior rank condemned with him as his accomplice. notwithstanding the disturbed state of the times, the stranger is well received, and is questioned with avidity. he is gratified to find that his country is a subject of interest to the english as well as to the portuguese. they seem, indeed, to be fully aware that africa is the most favored portion of the globe. they are never tired of asking about its perpetual summer, its marvellous fertility, its inexhaustible mines. even the common soldiers in henry's army "speak of africa and golden joys." he finds that some of the learned maintain that continent to have been the first home of man, and believe that the terrestrial paradise lies somewhere hidden among its mountains. when he becomes a little more familiar with his hosts, however, he finds that they entertain some notions not altogether so flattering. they are curious about a certain people of africa who live in the caves of the earth, whose meat is the flesh of serpents, and who have no proper human speech, but only a grinning and chattering; they ask him whether his travels in his own country have extended as far as the land of the blemmyes, a people without heads, who have their eyes and mouth set in their breasts. he answers, a little stiffly, that he has no knowledge of any such people. when they go on to inquire whether he ever ventured into the region inhabited by the anthropophagi, explaining at the same time what peculiarities are intimated by that name, his indignation almost gets the better of him, and he denies, with some vehemence, that such wretches hold any portion of his native soil. his english friends assure him that it is nevertheless very certain that such a people live in the neighborhood of the mountains of the moon. when he finds that he cannot otherwise persuade them out of this injurious opinion, he ventures, though with as much delicacy as possible, to tell them, that, while on the mainland of europe, he heard stories equally wonderful and equally absurd of their own island. in especial, he heard a frenchman assert that the eating of human flesh was practised in some part of the dominions of the english king. he assures his english friends that he refused to credit this story, as well as some other particulars in regard to their island, which seemed to him too monstrous for belief, though they were given to him on the authority of a greek traveller of high reputation, who had not long before visited england in company with the emperor of the east, and who had enjoyed extraordinary opportunities for studying the manners of the most polite society of the kingdom. the mandingo is here interrupted by his english hosts, who make haste to assure him that the greeks are everywhere known to be great liars; that the same may be said of frenchmen; and that, indeed, there is no nation of europe, except their own, whose word is at all to be relied upon. the mandingo refrains from passing so severe a judgment on the travellers who brought back such rash reports of his own country, but he permits himself to suppose that they did not themselves visit the regions whose manners they described, but received with too little examination stories prevalent in other, perhaps hostile, countries; for he is obliged to confess, with regret, that africa is not, any more than europe, always at peace within itself. for himself, he protests, that, even if his natural caution did not prevent him from accepting too readily the statements of the enemies of england, he should have been guarded from this error by the favorable accounts he had heard from henry of portugal, by whom he had been warned against believing the stories current among the common portuguese, who held their english allies in ungrateful abhorrence, and regarded their visits in the same light as those of the plague or of famine. his english friends approve the african's candor; but he can perceive, that, so far as his own country is concerned, they remain of their first opinion. they politely turn the conversation, however, from the men of africa to its animals,--asking, in particular, about that strange creature, shaped like a pig, but having a horse's mane, whose shadow, falling on a dog, takes from him the power of barking, and which, lurking near a sheepfold until it learns the shepherd's name, calls him by it, and, when he comes, devours him. the african does not deny that an animal possessed of these endowments may somewhere exist, but he is not acquainted with it; neither has he met with the wonderful stone, said to be found in the same creature's eye, which, being placed under a man's tongue, causes him to foretell future events. this ignorance of the natural history of his country does not raise his reputation with the english. they give him, on their part, every opportunity of forming a correct judgment of their own country,--not concealing or extenuating things liable to be found fault with by a stranger. indeed, he cannot enough admire the contented and cheerful character of this people, who find advantages where others would have seen deficiencies or evils, and account by latent virtues for disagreeable appearances on the surface. they congratulate themselves that their sun never oppresses them with its rays,--that their soil has not that superabundant fertility which is only a temptation to laziness. they tell him, with pride, that it is necessary, in travelling in their country, to go in strong parties and well armed: for such is the high spirit and great heart of their people, that they cannot bear to see another have more than themselves; and such is their courage, that what they desire they seize, unless the odds are plainly too great against them. one special subject of gratulation among the english he finds to be the possession of a king whose passion is military glory; inasmuch as the foreign wars in which he engages the country have the double advantage of keeping up a warlike spirit in the nation, and of clearing off the idle hands, which might become too formidable, if their natural increase were permitted. the mandingo, seeing so much land in the island left to itself, cannot help thinking that the hands might find employment at home. but he suppresses this reflection, and, turning the conversation upon agriculture, inquires how so energetic a people as the english can be contented with so scanty a return from their land; for he has remarked that the meagreness of their crops is not wholly due to the poverty of the soil, but likewise, and in great measure, to very imperfect tillage. many reasons are given for this neglect of their land, all more or less creditable to the english people, but not very satisfactory to the mind of the stranger. at last, however, one is brought forward which he at once accepts as sufficient: namely, the insecurity of possession. it seems that property in england often changes owners in the most unexpected manner; so that a common man, who has hired land for cultivation of its noble proprietor, is liable to be suddenly ejected, and to lose all the fruits of his industry, to say nothing of the risk he runs of laying down his life with his lease. for it appears that the nobles of the country are equally remarkable for courage with the other idle persons, and display it in the same manner. if they think themselves strong enough to add their neighbor's estate to their own, they will--so one of the mandingo's english friends tells him--"make forcible entry and put out the possessor of the same, and also take his goods and chattels, so that he is utterly disinherited and undone." the african dismisses his surprise on the subject of agriculture, and gives his attention to the cities, expecting to see the national industry turned to arts which might offer a more certain reward. he finds that the most skilful artisans are foreigners. it occurs to him, seeing the great demand for weapons of all sorts among the english, and their love of golden ornaments, that some of the skilful cutlers and ingenious goldsmiths of his own country might find encouragement. but he gives up this hope, when he sees the hatred borne to the foreign artisans by the natives, who need their skill, but grudge them the profit they draw from it. it is not an unheard-of thing for a foreign artisan or merchant, who has begun to be a little prosperous, to have his house pulled down about his ears. and well for him, if he escape with this! besides, the jealousy of the people obliges the kings to be always making regulations for the injury of these foreigners; thus the laws are perpetually changing, so that by the time the unlucky men have adapted themselves to one set they find they are living under another. the restrictions and heavy exactions of the law are not enough: foreign artisans and traders are further subjected to the capricious extortions of the collectors. the mandingo congratulates himself on the more liberal policy of his own country, and on the great respect paid there to the professors of useful arts, whose persons are inviolable even in time of war; above all, he reflects with satisfaction on the sacredness of the common law there, which, having been handed down through centuries, is known to all and admits of no dispute,--whereas, under this system of written enactments, continually varied, a man may spend his life in learning the rules he is to live by, and after all, perhaps, become a law-breaker before he knows it. notwithstanding some drawbacks, the african enjoys his visit to the english highly, and finds much to praise and admire among them. he does not neglect to note that they have the choicest wool in the world. this possession, he finds, has endowed them with a branch of manufacture which may be regarded as national. their woollen cloths are not very fine, it is true, but they are much prized, both in england and in foreign countries, for their strength and durability. he is much impressed by the religious architecture of the christians. before their sacred edifices, he feels his soul lifted into a sublime tranquillity, as in the presence of the grandest objects in nature. he is much moved at recognizing in the rich stone carving a resemblance to the ornamental cane-work of african houses. this reminds him of what he once heard said by a learned arab,--that africa was the first home of the arts, as of man himself, and that they had gone forth from their too indulgent mother to be perfected in sterner regions, where invention is quickened by necessity. he cannot but bow before the wisdom of the superintending providence which has caused the rigors of climate and the poverty of soil so to act on the mind of man, that, where nature is less great and exuberant, his own works are the more transcendent, so that his spiritual part may never lack the food it draws from the view of sublime and genial objects. he admires less the arrangements of private dwellings. he finds that in england, as in africa, the habitations of families in easy circumstances consist of several houses; but, instead of being all placed on the ground at a little distance from each other, the square in which they stand surrounded by a pretty palisade, as is the case in africa, they are here piled one upon another, sometimes to a considerable height, so that it is necessary to mount by long flights of uneasy steps; and then, in the cities, houses occupied by different families often adjoin each other, having a partition-wall in common, and their doors opening on a common way, so that it would seem the people living in them can have no proper notion of home or of domestic retirement. he finds that the houses of the common people in the country are not of more durable material than african houses. those of the great are very commonly of stone, and, unless ruined by violence, are capable of serving for centuries. the african does not think this an advantage, as in the case of the temples; for these damp stone houses, so long used as human abodes, become unwholesome; and what is even worse, when evil deeds have been committed in them,--and this is too often the case with the houses of the powerful,--the contagion of guilt hangs round the walls, and the same crime is repeated in after-generations. the african learns, while in england, what was the real aim of the warlike preparations he saw going on in portugal. he hears of the taking of ceuta,--an event which excites almost as much interest in england as in portugal; for the english are supposed to have had a great part in this success. he hears, however, the chief merit ascribed to a beneficent being who bears the title of "the lady of mercy." it seems, the besiegers landed on a day especially consecrated to her; and to her kind interposition is referred the taking of the city and the terrible slaughter of the moors who defended it. the african asks how favors of this kind can be made consistent with the character ascribed to this divinity, and is answered, that her mercies are for those who reverence her,--that the unbelieving moors have no claim on her grace. he is pained; for the lovely qualities he has heard attributed to this gracious being had drawn his heart to her as to one well fitted to be a dispenser of the bounties of heaven. but it does not appear that she is consistent even in the protection of christians; for he hears it mentioned as an auspicious augury, that the english king effected his landing in the christian kingdom of france on the eve of her chosen day; and later, when the battle of agincourt fills england with rejoicing, he hears the circumstance again referred to, and the merciful lady invoked as a benefactress. he is daily more and more perplexed in regard to the religion of the christians. he obtains instruction of an english priest, and finds he has made no mistake as to its tenets: it is understood to teach universal love and ready forgiveness in england as in portugal. yet he observes that nothing is considered more shameful among christians than to pardon an injury; even the smallest affront is to be atoned by blood; and so far from the estimation in which a man is held depending on the good he has done, he is the greatest man who has slain the greatest number of his fellow-creatures. as he stands one day before a cathedral, marvelling how people so selfish and narrow in their religious views could imagine this grand temple, which seems, indeed, raised to the universal father, his attention is drawn to a man of noble aspect, who is observing him with a look so kind and pitiful that he is emboldened to give the confidence which it seems to invite. "i cannot understand the religion of the christians!" "the time will come when they will understand it better themselves. they are now like little children, who do, indeed, reverence the words of their father, but have not yet understanding to comprehend and follow them." the mandingo has no time to thank his new instructor. a party of ruffians, who have been for some moments watching the venerable man, now seize upon him, put irons on his hands and feet, and drag him away, amid the shouts and cries of the people, who crowd round, some insulting the prisoner, others bemoaning his fate, others asking his blessing as he passes. the wondering traveller can get no other reply to his questions than, "a lollard! a lollard!" uttered in different tones of disgust or compassion. he learns, upon inquiry, that the lollards are people who hold opinions disagreeable to the king and to the great generally. for they pretend to understand the doctrines of the christian religion after a manner of their own; and it is thought this interpretation, if disseminated among the common people, would cause serious inconvenience to their superiors. in order to prevent the spread of these dangerous doctrines, open and notorious professors of them are shut up in prison. yet, notwithstanding the severities which await the adherents of this sect, such is the hard-heartedness of its leaders, that, when they can manage to elude justice for a time, they use unceasing efforts to persuade others to their ruin. there are among them some men of eloquence, and their success in making converts has been so great that the prisons are filled with men of the better condition, who look for no other release than death; while, in the dungeons below them, people of the common sort are heaped upon each other, perishing miserably of fevers engendered by damp and hunger. in spite of this unfavorable account of the lollards, the african is glad when he hears that the only one of them he knows anything about has escaped from prison,--for the second or third time, it seems. the words of the fugitive have sunk deep into the heart of the mandingo. but the distant hope, that the christians may in time grow up to their religion, cannot revive the delight which, when he first became acquainted with its doctrines, he felt in the thought that this divine revelation was to be carried to africa. what teachers are those who themselves know not what they teach! his heart is heavy, when he sees how the christians triumph over the fall of ceuta. their foot once set on african soil, their imagination embraces the whole continent. he sees the eyes of the narrators and the listeners alternately gleam and darken with cupidity and envy over the story of the successful assault, and of the immense booty won by the victors, who "seem to have gathered in a single city the spoil of the universe." he is not reassured by the admiration bestowed on the craft of the portuguese, who contrived to keep their intended prey lulled in a false security until they were ready to fall upon it. they sent out two galleys, splendidly equipped and decorated, to convey a pretended embassy to another place. the envoys, according to private instructions, stopped on the way at ceuta, as if for rest and refreshment, and, while receiving its hospitality, found opportunity to examine its defences and spy out its weak points. the king of portugal himself, arriving near the devoted place with the fleet that brought its ruin, deigned to accept civilities and kind offices from the infidels, in order the better to conceal his designs until the moment came for disclosing them with effect. the mandingo recalls with less pleasure than heretofore the kind words of the infant henry and his brother. when he hears that the terrible first alphonso of portugal has made himself visible in a church at coimbra, urging his descendants to follow up their successes, he shudders with foreboding. we will not follow our explorer through all his voyages and experiences. they are numerous and wide. he carries his investigations even to the far north, where eric of pomerania wears the triple crown, placed on his head by the great margaret. his wife is philippa of england, niece and namesake of the mother of henry of portugal. it is, in part, interest in the family of that prince, his first intimate acquaintance in europe, which leads the african on this distant journey. but he soon finds that neither pleasure nor profit is to be had in the dominions of eric, an untamed savage, who beats his wife and ruins his subjects. the great men who rule under him are as bad as himself. some of them have been noted sea-robbers; even the prelates are not ashamed to increase their revenues by the proceeds of piracy. the traveller gives but a glance to the miseries of sweden, where the people are perishing under eric's officials, who extort tribute from them by the most frightful tortures, and where women, yoked together, are drawing loaded carts, like oxen. he returns to england, where he finds preparations making for a solemn sacrifice. he hears, not without emotion, that the victim selected for this occasion is the stately man who once stood with him in front of the great cathedral. he visits the place chosen for the celebration, and sees the pile of wood prepared to feed the fire, over which the victim is to be suspended by an iron chain. he cannot bring himself to witness the sacrifice, but he afterwards hears that it was performed with great pomp in the presence of many illustrious persons. the king himself, it seems, once superintended a similar ceremony in the lifetime of his father, by whom this species of sacrifice had been reinstituted after a very long disuse. it is customary to choose the victim from among the lollards, as it is thought that the chance of serving on these occasions will contribute to deter people from adopting, or at least from proclaiming, the unsafe opinions of that sect. the african traveller's last visit is to france. he made an earlier attempt to see that country, but, finding it ravaged by invasion and by civil war, deferred his design to a quieter time. such a time does not arrive; but he cannot leave one of the most important countries of europe unseen. on landing in france, he finds the condition of things even worse than he had anticipated. but he resolves to penetrate to paris, in spite of the dangers of the road. he passes through desolated regions, where only the smoke rising from black heaps gives sign of former villages, and where the remaining trees, serving as gibbets, still bear the trophies of the reciprocal justice which the nobles and gentlemen of the country have been executing on each other. it is on this journey through france that the mandingo learns to be truly grateful for having been born in a civilized country. the unfortunate land in which he now finds himself has at its head a young prince who has robbed his own mother and sent her to prison. such impious guilt cannot, the african feels, fail to draw down the vengeance of heaven. accordingly, when he reaches the capital, he finds the inhabitants engaged in an indiscriminate slaughter of their friends and neighbors. it almost seems to a stranger that the city is built on red clay, so soaked are the principal streets with blood. the traveller meets no one sane enough to give an explanation of this state of things. nor does he require one. it is plain that this people is afflicted with a judicial madness, sent upon it for the crimes of its chiefs. he finds his way to a street where the work seems completed. all is quiet here, except where some wretch still struggles with his last agony, or where one not yet wounded to death is dragging himself stealthily along the ground towards some covert where he may perhaps live through to a safer time. the stranger stoops compassionately to a child that lies on its dead father; but, as he raises it, he feels that the heaviness is not that of sleep, and lays it back on the breast where it belongs. in a neighboring quarter the work is still at its highest. where he stands, he hears the yell of fury, the sharp cry of terror, the burst of discordant laughter, rise above the clang of weapons and the clamor of threatening and remonstrance; while, under all, the roar of a great city in movement deepens with curse and prayer and groan. and now a woman rushes from a side-street, looks wildly round for refuge, then runs, shrieking, on, until, stumbling over the dead bodies in her way, she is overtaken and silenced forever. he has made his way out of france, and is planning new journeys, when he receives, through some travelling merchants, a peremptory summons from his father, who has heard such accounts of the barbarous state of europe that he regrets having given him leave to go out on this dangerous exploring expedition. our mandingo did not meet the tragic fate of bemoy, to whom the friendship of the whites proved fatal. he returned in safety to his country. the house of the renowned traveller became a centre of attraction. the first question asked by his guests was, invariably, whether, in his long residence among the christians, he had learned to prefer their manners to those of his own people. he was happy to be able to assure them that this was not the case. he had met in europe, he said, some admirable men, and he thought the people there, in general, quite as intelligent as those of his own country, but far less amiable; they were, perhaps, even more energetic, especially the portuguese and english; but he was obliged to add, that their energies were not as constantly employed in the service of mankind as their professions gave reason to expect. what he had found very displeasing in the manners of the europeans was their disregard of cleanliness. their negligence in this respect was a thing inconceivable to an african who had not lived among them. he was much embarrassed, when called upon to speak of the religion of the europeans and their mode of professing it. his audience was indignant at the hypocrisy of the christians. but he was of opinion that their enthusiasm for their creed and their zeal for its propagation were undoubtedly genuine. why, then, did they allow it no influence on their conduct? he could only conclude that they knew it to be too good for them, and that, though they found it, for this reason, of no use at all to themselves, they were perfectly sincere in thinking it an excellent religion for other people. the result of his observations on the christian nations was, that their genius especially displayed itself in the art of war, in which they had already attained to great eminence, and yet were intent on new inventions. indeed, he gave it as his unqualified opinion, that the european had a great natural superiority over the african in everything which concerns the science of destruction. the mandingo had news, from time to time, through the travelling merchants, of what was going on in the north. he heard, in this way, of the captivity and miserable end of the infant ferdinand, of the accession of a fifth alphonso, and of the revival of the bloody dissensions of the royal house of portugal. he waited long for tidings of henry's expeditions, although the year of his own return from europe was the same in which john gonçalvez zarco and tristam vaz set off on the search for guinea. but the looked-for news came at last, to bring with it a revival of his old foreboding. * * * * * you must allow that i have been tender of europe. i might have introduced our traveller to it at a worse moment. instead of going to england in the time of a chivalrous, popular prince, like henry the fifth, he might have seen it under richard the third; or i might have taken him there to assist at the decapitation of some of the eighth henry's wives, or at a goodly number of the meaner executions, which went on, they say, at the rate of one to every five hours through that king's extended reign. instead of making him report that human burnt-offerings, though not unknown in england, were infrequent, and that only a single victim was immolated on each occasion, i might have let him collect his statistics on this subject in the time of the bloody mary. i am not sure that he could have seen france to much less advantage than in the days of the bourgignon and armagnac factions; but perhaps he would not have formed a very different judgment, if, going there a century and a half later, he had happened on the massacre of saint bartholomew. the african traveller sometimes a little misapprehended what he saw, no doubt; but he noted nothing in malice. if he did not see our english ancestors precisely with their own eyes or with ours, at least he did not fall into the monstrous mistakes of the greek historian chalcondyles, of whose statements in regard to english manners gibbon says,--"his credulity and injustice may teach an important lesson: to distrust accounts of foreign and remote nations, and to suspend our belief of every tale that deviates from the laws of nature and the character of man." sunday morning, april , . yesterday was the day my journal should have gone; and my delay has not the usual excuse, for here was already a heavy budget. it is my love of completeness which has detained it. next saturday i can send you, together with the account of harry's arrival and visit here, that of our leave-taking at omocqua. you will thus have this little episode in my life entire. the solicitude we had felt beforehand about dr. borrow's entertainment was thrown away. he has his particularities certainly, but we soon learned to accommodate ourselves to them. harry, with perfect simplicity and directness, all along as on the first day, kept us informed of the doctor's tastes and warned us of his antipathies, so that we had no difficulty in providing for his general comfort. as to his little humors and asperities, we accepted them, in the same way that harry does, as belonging to the man, and never thought of asking ourselves whether we should like him better without them. one thing i will say for the doctor: if, when he feels annoyance, he makes no secret of it, on the other hand, you can be sure that he is pleased when he appears to be,--and this is a great satisfaction. he is not inconsiderate of the weaknesses of others, either. i do not know how he divined that i disliked his blue glasses, but after the second day they disappeared. he said our pure air enabled him to do without them. then the umbrella,--it attended us on the saturday's walk. i supposed it was to be our inevitable companion. but on sunday it came only as far as the door; here the doctor stopped, held it up before him, considered, doubted, and set it down inside. harry carried it up-stairs in the evening. i expected to see it come down again the next morning,--but it had no part in our pleasant monday rambles. i had not said a word against the umbrella. the engagement i made with harry that monday afternoon had dr. borrow's concurrence. he even expressed a willingness to assist at our readings. the order of our day was this:--in the early morning we had our walk,--harry and i. coming back, we always went round by keith's pine. we were sure to find the doctor seated on the bench, which had been left there since the last sunday, microscope in hand and flower-press beside him. then all to the house, where we arrived with an exactitude which caused the doctor, whose first glance on entering was at the clock, to seat himself at the table in a glow of self-approval sufficient to warm all present into a little innocent elation. after breakfast we separated,--harry walking off to take my place with karl and fritz, the doctor going to his flowers, and i to my writing. we all met again at an appointed time and place for an excursion together. we carried our dinner with us; or, if we were not going very far, had it left at some pleasant spot, where we found it on our way home. after dinner i read, and then we had an hour or so of discussion and criticism. i have given you the readings of two days. i shall try to copy the rest for you in the course of the week. copying is work; i cannot do any this morning; and then i have still other things remaining to me from those days which i have not yet shared with you. on tuesday, the ninth, the first day of the new arrangement, harry went away as soon as breakfast was over. the doctor rose, as if going to his room, hesitated, and sat down again. i saw that he had something to say to me, and waited. my thoughts went back to the conversation of the afternoon before. had i really displeased him? he spoke seriously, but very kindly. "harry has no need of incitement in the direction of"---- he stopped, as if for a word which should be true at once to his pride and his disapprobation. he did not find it, and began over again:-- "it is the office of friendship to restrain even from generous error. it is possible to err on the side of too great disinterestedness. a man such as harry will be, while living for himself,--living nobly and wisely as he must live,--is living for others; he has no need to become a crusader." "harry will be what he was meant to be; you would not have him force himself to become anything else?" "no, i would not," the doctor answered confidently, yet with a little sadness in his voice. "it almost seems," he added, a moment after, "that the qualities which fit a man for a higher sphere are incompatible with his success in this." "not, perhaps, with what harry would call success." "i am ambitious for him; i own it. and so are you, though you do not own it. you want to see him recognized for what he is." certainly it is natural to wish that others should love what we love, should admire what we admire. our desire of sympathy, our regard for justice, both ask it. but we must have trust. "fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, nor in the glistering foil set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies; but lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes and perfect witness of all-judging jove." i could not answer the doctor immediately. "whatever course harry may take," i said at last, "his power will make itself felt. he will disappoint neither of us." "he has never given me a disappointment yet; though i prepare myself for one, whenever he begins anything new. we have no right to expect everything of one; but, whatever he is doing, it seems as if that was what he was most meant to do." "it is in part his simple-mindedness, his freedom from the disturbing influence of self-love, which gives him this security of success in what he undertakes. you have said that harry was one to take his own path. i will trust him to find it and hold to it." "i must come to that," answered the doctor, whose anxiety had gradually dissipated itself. "i don't know why i should hope to guide him now, if i could not when he was seven years old. on the infantile scale his characteristics were then just what they are now, and one of them certainly always was to have a way of his own. "'the hero's blood is not to be controlled; in childhood even 'tis manly masterful.' "and yet he was always so tender of others' feelings, so ready to give up his pleasure for theirs, you might almost have thought him of too yielding a nature, unless you had seen him tried on some point where he found it worth while to be resolved." the doctor sat silent a little while, held by pleasant thoughts, and then began again:-- "there comes back to me now an earlier recollection of him than any i have given you. i witnessed once a contest of will between him and a person who was put over the nursery for a time in the absence of its regular head, and who was not thoroughly versed in the laws and customs of the realm she was to administer. harry could not have been much more than two, i think, for he had hardly yet english enough for his little needs. he was inflexible on his side; the poor woman at first positive and then plaintive. she had recourse to the usually unfailing appeal,--'but, harry, do you not want me to love you?' he held back the tears that were pressing to his eyes,--'i want all the peoples to love me.' but he did not give way, for he was in the right. "candor, however, obliges me to add that he did not always give way when he was in the wrong. oh, i _was_ in the right sometimes."--the doctor laughed good-humoredly in answer to my involuntary smile.--"you may believe it, for harry has admitted it himself later. our debates were not always fruitless. i have known him come to me, three months, six months, after a discussion in which we had taken opposite sides, and say,--'i see now that you knew better about that than i did. i was mistaken.' on the other hand, some of his little sayings have worked on me with time, if not to the modification of my opinions, at least to that of my conduct, and sometimes in a way surprising to myself. for the rest, i liked to have him hold his ground well, and was just as content, when he did make a concession, that it was made out of deference, not to me, but to truth. "i don't know whose opinion was authority with him. he did not respect even the wisdom of the world's ages as condensed in its proverbs, but coolly subjected them to the test of his uncompromising reason. i remember somebody's citing to him one day, 'a penny saved is a penny earned.' he considered it, and then rejected it decisively, proposing as a substitute,--'a penny spent is a penny saved.' i suppose that little word of his has spent me many a penny i might have saved,--but i don't know that i am the poorer. "another of his childish sayings passed into a by-word in the household. he was filling with apples for her grandchildren the tin kettle of an old family pensioner, whose eyes counted the rich, red spoil, as it rolled in. 'enough!' says the conscientious gardener, who is looking on. 'enough!' echoes the modest beneficiary. '_enough is not enough!_' gives sentence the little autocrat, and heaps the measure. i thought of this as he was walking beside me, grave and silent, over harvey's well-ordered plantation. 'the child is father of the man.'" the time was past when the doctor had scruples in talking of harry or i in asking. he forgot his flowers, and i my writing. nothing more interesting to me than real stories of childhood. as a means of instruction, it seems to me the study of the early years of the human being has been strangely neglected by the wise. i listened well, then, whenever, after one of his contemplative pauses, the doctor began again with a new "i remember." "i remember being in the garden with him once when a barefooted boy came in and asked for shoes. harry ran off, and presently reappeared with a fine, shining pair, evidently taken on his own judgment. a woman, who had been looking from the window, came hurrying out, and arrived in time to see the shoes walking out of the gate on strange feet. 'why, harry, those were perfectly good shoes!' 'i should not have given them to him, if they had not been good,' the child answered, tranquilly. the poor woman was posed. as for me, i ignored the whole affair, that i might not be obliged to commit myself. but i thought internally that we should not have had the saying, 'cold as charity,' current in our christian world, if all its neighborly love had been of the type of harry's. "you are not to suppose that harry and i were always at variance. our skirmishing was our amusement. he was teachable, very teachable,--and more and more as he grew older. some of the happiest hours i have to look back upon were passed with him by my side, his reverent and earnest look showing how devoutly, with what serious joy, his young soul welcomed its first conscious perceptions of the laws of nature, the sacred truths of science." by the riverside. the morning called me out imperatively. it is almost like that sunday morning on which i took my first early walk with harry. i fell into the same path we followed then. this path led us to the dohuta. we walked slowly along its fringed bank, as i have been walking along it now, and stopped here where the river makes a little bend round a just perceptible rising graced by three ilex-trees. we found ourselves here more than once afterwards. we never thought beforehand what way we should take; we could not go amiss, where we went together. the river holds its calm flow as when harry was beside it with me. here are the trees whose vigorous growth he praised, their thorny foliage glittering in the new sunlight as it glittered then. these associates of that pleasant time, renewing their impressions, awaken more and more vividly those of the dearer companionship. it is strange the faithfulness with which the seemingly indifferent objects about us keep for us the record of hours that they have witnessed, rendering up our own past to us in a completeness in which our memory would not have reproduced it but for the suggestions of these unchosen confidants. without displacing the familiar scene, distant and far other landscapes rise before me, visions that harry dudley called up for me here; to all the clear, fresh sounds of the early morning join themselves again our asking and replying voices. i knew at once when a place had a particular interest for harry, by the tone in which he pronounced the name. fiesole was always a beautiful word for me, but how beautiful now that i must hear in it his affectionate accent! volterra has a charm which it does not owe to its dim antiquity, or owes to it as revivified by him. his strong sympathy, embracing the remoter and the near, makes the past as actual to him as the present, and both alike poetic. harry's researches have not been carried on as a pastime, or even as a pursuit, but as a true study, a part of his preparation for a serviceable life. it is the history of humanity that he explores, and he reads it more willingly in its achievements than in its failures. the remains of the early art of etruria, its grand works of utility, give evidence of the immemorial existence of a true civilization upon that favored soil, the italy of italy. among the retributions of time--as just in its compensations as in its revenges--there is hardly one more remarkable than this which is rendering justice to the old etruscans, awakening the world to a long unacknowledged debt. their annals have been destroyed, their literature has perished, their very language has passed away; but their life wrote itself on the country for whose health, fertility, and beauty they invented and labored,--wrote itself in characters so strong that the wear of the long ages has not effaced them. this original civilization has never been expelled from the scene of its ancient reign. through all changes, under all oppressions, amid all violences, it has held itself in life,--has found means to assert and reassert its beneficent rights. its very enemies have owed to it that they have been able to blend with their false glory some share of a more honorable fame. in its early seats it has never left itself long without a witness; but still some new gift to the world, in letters, in art, or in science, has given proof of its yet unexhausted resources. as freedom is older than despotism, so civilization is older than barbarism. man, made in the image of god, was made loving, loyal, beneficently creative. no country except his own is nearer to harry's heart than italy,--not even france, though it is almost a second home to him; but perhaps there cannot be that passion in our love for the prosperous. for me, too, italy has always stood alone;--sacred in her triple royalty of beauty, genius, and sorrow. harry has ties of his own to italy, and of those which endear most closely. it was the scene of his first great grief,--as yet his only one. the firm, devout expression which his face took, whenever he spoke of his brother, showed that the early departure of the friend with whom he had hoped to walk hand in hand through life had not saddened or discouraged him,--had only left with him a sense of double obligation. harry does not speak of himself uninvited; but he was ready to do so, as simply and frankly as of anything else, when i drew him to it. he has his day-dreams like other young men, and found a true youthful delight in sharing them. i could not but observe that into his plans for the future--apart from the little home, vaguely, yet tenderly sketched, for which a place was supposed in them--his own advantage entered only inasmuch as they provided him a sphere of beneficent activity. the one great duty of our time may oblige him to postpone all designs which have not its fulfilment for their immediate object. but only to postpone, i will hope. for why should we suppose that the struggle with slavery is to last through the life of the present generation? may we not believe that the time may come, even in our day, when we shall only have to build and to plant, no longer to overthrow and uproot? * * * * * karl and fritz have found me out here. they came to propose to me that we should have our service this morning in the open air, at the same place where we had it sunday before last. they had already been at the house, and had obtained my mother's assent. karl was the spokesman, as usual; but he stopped at the end of every sentence and looked for his brother's concurrence. i have remarked a change in karl lately. he has the advantage of fritz, not only in years, but in capacity and energy. he has always been a good brother; but his superiority has been fully taken for granted between them, and all its rights asserted and admitted without a struggle. within a short time, however, his character has matured rapidly. he has shown greater consideration for fritz, and in general more sympathy with what is weaker or softer or humbler than himself. i had observed a greater thoughtfulness in him before harry dudley's visit here. but that short intercourse has extended his view in many directions. the entire absence of assumption, where there was so incontestable a superiority, could not but affect him profoundly. and then harry, although karl's strength and cleverness made him a very satisfactory work-fellow, took a great interest in fritz, in whom he discovered fine perceptions. he tried to draw him out of his reserve, and to give him pleasure by making him feel he could contribute to that of others. some latent talents, which the shy boy had cultivated unnoticed, brought him into a new importance. he knows the habits of all our birds, and has a marvellous familiarity with insects. his observations on their modes of life had been so exact, that doctor borrow, in questioning him, had almost a tone of deference. he was able to render signal service to the doctor, too, by discovering for him, from description, tiny plants hard to find when out of bloom. hans, who is fondest of the son that never rivalled him, exulted greatly in this sudden distinction. karl took a generous pleasure in it; and, under the double influence of increased respect from without and enhanced self-esteem, fritz's diffident powers are warming out wonderfully. the boys thanked me very gratefully, as if i had done them a real favor, when i gave my consent to their plan; though i do not know why they should not suppose it as agreeable to me as to themselves. evening. when i went home to breakfast this morning, i found the chairs already gone, except the great arm-chair. nobody was expected to-day of sufficient dignity to occupy it. i was unwilling to draw it up to the table for myself. i believe i should have taken my breakfast standing, if it had not been that this would have called for explanation. how little i thought, when the doctor first took his place among us, that a time would come when i should not wish to have his seat filled by any one else! i did not know how much i cared for him, until after he was gone; i do not think i knew it fully until this morning, when i came in and saw that solitary, empty chair. then it came over me with a pang that he would never lay down the law to me from it again,--never would lean towards me sideways over its arm, to tell me, with moderated tone and softened look, little childish stories of his foster-son. karl stayed behind to-day, instead of tabitha, to warn those who arrived of the place of meeting. he came in with the lintons, who were late,--the fault of their poor old mule, or rather his misfortune. he fell down, and so broke and otherwise deranged his ingenious harness that the family were obliged to re-manufacture it on the road. my mother did a courageous thing this morning. when the hanthams came, she addressed them by name, and, calling the daughter up to her, took her hand and said some kind words to her. i thought they would be thrown away on her, but they were not. her look to-day had in it less of purpose and more of sympathy. the blantys were not here. i cannot understand why, in such fine weather. we missed them very much. but all the rest of those who are most to be desired came. we had a happy and united little assemblage. i read jeremy taylor's second sermon on the "return of prayers." i am sure that we all heard and felt together, and were left with softened and more trustful hearts; yet doubtless each took away his own peculiar lesson or solace, according to his separate need. what has remained with me is a quickened sense of the divine munificence, which so often grants us more and better than we pray for. "we beg for a removal of a present sadness, and god gives us that which makes us able to bear twenty sadnesses." after the services were over, franket came up and handed me a letter,--a most unexpected and a most welcome one. if i had not seen harry's writing before, i think i should have known his strong, frank hand. i held the letter up before my mother, and her face brightened with recognition. harry writes in fine spirits. the doctor has been very successful. and they met shaler again. "perhaps he will be one of us on the nineteenth." that is good news indeed. altogether this has been a very happy sunday. davis barton stayed with us until four o'clock, and then i rode part of the way home with him. this boy is becoming of importance to me; he is bringing a new interest into my life. this morning, after i had read harry's letter aloud, and after my mother had read it over again to herself, i gave it to him to read. his eyes sparkled, and he cast up to me a quick glance of gratitude; for he felt, as i meant he should, that this was a mode of admitting him to full fellowship. i saw, as he walked off before us to the house, that he was a little taller already with the sense of it. just before we arrived, however, he was overtaken by a sudden humiliation. looking round at me, who, with fritz, was carrying my mother's couch, the poor child espied karl and tabitha following, both loaded with chairs. he stood for an instant thoroughly shame-stricken, and then darted by us without lifting his eyes. he made so many and such rapid journeys, that he brought back more chairs than anybody, after all. when dinner was over, i gave davis some engravings to look at, meaning to spend an hour in writing to you. i had taken out my portfolio, but had not yet begun to write, when i found him standing beside me, looking up at me with a pretty, blushing smile, which asked me to ask him what he wanted. he wanted me to teach him.--"what do you want to learn?"--"whatever i ought to know."--whatever i am able to teach, then, i will teach him, and perhaps more; for, in thinking out what he ought to know, i shall discover what i ought to know myself. it was soon settled. he is to come over three times a week, very early in the morning. i shall give him an hour before breakfast, and another in the course of the day. i shall have an opportunity of testing some of the theories i have talked over with harry. davis has a good mother, and has been pretty well taught, and, what is more important, very well trained, up to this time. i am looking forward to a busier and more useful summer than i have known for a long while. monday, april , . "when are we going to see the shaler plantation?" the doctor asked me abruptly one morning at breakfast. "we passed it by on our way here, knowing that we should have more pleasure in going over it with you." i had been over it only once since shaler left it, and that once was with himself on one of his rare visits. franket's house is near the great gates. it was a porter's lodge in the old time, and is now a sort of post-office,--franket having added to his other avocations the charge of going once a week to tenpinville with letters intrusted to him, and bringing back those he is empowered to receive. when i go there to ask for letters or to leave them, no old associations are roused, for i did not use the main entrance formerly. i had a key to a little gate which opens on a bridle-path through the oak-wood. i entered the grounds through this gate when i was last there with shaler, and i had pleased myself with the thought, that, when i entered them by it again, it would be again with him, on that happy return to which he is always looking forward. but it seemed no violation of my compact with myself to unlock this gate for harry, to walk with him through these grounds sacred to him as to me; for i knew that in his thought, as in mine, these untenanted lands were not so much deserted as dedicated. it was right that these places should know him. and what pleasure hereafter to talk of him as having been there,--to point out to shaler the trees he had distinguished, the views that had delighted him! but i wished this visit to be the last we should make together. my delay in proposing it had, perhaps, made harry attribute to me a secret reluctance. after the first eager expression of his desire to see the early home of his friend and mine, when we talked of shaler together that pleasant afternoon on prospect hill, he did not mention the subject again. the doctor did not second him then; but i knew he felt as much curiosity as harry did interest, before his impatience broke bounds as i have told you. "let us go on thursday, if you will," i answered. harry understood me.--"the right day!" "any day is the right one for me," said the doctor, who would have named an earlier one, perhaps, if i had asked him to choose. on thursday, then, the last day but one of their visit here, i was their guide over "the farms." two brothers settled at metapora side by side. their two plantations were carried on as one, under the direction of the younger brother, colonel shaler, the father of my friend. the brothers talked together of "the farms"; their people took up the name; it gradually became the accepted one in the neighborhood, and has maintained itself, although the two places, having both been inherited by charles shaler, are now really one estate. i opened the little gate for the doctor and harry to pass in, and followed them along the wood-path. all was the same as formerly; unkindly the same, it seemed. "you have not been missed," said the doctor, entering into my feeling, though not quite sympathizing with it. "you have not been missed, and you are not recognized. the birds are not jubilant because you have come back. the wood was as resonant before your key turned in the lock." he stopped and looked about him at the grand old oaks. "the man who grew up under these trees, and calls them his, may well long for them, but they will wait very patiently for his return. we could not spare trees and birds, but they can do without us well enough. strange the place of man on his earth! everything is necessary to him, and he is necessary to nothing." shaler had left the key of his house with me. there could be no indiscretion in introducing such guests into it. we went first into the dining-room. everything was as it used to be, except that the family portraits had been taken away. the cords to which they had been attached still hung from the hooks, ready to receive them again. the large oval table kept its place in the middle of the room. what pleasant hours i had had in that room, at that table! colonel shaler was our first friend in this part of the world. my father and he were distantly related, and had had a week's acquaintance at the house of a common friend when my father was a very young man and the colonel a middle-aged one. on the third day after our arrival here, my father somewhat nervously put into my hand a note which had taken some time to write, and asked me to find the way with it to colonel shaler's plantation, which lay somewhere within ten miles of us in a southeasterly direction. as i was to go on horseback, i liked the adventure very much, and undertook it heartily. i was first made conscious that it had a shady side, when i found myself in the hall of the great, strange house, waiting to be ushered into the presence of its master. "hallo!" exclaimed a voice beside and far above me, as i stood with eyes fixed on the ground, expecting that serious moment of entrance. "you are ned colvil's son!" and my hand was lost in a capacious clasp, well proportioned to the heart it spoke for. i looked up to see a massive head, shaggy with crisp curls of grizzled hair, and to meet quick, bright blue eyes, that told of an active spirit animating the heavy frame. the colonel did not expect me to speak. "we are to be neighbors! good news! your horse cannot go back at once, and i cannot wait. you must take another for to-day, and we will send yours home to you to-morrow." colonel shaler's stout gray was soon led round, and presently followed, for me, a light-made, graceful black, the prettiest horse i had ever yet mounted. as soon as i saw it, i knew that it must be his son's, and visions of friendship already floated before me. "one of charles's," said the colonel; "he is out on the other. i wish he was here to go with us, but we cannot wait." i did not keep the doctor and harry long in the house. it was the plantation they wanted to see. we spent several hours in walking over it. i tried to do justice, not only to the plans and works of my friend, but to his father's schemes of agricultural improvement, and also to the very different labors of his uncle, dr. george shaler, who, utterly abstracted from matters of immediate utility, took the beautiful and the future under his affectionate protection. through his vigilance and pertinacity, trees were felled, spared, and planted, with a judgment rare anywhere, singular here. if he gave into some follies, such as grottos, mimic ruins, and surprises, after the italian fashion, even these are becoming respectable through time. they are very innocent monuments; for their construction gave as much delight to those who labored as to him who planned, and the completed work was not less their pride than his. his artificial mounds, which, while they were piling, were the jest of the wider neighborhood,--as the good old man himself has often told me,--now, covered with thrifty trees, skilfully set, are a legacy which it was, perhaps, worth the devotion of his modest, earnest life to bequeath. charles shaler has piously spared all his uncle's works,--respecting the whimsical, as well as cherishing the excellent. we went last to the quarters of the work-people. a few of the cabins were left standing. most of them had been carried off piecemeal, probably to build or repair the cabins of other plantations. those that remained seemed to have been protected by the strength and beauty of the vines in which they were embowered. i was glad to find still unmolested one which had an interest for me. it had been the home of an old man who used to be very kind to me. i lifted the latch and was opening the door, when i became aware of a movement inside, as of some one hastily and stealthily putting himself out of sight. if this was so, the purpose was instantly changed; for a firm step came forward, and the door was pulled open by a strong hand. i stepped back out of the little porch, and addressed some words to the doctor, to make known that i was not alone; but the man followed me out, and saluted me and my companions respectfully and frankly. i offered him my hand, for he was an old acquaintance. "senator, why are you here?" "because i ought to be here." "there is danger." he did not reply, but the kindling of his look showed that he saw in danger only a challenge to his powers. he saluted us again, and walking away, with a slow, even step, disappeared in a thicket which shrouded one of dr. george's favorite grottos. "the true othello, after all!" exclaimed the doctor, when we turned to each other again, after watching until we were sure that we had seen the last of this apparition. "of royal siege, assuredly!" "he claims to be, or rather it is claimed for him," i answered. "his mother was a native african, a king's daughter, those who came with her said; and she bore, by all accounts, the stamp of primitive royalty as clearly impressed as her son does. her title was never questioned either in the cabin or at the great house. she was a slave on the westlake plantation,--but only for a few weeks, as i have heard." "did you ever see her?" the doctor asked. "no, she died long ago; but her story is still told on the plantation and in the neighborhood. old westlake bought her with four others, all native africans, at perara. the rest throve and made themselves at home. she, stately and still, endured until she had received her son into the world, and then, having consigned him to a foster-mother of her choice, passed tranquilly out of it. during her short abode on the plantation, she was an object of general homage, and when she died, the purple descended to her son." "and the son has his story?" said the doctor. "a short one." the doctor and harry both turned to me with expectation. they knew the westlake plantation and its master; but you do not. if senator's story has not the interest for you that it had for them, that must be the reason. the prestige of rank was the only inheritance of the little foreign orphan. the very name his mother gave him, and which she impressed, by frequent, though faint repetition, upon those about her, was lost in the surprise of her sudden departure. the good souls to whom it had been committed strove faithfully to recover it. they were sure it was no proper christian name, but a title of dignity; and, comparing their recollections of the sound, and their intuitions of the meaning, agreed among themselves that its nearest equivalent must be "senator." senator was born on christmas day; and this was regarded as all the greater distinction that it had been enjoyed before him by the young master,--the then heir and now owner, our present westlake. as he grew up, he took, as of course, and held, the place assigned to him in advance. at the age of sixteen he was already in authority over men, and exercised it with an ease and acceptance which proved that he was obeyed as instinctively as he commanded. i do not know a prouder man than westlake, or one more saturated with the prejudice of race. but he is not exempt from the laws which govern human intercourse. he came under the spell of senator's cool self-reliance and unhesitating will. the petted slave did not directly or palpably misuse his power; yet his demeanor occasioned a secret dissatisfaction. he gave to his master's interests the whole force of his remarkable abilities, but it was not clear that he duly appreciated the indulgence which permitted him to exercise them untrammelled. he had never undergone punishment,--had hardly even met rebuke; but it was more than suspected that he attributed his immunities to his own merits. westlake valued him for his high spirit as much as for his capacity; but should not senator be very sensible to such magnanimity? this spirit had never been broken by fear; ought it not all the more to bend itself in love and gratitude? poor westlake is very fond of gratitude. he enjoys it even from the most worthless and neglected of his slaves,--enjoys it even when it is prospective and conditional, and when he has the best reasons for knowing that the implied stipulations are not to be fulfilled. to senator's gratitude he felt he had so entire a claim that he could not but believe in its existence. he tried to see in its very silence only a proof of its depth. but, if not necessary to his own feelings, some outward expression was important to his dignity in the eyes of others. he exerted himself, therefore, by gracious observations made in the presence of guests or before the assembled people on holidays, to afford senator an opportunity at once of testifying to his master's liberality and of displaying the eloquence which was one of the chief glories of the plantation. these condescending efforts, constantly baffled by the self-possessed barbarian, were perpetually renewed. one christmas morning the common flood of adulation had been poured out more profusely than usual, and westlake had quaffed it with more than usual satisfaction. his outlay for the festival had been truly liberal, and he felt that the quality of the entertainment guarantied that of the thanks. besides the general benevolence of the dinner,--already arranged on long, low tables set about the lawn, to be enjoyed in anticipation by their devouring eyes,--special gifts were bestowed on the most deserving or the most favored. senator was greatly distinguished, but took his assigned portion in silence; and westlake felt, through every tingling nerve, that the attentive crowd had seen, as he had, that it was received as a tribute rather than as a favor. he had hitherto covered his defeats with the jolly laugh that seemed meant at once to apologize for his servant's eccentricity and to forgive it. but now he had made too sure of triumph; surprise and pain hurried him out of himself. "what is it now?" he cried, fiercely, raising his clenched fist against the impassive offender. "i have not spoken, master." "speak, then! it is time. i have done more for you than for all the rest, and not a word!" "we have done more for you than you for us all. what you give us we first give you." it was as if a thunderbolt had fallen. the assembly scattered like a flock of frightened sheep. i had this from westlake himself. he came straight over to me. not that westlake and i are friends. there had never been any intimacy between us. there never has been any, unless for those few hours that day. senator had been secured. his sentence had been announced. it was banishment. those who were nearest the master's confidence had leave to add the terrible name--new orleans. senator had neither mother nor wife. he was nineteen, the age of enterprise and confidence. perhaps, after all, it was the master on whom the doom would fall most heavily, i thought, while westlake was making his recital. he was almost pale; his heavy features were sharpened; his firm, round cheeks were flaccid and sunken; his voice was hoarse and tremulous. surely, that birthday might count for ten. "i cannot overlook it," he groaned out. "you know that yourself, colvil. i cannot forgive it. it would be against my duty, and---- any way, i cannot. but--you may think it strange--but i am not angry. i was, but i am not now. i cannot bear to know him locked up there in the corn-barn, shackled and chained, and thinking all the time that it is i who have done it to him!" westlake had not seen the man since his imprisonment, and had come over to ask me to be present at the first interview. i declined positively. "i do not believe," i said, "that he is to be reasoned out of his opinions. certainly he will not be reasoned out of them by me. if anything could persuade a nature like his to submission, it would be the indulgent course you have till now pursued with him. if that has failed, no means within your reach will succeed." "you do not understand me. i do not want you to reason with him, or to persuade him to anything. i only ask you to be witness to what i am going to say to him, that he may believe me,--that he may not himself thwart me in my plans." "in what plans?" "plans that you will agree to, and that you will help me in, i hope,--but which i cannot trust to any one but you, nor to you except to have your help. if you will come with me, you shall know them; if not, i must take my chance, and he must take his." i did not put much faith in westlake's plans; but the thought of senator chained and caged drew me to his prison. there might be nothing for me to do there; but, since i was called, i would go. by the time my horse was saddled, westlake had recovered his voice, and, in part, his color. this birthday would not count for more than five. he plucked up still more on the road; but when we came within a mile of his place, his trouble began to work on him again. he would have lengthened that last mile, but could not much. his horse snuffed home, and mine a near hospitality. our entrance sustained the master's dignity handsomely. there was no misgiving or relenting to be construed out of that spirited trot. we went together to the corn-barn. senator was extended on the floor at the farther end of the room. he lifted his head when we entered, and then, as if compelled by an instinctive courtesy, rose to his fettered feet. i saw at once that there had been no more harshness than was needful for security; it even seemed that this had not been very anxiously provided for. the slender shackles would be no more than withes of the philistines to such a samson. a chain, indeed, fastened to a strong staple in the floor, passed to a ring in an iron belt about his waist; but it was long enough to allow him considerable liberty of movement. his hands were free. perhaps westlake had half expected to find the room empty. he stopped, a little startled, when he heard the first clank of the chain, and watched his prisoner as he slowly lifted himself from the ground and rose to his full height. then, recollecting himself, he went forward. one ignorant of what had gone before might have mistaken between the culprit and the judge. "senator," westlake began, in a voice whose faltering he could not control, "i have been a kind master to you." no answer. "you allow that?" senator was inflexible. "i would never have sent you away of my own free will. this is your doing, not mine. you cannot _want_ to go!" this in indignant surprise,--for something like a smile had relaxed the features of the imperious slave. senator spoke. "this is my home, as it is yours. i was born here, as you were. this land is dear to me as it is to you; dearer,--for i have given my labor to it, and you never have. in return, i have had a support, and the exercise of my strength and my skill. this has been enough for me until now. but i am a man. i look round and see how other men live. i want somebody else to do for: not you, but somebody that could not do without me." "things might have gone differently," westlake began, recovering his self-complacency, as visions, doubtless, of the fine wedding he would have given senator, of the fine names he would have bestowed upon his children, rose before his fancy. "things might have gone differently, if you had been"---- "if i had been what i am not," answered senator, becoming impatient as westlake relapsed into pomposity. "it is enough, master. we have done with each other, and we both know it. let me go." "i will let you go,"--westlake spoke now with real dignity,--"but not as you think. if i would have you remember what i have been to you, it is for your own sake, not for mine. i am used to ingratitude; i do not complain of yours. i have never sold a servant left me by my father, and i do not mean to begin with you. you shall not drive me to it. you are to go, and forever, but by your own road. i will set you on it myself. is there any one in the neighborhood you can trust? we shall need help." a doubtful smile passed over senator's face. "there is no one, then? think! no one?" "i am not so unhappy. there are those whom i trust." "then i will trust them. tell me who they are and where they are. and quick! this news will be everywhere soon. to-morrow morning the neighbors will be coming in. what is done must be done to-night. senator, do not ruin yourself! i mean right by you. here is mr. colvil to witness to what i say. is this mad obstinacy only? or do you _dare_ not to trust yourself to me?" "i do not trust to you those who trust me." "do you suppose i would give up those whose aid i have asked?" "you would know where to find them when they give aid you have not asked." "colvil, speak to him! if he goes off by himself, i cannot hide it long. the country will be roused. i shall have to hunt him down myself. my honor will be at stake. i shall have to do it!" the obdurate slave studied his master's features with curiosity mingled with triumph. "help me, colvil! help him! tell him to listen to my plan and join in it! the useful time is passing!" "senator," i said at last, being so adjured, "your master means you well. he is not free to set you free,--you know it. you have done work for him,--good and faithful work; but never yet have you done him a pleasure, and he has intended you a good many. this is your last chance. gratify him for once!" senator looked again, and saw, through the intent and wistful eyes, the poor, imploring soul within, which, hurried unconsenting towards crime, clung desperately to his rescue as its own. he comprehended that here was no tyrant, but a wretched victim of tyranny. a laugh, deep, reluctant, uncontrollable, no mirth in it, yet a certain bitter irony, and senator had recovered his natural bearing, self-possessed and authoritative; he spoke in his own voice of composed decision. "what is the plan, master?" westlake told it eagerly. he was to save his authority with his people and his reputation with his neighbors by selling the rebellious servant,--that is to say, by pretending to sell him. senator was to entitle himself to a commutation of his sentence into simple banishment by lending himself to the pious fraud and acting his part in it becomingly. westlake had been so long accustomed to smooth his path of life by open subterfuges and falsehoods whose only guilt was in intention, that he had formed a very high opinion of his own address, and a very low one of the penetration of the rest of the world. as he proceeded with the details of his plot, childishly ingenious and childishly transparent, senator listened, at first with attention, then with impatience, and at last not at all. when westlake stopped to take breath, he interposed. "now hear me. order the long wagon out, with the roans. have me handcuffed and fastened down in it. tell those whom you trust that you are taking me to goosefield." "to goosefield?" "to dick norman." "dick norman! he help you! he is not an ----?" westlake could not bring himself to associate the word abolitionist with a man who had dined with him three days before. "he is a slave-trader." the blood, which had rushed furiously to the proud planter's cheeks, left them with a sudden revulsion. to be taken in by a disguised fanatic might happen to any man too honorable to be suspicious. he could have forgiven himself. but to have held a slave-trader by the hand! to have asked him to his table! westlake knew that senator never said anything that had to be taken back. richard norman was a man of name and birth from old virginia. of easy fortune, so it was reported, still unmarried, he spent a great part of the year in travelling; and especially found pleasure in renewing old family ties with virginian emigrants or their children in newer states. when he favored our neighborhood, he had his quarters at goosefield, where he always took the same apartments in the house of a man, also virginian by birth, who was said to be an old retainer of his family. norman's father had been the fathers' friend of most of our principal planters. he was welcome in almost every household for the sake of these old memories, and apparently for his own. he was well-looking, well-mannered, possessed of various information, ready with amusing anecdote. and yet all the time it was perfectly known to every slave on every plantation where he visited what mr. richard norman was. it was perfectly known to every planter except westlake, and possibly harvey. i do not remember to have heard of him at harvey's. those who never sold their servants, those who never separated families, those who never parted very young children from their mothers, found norman a resource in those cases of necessity which exempt from law. the slaves talked of him among themselves familiarly, though fearfully. he was the central figure of many a dark history; the house at goosefield was known to them as dick norman's den. the masters held their knowledge separately, each bound to consider himself its sole depository. if, arriving at the house of a friend, soon after a visitation of richard norman, one missed a familiar hand at his bridle, a kind old face at the door, curiosity was discreet; it would have been very ill manners to ask whether it was death or goosefield. "dick norman starts at midnight. he has been ready these three days. he only waited to eat his christmas dinner at old rasey's." westlake had pondered and understood. "where shall i really take you?" he asked, despondingly. "leave me anywhere six or eight miles from here, and i will do for myself." "colvil, you will ride along beside?" "no." i find in myself such an inaptitude for simulation or artifice of any kind, that i do not believe it was intended i should serve my fellow-men by those means. "no," repeated senator,--"not if we are going to goosefield." "it is true," assented westlake, sadly; "nobody would believe you were going with me there!" i rode off without taking leave of senator. i felt sure of seeing him again. i thought i knew where the aid he would seek was to be found. mine was just the half-way house to it. he would not be afraid of compromising me, for his master himself had called me to be witness to their compact. senator would have the deciding voice, as usual; and westlake would be guided by him now the more readily that he himself would tend in the direction of his only confidant. when i had put up my horse, i went into the house only for a few moments to tell my mother what i had seen and what i was expecting. i walked up and down between the gate and the brook that evening,--i could not tell how long. i had time to become anxious,--time to invent disasters,--time to imagine encounters westlake might have had on the way, with officious advisers, with self-proposed companions. i was disappointed more than once by distant wheels, which came nearer and nearer only to pass on, and farther and farther away, on the road which, crossing ours, winds round behind our place to winker's hollow. at last i caught sound of an approach which did not leave me an instant in uncertainty. this time, beyond mistake, it was the swift, steady tramp of westlake's roans. as they entered our sandy lane, their pace slackened to a slow trot, and then to a walk. westlake was on the lookout for me. i went into the middle of the road. he saw me; i heard him utter an exclamation of relief. senator, who had been stretched out on the bottom of the wagon, sat up when the horses stopped, took the manacles from his wrists and threw them down on the straw. with his master's help, he soon disencumbered himself of his fetters, and sprang lightly to the ground. westlake followed, and the two stood there in the starlight confronting each other for the last time. the face of the banished man was inscrutable. his master's worked painfully. this boy, born on his own twenty-first birthday, had been assigned to him, not only by his father's gift, but also, so it seemed, by destiny itself. he had had property in him; he had had pride in him; he had looked for a life-long devotion from him. and now, in one moment, all was to be over between them forever. the scene could not be prolonged. there was danger in every instant of delay. "westlake, he must go." "he must go," westlake repeated, but hesitatingly. and then, with a sudden impulse, he put out his hand to his forgiven, even if unrepentant, servant. the movement was not met. "no, master; i will not wrong you by thanking you. this is not my debt." senator raised towards heaven the coveted hand. "it is his who always pays." tuesday, april , . you can always tell what view of certain questions harry dudley will take. you have only to suppose them divested of all that prejudice or narrow interest may have encumbered them with, and look at them in the light of pure reason. one of the charms of your intercourse with dr. borrow is that it is full of surprises. "i have a weakness for westlake, i own it," said the doctor, when we were seated at the tea-table after our return from the two farms. "if you had known him when he was young, as i did, colvil! such an easy, soft-hearted, dependent fellow! you couldn't respect him very greatly, perhaps; but like him you must! his son reginald you ought to like. i do. and--what you will think more to the purpose--so does harry." harry enforced this with a look. reginald westlake is a handsome boy, rather sullen-looking, but with a face capable of beaming out into a beautiful smile. he is always distant in his manners to me, i do not know whether through shyness or dislike. "he will make a man," doctor borrow went on; "if i am any judge of men, he will make a man." the doctor was interrupted by the brisk trot of a horse coming up the road. the rider did not stop at the gate; he cleared it. in another moment westlake's jolly red face was looking down on us through the window. i might have found this arrival untimely; but turning to harry to know how he took it, i saw in his eyes the "merry sparkle" the doctor had told of, and divined that there was entertainment in a colloquy between the classmates. westlake made a sign with his hand that he was going to take his horse to the stable. i went out to him, harry following. i welcomed him as cordially as i could, but his manner was reserved at first. we had not met in a way to be obliged to shake hands since shaler went away. westlake knew that i was greatly dissatisfied with him at that time. not more so, though, than he was with himself, poor fellow! he was evidently sincerely glad to see harry again, and harry greeted both him and his horse very kindly. westlake is always well-mounted, and deserves to be: he loves his horses both well and wisely. it is something to be thoroughly faithful in any one relation of life, and here westlake is faultless. the horse he rode that afternoon--one raised and trained by himself--bore witness in high spirit and gentle temper to a tutor who had known how to respect a fiery and affectionate nature. we all three gave our cares to the handsome creature, and this common interest put me quite in charity with my unexpected guest before we went into the house. "this is a way to treat an old friend!" cried westlake, as he gave his hand to the doctor, who had come down the door-steps to meet him. "i cannot get two whole days from you, and then you come here and stay on as if you meant to live here!" tabitha watched my mother's reception of the new-comer, and, seeing it was hospitable, placed another chair at the table with alacrity. she knew he was out of favor here, but had never thought very hardly of him herself. her race often judges us in our relations with itself more mildly than we can judge each other. in its strange simplicity, it seems to attribute to itself the part of the superior, and pities where it should resent. "you cannot make it up to me, borrow," westlake went on, as soon as we had taken our places, "except by going right back with me to-night, or coming over to me to-morrow morning, and giving me as many days as you have given colvil. next week is the very time for you to be with us. i want you to see us at a gala season: next week is the great marrying and christening time of the year. it usually comes in june; but this year we have it two months earlier, on account of dr. baskow's engagements. my little fanny is to give all the names. she has a fine imagination." "westlake, i would do all but the impossible to show my sense of your kindness. for the rest, my appreciation of little miss fanny's inventive powers could not be heightened." "does that mean no? borrow, i shall think in earnest that you have done me a wrong in giving so much time away from me, if these are really your last days in our parts." "we will make it up to you. i will tell you how we will make it up to you. come to us,--come to massachusetts: i will give you there a week of my time for every day we have taken from you here. come to us in june: that is the month in which new england is most itself. come and renew old associations." "you will never see me again, if you wait to see me there." "what now? you used to like it." "i am not so sure that i used to like it, when i think back upon it. at any rate, if you want to see _me_, you must see me in my own place. i am not myself anywhere else. equality, borrow, equality is a very good thing for people who have never known anything better: may be a very good thing for people who can work themselves up out of it. but for a man who has grown up in the enjoyment of those privileges inappreciable by the vulgar, but which by the noble of every age have been regarded as the most real and the most valuable,--for such a man to sit, one at a long table, feeling himself nobody, and knowing all the time he has a right to be somebody! you can talk very easily about equality. you have never suffered from it. you have your learning and---- well, you know how to talk. i have no learning, and i can't talk, except to particular friends. a man cannot ticket himself with his claims to estimation. even paris has too much equality for me. flora liked it; she had her beauty and her toilet. but i! how i longed to be back here among my own simple, humble people! as soon as she was married, i made off home. in my own place, among my own people, i am, i might almost say, like a god, if i were not afraid of shocking you. and is not their fate in my hands? my frown is their night, my smile is their sunshine. the very ratification of their prayers to a higher power is intrusted to my discretion. homage, borrow, homage is the sweetest draught ever brought to mortal lips!" "the homage of equals i suppose may be," said dr. borrow, modestly. "you do not understand. how should you? our modes of thinking and feeling are not to be comprehended by one brought up in a society so differently constituted. we avow ourselves an aristocracy." "you do well: something of the inherent meaning of a word will always make itself felt. _aristocracy!_ it is vain to try to dispossess it of its own. the world will not be disenchanted of the beautiful word. cover yourselves with its prestige. it will stand you in good stead with outsiders. but, between ourselves, westlake, how is it behind the scenes? can you look each other in the face and pronounce it? or have you really persuaded yourselves down here that you are governed by your best men?" "we do not use the word so pedantically down here. by an aristocracy we mean a community of gentlemen." "and, pronouncing it so emphatically, you of course use the word gentleman in the sense it had when it had a sense. you bear in mind what the gentleman was pledged to, when to be called one was still a distinction. 'to eschew sloth,' 'to detest all pride and haughtiness,'--these were among his obligations: doubtless they are of those most strictly observed in your community. he was required 'to be true and just in word and dealing'; 'to be of an open and liberal mind.' you find these conditions fulfilled in rasey, your leading man." "our leading man?" "certainly, your leading man. whose lead did you follow, when you joined in worrying charles shaler out of your community of gentlemen?" westlake shrank. he was conscious that he had been going down hill ever since shaler left the neighborhood. the hold that rasey took of him then the crafty old man has never let go. when westlake's plantation came into his possession by the death of his father, he undertook to carry it on himself, and has been supposed to do so ever since. it was carried on well from the time that senator was old enough to take charge; but with his disappearance disappeared all the credit and all the comfort his good management had secured to his master. westlake needed some one to lean on, and rasey was ready to take advantage of this necessity. his ascendancy was not established all at once. it is only during the last year that it has been perfected. in the beginning, he gave just a touch of advice and withdrew; showed himself again at discreet intervals, gradually shortened; but, all the time, was casting about his victim the singly almost impalpable threads of his deadly thraldom, until they had formed a coil which forbade even an effort after freedom. westlake had put no overseer between himself and his people; but he had, without well knowing how it came about, set a very hard one over both. he found the indulgences on his plantation diminished, the tasks more rigidly enforced, the holidays fewer. the punishments, which were before sometimes capriciously severe, but more often threatened and remitted, he was now expected to carry out with the inflexibility of fate. he has found himself reduced to plotting with his servants against himself,--to aiding them in breaking or evading his own laws; reduced--worst humiliation of all--to ordering, under the sharp eye and sharp voice of his officious neighbor, the infliction of chastisement for neglect which he himself had authorized or connived at. all came of that unhappy christmas i have told you of. if westlake could only have been silent, the simple plot devised by senator would have worked perfectly. all the neighborhood would have respected a secret that was its own. but westlake could not be silent; he was too uneasy. it was not long before the culprit's escape and his master's part in it were more than surmised. in view of the effect of such a transaction on the servile imagination, westlake's weakness was ignored by common consent; but it was not the less incumbent upon him to reinstate himself in opinion on the first opportunity. the opportunity was offered by the storm then brewing against shaler. westlake's sufferings are, happily for him, intermittent. rasey is away from the neighborhood one month out of every three, looking after the estates of yet more unlucky vassals,--his through debt, and not from simple weakness. during these intervals, westlake takes his ease with his people, as thoughtless as they of consequences no more within his ability to avert than theirs. he has lately had an unusual respite. rasey has been confined to the house by an illness,--the first of his life. i do not know how far dr. borrow is aware of westlake's humiliations; and westlake, i think, does not know. when he was able to speak again, he sheltered himself under a question. "do you know rasey?" "he is owner of the plantation which lies south of yours and shaler's, larger than both together." "his plantation;--but do you know _him_?" "root and branch. but who does not know him, that knows anybody here? in the next generation his history may be lost in his fortune, but it is extant yet. his father was overseer on a georgia plantation, from which he sucked the marrow: his employer's grandchildren are crackers and clay-eaters; his are--of your community." "not exactly." "strike out all who do not yet belong to it, and all who have ceased to have a full claim to belong to it, and what have you left?" "do you know old rasey personally? have you ever seen him?" "i have seen him." "lately? i hear that a great change has come over him. he has lost his elder son." "you might say his only one. he turned the other out of doors years ago, and has had no word of him since. the old man has a daughter; but her husband has challenged him to shoot at sight. he has lost his partner and heir, and, in the course of nature, cannot himself hold on many years longer. if a way could be found of taking property over to the other side, he might be consoled. the old gauls used to manage it: they made loans on condition of repayment in the other world; but i doubt whether rasey's faith is of force to let him find comfort in such a transaction. "i had to see him about a matter of business which had been intrusted to me. i went there the day i left you. if i had known how it was with him, i should have tried to find a deputy. it is an awful sight, a man who never had compassion needing it, a man who never felt sympathy claiming and repelling it in one. "when i entered the room, where he was sitting alone, he looked up at me with a glare like a tiger-cat's. he was tamed for the moment by the mention of my errand, which was simply to make him a payment. he counted the money carefully, locked it up, and gave me a receipt. then he began to talk to me, or rather to himself before me. i could acquiesce in all he said. i knew what giles rasey was, and understood that the loss of such a son, to such a father, was irreparable. "'another self! another self!' he repeated, until i hardly knew whether to pity him more for having had a son so like himself, or for having him no longer. it was an injustice that he felt himself suffering,--a bitter injustice. he had counted on this son as his successor, and the miscalculation was one with which he was not chargeable. 'not thirty-five! i am past sixty, and a young man yet! my father lived to be ninety!' "his rage against this wrong which had been done him was aggravated by another which he had done himself, a weakness into which he had been led by his son,--the only one, probably, in which they had ever been partners. the son had a slave whose ability made him valuable, whose probity made him invaluable. "'i gave him to giles myself,' said the old man. 'he was such as you don't find one of in a thousand; no, not in ten thousand. i could have had any money for him, if money could have bought him. it couldn't. i gave him to giles.' "giles, on the death-bed where he found himself with very little warning, exacted of his father a promise that this man should be made free. "'what could i refuse him then?' asked old rasey. "the man in whose behalf the promise was made, and who was present when it was made, took it in earnest. "'a fellow whom we had trusted!' cried the old man. 'a fellow in whose attachment we had believed! we have let him carry away and pay large sums of money for us; have even let him go into free states to pay them, and he always came back faithfully! you may know these people a life long and not learn them out! a fellow whom we had trusted!' "the fellow bade good-day as soon as the funeral services were over. his master was sufficiently himself to surmise his purpose and to make an attempt to baffle it. but the intended freedman was too agile for him; he disappeared without even claiming his manumission-papers. imagine rasey's outraged feelings! it was like the prince of hell in the old legend, complaining of the uncivil alacrity with which lazarus obeyed the summons to the upper air:--'he was not to be held, but, giving himself a shake, with every sign of malice, immediately he went away.'" "so rasey has lost syphax! he has lost syphax!" repeated westlake, thoughtfully. "rasey is not a good master, but he was good to him. it was hard, even for rasey." "rasey has lost syphax, and syphax has found him," said the doctor, dryly. "you do not understand. you see in the rupture of these ties only a loss of service to the master. we feel it to be something more." "the human heart is framed sensible to kindness; that you should have an attachment for the man who devotes his life to yours without return has nothing miraculous for me. i can believe that even rasey is capable of feeling the loss of what has been useful to him." "no, you do not understand the relation between us and this affectionate subject race." "frankly, i do not. i cannot enter into it on either side. if i were even as full of the milk of human kindness as we are bound to suppose these soft-tempered foreigners to be, it seems to me i should still like to choose my beneficiaries; and, in your place, i should have quite another taste in benefactors. when i indue myself in imagination with a black skin, and try to think and feel conformably, i find my innate narrowness too much for me; i cannot disguise from myself that i should prefer to lavish my benefits on my own flesh and blood. resuming my personality, i can as little divest myself in fancy of my pride of race. if i must accept a state of dependence, i would take the bounty of a white man, hard and scanty though it might be, rather than receive luxurious daily bread at the hands of blacks." "borrow, you always had the knack of making a fellow feel uncomfortable. i would rather talk with dudley than with you. i do not see that you are any better friend to our institutions than he is." "a friend to slavery? distrust the man not born and bred to it who calls himself one! "i suppose i am as much of a pro-slavery man as you will easily find in new england,--for an unambitious, private man, i mean. slavery does not mean for me power or place. what does slavery mean for me when i oppose its opponents? it means you, westlake, my old schoolmate,--you and your wife and children. it means harvey and his wife and children. i have the weakness to care more for you than for your slaves. i cannot resolve to see you deprived of comforts and luxuries that use has made necessary to you, that they may rise to wants they have no sense of as yet. as to your duties to your humble neighbors, and the way you fulfil them, that account is kept between you and your maker. he has not made me a judge or a ruler over you." westlake's deep red deepened. "i leave religious matters to those whose charge it is. i have been instructed to hold the place which has been awarded me, without asking why i have been made to differ from others. and the teaching which is good enough for me is, i suppose, good enough for my servants. as for the rest, we know that our people are as well off as the same class in any part of the world, not excepting new england." "i dare say such a class would be no better off there than here. but come and learn for yourself how it is there." "i could not learn there how to live here. and i do not pretend that we can understand you better than you can us. but, borrow, you are hard to suit. you twit us with our waste and improvidence, and yet you are not better pleased with rasey, who follows gain like a new-englander." "rasey follows gain from the blind impulse of covetousness. the new-englander's zeal is according to knowledge. rasey's greed is the inherited hunger of a precarious race. the new-englander thrives because he has always thriven. he has in his veins 'the custom of prosperity.' "fuller tells us, that, in his time, 'a strict inquiry after the ancient gentry of england' would have found 'most of them in the class moderately mounted above the common level'; the more ambitious having suffered ruin in the national turmoils, while these even-minded men, 'through god's blessing on their moderation, have continued in their condition.' it was from this old stock that the planters of new england were chiefly derived, mingled with them some strong scions of loftier trees." "do we not know that there is no such thing as birth in new england? there, even if a man had ancestry, he would not dare to think himself the better for it." "disabuse yourself; the new-englander is perfectly human in this respect, and only a very little wiser than the rest of the world. but he disapproves waste, even of so cheap a thing as words: he does not speak of his blood, because his blood speaks for itself. "rasey thinks whatever is held by others to be so much withheld from him. to make what is theirs his is all his aim. he has no conception of a creative wealth, of a diffusive prosperity. to live and make live is an aristocratic maxim. rasey, and such as he, grudge almost the subsistence of their human tools. with the new-englander, parsimony is not economy. the aristocratic household law is a liberal one, and it is his. he lives up to his income as conscientiously as within it. rasey and his like think what is theirs, enjoyed by another, wasted;--they think it wasted, enjoyed by themselves. the new-englander's rule of personal indulgence is the same with that given to the persian prince ghilan by his father, the wise kyekyawus, who, warning him against squandering, adds, 'it is not squandering to spend for anything which can be of real use to thee either in this world or the next.' "together with the inherited habit of property, the well-descended have and transmit an inherited knowledge of the laws which govern its acquisition and its maintenance: laws older than legislation; as old as property itself; as old as man; a part of his primitive wisdom; always and everywhere the common lore of the established and endowed. if rasey had inherited or imbibed this knowledge, perhaps he would have been more cautious. 'beware of unjust gains,' says an eastern sage, an ancient member of our aryan race; 'for it is the nature of such, not only to take flight themselves, but to bear off all the rest with them.' 'do not think,' it is set down in the book of kabus, a compendium of persian practical wisdom, 'do not think even a good use of what has been ill acquired can make it thine. it will assuredly leave thee, and only thy sin will remain to thee.' "the well-born would not dare to amass a fortune by such means as rasey uses; amassed, they would not expose it to such hazards. 'the same word in the greek'--i am citing now an english worthy, the contemporary of our new-england fathers--'the same word in the greek--[greek: ios]--means both rust and poison; and a strong poison is made of the rust of metals; but none more venomous than the rust of the laborer's wages detained in his employer's purse: it will infect and corrode a whole estate.' "a man's descent is written on his life yet more plainly than on his features. in new england you shall see a youth come up from the country to the metropolis of his state with all his worldly goods upon his back. twenty years later you shall find him as much at ease in the position he has retaken rather than gained, as he was in the farm-house where he was born, or on the dusty road he trudged over to the scene of his fortunes. his house is elegant, not fine; it is furnished with paintings not bought on the advice of the picture-dealer, with a library not ordered complete from the bookseller. he is simple in his personal habits, laborious still, severe to himself, lenient and liberal to those who depend upon him, munificent in his public benefactions, in his kindly and modest patronage. if he enters public life, it is not because he wants a place there, but because there is a place that wants him. he takes it to work, and not to shine; lays it down when he can, or when he must; and takes hold of the nearest duty, great or small as may be, with the same zeal and conscience. such a man is called a self-made man. he is what ages of culture and highest discipline have made him,--ages of responsibility and thought for others. "stealthy winning and sterile hoarding are the marks of a degraded and outlawed caste. when these tendencies show themselves in a member of an honest race, they have come down from some forgotten interloper. the raseys are the true representatives of the transported wretches who, and whose progeny, have been a dead weight upon the states originally afflicted with them, and upon those into which they have wandered out. in their native debasement, they furnish material for usurpation to work upon and with; raised here and there into fitful eminence, they infect the class they intrude upon with meannesses not its own. "thomas dudley, writing to england from new england in its earliest days, when, as he frankly owns, it offered 'little to be enjoyed and much to be endured,' is explicit as to the class of men he and his colleagues would have join them. he invites only godly men of substance. such, he says, 'cannot dispose of themselves and their estates more to god's glory.' those who would 'come to plant for worldly ends' he dissuades altogether; for 'the poorer sort' it was 'not time yet.' as for reckless adventurers and the destitute idle, who sought the new world for gold or an indolent subsistence, when these, 'seeing no other means than by their labor to feed themselves,' went back discouraged, or off to find some more indulgent plantation, the colony felt itself 'lightened, not weakened.' "the chief distinctive mark of high race is the quality the romans called _fortitudo_,--a word of larger meaning than we commonly intend by ours derived from it: that strength of soul, namely, which gives way as little before work as before danger or under suffering. a roman has defined this roman fortitude as the quality which enables a man fearlessly to obey the highest law, whether by enduring or by achieving. "another mark of high race is its trust in itself. the early heads of new england did not try to secure a position to their children. they knew that blood finds its level just as certainly as water does. degenerate sons they disowned in advance. "westlake, you ought to know new england better. even if your memory did not prompt you to do it justice, there ought to be a voice to answer for it in your heart. but i find ancestry is very soon lost in the mists of antiquity down here. you come early into the advantages of a mythical background. must i teach you your own descent?" "i thank you. i am acquainted with it. my great-grandfather was an englishman,--a man of some consideration, as i have been informed. he went over to massachusetts; but my grandfather left it, as soon as he was of age, for a newer state, where he could enjoy greater freedom." "your great-grandfather came from england to new england, as you say. he fixed himself in that part of our massachusetts town of ipswich which used to go by the name of 'the hamlet.' what he was before he came out i do not know; but i suppose he brought credentials, for he married his wife from a family both old and old-fashioned. your grandfather, simeon symonds westlake, at seventeen found the hamlet too narrow for him, and the paternal, or perhaps the maternal, rule too strict. he walked over into new hampshire one morning, without mentioning that he was not to be back for dinner. new hampshire did not suit him: he went to rhode island; then tried new york for a year or so: it did not answer. his father died, and simeon made experiment of life at home again, but only again to give it up in disgust. finally he emigrated to georgia, taking with him a little money and a great deal of courage; invested both in a small farm which was soon a large plantation; added a yet larger by marriage; died, a great landholder and a great slaveholder. "simeon--i must call him by that name, historical for me, although i know that the first initial disappeared from his signature after his marriage--simeon left two sons, reginald and edwin. he had the ambition of founding a dynasty; so left his whole estate to the elder, yet with certain restrictions and conditions, which, doubtless, he had good reasons for imposing, and which the intended heir lost no time in justifying. by some law of inheritance which statutes cannot supersede nor wills annul, this son of a father in whom no worst enemy could have detected a trace of the puritan, was born in liberal georgia, in the last half of the enlightened eighteenth century, as arrogant a bigot and as flaming a fanatic as if he had come over in the mayflower. he refused his father's bequest, on the ground that god has given man dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over the cattle,--but none over his fellow-man, except such as he may win through affection or earn by service. he went back to new england, where he belonged. i knew a son of his, a respectable mason. you need not blush for him, though he was your own cousin and worked with his hands. he was never conscious of any cause for shame, himself, unless it were the sin of his slaveholding grandfather; and that did not weigh on him, for he believed the entail of the curse cut off with that of the rest of the inheritance. "if i have grieved the shade of simeon by pronouncing that rejected name, i will soothe it again by stating that this name has not been perpetuated by his new-england descendants. that branch of his house has already a third reginald, about a year younger than yours. he is now a freshman in college. you may hear of him some day." "he is in college? that is well. he has, then, recovered, or will recover, the rank of a gentleman?" "no need of that, if he ever had a claim to it. you, who know so much about birth, should know that its rights are ineffaceable. this was well understood by those whom it concerned, in the time of our first ancestors. we have it on high heraldic authority of two hundred years ago, that a gentleman has a right so to be styled in legal proceedings, 'although he be a husbandman.' 'for, although a gentleman go to the plough and common labor for a maintenance, yet he is a gentleman.' the new-england founders had no fear of derogating in taking hold of anything that needed to be done; had no fear that their children could derogate in following any calling for which their tastes and their abilities qualified them. carrying to it the ideas, feelings, and manners of the gentle class, they could ennoble the humblest occupation; it could not lower them. "it is out of this respect that good blood has for itself, that the true new-englander, whatever his station, is not ashamed of a humbler relative. you are amazed down here at the hardihood of a northern man who speaks coolly of a cousin of his who is a blacksmith, it may be, or a small farmer; and you bless yourselves inwardly for your greater refinement. but you are english, you say, not new-english. "when i was in perara, dining with one of the great folks there, i happened to inquire after a cousin of his, an unlucky fellow, who, after trying his fortune in half the cities of the union, had had the indiscretion to settle down in a very humble business, within a stone's throw of his wealthy namesake. i had known him formerly, and could not think of leaving perara without calling on him. to my surprise, my question threw the family into visible confusion. they gave me his address, indeed, but in a way as if they excused themselves for knowing it. this may be english, but it is not old-english. "in the old england which we may call ours,--for it was before, and not long before, she founded the new,--a laboring man came to the earl of huntingdon, lieutenant of leicestershire, to pray for the discharge of his only son, the staff of his age, who had been 'pressed into the wars.' the earl inquires the name of his petitioner. the old man hesitates, fearing to be presumptuous, for his family name is the same with that of the nobleman he addresses; but being urged, he takes courage to pronounce it. 'cousin hastings,' said the earl then, 'my kinsman, your son, shall not be pressed.' this 'modesty in the poor man and courtesy in the great man' were found in that day 'conformable to the gentle blood in both.' those who know new england know that this absence of assumption and of presumption, this modest kindliness and this dignified reserve, are characteristic there, testifying to the sources from which it derives. "i am a cosmopolite. i could never see why i should think the better or the worse of a place, for my happening to draw my first breath there. i am of the company of the truth-seekers. a fact, though it were an ugly one, is of more worth to me than a thousand pleasantest fancies. but a fact is not the less one for being agreeable: the extension of a fine race is an agreeable fact to a naturalist. "the earlier emigrations to new england were emphatically aristocratic emigrations. their aim was to found precisely what you claim to show here. their aim was to found a community of gentlemen,--a community, that is to say, religious, just, generous, courteous. they proposed equality, but equality on a high plane. their work has been hindered by its very success. the claimants for adoption have crowded in faster than full provision could be made for them. they cannot instantly be assimilated. their voices sometimes rise above those of the true children. but new england is there, strong and tranquil. her heart has room for all that ask a place in it. she welcomes these orphans to it motherly, and will make them all thoroughly her own with time. "come to us, westlake. i have planned out a tour for you." and dr. borrow, tracing the route he had marked out for his friend, sketched the country it led through, comparing what came before us with reminiscences of other travels. no contrasts here of misery with splendor rebuke a thoughtless admiration. nowhere the picturesqueness of ruin and squalor; everywhere the lovely, living beauty of healthfulness, dignity, and order. with what a swell of feeling does the distant new-englander listen to accounts of family life in the old home! how dear every detail, making that real again which had come to be like a sweet, shadowy dream! dr. borrow led us through the beautiful street of a new-england village, under the gothic arches of its religious elms. he did not fear to throw open for us the willing door. he showed us the simple, heartsome interior, with its orderly ease, its unambitious hospitality, its refined enjoyments. other travellers have drawn for us other pictures. they have told us of a pomp and state which have reconciled us to our rudeness. but dr. borrow sketched the new-england home, such as we know it by tradition, such as it still exists among those who are content to live as their fathers lived before them. "hold on, borrow!" cried westlake; "you don't suppose you are going to persuade me that there is neither poverty nor overwork in new england! i have heard, and i think i have seen, that there are hard lives lived there,--harder than those of our slaves, of my slaves, for example;--and that not by foreigners, who, you may say, are not up to the mark yet, but by americans born and bred." "there are very hard lives lived there. the human lot is checkered there as everywhere. death sometimes arrests a man midway in his course and leads him off, leaving his wife and children to struggle along the road they never knew was rough before. it happened thus to your cousin reginald. his wife and children were thus left. you are right. his son, the boy i told you of, is as much a slave as any of yours: almost as poorly fed, and twice as hardly worked. he lives at a distance from his college, to have a cheaper room; his meals he prepares himself;--no great fatigue this, to be sure, for they are frugal, and he contents himself with two. in what ought to be his vacation, he delves away at his books harder than ever, and is besides a hewer of wood and a drawer of water,--all without wages. his only pay is his mother's pride in him, and the joy of sometimes calling back the old smiles to her face." "how did he get to college? how does he stay there, if he has nothing?" "he has less than nothing. to go to college, he has incurred debts,--debts for which he has pledged himself, body and soul. he was ten when his father died. his sister was sixteen. she assumed the rights of guardian over him, kept him up to his work at school, sent him to college when he was fourteen, and maintains him there. "if his life is a hard one, hers is not easier. every morning she walks nearly three miles to the school she teaches, gives her day there, and walks back in the late afternoon. the evening she passes in sewing, a book on the table before her. she catches a line as she draws out her thread, and fixes it in her memory with the setting of the next stitch. besides reginald, there are two other boys to make and mend for, not yet so mindful of the cost of clothes as he has learned to be; and she has her own education to carry on, as well as that of the little community among whom she must hold her place as one who has nothing left to learn. "her mother works at the same table, evenly, continuously, not to disturb or distract by haste or casual movement, and under a spell of silence, which only the child whose first subject she is is privileged to break. it is broken from time to time,--the study being suspended, though not the needlework. these intervals are filled with little, happy confidences,--hopes, and dreams, which the two cherish apart and together, and whose exchange, a hundred times renewed, never loses its power to refresh and reassure. if you were near enough to hear the emphatic word in these snatches of conversation, be sure you would hear 'reginald.'" "do you know them so well?" "perhaps i may have spent a summer in the country town where they live. perhaps it has been my chance some evening to walk by the little, old, black house they moved into after their father's death, from the nice, white, green-blinded one he built for them, and the astral lamp on the round table may have lighted for me the tableau i am showing you. our heroine works and studies late, perhaps; but she must not the less be up early the next morning, to do the heavier portion of the house-work before her mother is stirring. if ever you hear a severe tone in her voice, be sure the mother has been encroaching upon the daughter's prerogative by rising first, or by putting her hand to some forbidden toil.--well, is all this enough? not for anna westlake. there is a music lesson to be given, before she sets off for her regular day's work." "is her name anna?"--westlake had once a sister anna, whom he loved.--"is she pretty?" "she might have been." "fair hair? blue eyes?" "yes; a true westlake in features and complexion; but somewhat thin for one of your family, as you may believe." "pale, delicate?" "the winds of heaven have visited her too roughly." "graceful?" "i should not dare to say yes, seeing that grace is denied to new-england women; still less do i dare to say no, remembering how i have seen her taking her small brothers to their school, on the way to her own, making believe run races with them, to get the little wilful loiterers over the ground the quicker." "borrow, it is a hard life for anna westlake,--for my cousin's child." "you would be a severe taskmaster, if you demanded of a slave such a day's work as hers. of a slave! he would be insane who should expect it of any woman who had not the developed brain, the steady nerves, the abounding vitality of the born aristocrat. "but how is reginald ever going to pay his debt to this sister? do you think she will be satisfied with anything short of seeing him president? who knows but she looks for more yet? the puritan stamp is as strong on her as on her grandfather. who knows but she looks to see him one of the lights of the world,--one of the benefactors of his race,--a discoverer in science,--a reformer? here are responsibilities for a boy to set out under!" "for the boys, let them rough it; i have nothing to say. but, borrow, when you go back, tell anna westlake there is a home for her here, whenever she is ready to come and take it." "i will tell her, if you will, that her cousins here wish to have news of her, and are ready to love her and hers. but propose to her a life of dependence! you must get a bolder man to do that errand." "it should not be a life of dependence. she may surely do for her own kindred what she does for a pack of village children. she should be an elder sister to my girls. why, borrow, i should like to have her here. i don't put it in the form of a favor to her. her being here would be a great pleasure and a great good to my little fanny." "and her own brothers?" "she should be able to do for them all she does now." "all she does now! do you know what that is?" "she should be able to do more than she does now. reginald should live as he ought." "he shall have three good meals a day, and cooked for him: is that it? and the two little boys?" "they should be as much better off as he. i do not forget that i have the whole inheritance, which might have been divided." "yes, the means for their material bread might be supplied by another; but it is from her own soul that she feeds theirs. and then, homage, westlake,--homage, that sweetest draught! do you suppose it is least sweet when most deserved?" "i have nothing, then, to offer which could tempt her?" asked westlake, a little crestfallen. "you have nothing to offer, the world has nothing to offer, which could tempt her to resign her little empire;--little now, but which she sees widening out in futurity through her three brothers' work and their children's." "i knew," said westlake, after he had sat for a few moments in dissatisfied silence, "i knew i had once an uncle who went off to parts unknown; but it never occurred to me that he might have descendants to whom i might owe duties. have they not claims upon me?" "no more than you on them. their ancestor made his choice, as yours made his. they have the portion of goods that falleth to them. they are quite as content with their share as you are with yours. moreover, each party is free to complete his inheritance without prejudice to the other. they can recover the worldly wealth they gave up, if they choose to turn their endeavors in that direction; and nothing forbids to your children the energy and self-denial which are their birthright as much as that of their cousins. "new england never gives up her own. a son of hers may think he has separated himself forever from her and from her principles, but she reclaims him in his children or in his children's children. "you have forgotten your tie to the old home. the conditions of your life forbid you to remember it. but your heart formerly rebelled against these conditions. it has never ceased to protest. reginald's protests already, and will some day protest to purpose." "you think so!" cried westlake; then, checking himself, "i am glad, at least, that you think so; it proves that you like him. i was afraid"---- "you are right. i do not like him as he is, but only as he is to be. i saw what you feared i did, and marked it. i saw him knock down the boy whom he had condescended to make his playmate in default of better, for taking too much in earnest the accorded equality. but i saw, too, that his own breast was sorer with the blow than the one it hit. that is not always a cruel discipline which teaches a man early what he is capable of, whether in good or evil. when your reginald comes to the responsible age, his conscience will hand in the account of his minority. looking, then, on this item and on others like it, he will ask himself, 'am i a dog that i have done these things?' and he will become a man, and a good one. "we see farcical pretensions enough down here, where men are daily new-created from the mud. there is milsom. he does not own even the name he wears. his father borrowed it for a time, and, having worn it out, left it with this son, decamping under shelter of a new one. the son, abandoned to his wits at twelve years old, relieved his father from the charge of inhumanity by proving them sufficient. his first exploit was the betraying of a fugitive who had shared a crust with him. this success revealed to him his proper road to fortune. he passed through the regular degrees of slave-catcher and slave-trader, to the proud altitude of slave-holder; then, moving out of the reach of old associations, proclaims himself a gentleman by descent as well as by desert. his sons take it on his word; in all simplicity believe themselves an integral part of time-honored aristocracy, and think it beneath them to do anything but mischief. "your claims i neither blame nor make light of. i know what their foundation is better than you do yourself. only dismiss illusions, and accept realities, which do not yield to them even in charm to the imagination. when you know the ground under your feet, you will stand more quietly as well as more firmly. you will understand then that the silence of the new-englander in regard to his extraction is not indifference, but security. nowhere is the memory of ancestry so sacredly cherished as in new england, nowhere so humbly. what are we in presence of those majestic memories? we may lead our happy humdrum lives; may fulfil creditably our easy duties; we may plant and build and legislate for those who come after us; but it will still be to these great primitive figures that our descendants will look back; it will still be the debt owed there that will pledge the living generation to posterity. "john westlake, your first paternal ancestor in new england had nothing in common with the puritan leaders. you are well informed there. he came over to seek his fortune. they came to prepare the destinies of a nation. he had nothing to do with them, except in being one of those they worked for. he came when the country was ready for him. his motive was a reasonable one. i shall not impugn it; but it tells of the roturier. the founding of states is an aristocratic tendency. he was a respectable ancestor. i have more than one such of my own. i owe to them the sedate mind which permits me to give myself to my own affairs, without feeling any responsibility about those of the world. but these are not the men who ennoble their descendants in perpetuity. if your breast knows the secret suggestions of lineage, these promptings are not from john westlake. you must go back to our heroic age to find yours." "i should be very glad to find myself in an heroic age," said westlake, with a slight laugh, followed by a heavy sigh. "i feel as if i might have something to do there. but this thought never yet took me back to the puritans: the battle-field is the hero's place, as i imagine the hero. they, i have understood, were especially men of peace. is it not one of their first titles to honor?" "the office of the hero is to create, to organize, to endow;--works of peace which incidentally require him to suppress its disturbers. the heroes have always been men of peace--its winners and maintainers for those who can only enjoy it--from hercules down, that first great overthrower of oppressions and founder of colonies. "to the age i call on you to date from--that of the imagining and founding a new england, a renovated world--belongs the brightest and dearest of english heroic names: the name whose associations of valor and tenderness, of high-heartedness and humility are as fresh now as when the love of the noble first canonized it. it is not without good reason that the name of philip sidney is a household word throughout new england, held in traditional affection and reverence. he was one of the first to project a new state beyond the seas, in which the simplicity and loyalty of primitive manners were to be restored, and the true christian church revived. he turned from these hopes only because he felt that he owed himself to europe as long as an effort for the vindication of human rights upon its soil was possible. it was not love of war that led him to his fate in the netherlands. he was not to be misled by false glory. in his defence of poesy he makes it a reproach to history, that 'the name of rebel cæsar, after a thousand six hundred years, still stands in highest honor.' the peace-loving burleigh, when the expedition in which sidney fell was setting forth, wrote,--deprecating the reproach of lukewarmness,--that he 'should hold himself a man accursed, if he did not work for it with all the powers of his heart, seeing that its ends were the glory of god and the preservation of england in perpetual tranquillity.' "'nec gladio nec arcu' was the motto of thomas dudley, harry's first ancestor in this country. he was a man of peace. but he offered his life to the same cause for which philip sidney laid down his,--drawing the sword for it in france, as sidney had done ten years before in flanders. he was reserved to aid in carrying out the other more effectual work which sidney had designed, but from which his early death withdrew him. "i am not telling you of harry's ancestor for harry's sake. you have your own part in all this, westlake. when reginald and harry met and loved each other, blood spoke to blood. "how many descendants do you suppose there are now from governor thomas dudley's forty grandchildren? hardly a family of long standing in new england but counts him among its ancestors; hardly a state of our union into which some of that choice blood has not been carried, with other as precious. "new england is not limited to that little northeastern corner. our older country, 'that sceptred isle, that earth of majesty,' did not send forth the happiest of its 'happy breed of men' to found a world no wider than its own: wherever the descendants of those great pioneers set up their home, they plant a new new england. "do you know how their regenerate transatlantic country presented itself to its early projectors? the most sanguine of us do not paint its future more brightly now than it was imaged in . "a hungarian poet, on a visit to england, enjoyed the intimacy of hakluyt, and, through him introduced to the society of such men as sir humphrey gilbert and sir philip sidney, was initiated into the hopes and projects of the nobler england of the day. he has celebrated these in a poem addressed to sir humphrey gilbert. the return of the golden age promised in ancient prophecy is, he believes, impossible in europe, sunk below the iron one. he sees it, in vision, revive upon the soil of the new world, under the auspices of men who, true colonizers, renounce home and country, and dare the vast, vague dangers of sea and wilderness, not for gain or for glory, but 'for the peace and welfare of mankind.' "'oh, were it mine to join the chosen band, predestined planters of the promised land, my happy part for after-time to trace the earliest annals of a new-born race! there earth, with man at amity once more, to willing toil shall yield her willing store. there law with equity shall know no strife; justice and mercy no divided life. not there to birth shall merit bend; not there riches o'ermaster freedom. tyrant care shall lay no burden on man's opening years, nor bow his whitening head with timeless fears; but--every season in its order blest-- youth shall enjoy its hope, and age its rest!' "our poet was in earnest. he did not write the annals of the country that his hero did not found; but he shared his grave under the waves of the atlantic. their hope outlived them. visions like theirs are not for you and me, westlake. they are for young men,--for the men who never grow old. we may admit that such have their place in the world. man must strive for something greatly beyond what he can attain, to effect anything. he cannot strive for what he has not faith in. those men who live in aspirations that transcend this sphere believe that all human hearts can be tuned to the same pitch with theirs. we know better, but let us not for that contemn their efforts. i am no visionary. i have no inward evidence of things not seen; but i am capable of believing what is proved. i believe in work,--that none is lost, but that, whether for good or ill, every exertion of power and patience tells. i believe in race, and i believe in progress for a race with which belief in progress is a tradition, and which inherits, besides, the strength, the courage, and the persistence which make faith prophetic. "your institutions, westlake, are to yield the ground to other forms. they are contrary to the inborn principles of the race that leads on this continent. we at the north, who tolerate them, tolerate them because we know they are ephemeral. it is a consciousness of their transitoriness that enables you yourselves to put up with them." "not so fast! if they are not rooted, they are taking root. they have a stronger hold with every year. if any of us felt in the way you suppose, we should have to keep our thoughts to ourselves." "so you all keep your thoughts to yourselves for fear of each other. what a lightening of hearts, when you once come to an understanding! i wish it soon for your own sakes; but a few years in the life of a people are of small account. i am willing to wait for the fulness of time. the end is sure." "it all looks very simple to you, i dare say." "i do not undervalue your difficulties. the greatest is this miserable population that has crept over your borders from the older slave states: progeny of outcasts and of reckless adventurers, they never had a country and have never found one. without aims or hopes, they ask of their worthless life only its own continuance. ignorant that they can never know anything worse than to remain what they are, dreading change more than those who may have something to lose by it, they uphold the system that dooms them to immobility, shameful atlantes of the dismal structure." "you will not wonder that we are ready to renounce the theories of equality put forth by the men you would have us look to as founders. we make laws to keep our black servants from getting instruction. do you think we could legislate the class you speak of into receiving it?" "westlake, they are here. they are among you, and will be of you, or you of them." "we must take our precautions. we intend to do so. the dividing line must be more strongly marked. they must have their level prescribed to them, and be held to it." "the more you confirm their degradation, the more you prepare your own. the vile and abject, for being helpless, are not harmless. unapt for honest service, but ready tools of evil, they corrupt the class whose parasites they are, tempting the strong and generous to tyranny and scorn." "you know them!" "they are known of old. the world has never wanted such. 'the wretches will not be dragged out to sunlight. they man their very dungeons for their masters, lest godlike liberty, the common foe, should enter in, and they be judged hereafter accomplices of freedom!' "but ten righteous men are enough to redeem a state. no state of ours but has men enough, greatly more than enough, to save and to exalt it, whose descent pledges them to integrity and entitles them to authority. only let them know themselves, and stand by themselves and by each other. 'nought shall make us rue, if england to itself do rest but true.' and it will. the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation, but their virtues are a perpetual inheritance. "i should not talk as i have been talking out of the family."--the doctor fell into his familiar tone.--"i take in colvil, because i know, if we had time to trace it up, we should not go back far without coming upon common ancestors. our pedigrees all run one into another. when i see a new-england man, i almost take for granted a cousin. i found one out not many days' journey from here, by opening the old family bible, which made an important part of the furniture of his log-house, and running over the names of his grandmothers. i am so well informed in regard to your great-grandfather, because his story is a part of my own family history. it is through your mother that you are related to harry. perhaps, if she had lived long enough for you to remember her, you would not have forgotten new england." "my mother was an orphan young, and had neither brother nor sister. i have never seen any member of her family. they tell me that reginald looks like her." "where is reginald? why did he not come with you?" "i asked him to come. he said that dudley and he had agreed on a time of meeting. he is not very communicative with me; but they seem to understand each other." * * * * * the parting of the classmates was very kindly. westlake led his horse as far as the end of our road,--the doctor, harry, and i accompanying. when he had mounted, he still delayed. i thought that he looked worn and weary. with his old friend, he had been his old, easy self; but now that his face was turned towards home, it seemed that he felt its vexations and cares confronting him again. the doctor probably does not know as much of westlake's position as is known in the neighborhood; he saw in this sadness only that of the separation from himself, and was more gratified than pained by it. "we shall not see each other again, borrow," said westlake, stretching down his hand for a last clasp of his friend's. "yes, we shall. why not, if we both wish it? say good-bye for me to the little fanny," the doctor added, gayly. westlake brightened with the one pleasant thought connected with his home, and, under its influence, set forward. the doctor stood looking after him with a friendly, contented air. he was pleased with himself for having spoken his mind out, and with westlake for having heard it. but when he turned and met harry's happy, affectionate look, his face clouded. he passed us and walked on fast. when we came into the house, he was seated in the arm-chair, looking straight before him. harry went and stood beside him, waiting for him to give sign that all was right between them again by opening a new conversation. the doctor did not hold out long. "i have told, or as good as told, my old friend," he began, with rather a sour smile, "that he is suffering himself to be infected by the meannesses of those below him; and now i am almost ready to tell myself that my grave years are giving into the fanaticisms of boyhood. but i stand where i did, harry. i stand precisely where i did. i have always told you that i hate slavery as much as you do. the only difference between us is, that i am not for justice though the heavens fall." "justice, and the heavens will _not_ fall," harry answered, firmly, but with a tender deference in look and tone. "and you make too much account of a name," the doctor went on. "what does it signify that men are called slaves and slaveholders, if, in their mutual relations, they observe the laws of justice and kindness? you will not deny that this is possible? i object to slavery, as it exists, because it too often places almost absolute power in unqualified hands. but you are too sweeping. good men are good masters. i should count harvey among such. colvil has given you a portrait you will accept in shaler, who was as good a man when he was a slaveholder as he is now. cicero, a slaveholder,--and roman slaveholders have not the best repute,--writing upon justice, does not put the slave beyond its pale; he recognizes his humanity and its rights. will you suppose that we have not american slaveholders as christian as cicero?" "cicero has said that to see a wrong done without protesting is to commit one." "we will not dispute to-night, harry. i am not altogether insensible to the interests of the world, but i have some regard for yours. perhaps i should take less thought for them, if there were hope that you would take any. at any rate, we will not dispute to-night." harry, at least, was in no mood for disputing. he was very happy. he had a gayety of manner i had hardly seen in him. the doctor soon fell into tune with it, and reconciled himself to the pleasure he had caused. wednesday, april , . the friday came. we had made our last evening a long one, but we were up early on the last morning. harry and i had our walk together. coming back, we found the doctor under keith's pine, busy making up his dried grasses and flowers into little compact packages. we sat down there with him as usual. i read aloud. my reading gave us matter of discussion on the way home. after breakfast, hans, karl, and fritz came up to the house. good friday we always keep alone with our own family; but these three are of it, though they are lodged under a different roof. i read part of a sermon of south's:--"for the transgression of my people was he stricken." how real seemed to me, that morning, the sacred story! i had hitherto contemplated the christ in his divine being, looking up to him from a reverent distance. now he seemed suddenly brought near to me in his human nature. i felt that our earth had, indeed, once owned him. and then how vivid the sense of loss and waste,--a beautiful and beneficent life cut short by violence! "dying, not like a lamp that for want of oil can burn no longer, but like a torch in its full flame blown out by the breath of a north wind!" everything that i read with harry, or that i talk over with him, has new meaning for me, or a new force. why are we so careful to avoid pain? if it was a necessary part of the highest mortal experience, how can we ask that it may be left out from ours? and yet, on every new occasion, we strive to put from us the offered cross. even while we say, "thy will be done!" an inward hope entreats that will to be merciful. such remonstrances with myself rose in me as i read. they did not prevent me from feeling a thrill of dread as this warning passed over my lips:--"who shall say how soon god may draw us from our easy speculations and theories of suffering, to the practical experience of it? who can tell how soon we may be called to the fiery trial?" i turned involuntarily to harry. he, too, had heard a summons in these words. i read in his eyes the answer that came from his steady breast,--"my father, i am here!" i felt my spirit lifted with the closing words,--"if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him"; but there was no change in harry's clear, prepared look. i have never known a faith so implicit as his. he does not ask after threats or promises; he only listens for commands. when the services were over, hans came forward to say good-bye to the doctor and harry. he took a hand of each, and stood looking from one to the other. "we cannot spare you, harry dudley. we shall miss you, doctor. harry, when you are ready to set up your farm, come and take a look round you here again. we are good people, and love you. there will be land near in the market before long. sooner should you have it than old rasey. think of it; we can talk things over, evenings." "you shall have your turn," he said to his boys, who were waiting, one on either side of him. "i am an old man, and leave-taking comes hard. youth has many chances more." he gave his benediction, repeated a little rhyming german couplet,--a charm, perhaps, for a good journey,--and then turned away sturdily, went slowly out of the door and down the steps, leaving karl and fritz to say their words of farewell. karl spoke for both. what fritz had in his heart to say he could not utter, for the tears would have come with it. at a quarter before twelve harry brought down the russet knapsack,--brought down the little flower-press,--brought down the long umbrella. he transferred from the over-full knapsack to his own some packages of flowers. the flower-press would not enter either knapsack. the doctor had it strapped on outside his. i watched these little arrangements, glad of the time they took. harry helped the doctor on with his pack. i would have done the same for harry, but he was too quick for me. i adjusted the strap from which the green tin case hung, that i might do something for him. doctor borrow took a serious leave of my mother,--for this, at least, was a final one. but harry would not have it so. the tears were gathering in her eyes. "you will see us again," he said, confidently. the doctor shook his head. "you have made us too happy here for us not to wish that it might be so." but my mother accepted harry's assurance. they looked round for tabitha. she appeared from my mother's room, the door of which had been a little open. both thanked her cordially for her kind cares. she gave them her good wishes, affectionately and solemnly, and disappeared again. "i shall not bid you good-bye," said the doctor, yet taking my hand. "only till the nineteenth," said harry, clasping it as soon as the doctor relinquished it. "till the eighteenth," i mean; "till the eighteenth," he repeated, urgently. "till the eighteenth," i answered. the doctor mounted the blue spectacles. this was the last act of preparation. the minute-hand was close upon the appointed moment. at the first stroke of twelve, they were on their way. i followed, slowly, as if the reluctance of my steps could hold back theirs. the gate closed behind them. the doctor took at once his travelling gait and trudged straight on; but harry turned and gave a glance to the house, to the barn, to the little patch of flowers,--to all the objects with which the week had made him familiar. then his look fell upon me, who was waiting for it. he searched my face intently for an instant, and then, with a smile which made light of all but happy presentiments, waved me adieu, and hastened on to overtake the doctor. i was glad it was not a working-day,--glad that i could go in and sit down by my mother, to talk over with her, or, silent, to think over with her, the scenes which had animated our little room, and which were still to animate it. harry's parting look stayed with me. i felt all my gain, and had no more sense of loss. can we ever really lose what we have ever really possessed? evening. i have been over to blanty's. i should have gone yesterday, but it rained heavily from early morning until after dark. such days i consider yours. i had been anxious about blanty since sunday, and not altogether without reason. he has had a threatening of fever. i hope it will prove a false alarm. i found him sitting at his door, already better,--but still a good deal cast down, for he was never ill in his life before. he had been wishing for me, and would have sent to me, if i had not gone. he could hardly let me come away, but pressed me to stay one hour longer, one half hour, one quarter. but i had some things to attend to at home, and, as he did not really need me, i bade him good-bye resolutely, promising to go to him again next monday. i cannot well go sooner. if i had stayed, i should have missed a visit from frederic harvey. when i came within sight of our gate, on the way back, a horseman was waiting at it, looking up the road, as if watching for me. he darted forward, on my appearance,--stopped short, when close beside me,--dismounted, and greeted me with a warmth which i blamed myself for finding it hard to return. he did not blame me, apparently. perhaps he ascribes the want he may feel in my manner to new-england reserve; or perhaps he feels no want. he is so assured of the value of his regard, that he takes full reciprocity for granted. the docile horse, at a sign, turned and walked along beside us to the gate, followed us along the path to the house, and took his quiet stand before the door when we went in. frederic harvey, having paid his respects to my mother, seated himself in the great arm-chair, which now seems to be always claiming the doctor, and which this new, slender occupant filled very inadequately. "i stayed in new york three weeks too long," he exclaimed, after looking about him a little--for traces of harry, it seemed. "time goes so fast there! but i thought, from one of my sister's letters, that dudley was to go back to world's end after he left you. is he changed? oh, but you cannot tell. you never knew him till now. i need not have asked, at any rate. he is not one to change. while i knew him, he was only more himself with every year." "it is two years since you met, is it not?" "yes; but what are two years to men who were children together? we shall take things up just where we laid them down. ours is the older friendship. i shall always have the advantage of you there. but you and he must have got along very well together. your notions agree with his better than mine do. it does not matter. friendship goes by fate, i believe. he may hold what opinions he likes, for me; and so may you." "i believe that on some important subjects my opinions differ very much from yours."--i am determined to stand square with frederic harvey. "in regard to our institutions, you mean? i know, that, spoken or unspoken, hatred of them is carried in the heart of every new-englander. it is sometimes suppressed through politeness or from interest, but i never saw a northerner who was good for anything, in whom it did not break out on the first provocation. i like as well to have it fairly understood in the outset. i have had a letter from harry in answer to one of mine. it is explicit on this point." i had no doubt it was very explicit. frederic's eye meeting mine, he caught my thought, and we had a good laugh together, which made us better friends. "the northerners are brought up in their set of prejudices, as we in ours. i can judge of the force of theirs by that of my own. i only wish there was the same unanimity among us. we are a house divided against itself." and frederic's face darkened,--perhaps with the recollection of the rupture of old ties in shaler's case,--or rather, as it seemed, with the rankling of some later, nearer pain. he turned quickly away from the intrusive thought, whatever it was. he does not like the unpleasant side of things. "at any rate, because harry dudley and i are to be adverse, it does not follow that we are to be estranged. i cannot forget our school-days,--our walks on the boulevards and the quays,--our rides in the bois,--our journeys together, when we were like brothers. i was never so happy as in those days, when i had not a care or a duty in the world." he had the air, with his twenty-one years, of a weary man-of-the-world. there was no affectation in it. unless report have done him injustice, the last two years have put a gulf between him and that time. i reminded him of the conversation between him and his sister, in which they spoke of harry dudley before i knew who harry dudley was. he remembered it, and returned very readily to the subject of it. he related many incidents of the tour in brittany, and spoke warmly of the pleasure of travelling with a companion who is alive to everything of interest in every sort. he said his travels in germany, and even in italy, had hardly left with him so lively and enduring impressions as this little journey into brittany; for there he had gone to the heart of things. "i must see him again. we must meet once more as we used to meet. we must have one good clasp of the hand; we must, at least, say a kind good-bye to the old friendship. if, hereafter, we find ourselves opposed in public life, i shall deal him the worst i can, but with openness and loyalty like his own, and doing him more justice in my heart, perhaps, than he will do me." frederic harvey inquired anxiously where harry was to be found, and i was obliged to tell him of our intended meeting. i was afraid he would propose to go with me. he was on the point of doing so, but refrained, seeing that i was not expecting such a suggestion. we could easily have arranged to meet at quickster, which is about the same distance from him that it is from me. but a ride of twenty miles, most of them slow ones, beside a man with whom you are not in full sympathy, is a trial. i did not feel called upon to undergo it for him. when he took leave of me, he again seemed about to propose something, and i felt it was this plan which was so natural; but he was again withheld, by pride or by delicacy. either feeling i could sympathize with, and i was more touched by this reserve than by all his friendly advances; but i hardened my heart. he mounted his horse. i saw him go slowly down the path to the road, stoop from the saddle to open the gate,--pass out. and then i was seized with sudden compunction. i heard the slow step of his horse, receding as if reluctantly, and ready to be checked at a hint. i ran to the gate. frederic was just turning away, as if he had been looking back, expecting to see me; but in the same instant he gave an intimation to his horse, and was out of the reach of my repentance. "_i liked him._" with harry these words mean a great deal. could harry ever have liked him, if he had not been worthy to be liked? how sad his look was, when he spoke of his happy boyish days!--happier than these only because they were blameless. was not this regret itself an earnest of the power of return? he had good blood in him. he is charles shaler's cousin. he has a weak, shallow mother,--a father whose good qualities and whose faults are overlaid with the same worldly varnish impartially. he feels the need of other influences, and clings to harry. he comes to me instinctively seeking something he has not in his home. my mother has always judged him more kindly than i have. if he had been a poor outcast child, i should have felt his coming to me so frankly and so persistently to be a sign i was to do something for him. is there a greater need than that of sympathy and honest counsel? i have been selfish, but this pain is punishment enough. i feel a remorse surely out of proportion to my sin. i do not prevent his going to meet harry by not asking him to go with me. he is not one to give up his wish; and in this case there is no reason that he should. he will arrive; i am sure of it. and i will atone, at least in part. i will ask him to join me on the ride home. old jasper has told me stories of frederic harvey's good-heartedness in childhood: tells them to me, indeed, every time he sees me. i remember one in particular, of the pretty little boy in his foreign dress, and speaking his foreign language, carrying his own breakfast one morning to the cabin where the old man lay sick; and another of his taking away part of her load from a feeble woman; and another of his falling on a driver and wresting from him the whip with which he was lashing a fainting boy. but jasper has only these early stories to tell of him; and what different ones are current now! in dear old new england the child is father of the man. there the lovely infancy is the sure promise of the noble maturity. but where justice is illegal! where mercy is a criminal indulgence! where youth is disciplined to selfishness, and the man's first duty is to deny himself his virtues! if the nephew of augustus had lived, would he indeed have been marcellus? _heu pietas! heu prisca fides!_--these might have been mourned, though octavia had not wept her son. thursday, april , . it is thirty-five miles to omocqua by the common road through metapora and tenpinville; but i shall save myself five, going across fields and through wood-paths, and coming out at quickster. you left the omocqua road there, and took that to quarleston. i shall stop half an hour at quickster to rest my horse and have a little talk with barton. i mean to allow myself ample time for the journey, that brownie may take it easily and yet bring me to omocqua in season for a stroll about the neighborhood with the doctor and harry before nightfall. some miles of my way are difficult with tree-stumps and brush; a part of it is sandy; the last third is hilly. i have never been farther on that road than ossian, about three miles beyond quickster; but the country between ossian and omocqua is, i know, very much like that between quarleston and cyclops, which you found so beautiful and so tiresome. i do not mean that my parting with harry shall be a sad one. after that day at omocqua, i shall not meet his smile,--his hand will not clasp mine again; but he will leave with me something of himself which will not go from me. his courage, the energy of his straightforward will, shall still nerve and brace me, though his cordial voice may never again convey their influence to my heart. wherever he is, i shall know we are thinking, feeling together, and working together; for i shall surely do what he asks of me: that he thinks it worth doing is enough. and dr. borrow does not leave me what he found me. it was with a continual surprise that i learned how much there is of interest and variety in our uniform neighborhood for a man who knows the meaning of what he sees. how many things are full of suggestion now that were mute before! he has given me glimpses of undreamed-of pleasures. a practical man, following him in his walks, and gathering up the hints he lets fall, might turn them to great real use. what a part the doctor and such as he, disciples and interpreters of nature, would have in the world, how warmly they would be welcomed everywhere, if these were only times in which men could live as they were meant to live, happy and diligent, cherishing earth and adorning her, receiving her daily needful gifts, and from time to time coming upon precious ones, which she, fond and wise mother, has kept back for the surprise of some hour of minuter search or bolder divination! but now, how can we be at ease to enjoy our own lot, however pleasantly it may have been cast for us, or to occupy ourselves with material cares or works, even the most worthy and the most rational? we are taught to pray, "thy kingdom come," before we ask for our daily bread. to pray for what we do not at the same time strive for, is it not an impiety? dr. borrow says that harry is out of place in our time. i should rather say that it is he himself who is here a century, or perhaps only a half-century, too soon. our first need now is of men clear-sighted to moral truths, and intrepid to announce and maintain them. it was through the consciousness, not yet lost, of eternal principles, that primitive poetry made themis the mother of the gracious hours,--those beneficent guardians, bringers of good gifts, promoters and rewarders of man's happy labor. when justice returns to make her reign on earth, with her come back her lovely daughters, and all the beautiful attendant train. when that time arrives, the doctor will have found his place, and harry will not have lost his. perhaps i shall not come back until saturday. according to their plan, dr. borrow and harry are to leave omocqua again to-morrow afternoon; but i shall try to persuade them to remain until the next morning. while they stay, i shall stay. when they go, brownie and i take our homeward road. in any case, i will write to you friday night, and send off my budget on saturday without fail. to-day has not given me anything to tell of it yet, except that it has opened as it should, fresh and cloudless. in five hours i shall be on the road. my paper is blistered and the writing blurred with wet drops. it is only that some freshly gathered flowers on my table have let fall their dew upon the page. you, with the trace of mysticism that lurks in your man of the world's heart, would be drawing unfavorable auguries. i am too happy to accept any to-day. if fancy will sport with this accident, let it feign that these morning tears are of sympathy, but not of compassion; that they fall, not to dim my hopes, but to hallow them. evening. "in five hours i shall be on the road." so i wrote at six o'clock. i wrote too confidently. at eleven i had mounted my horse, had sent my last good-bye through the open window, and had caught the last soft answer from within. i lingered yet an instant, held by those links of tenderness and solicitude that bind to home and make the moment of parting for any unusual absence, even though a pleasant and desired one, a moment of effort. a heavy, dragging step, which i almost knew before i saw the lounging figure of phil phinn, warned me of a different delay. i watched his slow approach with a resignation which had still a little hope in it; but when he at last stood beside me and began his ingratiating preamble, i felt my sentence confirmed. his woe-begone face, his quivering voice, announced the suppliant before he reached the recital of his wrongs; while the utter self-abandonment of his attitude conveyed renunciation of all cares and responsibilities in favor of his elected patron. i will not give you the details of the difficulty of to-day,--an absurd and paltry one, yet capable of serious consequences to him. i obeyed instinctively the old-fashioned new-england principle i was brought up in, which requires us to postpone the desire of the moment to its demands. sadly i led my horse to the stable, took off the saddle and put him up. "i cannot be back until two," i thought, "perhaps not before three. i shall lose our walk and our sunset; but even if it is as late as four, i will still go." i ran into the house to say a word of explanation to my mother; but she had heard and understood. she gave me a look of sympathy, and i did not wait for more. i set out resolutely in a direction opposite to that in which my own road lay. phil phinn followed, already raised to complacency, though not to energy. i outwalked him continually, and was obliged to stop and wait for him to come up. he plainly thought my haste unseasonable, and did not disguise that he was incommoded by the sun and the mud. it was a tedious way, a long five miles for him and for me. we arrived at last at the house of his adversary, who, having, besides the advantage of being in a superior position, also that of justice on his side, could the more easily give way. i should soon have come to an understanding with him, if my client, while leaving me the whole responsibility of his case, had not found himself unable to resign its management: he must lend me the aid of his argumentative and persuasive gifts. after some hours of wrangling and pleading, the matter was accommodated, and phil phinn, without a care in the world, or the apprehension of ever having one again, sauntered away toward his home. i set off for mine, already doubtful of myself, remembering that i was not the only disappointed one. when i reached home, it was half-past six o'clock. i felt strongly impelled to go, even then. my mother did not offer any objection, but her look showed so plainly the anxiety the thought of a night-ride caused her, that i gave it up without a word. i could not, indeed, have arrived at omocqua before midnight, and harry would long have done expecting me. i am not as well satisfied with myself as i ought to be, having made such a sacrifice to duty. i begin to ask myself, was it made to duty? after all, a little suspense would have done phil phinn good,--if anything can do him good. and are not the claims of friendship paramount to all other? harry will be pained by needless anxiety. can he believe that i would, without grave cause, lose any of the time we might yet have together? but a few hours will set all right. friday night, april . i am at home again. i take out the package which has been waiting for the day at omocqua. hoarding is always imprudence. if these letters of last week had gone on their day, they would have been faithful messengers. now they go to tell you of a happiness which already is not mine,--of hopes and plans that you can never share. are these last pages yesterday's? a lifetime is between me and them. the book i pushed aside to write them lies there open, waiting to be recalled. had it an interest for me only yesterday? the flowers on my table still hold their frail, transient beauty. no longer ago than when i gathered them, i could take pleasure in flowers! i sit here and go through the history of these last two days, retracing every minutest incident. i begin again. i make some one little circumstance different, and with it all is changed. i pass into a happy dream; i find myself smiling. and then i remember that i cannot smile! i was to write to you to-night. i should have written, if i had not promised. i must spend these hours with you. every object here is so full of pain! everything is so exactly as it was; and yet nothing can ever be as it was to me again! it seemed last evening that i suffered more from my disappointment than was reasonable. i wished for sleep to shorten the hours of waiting. but troubled dreams lengthened them instead. i was up at three; at four i was on the road. i had an hour over fields and cleared land; then came some miles through the woods. the forest-ride had not its usual charm. i was still haunted by the failure of yesterday. i could not bear the thought of being misjudged by harry, even for a moment. i longed to be with him and explain. but would he find me absolved? i was glad to come out into light and cheerfulness at quickster. it was six o'clock when i stood before the door of the rapid run. barton came down to me, drew out his pocket-book, and took from it a folded paper. "here is something of yours." i opened it and found written in pencil,--"jackson house, omocqua." the sight of that frank handwriting dispelled every doubt. "when was he here?" "he came in a little before one yesterday. he asked if you had been along. i thought not; you would have given me a call. he stayed round here about an hour, waiting for you. i told him that you might have struck the road farther down,--at ossian, perhaps. he took a horse of me, knowing you would ride." "he was alone?" "yes. he told me dr. borrow was at rentree; was to join him at omocqua this morning, though." in half an hour we were on our way again. i was eager still, but no longer impatient. there was no uncertainty in my mind now. harry was at omocqua. he was expecting me. as to blaming me, he had never thought of it. he would have imagined for me some better excuse than i had to give. or rather, it had never occurred to him that i could need excuse. i should find him at the door on the lookout for me. his hand would be in mine before i could dismount. in the mean while the miles between us diminished rapidly. my horse enjoyed, as i did, every step of the happy road. his prompt, elastic tread showed it, and the alert ears which seemed not watchful against danger, but vigilant to catch all the sweet and animating sounds that cheered us forward. three miles from quickster we came on the intended town of ossian. i stopped a moment. harry had probably lingered here yesterday, watching to see me emerge from that dusky wood-path. he had found no one to speak to. one inhabitant outstayed the rest a year; but he has now been long gone, and his house is falling in. beyond ossian the road was new to me. for about three miles it is good. then the country becomes uneven, and soon after very hilly. it was slower work here; but brownie and i took it pleasantly. "how far is it to omocqua?" i asked, as he was passing me, a man whom i had watched painfully descending in his little wagon the hill i was about to climb. he drew up at once. "omocqua? you are for omocqua? an hour, or a little more; though i am a good hour and a half from there. they had something of a fuss down there last night, perhaps you know." "what about?" "well, a man from tenpinville met a runaway boy of his who had been hiding round there. the fellow ran; his master hailed him, and when he wouldn't stop, out with a pistol and shot him flat." "what was the man's name?" "if i heard, i've lost it. i put up just outside the town. if i'd gone in to hear the talk, i might have got mixed up; and i'd no call." the hour was a long one. i hardly wished it shorter, yet i tried to hasten. i urged my horse; but mastery is of the spirit, not of the hand or will. he had obeyed so well the unconscious impulse! and now, though he started forward under the spur of an inciting word, he soon forgot it, and mounted the slow hills and descended them again with drudging step and listless ears. what a meeting! what a topic for the nineteenth of april! i imagined harry's grief, his shame, his concentrated indignation. i remembered the flash of his eye, the flush of his cheek, when dr. borrow was telling of the approach of the slave-coffle from which they had rescued orphy. and with this a keen apprehension seized me. would harry have been able to repress his remonstrance, his reprobation? the common man i had just met had not trusted the acquired prudence of half a century. could harry's warm young heart contain itself? why was i not there? a warning, a restraining word----. but would harry have heard it? could i have spoken it? would he not have felt, must not i have felt with him, that this was one of those moments when to see wrong done without protesting is to share in it? and then rose before me the possible scenes:--the beautiful, glowing face, the noble, passionate words, the tumult, the clamor, the scoff, the threat, the ---- oh, no! surely the angels would have had charge concerning him! when we reached the summit of the last hill, my horse stopped of himself, as if to let me receive well into my mind the first lovely aspect of the town below us, and thus connect a charm with its name which nearer knowledge should not be able to disturb. i yielded to the influence of the scene the more easily that it was in such contrast with my perturbed feelings. we may court and cherish a fanciful or a superficial grief; but the bitterly tormented mind asks ease as the tortured body does, and takes eagerly the soothing draught from any hand. the landscape, still freshened by the night, and already brilliant with the day, spoke peace and hope. i accepted the promise. descending the hill, i thought and reasoned cheerfully. i smiled that i should have fancied nothing could happen in omocqua, when harry was there, without his having a part in it. this took place last evening; he had not heard of it yet, perhaps. or he had heard of it; but not until it was over, and there was nothing to be done. he was commonly silent under strong emotion. he would have heard this story as he had heard others of the sort, with resolved composure, finding in it new food for his inward purpose. on the outskirts of the town i came to a little tavern, the one probably at which my acquaintance of the road had lodged. i had almost stopped to ask the news, but thought better of it, and was going on, when a man sitting on a bench under a tree started up and ran after me, shouting. i stopped, and he came up out of breath. "you thought we were shut, seeing us so still; but we're all on hand." i explained, that i was going to the jackson house, where a friend was to meet me. "the jackson house! that's head-quarters for news, just now. all right. you looked as if you wanted to stop." "i thought of stopping for a moment. i heard on the road that there had been some sort of disturbance in your town yesterday. is all quiet now?" "for aught i know." "i heard there was a boy shot here yesterday." "a boy?" "a runaway." "one of our waiters brought down such a story last night. they are sharp after news of their own. i told him 'twas wholesome, if it turned out so. but this morning it comes that it was the man who was running him off that was shot. you'll hear all about it at the jackson. if you come back this way, stop and give me a word. i can't leave." there were a number of men on the piazza of the jackson house. most of them had the air of habitual loungers; a few were evidently travellers newly arrived. not a figure that even from a distance i could take for harry dudley. some trunks and valises were waiting to be carried in, but i saw nothing familiar. i recognized the landlord in a man who was leaning against a pillar, smoking. he did not come forward, or even raise his eyes, when i rode up. i bade him good-morning, addressing him by name. he came forward a little,--bowed in answer to my salutation, but did not speak. "is mr. dudley here?" brompton did not reply. he threw out two or three puffs of smoke, then took the cigar from his lips and flung it from him. he looked serious, and, i thought, displeased. my misgivings returned. had harry incurred ill-will by some generous imprudence? had he left the house, perhaps? was the landlord afraid of being involved in his guest's discredit? he spoke at last, with effort. "is your name ----?" "colvil." he came down the steps and stood close to me, laying a hand on my horse's neck and stroking down his mane. "mr. colvil, i don't know that anybody is to blame; but an accident has happened here. i'm sorry to be the one to tell you of it." i dismounted. brompton made several attempts at beginning, but stopped again. "you had some trouble in your town yesterday," i said; "can that in any way concern mr. dudley?" "are you a near friend of his?" "yes." "a relation?" "no." he went on with more assurance. "mr. dudley was here about a month ago. he had a sick boy with him, whom he left here, in a manner under my care. he was to have taken him away to-day. he arrived yesterday afternoon and asked me to send for the boy. i sent for him. mr. dudley was expecting you yesterday afternoon, and walked over to the jefferson to see if there was any mistake. "the boy was his. it was all regular. he had him of ruffin, who never does anything unhandsome. i knew all about it. ruffin was here with a lot of all sorts he had been picking up round the country. he told me to keep the boy pretty close while i had him in charge; and i boarded him outside the town, with an old granny, who didn't know but he was really in hiding. but it was all right. he was a pet servant, spoiled till he grew saucy, and his master swapped him off,--but quietly, the family set so much by the boy. they were to think he'd been enticed away. but it must happen, that, exactly yesterday afternoon, one of the sons came riding up to this very house. he left his horse to the servant he brought with him; then comes up to the door and asks if mr. dudley is here; hears that he has walked out, and so walks out too. the first thing he meets, just out here on the square, is this boy, whom he had been fond of, and only over-kind to. the boy checks up, and then, like a fool, turns and runs. the young man calls to him to stop,--and then, to stop or he'd shoot. the boy only runs faster. dudley was crossing the square, on his way back from the jefferson, and came up at the moment. he told orphy to stand still, and, stepping right between him and the levelled pistol, called to the other to hold on. but the man was so mad with rage at seeing his servant flout him and mind another, that he could not stop his hand. i was standing where you are now. i saw dudley come up, with his even step, just as usual. i heard his voice, clear and cool. i did not look for mischief until i heard the crack of the pistol,--and there he was on the ground! i ran down to him. i was going to have him taken into the house, but he wanted to lie in the open air. we carried him round to the green behind the barn. there was an army-surgeon here, on his way west. he did what he could, but said it was only a question of hours. dudley knew it. he wanted to keep on till morning, thinking you might come. he lasted till after daybreak. will you go to him?" i followed brompton into the house, along the entry, across the yard, through the great barn. a road led from a gate on a side-street to a shed. before us, on the other side of the road, was a green field with one great tree. the grass under the tree was flattened. "yes, it was there," said brompton. "he asked to be laid under that tree. the sun was just setting over there. when evening came, we wanted to take him to the house; but no. we let him have his will. it was natural he should want to see the sky while he could." brompton led the way to the shed. what struggles must have rent that strong young breast before the life was dislodged from it! how must the spirit which had known this earth only through innocent joys and sweet affections and lovely hopes,--how must it have clung to its dear mortal dwelling-place! how mourned its dividing ties! how claimed its work, unfinished, unbegun! this grief, this yearning, this reluctance would have left their story on the cold immovable face. with these, bodily torture would have done its part to alter and impair! i followed my guide, foreboding that the dumb anguish in my heart was to be displaced by a fiercer pain. there was no pain in his presence. in death, as in life, he kept his own gift of blessing. the holy light still lay on the brow; about the lips hovered a smile, last ethereal trace of the ascended spirit. my soul lifted itself to his. i understood the peace that passeth understanding. an angry voice brought me back to the world and its discords. "do you think you were worth it?" i looked where brompton was looking, and saw, seated near, on an overturned barrel, a figure which could be no other than that of orphy. he sat impassive. brompton's cruel words had not reached him. his misery was its own shield. his utter wretchedness precluded more. but he felt my look fixed upon him. he raised his eyes to me for a moment, then closed them again to shut himself in with his woe. and now his face quivered all over; his lips parted and closed rapidly,--not as forming articulate accents, but in the helpless forlornness that has no language in which to utter plaint or appeal. and yet on these trembling cheeks, about this inane mouth, still lingered some of the soft, playful lines i remembered on the pretty, varying face of little airy harvey! on the way from the house i was conscious that a step followed us, stopping when we stopped, and going on again when we did; but i had not given thought to it until now, when i perceived a timid movement behind me, and felt a light touch laid on my arm. i turned, and met a pair of mournful, pleading eyes. "jasper!" the old man stretched one trembling hand toward the dead, while the other clasped my wrist.--"it was not meant! it was not meant!" "it was not," said brompton. "do not bear anger! _he_ did not." "he did not," echoed brompton. jasper, searching my face, saw there what changed his look of entreaty into one of compassion. he stroked my sleeve soothingly with his poor shrunken fingers.--"and yet there never was anything but love between you! oh, think there is a sorer heart than yours this day!" "where is he?" i asked, fearing lest that most unhappy one might be near. "gone."--it was brompton who answered.--"gone, i believe. he was here until all was over. he locked himself into a room up-stairs. dudley sent for him many times the night through, in the intervals of his pain. i took the messages to him. but he could neither bear to see the one he had killed, nor yet to go away, and have no chance of seeing him again. at daybreak dudley got up, saying he had strength enough, and went as far as the barn on his way to the house. there the surgeon met him and led him back, pledging his word that the man should be brought, if it was by force. and it was almost by force, but he was brought. dudley raised himself a little, when he came up, took his hand and clasped it close. 'good-bye, fred!'--in a pleasant voice, as if he were ready for a journey and must cheer up the friend he was to leave behind. and then he sank back, still holding the other's hand, and looking up at him with his kind eyes, not forgiving, but loving,--till the eyelids drooped and closed softly, and he passed into a quiet sleep. when we left him, he was breathing gently. we thought it was rest." jasper went humbly away, secure of his suit. brompton, too, withdrew silently. * * * * * in those first moments i had left below my loss and my grief to follow the ascended; but now my human heart asked after the human friend. on the rich, disordered hair were signs of the mortal agony: the soft, bright curls were loosened and dimmed. the pure forehead could not be fairer than it was, yet the even, delicately finished eyebrows seemed more strongly marked. the brown eyelashes showed long and dark over the white cheek. the same noble serenity; the same gentle strength; only the resolute lines about the mouth were softened;--nothing now to resist or to dare! dr. borrow would be here soon. i sat down on a block and waited. dr. borrow! i had thought his love for harry tinctured with worldliness; but how honest and hearty it appeared to me now! i had loved in harry dudley what he was to be, what he was to do. dr. borrow had loved him for himself only, simply and sincerely. i remembered the doctor's misgivings, his cautions to me. how negligently heard! then it was only that he did not yet comprehend the high calling of the boy whom we equally loved. now i almost felt as if i had a complicity in his fate,--as if the doctor could demand account of me. that harry dudley would give himself to a great cause had been my hope and faith; that he would spend himself on a chimera had been doctor borrow's dread. but which of us had looked forward to this utter waste? how reconcile it with divine omnipotence? with supreme justice? was there not here frustration of a master-work? was there not here a promise unfulfilled? careless footsteps and voices gave notice of the approach of men brought by curiosity. seeing me, and judging me not one of themselves, they stop outside, confer a moment in lower tones, come in singly, look, and go out again. then new voices. a tall, stout man stalked heavily in. "and the boy was his own, after all," burst from him as he rejoined the others. "the boy was not his own. he didn't buy him fairly to keep and work him. it was a sham sale. he meant to free him from the first, and the boy knew it. he was free by intention and in fact. he had all the mischief in him of a free negro." "the man was a new-englander, and saw it differently," answered the first voice. "a man is not a fool because he is a new-englander," replied the second. "i am from new england myself." "i don't see much of the same about you. are there more there like him or like you?" "i tell you he has died as the fool dieth," the other answered sharply, coming carelessly in as he spoke. he was a mean-looking man, trimly dressed, in whom i could not but recognize the yankee schoolmaster. as he stooped down over the man he had contemned, some dormant inheritance of manhood revealed itself in his breast, some lingering trace of richer blood stirred in his dull veins. he turned away, cast towards me a humble, deprecating look, and, still bending forward, went out on tiptoe. then, accompanied by a sweeping and a rustling, came a light step, but a decided, and, i felt, an indifferent one. a woman came in. she took account with imperious eyes of every object,--of me, of orphy, of the coarse bench spread with hay, which served as bier,--and then walked confidently and coldly forward to the spectacle of death. when she had sight of the beautiful young face, she uttered a cry, then burst into passionate sobs, which she silenced as suddenly, turned, shook her fist at orphy, and was gone. "dr. borrow is come." _come!_ to what a different appointment! "he asked for you," persisted brompton, seeing that i did not rise. "he is in the same room he had when they were here together. he mistrusted something, or he had heard something; he said no word until he was there. then he asked me what he had got to be told, and i told him." i made a sign that i would go. brompton left me with a look which showed that he knew what a part i had before me. dr. borrow was not a patient man. he was ruffled by a slight contrariety. this unimagined grief, how was it to be borne? with what words would he receive me? would he even spare harry dudley himself, in the reproaches which his love would only make more bitter? we three were to have met to-day. was _he_ the one to be wanting? he who was never wanting? he who had been the life, the joy, of those dearly remembered hours, was he to be the sorrow, the burden of these? i went to him again; again earth and its anxieties vanished from me. no, he would not be wanting to us. * * * * * when i touched the handle of the door, it was turned from the inside. dr. borrow seized my hand, clasping it, not in greeting, but like one who clings for succor. he searched my face with ardently questioning look, as if i might have brought him mercy or reprieve. he saw that i had not. a spasm passed over his face. his mouth opened to speak, with voiceless effort. he motioned me to lead where he was to go. we went down-stairs, and he followed me, as i had followed brompton, along the entry, across the yard, through the barn. he glanced towards the tree and then took his way to the shed. i did not enter with him. when he came back to me, he was very pale, but his expression was soft and tender as i had never known it. we went in again together, and stood there side by side. brompton spoke from without. "there is one thing i have not told you, dr. borrow." the doctor turned to him patiently. "there was an inquest held early this morning." dr. borrow lifted his hand to ward off more. "let me take my child and go!" the doctor looked towards orphy. again i had almost wronged him in my thought. "come, my lad," he said, kindly; "you and i must take care of him home." orphy left his place of watch. he came and stood close beside the doctor, devoting his allegiance; tears gathered in the eyes that the soul looked through once more; the mouth retook its own pathetic smile. i knew that harry dudley must lie in massachusetts ground, but i could not look my last so soon. dr. borrow saw my intention and prevented it. he took my hand affectionately, yet as holding me from him. "do not come. i am better off without you. i must battle this out alone." then, a moment after, as feeling he had amends to make,-- "you have known him a few weeks. think what i have lost,--the child, the boy, the man! all my hopes were in him,--i did not myself know how wholly!" and beyond this anguish lay other, that he would have put off till its time, but it pressed forward. "colvil, you are going home. you go to be consoled. what am i going to?" on the side-street, the swift tread of horses and the roll of rapid wheels. a wagon stopped before the gate. what a joy charles shaler's coming was to have been to us! he was prepared. he came forward erect and stern. he saluted us gravely in passing, went in and stood beside the bier. he remained gazing intently for a little time,--then, laying his hand lightly on the sacred forehead, raised his look to heaven. he came out composed as he had entered. shaler spoke apart with brompton, and returned to us. "you would leave this place as soon as possible?" he said to dr. borrow. "yes." i had meant to combat the doctor's desire that i should leave him,--not for my own sake, but because i thought he would need me; but i submitted now. shaler would assume every care, and i saw that dr. borrow yielded himself up implicitly. * * * * * the moment came. we lifted him reverently, orphy propping with his weak hands the arm that had once lent him its strength. we carried him out into the sunshine he had loved, bright then as if it still shone for him. the wind ruffled the lifeless hair whose sparkling curls i had seen it caress so often. * * * * * it is over. over with the last meeting, the last parting. over with that career in which i was to have lived, oh, how much more than in my own! that brain cold! what vigorous thought, what generous enterprise benumbed within it! that heart still, whose beats should have stirred a nation's! the head for which i had dreamed so pure a glory has sunk uncrowned. the name dies away in space; not a whisper repeats it. harry dudley has passed from a world which will never know that it possessed and has lost him. riverside, cambridge: stereotyped and printed by h. o. houghton and company. * * * * * * transcriber's note: obvious printer's errors have been corrected. inconsistent spellings and use of hyphens have been kept (e.g., "door-steps" and "doorsteps"). self portrait by bernard wolfe illustrated by martin schneider [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy science fiction november . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] in the credo of this inspiringly selfless cyberneticist, nothing was too good for his colleagues in science. much too good for them! _october , _ well, here i am at princeton. ifacs is quite a place, _quite_ a place, but the atmosphere's darned informal. my colleagues seem to be mostly youngish fellows dressed in sloppy dungarees, sweatshirts (the kind einstein made so famous) and moccasins, and when they're not puttering in the labs they're likely to be lolling on the grass, lounging in front of the fire in commons, or slouching around in conference rooms chalking up equations on a blackboard. no way of telling, of course, but a lot of these collegiate-looking chaps must be in the ms end, whatever that is. you'd think fellows in something secret like that would dress and behave with a little more dignity. guess i was a little previous in packing my soup-and-fish. soon as i was shown to my room in the bachelor dorms, i dug it out and hung it way back in the closet, out of sight. when in rome, etc. later that day i discovered they carry dungarees in the co-op; luckily, they had the pre-faded kind. * * * * * _october , _ met the boss this morning--hardly out of his thirties, crew-cut, wearing a flannel hunting shirt and dirty saddleshoes. i was glad i'd thought to change into my dungarees before the interview. "parks," he said, "you can count yourself a very fortunate young man. you've come to the most important address in america, not excluding the pentagon. in the world, probably. to get you oriented, suppose i sketch in some of the background of the place." that would be most helpful, i said. i wondered, though, if he was as naive as he sounded. did he think i'd been working in cybernetics labs for going on six years without hearing enough rumors about ifacs to make me dizzy? especially about the ms end of ifacs? "maybe you know," he went on, "that in the days of oppenheimer and einstein, this place was called the institute for advanced studies. it was run pretty loosely then--in addition to the mathematicians and physicists, they had all sorts of queer ducks hanging around--poets, egyptologists, numismatists, medievalists, herbalists, god alone knows what all. by , however, so many cybernetics labs had sprung up around the country that we needed some central coordinating agency, so washington arranged for us to take over here. naturally, as soon as we arrived, we eased out the poets and egyptologists, brought in our own people, and changed the name to the institute for advanced _cybernetics_ studies. we've got some pretty keen projects going now, _pret_-ty keen." i said i'd bet, and did he have any idea which project i would fit into? "sure thing," he said. "you're going to take charge of a very important lab. the pro lab." i guess he saw my puzzled look. "pro--that's short for prosthetics, artificial limbs. you know, it's really a scandal. with our present level of technology, we should have artificial limbs which in many ways are even better than the originals, but actually we're still making do with modifications of the same primitive, clumsy pegs and hooks they were using a thousand years ago. i'm counting on you to get things hopping in that department. it's a real challenge." i said it sure was a challenge, and of course i'd do my level best to meet it. still, i couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed. around cybernetics circles, i hinted, you heard a lot of talk about the hush-hush ms work that was going on at ifacs and it sounded so exciting that, well, a fellow sort of hoped he might get into _that_ end of things. "look here, parks," the boss said. he seemed a little peeved. "cybernetics is teamwork, and the first rule of any team is that not everybody can be quarterback. each man has a specific job on our team, one thing he's best suited for, and what _you're_ best suited for, obviously, is the pro lab. we've followed your work closely these last few years, and we were quite impressed by the way you handled those photo-electric-cell insects. you pulled off a brilliant engineering stunt, you know, when you induced nervous breakdown in your robot moths and bedbugs, and proved that the oscillations they developed corresponded to those which the human animal develops in intention tremor and parkinson's disease. a keen bit of cybernetic thinking, that. _very_ keen." it was just luck, i told him modestly. "nonsense," the boss insisted. "you're first and foremost a talented neuro man, and that's exactly what we need in the pro department. there, you see, the problem is primarily one of duplicating a nervous mechanism in the metal, of bridging the gap between the neuronic and electronic. so buckle down, and if you hear any more gossip about ms, forget it fast--it's not a proper subject of conversation for you. the loyalty oath you signed is very specific about the trouble you can get into with loose talk. remember that." i said i certainly would, and thanks a whole lot for the advice. damn! everybody knows ms is the thing to get into. it gives you real standing in the field if it gets around that you're an ms man. i had my heart set on getting into ms. * * * * * _october , _ it never rains, etc.: now it turns out that len ellsom's here, and _he's_ in ms! found out about it in a funny way. two mornings a week, it seems, the staff members get into their skiing and hunting clothes and tramp into the woods to cut logs for their fireplaces. well, this morning i went with them, and as we were walking along the trail goldweiser, my assistant, told me the idea behind these expeditions. "you can't get away from it," he said. "e=mc^ is in a tree trunk as well as in a uranium atom or a solar system. when you're hacking away at a particular tree, though, you don't think much about such intangibles--like any good, untheoretical lumberjack, you're a lot more concerned with superficialities, such as which way the grain runs, how to avoid the knots, and so on. it's very restful. so long as a cyberneticist is sawing and chopping, he's not a sliver of uncontaminated cerebrum contemplating the eternal slippery verities of gravity and electromagnetism; he's just one more guy trying to slice up one more log. makes him feel he belongs to the human race again. einstein, you know, used to get the same results with a violin." now, i've heard talk like that before, and i don't like it. i don't like it at all. it so happens that i feel very strongly on the subject. i think a scientist should like what he's doing and not want to take refuge in nature from the laws of nature (which is downright illogical, anyhow). i, for one, enjoy cutting logs precisely _because_, when my saw rasps across a knot, i know that the innermost secret of that knot, as of all matter in the universe, is e=mc^ . it's my job to _know_ it, and it's very satisfying to _know_ that i know it and that the general run of people don't. i was about to put this thought into words, but before i could open my mouth, somebody behind us spoke up. "bravo, goldie," he said. "let us by all means pretend that we belong to the human race. make way for the new cyberneticists with their old saws. cyberneticist, spare that tree!" i turned around to see who could be making jokes in such bad taste and--as i might have guessed--it was len ellsom. he was just as surprised as i was. "well," he said, "if it isn't ollie parks! i thought you were out in cal tech, building schizophrenic bedbugs." after m. i. t. i _had_ spent some time out in california doing neuro-cyber research, i explained--but what was _he_ doing here? i'd lost track of him after he'd left boston; the last i'd heard, he'd been working on the giant robot brain remington-rand was developing for the air force. i remembered seeing his picture in the paper two or three times while he was working on the brain. "i was with remington a couple of years," he told me. "if i do say so myself, we built the air force a real humdinger of a brain--in addition to solving the most complex problems in ballistics, it could whistle _dixie_ and, in moments of stress, produce a sound not unlike a bronx cheer. naturally, for my prowess in the electronic simulation of i.q., i was tapped for the brain department of these hallowed precincts." "oh?" i said. "does that mean you're in ms?" it wasn't an easy idea to accept, but i think i was pretty successful in keeping my tone casual. "ollie, my boy," he said in an exaggerated stage whisper, putting his finger to his lips, "in the beginning was the word and the word was mum. leave us avoid the subject of brains in this _keen_ place. we all have a job to do on the team." i suppose that was meant to be a humorous imitation of the boss; len always did fancy himself quite a clown. we were separated during the sawing, but he caught up with me on the way back and said, "let's get together soon and have a talk, ollie. it's been a long time." he wants to talk about marilyn, i suppose. naturally. he has a guilty conscience. i'll have to make it quite clear to him that the whole episode is a matter of complete indifference to me. marilyn is a closed book in my life; he must understand that. but can you beat that? he's right in the middle of ms! that lad certainly gets around. it's the usual ellsom charm, i suppose. the usual ellsom technique for irritating people, too. he's still trying to get my goat; he knows how much i've always hated to be called ollie. must watch goldweiser. thought he laughed pretty heartily at len's wisecracks. * * * * * _october , _ things are shaping up in the pro lab. here's how i get the picture. a year ago, the boss laid down a policy for the lab: begin with legs because, while the neuro-motor systems in legs and arms are a lot alike, those in legs are much simpler. if we build satisfactory legs, the boss figures, we can then tackle arms; the main difficulties will have been licked. well, last summer, in line with this approach, the army picked out a double amputee from the outpatient department of walter reed hospital--fellow by the name of kujack, who lost both his legs in a land mine explosion outside pyongyang--and shipped him up here to be a subject in our experiments. when kujack arrived, the neuro boys made a major decision. it didn't make sense, they agreed, to keep building experimental legs directly into the muscles and nerves of kujack's stumps; the surgical procedure in these cine-plastic jobs is complicated as all getout, involves a lot of pain for the subject and, what's more to the point, means long delays each time while the tissues heal. instead, they hit on the idea of integrating permanent metal and plastic sockets into the stumps, so constructed that each new experimental limb can be snapped into place whenever it's ready for a trial. by the time i took over, two weeks ago, goldweiser had the sockets worked out and fitted to kujack's stumps, and the muscular and neural tissues had knitted satisfactorily. there was only one hitch: twenty-three limbs had been designed, and all twenty-three had been dismal flops. that's when the boss called me in. there's no mystery about the failures. not to me, anyhow. cybernetics is simply the science of building machines that will duplicate and improve on the organs and functions of the animal, based on what we know about the systems of communication and control in the animal. all right. but in any particular cybernetics project, everything depends on just how _many_ of the functions you want to duplicate, just how _much_ of the total organ you want to replace. that's why the robot-brain boys can get such quick and spectacular results, have their pictures in the papers all the time, and become the real glamor boys of the profession. they're not asked to duplicate the human brain in its _entirety_--all they have to do is isolate and imitate one particular function of the brain, whether it's a simple operation in mathematics or a certain type of elementary logic. the robot brain called the eniac, for example, is exactly what its name implies--an electronic numerical integrator and computer, and it just has to be able to integrate and compute figures faster and more accurately than the human brain can. it doesn't have to have daydreams and nightmares, make wisecracks, suffer from anxiety, and all that. what's more, it doesn't even have to _look_ like a brain or fit into the tiny space occupied by a real brain. it can be housed in a six-story building and look like an overgrown typewriter or an automobile dashboard or even a pogo stick. all it has to do is tell you that two times two equals four, and tell you fast. when you're told to build an artificial leg that'll take the place of a real one, the headaches begin. your machine must not only _look_ like its living model, it must _also_ balance and support, walk, run, hop, skip, jump, etc., etc. _also_, it must fit into the same space. _also_, it must feel everything a real leg feels--touch, heat, cold, pain, moisture, kinesthetic sensations--_as well as_ execute all the brain-directed movements that a real leg can. so you're not duplicating this or that function; you're reconstructing the organ in its totality, or trying to. your pro must have a full set of sensory-motor communication systems, plus machines to carry out orders, which is impossible enough to begin with. but our job calls for even more. the pro mustn't only _equal_ the real thing, it must be _superior_! that means creating a synthetic neuro-muscular system that actually _improves_ on the nerves and muscles nature created in the original! when our twenty-fourth experimental model turned out to be a dud last week--it just hung from kujack's stump, quivering like one of my robot bedbugs, as though it had a bad case of intention tremor--goldweiser said something that made an impression on me. "they don't want much from us," he said sarcastically. "they just want us to be god." i didn't care for his cynical attitude at all, but he had a point. len ellsom just has to build a fancy adding machine to get his picture in the papers. _i_ have to be god! * * * * * _october , _ don't know what to make of kujack. his attitude is peculiar. of course, he's very co-operative, lies back on the fitting table and doesn't even wince when we snap on the pros, and he does his best to carry out instructions. still, there's something funny about the way he looks at me. there's a kind of malicious expression in his eyes. at times, come to think of it, he reminds me of len. take this afternoon, for instance. i've just worked out an entirely different kind of leg based on a whole new arrangement of solenoids to duplicate the muscle systems, and i decided to give it a try. when i was slipping the model into place, i looked up and caught kujack's eye for a moment. he seemed to be laughing at something, although his face was expressionless. "all right," i said. "let's make a test. i understand you used to be quite a football player. well, just think of how you used to kick a football and try to do it now." he really seemed to be trying; the effort made him sweat. all that happened, though, was that the big toe wriggled a little and the knee buckled. dud number twenty-five. i was sore, of course, especially when i noticed that kujack was more amused than ever. "you seem to think something's pretty funny," i said. "don't get me wrong, doc," he said, much too innocently. "it's just that i've been thinking. maybe you'd have more luck if you thought of me as a bedbug." "where did you get that idea?" "from doc ellsom. i was having some beers with him the other night. he's got a very high opinion of you, says you build the best bedbugs in the business." i find it hard to believe that len ellsom would say anything really nice about me. must be his guilt about marilyn that makes him talk that way. i don't like his hanging around kujack. * * * * * _october , _ the boss came along on our woodcutting expedition this morning and volunteered to work the other end of my two-handled saw. he asked how things were coming in the pro lab. "as i see it," i said, "there are two sides to the problem, the kinesthetic and the neural. we're making definite progress on the k side--i've worked out a new solenoid system, with some miniature motors tied in, and i think it'll give us a leg that _moves_ damned well. i don't know about the n side, though. it's pretty tough figuring out how to hook the thing up electrically with the central nervous system so that the brain can control it. some sort of compromise system of operation, along mechanical rather than neural lines, would be a lot simpler." "you mean," the boss said with a smile, "that it's stumping you." i was relieved to see him taking it so well because i know how anxious he is to get results from the pro lab. since pro is one of the few things going on at ifacs that can be talked about, he's impatient for us to come up with something he can release to the press. as the public relations officer explained it to me at dinner the other night, people get worried when they know there's something like ifacs going, but don't get any real information about it, so the boss, naturally, wants to relieve the public's curiosity with a good, reassuring story about our work. i knew i was taking an awful chance spilling the whole k-n thing to him the way i did, but i had to lay the groundwork for a little plan i've just begun to work on. "by the way, sir," i said, "i ran into len ellsom the other day. i didn't know he was here." "do you know him?" the boss said. "good man. one of the best brains-and-games men you'll find anywhere." i explained that len had gotten his degree at m.i.t. the year before i did. from what i'd heard, i added, he'd done some important work on the remington-rand ballistics computer. "he did indeed," the boss said, "but that's not the half of it. after that he made some major contributions to the robot chess player. as a matter of fact, that's why he's here." i said i hadn't heard about the chess player. "as soon as it began to play a really good game of chess, washington put the whole thing under wraps for security reasons. which is why you won't hear any more about it from me." i'm no eniac, but i can occasionally put two and two together myself. if the boss's remarks mean anything, they mean that an electronic brain capable of playing games has been developed, and that it's led to something important militarily. of course! i could kick myself for not having guessed it before. brains-and-games--that's what ms is all about, obviously. it had to happen: out of the mathematical analysis of chess came a robot chess player, and out of the chess player came some kind of mechanical brain that's useful in military strategy. _that's_ what len ellsom's in the middle of. "really brilliant mind," the boss said after we'd sawed for a while. "keen. but he's a little erratic--quirky, queer sense of humor. isn't that your impression?" "definitely," i said. "i'd be the last one in the world to say a word against len, but he was always a little peculiar. very gay one moment and very sour the next, and inclined to poke fun at things other people take seriously. he used to write poetry." "i'm very glad to know that," the boss said. "confirms my own feeling about him." so the boss has some doubts about len. * * * * * _october , _ unpleasant evening with len. it all started after dinner when he showed up in my room, wagged his finger at me and said, "ollie, you've been avoiding me. that hurts. thought we were pals, thick and thin and till debt and death do us part." i saw immediately that he was drunk--he always gets his words mixed up when he's drunk--and i tried to placate him by explaining that it wasn't anything like that; i'd been busy. "if we're pals," he said, "come on and have a beer with me." there was no shaking him off, so i followed him down to his car and we drove to this sleazy little bar in the negro part of town. as soon as we sat down in a booth, len borrowed all the nickels i had, put them in the jukebox and pressed the levers for a lot of old louie armstrong records. "sorry, kid," he said. "i know how you hate this real jazzy stuff, but can't have a reunion without music, and there isn't a polka or cowboy ballad or hillbilly stomp in the box. they lack the folksy touch on this side of the tracks." len has always been very snobbish about my interest in folk music. i asked him what he'd been doing during the day. "lushing it up," he said. "getting stinking from drinking." he still likes to use the most flamboyant slang; i consider it an infantile form of protest against what he regards as the "genteel" manner of academic people. "i got sort of restless this morning, so i ducked out and beat it into new york and looked up my friend steve lundy in the village. spent the afternoon liquidating our joint assets. liquidating our assets in the joints." what, i wanted to know, was he feeling restless about? "restless for going on three years now." his face grew solemn, as though he were thinking it over very carefully. "i'll amend that statement. hell with the aesopian language. i've been a plain lush for going on three years. ever since--" if it was something personal--i suggested. "it is _not_ something personal," he said, mimicking me. "guess i can tell an old cyberneticist pal about it. been a lush for three years because i've been scared for three years. been scared for three years because three years ago i saw a machine beat a man at a game of chess." a machine that plays chess? that was interesting, i said. "didn't tell you the whole truth the other day," len mumbled. "i _did_ work on the remington-rand computer, sure, but i didn't come to ifacs directly from that. in between i spent a couple years at the bell telephone labs. claude shannon--or, rather, to begin with there was norbert wiener back at m.i.t.--it's complicated...." "look," i said, "are you sure you want to talk about it?" "stop wearing your loyalty oath on your sleeve," he said belligerently. "sure i want to talk about it. greatest subject i know. begin at the beginning. whole thing started back in the thirties with those two refugee mathematicians who used to be here at the institute for advanced studies when einstein was around. von morgan and neumanstern, no, von _neu_mann and _mor_ganstern. you remember, they did a mathematical analysis of all the possible kinds of games, poker, tossing pennies, chess, bridge, everything, and they wrote up their findings in a volume you certainly know, _the theory of games_. "well, that got wiener started. you may remember that when he founded the science of cybernetics, he announced that on the basis of the theory of games, it was feasible to design a robot computing machine that would play a better than average game of chess. right after that, back in ' or maybe it was ' , claude shannon of the bell labs said wiener wasn't just talking, and to prove it he was going to _build_ the robot chess player. which he proceeded withforth--forthwith--to do. sometime in ' , i was taken off the remington-rand project and assigned to bell to work with him." "maybe we ought to start back," i cut in. "i've got a lot of work to do." "the night is young," he said, "and you're so dutiful. where was i? oh yes, bell. at first our electronic pawn-pusher wasn't so hot--it could beat the pants off a lousy player, but an expert just made it look silly. but we kept improving it, see, building more and more electronic anticipation and gambit-plotting powers into it, and finally, one great day in ' , we thought we had all the kinks ironed out and were ready for the big test. by this time, of course, washington had stepped in and taken over the whole project. "well, we got hold of fortunescu, the world's champion chess player, sat him down and turned the robot loose on him. for four hours straight we followed the match, with a delegation of big brass from washington, and for four hours straight the machine trounced fortunescu every game. that was when i began to get scared. i went out that night and got really loaded." what had he been so scared about? it seemed to me he should have felt happy. "listen, ollie," he said, "for christ's sake, stop talking like a boy scout for once in your life." if he was going to insult me-- "no insult intended. just listen. i'm a terrible chess player. any five-year-old could chatemeck--checkmate--me with his brains tied behind his back. but this machine which i built, helped build, is the champion chess player of the world. in other words, my brain has given birth to a brain which can do things my brain could never do. don't you find that terrifying?" "not at all," i said. "_you_ made the machine, didn't you? therefore, no matter what it does, it's only an extension of you. you should feel proud to have devised a powerful new tool." "some tool," he sneered. he was so drunk by now that i could hardly understand what he was saying. "the general staff boys in washington were all hopped up about that little old tool, and for a plenty good reason--they understood that mechanized warfare is only the most complicated game the human race has invented so far, an elaborate form of chess which uses the population of the world for pawns and the globe for a chessboard. they saw, too, that when the game of war gets this complex, the job of controlling and guiding it becomes too damned involved for any number of human brains, no matter how nimble. "in other words, my beamish boy scout, modern war needs just this kind of strategy tool; the general staff has to be mechanized along with everything else. so the pentagon boys set up ifacs and handed us a top-priority cybernetics project: to build a superduper chess player that could oversee a complicated military maneuver, maybe later a whole campaign, maybe ultimately a whole global war. "we're aiming at a military strategy machine which can digest reports from all the units on all the fronts and from moment to moment, on the basis of that steady stream of information, grind out an elastic overall strategy and dictate concrete tactical directives to all the units. wiener warned this might happen, and he was right. a very nifty tool. never mind how far we've gotten with the thing, but i will tell you this: i'm a lot more scared today than i was three years ago." so _that_ was the secret of ms! the most extraordinary machine ever devised by the human mind! it was hard to conceal the thrill of excitement i felt, even as a relative outsider. "why all the jitters?" i said. "this could be the most wonderful tool ever invented. it might eliminate war altogether." len was quiet for a while, gulping his beer and looking off into space. then he turned to me. "steve lundy has a cute idea," he said. "he was telling me about it this afternoon. he's a bum, you see, but he's got a damned good mind and he's done a lot of reading. among other things, he's smart enough to see that once you've got your theory of games worked out, there's at least the logical possibility of converting your eniac into what he calls a strategy integrator and computer. and he's guessed, simply from the pentagon's hush-hush policy about it, that that's what we're working on here at ifacs. so he holds forth on the subject of emsiac, and i listen." "what's his idea?" i asked. "he thinks emsiac might eliminate war, too, but not in the way a boy scout might think. what he says is that all the industrialized nations must be working away like mad on emsiac, just as they did on the atom bomb, so let's assume that before long all the big countries will have more or less equal ms machines. all right. a cold war gets under way between countries a and b, and pretty soon it reaches the showdown stage. then both countries plug in their emsiacs and let them calculate the date on which hostilities should begin. if the machines are equally efficient, they'll hit on the same date. if there's a slight discrepancy, the two countries can work out a compromise date by negotiation. "the day arrives. a's emsiac is set up in its capital, b's is set up in _its_ capital. in each capital the citizens gather around their strategy machine, the officials turn out in high hats and cut-aways, there are speeches, pageants, choral singing, mass dancing--the ritual can be worked out in advance. then, at an agreed time, the crowds retreat to a safe distance and a committee of the top cyberneticists appears. they climb into planes, take off and--this is beautiful--drop all their atom bombs and h-bombs on the machines. it happens simultaneously in both countries, you see. that's the neat part of it. the occasion is called international mushroom day. "then the cyberneticists in both countries go back to their vacuum tubes to work on another emsiac, and the nuclear physicists go back to their piles to build more atom bombs, and when they're ready they have another mushroom day. one mushroom day every few years, whenever the diplomatic-strategic situation calls for it, and nobody even fires a b-b gun. scientific war. isn't it wonderful?" * * * * * by the time len finished this peculiar speech, i'd finally managed to get him out of the tavern and back into his car. i started to drive him back to the institute, my ears still vibrating with the hysterical yelps of armstrong's trumpet. i'll never for the life of me understand what len sees in that kind of music. it seems to me such an unhealthy sort of expression. "lundy's being plain silly," i couldn't help saying. "what guarantee has he got that on your mushroom day, country b wouldn't make a great display of destroying one emsiac and one set of bombs while it had others in hiding? it's too great a chance for a to take--she might be throwing away all her defenses and laying herself wide open to attack." "see what i mean?" len muttered. "you're a boy scout." then he passed out, without saying a word about marilyn. hard to tell if he sees anything of her these days. he _does_ see some pretty peculiar people, though. i'd like to know more about this steve lundy. * * * * * _november , _ i've done it! today i split up the lab into two entirely independent operations, k and n. did it all on my own authority, haven't breathed a word about it to the boss yet. here's my line of reasoning. on the k end, we can get results, and fast: if it's just a matter of building a pro that works like the real leg, regardless of what _makes_ it work, it's a cinch. but if it has to be worked by the brain, through the spinal cord, the job is just about impossible. who knows if we'll ever learn enough about neuro tissue to build our own physico-chemico-electrical substitutes for it? as i proved in my robot moths and bedbugs, i can work up electronic circuits that seem to duplicate one particular function of animal nerve tissue--one robot is attracted to light like a moth, the other is repelled by light like a bedbug--but i don't know how to go about duplicating the tissue itself in all its functions. and until we can duplicate nerve tissue, there's no way to provide our artificial limbs with a neuro-motor system that can be hooked up with the central nervous system. the best i can do along those lines is ask kujack to kick and get a wriggle of the big toe instead. so the perspective is clear. mechanically, kinesthetically, motorically, i can manufacture a hell of a fine leg. neurally, it would take decades, centuries maybe, to get even a reasonable facsimile of the original--and maybe it will never happen. it's not a project i'd care to devote my life to. if len ellsom had been working on that sort of thing, he wouldn't have gotten his picture in the paper so often, you can be sure. so, in line with this perspective, i've divided the whole operation into two separate labs, k-pro and n-pro. i'm taking charge of k-pro myself, since it intrigues me more and i've got these ideas about using solenoids to get lifelike movements. with any kind of luck i'll soon have a peach of a mechanical limb, motor-driven and with its own built-in power plant, operated by push-button. before christmas, i hope. got just the right man to take over the neuro lab--goldweiser, my assistant. i weighed the thing from every angle before i made up my mind, since his being jewish makes the situation very touchy: some people will be snide enough to say i picked him to be a potential scapegoat. well, goldweiser, no matter what his origins may be, is the best neuro man i know. of course, personally--although my personal feelings don't enter into the picture at all--i _am_ just a bit leery of the fellow. have been ever since that first log-cutting expedition, when he began to talk in such a peculiar way about needing to relax and then laughed so hard at len's jokes. that sort of talk always indicates to me a lack of reverence for your job: if a thing's worth doing at all, etc. of course, i don't mean that goldweiser's cynical attitude has anything to do with his being jewish; len's got the same attitude and he's _not_ jewish. still, this afternoon, when i told goldweiser he's going to head up the n-pro lab, he sort of bowed and said, "that's quite a promotion. i always did want to be god." i didn't like that remark at all. if i'd had another neuro man as good as he is, i'd have withdrawn the promotion immediately. it's his luck that i'm tolerant, that's all. * * * * * _november , _ lunch with len today, at my invitation. bought him several martinis, then brought up lundy's name and asked who he was, he sounded interesting. "steve?" len said. "i roomed with him my first year in new york." i asked what steve did, exactly. "reads, mostly. he got into the habit back in the s, when he was studying philosophy at the university of chicago. when the civil war broke out in spain, he signed up with the lincoln brigade and went over there to fight, but it turned out to be a bad mistake. his reading got him in a lot of trouble, you see; he'd gotten used to asking all sorts of questions, so when the moscow trials came along, he asked about them. then the n.k.v.d. began to pop up all over spain, and he asked about it. "his comrades, he discovered, didn't like guys who kept asking questions. in fact, a couple of steve's friends who had also had an inquiring streak were found dead at the front, shot in the _back_, and steve got the idea that he was slated for the same treatment. it seemed that people who asked questions were called saboteurs, trotskyite-fascists or something, and they kept dying at an alarming rate." i ordered another martini for len and asked how steve had managed to save himself. "he beat it across the mountains into france," len explained. "since then he's steered clear of causes. he goes to sea once in a while to make a few bucks, drinks a lot, reads a lot, asks some of the shrewdest questions i know. if he's anything you can put a label on, i'd say he was a touch of rousseau, a touch of tolstoi, plenty of voltaire. come to think of it, a touch of norbert wiener too. wiener, you may remember, used to ask some damned iconoclastic questions for a cyberneticist. steve knows wiener's books by heart." steve sounded like a very colorful fellow, i suggested. "yep," len said. "marilyn used to think so." i don't think i moved a muscle when he said it; the smile didn't leave my face. "ollie," len went on, "i've been meaning to speak to you about marilyn. now that the subject's come up--" "i've forgotten all about it," i assured him. "i still want to set you straight," he insisted. "it must have looked funny, me moving down to new york after commencement and marilyn giving up her job in the lab and following two days later. but never mind _how_ it looked. i never made a pass at her all that time in boston, ollie. that's the truth. but she was a screwy, scatter-brained dame and she decided she was stuck on me because i dabbled in poetry and hung around with artists and such in the village, and she thought it was all so glamorous. i didn't have anything to do with her chasing down to new york, no kidding. you two were sort of engaged, weren't you?" "it really doesn't matter," i said. "you don't have to explain." i finished my drink. "you say she knew lundy?" "sure, she knew lundy. she also knew kram, rossard, broyold, boster, de kroot and hayre. she knew a whole lot of guys before she was through." "she always was sociable." "you don't get my meaning," len said. "i am not talking about marilyn's gregarious impulses. listen. first she threw herself at me, but i got tired of her. then she threw herself at steve and _he_ got tired of her. damn near the whole male population of the village got tired of her in the next couple years." "those were troubled times. the war and all." "they were troubled times," len agreed, "and she was the source of a fair amount of the trouble. you were well rid of her, ollie, take my word for it. god save us from the intense boston female who goes bohemian--the icicle parading as the torch." "just as a matter of academic curiosity," i said as we were leaving, "what became of her?" "i don't know for sure. during her village phase she decided her creative urge was hampered by compasses and t-squares, and in between men she tried to do a bit of painting--very abstract, very imitative-original, very hammy. i heard later that she finally gave up the self-expression kick, moved up to the east seventies somewhere. if i remember, she got a job doing circuit designing on some project for i.b.m." "she's probably doing well at it," i said. "she certainly knew her drafting. you know, she helped lay out the circuits for the first robot bedbug i ever built." * * * * * _november , _ big step forward, if it isn't unseemly to use a phrase like that in connection with pro research. this afternoon we completed the first two experimental models of my self-propelled solenoid legs, made of transparent plastic so everything is visible--solenoids, batteries, motors, thyratron tubes and transistors. kujack was waiting in the fitting room to give them their first tryout, but when i got there i found len sitting with him. there were several empty beer cans on the floor and they were gabbing away a mile a minute. len _knows_ how i hate to see people drinking during working hours. when i put the pros down and began to rig them for fitting, he said conspiratorially, "shall we tell him?" kujack was pretty crocked, too. "let's tell him," he whispered back. strange thing about kujack, he hardly ever says a word to me, but he never closes his mouth when len's around. "all right," len said. "_you_ tell him. tell him how we're going to bring peace on earth and good will toward bedbugs." "we just figured it out," kujack said. "what's wrong with war. it's a steamroller." "steamrollers are very undemocratic," len added. "never consult people on how they like to be flattened before flattening them. they just go rolling along." "just go rolling, they go on rolling along," kujack said. "like old man river." "what's the upshot?" len demanded. "people get upshot, shot up. in all countries, all of them without exception, they emerge from the war spiritually flattened, a little closer to the insects--like the hero in that kafka story who wakes up one morning to find he's a bedbug, i mean beetle. all because they've been steamrolled. nobody consulted them." "take the case of an amputee," kujack said. "before the land mine exploded, it didn't stop and say, 'look, friend, i've got to go off; that's my job. choose which part you'd prefer to have blown off--arm, leg, ear, nose, or what-have-you. or is there somebody else around who would relish being clipped more than you would? if so, just send him along. i've got to do some clipping, you see, but it doesn't matter much which part of which guy i clip, so long as i make my quota.' did the land mine say that? no! the victim wasn't consulted. consequently he can feel victimized, full of self-pity. we just worked it out." "the whole thing," len said. "if the population had been polled according to democratic procedure, the paraplegia and other maimings could have been distributed to each according to his psychological need. see the point? marx corrected by freud, as steve lundy would say. distribute the injuries to each according to his need--not his economic need, but his masochistic need. those with a special taste for self-damage obviously should be allowed a lion's share of it. that way nobody could claim he'd been victimized by the steamroller or got anything he didn't ask for. it's all on a voluntary basis, you see. democratic." "whole new concept of war," kujack agreed. "voluntary amputeeism, voluntary paraplegia, voluntary everything else that usually happens to people in a war. just to get some human dignity back into the thing." "here's how it works," len went on. "country a and country b reach the breaking point. it's all over but the shooting. all right. so they pool their best brains, mathematicians, actuaries, strategists, logistics geniuses, and all. what am i saying? they pool their best _robot_ brains, their emsiacs. in a matter of seconds they figure out, down to the last decimal point, just how many casualties each side can be expected to suffer in dead and wounded, and then they break down the figures. of the wounded, they determine just how many will lose eyes, how many arms, how many legs, and so on down the line. now--here's where it gets really neat--each country, having established its quotas in dead and wounded of all categories, can send out a call for volunteers." "less messy that way," kujack said. "an efficiency expert's war. war on an actuarial basis." "you get exactly the same results as in a shooting war," len insisted. "just as many dead, wounded and psychologically messed up. but you avoid the whole steamroller effect. a tidy war, war with dispatch, conceived in terms of ends rather than means. the end never did justify the means, you see; steve lundy says that was always the great dilemma of politics. so with one fool sweep--fell swoop--we get rid of means entirely." "as things stand with me," kujack said, "if _anything_ stands with me, i might get to feeling sore about what happened to me. but nothing happens _to_ the volunteer amputee. he steps up to the operating table and says, 'just chop off one arm, doc, the left one, please, up to the elbow if you don't mind, and in return put me down for one-and-two-thirds free meals daily at longchamps and a plump blonde every saturday.'" "or whatever the exchange value for one slightly used left arm would be," len amended. "that would have to be worked out by the robot actuaries." by this time i had the pros fitted and the push-button controls installed in the side pocket of kujack's jacket. "maybe you'd better go now, len," i said. i was very careful to show no reaction to his baiting. "kujack and i have some work to do." "i hope you'll make him a moth instead of a bedbug," len said as he got up. "kujack's just beginning to see the light. be a shame if you give him a negative tropism to it instead of a positive one." he turned to kujack, wobbling a little. "so long, kid. i'll pick you up at seven and we'll drive into new york to have a few with steve. he's going to be very happy to hear we've got the whole thing figured out." i spent two hours with kujack, getting him used to the extremely delicate push-button controls. i must say that, drunk or sober, he's a very apt pupil. in less than two hours he actually walked! a little unsteadily, to be sure, but his balance will get better as he practices and i iron out a few more bugs, and i _don't_ mean bedbugs. for a final test, i put a little egg cup on the floor, balanced a football in it, and told kujack to try a place kick. what a moment! he booted that ball so hard, it splintered the mirror on the wall. * * * * * _november , _ long talk with the boss. i gave it to him straight about breaking up the lab into k-pro and n-pro, and about there being little chance that goldweiser would come up with anything much on the neuro end for a long, long time. he was awfully let down, i could see, so i started to talk fast about the luck i'd been having on the kinesthetic end. when he began to perk up, i called kujack in from the corridor and had him demonstrate his place kick. he's gotten awfully good at it this past week. "if we release the story to the press," i suggested, "this might make a fine action shot. you see, kujack used to be one of the best kickers in the big ten, and a lot of newspapermen will still remember him." then i sprang the biggest news of all. "during the last three days of practice, sir, he's been consistently kicking the ball twenty, thirty and even forty yards farther than he ever did with his own legs. than anybody, as a matter of fact, ever has with real legs." "that's a wonderful angle," the boss said excitedly. "a world's record, made with a cybernetic leg!" "it should make a terrific picture," kujack said. "i've also been practicing a big, broad, photogenic grin." luckily the boss didn't hear him--by this time he was bending over the legs, studying the solenoids. after kujack left, the boss congratulated me. very, _very_ warmly. it was a most gratifying moment. we chatted for a while, making plans for the press conference, and then finally he said, "by the way, do you happen to know anything about your friend ellsom? i'm worried about him. he went off on thanksgiving and hasn't been heard from at all ever since." that was alarming, i said. when the boss asked why, i told him a little about how len had been acting lately, talking and drinking more than was good for him. with all sorts of people. the boss said that confirmed his own impressions. i can safely say we understood each other. i sensed a very definite rapport. * * * * * _november , _ it was bound to happen, of course. as i got it from the boss, he decided after our talk that len's absence needed some looking into, and he tipped off security about it. a half dozen agents went to work on the case and right off they headed for steve lundy's apartment in the village and, sure enough, there was len. len and his friend were both blind drunk and there were all sorts of incriminating things in the room--lots of peculiar books and pamphlets, lundy's identification papers from the lincoln brigade, an article lundy was writing for an anarchist-pacifist magazine about what he calls emsiac. len and his friend were both arrested on the spot and a full investigation is going on now. the boss says that no matter whether len is brought to trial or not, he's all washed up. he'll never get a job on any classified cybernetics project from now on, because it's clear enough that he violated his loyalty oath by discussing ms all over the place. the security men came around to question me this morning. afraid my testimony didn't help len's case any. what could i do? i had to own up that, to my knowledge, len had violated security on three counts: he'd discussed ms matters with kujack in my presence, with lundy (according to what he told me), and of course with me (i am technically an outsider, too). i also pointed out that i'd tried to make him shut up, but there was no stopping him once he got going. damn that len, anyhow. why does he have to go and put me in this ethical spot? it shows a lack of consideration. these security men can be _too_ thorough. right off they wanted to pick up kujack as well. i got hold of the boss and explained that if they took kujack away we'd have to call off our press conference, because it would take months to fit and train another subject. the boss immediately saw the injustice of the thing, stepped in and got security to calm down, at least until we finish our demonstration. * * * * * _december , _ what a day! the press conference this afternoon was _something_. dozens of reporters and photographers and newsreel men showed up, and we took them all out to the football field for the demonstrations. first the boss gave a little orientation talk about cybernetics being teamwork in science, and about the difference between k-pro and n-pro, pointing out that from the practical, humanitarian angle of helping the amputee, k is a lot more important than n. the reporters tried to get in some questions about ms, but he parried them very good-humoredly, and he said some nice things about me, some very nice things indeed. then kujack was brought in. he really went through his paces, walking, running, skipping, jumping and everything. it was damned impressive. and then, to top off the show, kujack place-kicked a football ninety-three yards by actual measurement, a world's record, and everybody went wild. afterward kujack and i posed for the newsreels, shaking hands while the boss stood with his arms around us. they're going to play the whole thing up as ifacs' christmas present to one of our gallant war heroes (just what the boss wanted: he figures this sort of things makes ifacs sound so much less grim to the public), and kujack was asked to say something in line with that idea. "i never could kick this good with my real legs," he said, holding my hand tight and looking straight at me. "gosh, this is just about the nicest christmas present a fellow could get. thank you, santa." i thought he was overdoing it a bit toward the end there, but the newsreel men say they think it's a great sentimental touch. goldweiser was in the crowd, and he said, "i only hope that when _i_ prove i'm god, this many photographers will show up." that's just about the kind of remark i'd expect from goldweiser. too bad the security men are coming for kujack tomorrow. the boss couldn't argue. after all, they were patient enough to wait until after the tests and demonstration, which the boss and i agree was white of them. it's not as if kujack isn't deeply involved in this ellsom-lundy case. as the boss says, you can tell a man by the company, etc. * * * * * _december , _ spent the morning clipping pictures and articles from the papers; they gave us _quite_ a spread. late in the afternoon i went over to the boss's house for eggnogs, and i finally got up the nerve to say what's been on my mind for over a month now. strike while the iron's, etc. "i've been thinking, sir," i said, "that this solenoid system i've worked out for pros has other applications. for example, it could easily be adapted to some of the tricky mechanical aspects of an electronic calculator." i went into some of the technical details briefly, and i could see he was interested. "i'd like very much to work on that, now that k-pro is licked, more or less. and if there _is_ an opening in ms--" "you're a go-getter," the boss said, nodding in a pleased way. he was looking at a newspaper lying on the coffee table; on the front page was a large picture of kujack grinning at me and shaking my hand. "i like that. i can't promise anything, but let me think about it." i think i'm in! * * * * * _december , _ sent the soup-and-fish out be cleaned and pressed. looks like i'm going to get some use out of it, after all. we're having a big formal new year's eve party in the commons room and there's going to be square dancing, swing-your-partner, and all of that. when i called marilyn, she sounded very friendly--she remembered to call me oliver, and i was flattered that she did--and said she'd be delighted to come. seems she's gotten very fond of folk dancing lately. gosh, it'll be good to get out of these dungarees for a while. i'm happy to say i still look good in formals. marilyn ought to be quite impressed. len always wore his like pajamas. note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) three sides of paradise green by augusta huiell seaman author of "the girl next door," "the sapphire signet," etc. illustrated by c. m. relyea [illustration: decoration] new york the century co. [illustration: "i'll tell you after we've had our swim," said the imp] copyright, , by the century co. published, october, printed in u. s. a. to the real helen roberta contents chapter page i the journal is begun ii new developments iii the imp has the best of it iv the mysterious "monsieur" v two accidents and a mystery vi in monsieur's room vii the imp makes a discovery viii the portrait of mystery ix carol makes a discovery of her own x jottings from the journal xi louis springs a surprise--and the consequences thereof xii what the imp knew xiii suspicions xiv a solemn conclave--and what came of it xv monsieur's story xvi august fourth, xvii the imp makes a last discovery xviii the end of the journal three sides of paradise green chapter i the journal is begun november , . it's all on account of miss cullingford that i'm beginning this journal. i never would have thought of such a thing by myself. neither would carol. now we've both begun one, and it's just because miss cullingford is so sweet and lovely, and all the girls at bridgeton high school want to please her,--carol and myself most of all. miss cullingford is our english literature instructor, and we all simply adore her. she's the sweetest thing! she's little and slight, with fluffy light hair and dark blue eyes. and she's _such_ an inspiration about literature and english composition! she makes it seem actually like a romance. they always seemed terribly dull, those subjects, when we had miss trotter last year. but now we're just crazy about them. well, one of the things she said yesterday in composition class was that every one of us ought to keep a journal, not the kind of diary affair that some people keep,--all about the weather and the number of jars of jam they put up, and how cousin hannah called that day!--but an occasional record, only written when we felt like it, of the things that happen around us and our ideas about people and so on. she said that the greatest minds of the ages had generally kept such a record, and that they had proved a big addition to history and literature, too. then, right there, i raised my hand and said that it was fine, of course, for the great minds to do it, especially when they lived in stirring times and had lots interesting to write about; but what was the use of just plain, ordinary people, as young as we were, doing it, especially when there wasn't anything going on that was interesting at all,--just the same old thing every day? miss cullingford answered that i mustn't make the mistake of thinking _any_ life uninteresting, no matter how quiet and ordinary it might appear to be. you can always find something interesting to write about any kind of life, if you try hard enough. and that was where the advantage of a journal came in,--it made you look around hard to find what was worth while, and you always found it. also, it was a great help to your style in writing. then she asked if any of the girls would promise to keep a journal faithfully for a year. carol and i promised. well, now i'm going to see. no life could possibly be more _un_interesting than mine, here in quiet little stafford where nothing ever happens or ever _has_ happened that i know of, and in a family that's awfully nice, of course, but as plain and uninteresting and ordinary as all the rest of the families around here. carol doesn't feel the same as i do about it. she's more hopeful. that's because she has lots of imagination and is always romancing about people and thinking there's some story back of their lives that we don't know. i suppose her journal will be awfully different from mine. well, anyhow, we've both begun, and now we'll see what happens. november . i had to stop short last night because i suddenly got so sleepy. now i'll go on. i do wish we lived in bridgeton, for things surely happen once in a while in a big town like that. or even down in our own village of stafford itself, and not way out, a mile off on the main road, on this silly little triangle called paradise green. even the trolley doesn't run up this way; that would be _something_! but there's nothing in the world around here except this little triangle of a green, formed by the turning off of cranberry bog road from the river road, and the short road that connects the two at the head of the green. i'm sure i don't know why it was ever called paradise green. i suppose if i were carol, i'd find out. she probably will. she's always hunting up historical facts. even the automobiles don't come along this way. nearly all of them keep to the state road over on the other side of the river. there are just three houses around the green, one on each side, and not another dwelling anywhere within half a mile. so we haven't many near neighbors. our house stands at the head of the green. it's a big square house, with a cupola on top and a veranda around all four sides. father's father built it when that style of house was just beginning to be popular, and everybody thought it very grand. i hate it myself, because it seems so old-fashioned and dreary compared to those pretty new bungalows they are putting up in bridgeton. mother and father and the imp and i live here. father does intensive farming,--he is just crazy about it,--and every one comes to birdsey's for ideas on the subject. dave is my brother. he's seventeen and a half, and a very quiet and thoughtful sort of person. all the same, he can do his own share of teasing in a quiet way. he left high school this year because his health wasn't very good, and is helping father with the farming. next year he's going to study scientific agriculture at one of the big colleges. i'm secretly awfully fond of dave, but just at present he pretends to look down on girls as entirely unnecessary articles in the general scheme of things, so carol and i are letting him severely alone. the imp is my sister. she's twelve years old and a perfect nuisance. carol and i have named her "the imp" because she acts just like one. she likes to trot around with us all the time, but we won't have it. it's impossible to have a child of twelve continually hanging on to girls of fifteen or sixteen, and carol and i simply won't stand it. the imp is fearfully miffed about this and spends her time thinking up revengeful things to do to us. she makes our lives perfectly miserable sometimes, though we wouldn't let her know it for the world. carol's house is on the river road side of the green. she lives there with just her mother and her aunt agatha. the fayres are distant relatives of ours, so carol and i are really cousins. their house is one of the old style, a real new england farmhouse, and they have a glorious big barn in the back, where we've all played ever since we were babies. one little room off the haymow carol and i have fixed up as our private den and study. we keep our books and our fancywork there, and her mother gave us an old desk where we do our school work. we always keep the den locked with a padlock, because the imp would like to get in and rummage around. she's as mad as a hatter because she can't. she threatens to climb in the window sometime, but i don't believe she could possibly. if she did, she'd probably break her neck. carol is fifteen years old, and i'm sixteen. her name is really caroline, but she hates it and wants to be called "carol" instead. she says it's so much prettier. and mine is even worse--_susan_! could anything be more dreadful? i've insisted on being called "susette," which at least is a prettier french form. but no one except carol will ever call me that. every one calls me either "susie" or "sue," that is, all but the imp. she, of course, knowing how much i detest it, will say nothing but "so-o-san" on all occasions. carol she addresses by the horrible nickname of "cad." why are some children so irritating, i wonder? the infuriating part is that the imp's own name is really lovely--helen roberta--and she knows it, little torment that she is! well, i haven't yet told about the third house on the green, so now i come to that. it's the one on the cranberry bog road side. it's by far the most interesting of the three,--a long, rambling colonial farmhouse, built, they say, way back in seventeen hundred and something. it has the most fascinating additions in all directions from the main part, and queer little back stairways and old slave quarters, and i don't know what else. but the people who live in it are the interesting part. to begin with, there's louis. his whole name is louis charles durant. he is seventeen and goes to high school in bridgeton with us. we have known him all our lives, and he's the nicest, jolliest boy we know. but the people he lives with i've never understood at all, and if there were any romance or mystery about any one around here, it would be about them. come to think of it, they _are_ mysterious. carol has always said so, but i never thought much about it. and that only goes to show that miss cullingford is right. keeping a journal does certainly make you go about with your eyes open wider and gives you an interest in things you never thought worth while before. i never thought or cared a bit about louis's folks before, and now i see they're full of possibilities. november . fell asleep again last night while i was writing. i guess it's because there's nothing very exciting to write about. however, i'll go on from where i left off about louis's folks. first, there's the old man. louis's father and mother have been dead a number of years. i never remember seeing either of them. so he lives with this old man, who, they say, is his guardian. his name is john meadows, or at least that is what he is always called around here. but louis says that he is french, and that his real name is jean mettot. he is very old; he must be eighty at least. and he is very feeble now, too. he sits all day long in a great armchair by the parlor window. he never reads anything but the papers and some great, heavy volumes of french history, but he spends a great deal of time thinking and dreaming, while he looks way off over the meadows toward the river. then there's his daughter, miss meadows. she's about forty or fifty years old, i should think. louis says her name is yvonne. certainly, that's a fascinating french name. she's very dark and handsome and quick in her ways, but she's very, very quiet and silent. i never had a _real_ conversation with her in my life, though i've talked to her a great many times. i do all the talking, and she nods or smiles or says "yes" and "no," and that is absolutely all. i feel as if i'd never really _know_ her, if i talked to her a hundred years. they have one servant, a big french peasant from normandy, who cooks the meals and takes care of the garden and house. all this doesn't sound very strange, however. and there _is_ something very mysterious about them,--at least, so carol has always said. i never paid much attention to the thing before, or noticed it. the curious part of it all is the way they treat louis. he isn't any real relative, so he says. his parents and their parents have just been dear friends from a long way back. it's plain that they think the world of him, too, just as much as if he were a relative. but there's something more. they are continually watching him with anxious eyes. they guard him as if he weren't able to take care of himself any more than a baby. they don't let him have half the liberty and fun that ordinary boys have. lots of mothers and fathers, who love their children to distraction, aren't half as fussy and concerned about them as these two people are about a boy who isn't even a relative. it makes louis awfully annoyed, for he hates like anything to be coddled. once he fell out of an apple-tree and broke a rib, and they nearly went wild. he had a fever that night and lay in a sort of stupor. but when he was coming out of it he heard them talking awfully queerly about him and wringing their hands and whispering that "he would never, never forgive us if monsieur louis were to die." who "he" was, or why his aunt yvonne and his uncle jean (as he calls them) should allude to him as "monsieur louis," was something louis couldn't understand. and somehow, when he was better, he didn't like to ask. they have taught him french, and with them he always has to speak that language. but he doesn't like it, because he says he's an american citizen and would rather talk "united states" than anything else. he's awfully patriotic and proud of this country, and he can't understand why this should bother mr. and miss meadows. but it somehow does. he's sure of it, for they won't let him talk about it, and are always telling him that his great grandfather was born in france and that he should be very proud of it. then there's another thing, too, that seems to worry them a lot. louis is crazy about mechanical engineering. he declares he's going to study that exclusively, when he's through high school, and become an expert in it. this nearly drives them wild. they want him to be a "statesman," as they call it, and study law and history and diplomacy and all that sort of thing. "you can serve your country best that way," they are always telling him. once he said to them: "the united states has plenty of that sort already. _i_ want to go in for something special." and he says they never answered a word, but just looked queerly at each other and walked off. another time he found that the lock on their kitchen door wouldn't work, so he unscrewed it and took it out. he was fixing it when along came his aunt yvonne. when she saw what he was doing she burst into tears and rushed away, muttering, "the ancient blood! it will ruin everything!"--or something in french like that. all these things do not happen frequently, of course, but when something like it does occur, it puzzles louis dreadfully. he always talks it over with us when we come home together from bridgeton high school on the trolley, so that's why i happen to know about it. well, now i've begun this journal by telling all about ourselves and our homes and everything else i can think of. but as i read it over, it doesn't sound one bit exciting or likely to become "an interesting contribution to history," as miss cullingford would say. i wonder what she'd think about it. i'm glad i didn't promise to _show_ her my journal, for i'm not very proud of this sample. i'm crazy to see what carol has written. we're going to compare our journals to-morrow. one thing is certain, though. i'm not going to write another word till i've something more interesting to talk about, even if i have to wait six months! chapter ii new developments december , . i haven't written a thing in this journal for over a week, for a number of reasons. in the first place, i'd made up my mind not to write till i had something worth writing about. in the second place, we've been having some exams at school that took a lot of work to prepare for. third, thanksgiving holidays came along, and we were all pretty busy and had a lot of engagements. altogether, i haven't had a minute till now--_and_ something has happened that's rather interesting to write about. carol is ever so much better at this journal business than i am. she writes nearly every other day. but then, she doesn't mind writing about all the little ordinary occurrences,--the things she does about the housework and her studies and so on. but i simply can't do it. if i can't tell about something a little out of the ordinary, i won't write at all. and as nothing besides the usual ever happens in either one of our two households (or at school or in the village!), i find myself turning more and more to louis and his affairs for interest. it's strange (i've heard other people speak of the same thing, too) that when you once get to thinking about a certain thing, all sorts of other ideas and events connected with it will suddenly begin to appear. i never gave a thought to louis and his affairs before i began this journal. he has always lived here, and we've always known him and never thought there was anything strange about his folks. but now so many queer little things have happened and so many strange ideas have come to us (carol and myself, i mean) about that house across the green that it seems as if there _must_ be some mystery right near our commonplace lives after all. before i tell what happened, however, i must remark that the imp has been particularly exasperating lately. she got wind somehow or other (at first we _couldn't_ think how) that carol and i are keeping journals. later i discovered that it was because carol had carelessly left hers on the desk in our den, and had forgotten to padlock the door. carol is so thoughtless at times, because she gets to going about with "her head in the clouds," as her aunt agatha says, and doesn't remember half the things she ought to do. it's generally when she's thinking up some verses. carol _does_ compose very pretty verses. miss cullingford has praised them highly. but she's always awfully absent-minded when she's thinking about them. well, the way we learned that the imp had discovered our journals was by a large sheet of paper pinned to carol's barn-door. this was written on it: november . how these precious autumn days fly by! each one is like a polished jewel. i made my bed and dusted my room at eight a. m. then i composed a sweet little poem on "feeding the pigs." after that i slept in the hammock on the porch till lunchtime. the days are all too short for these many duties! of course we were furious. carol confessed to me that she had left her journal open on the desk in the den, and the last entry was awfully like what that little wretch had written, only carol had spoken of composing a poem on "feeding the pigeons." she _had_ slept on the porch all morning, because it was a lovely mild day and i was away with mother at a luncheon in bridgeton. but she hadn't mentioned this in her journal. it is perfectly useless to argue with the imp, or to scold or reason with her. she can go you one better every single time. we concluded that the best thing to do was ignore the incident entirely. so we left the paper hanging on the barn-door till the wind blew it away. a course of action like that makes the imp madder than if you got purple in the face with fury. i've advised carol not to leave her journal in the den any more, but to keep it in her room, and she says she will. all this, however, isn't telling what happened to louis. he told us about it this afternoon while we were resting on our veranda after a hot session of pitching the basketball about. after a while we just had to sit down and get our breath, and the imp strolled off by herself somewhere. it was then that louis told us the strange thing that happened yesterday. it seems that his aunt yvonne has gone to new york on a visit for a few days, and he has been alone with his uncle john and the servant. yesterday afternoon, about five o'clock, a boy rode up from the village on a bicycle with a telegram for his uncle. the old gentleman opened it, but couldn't read it because he had mislaid his glasses. so he got louis to read it to him. louis says the thing was a cablegram from some place in france--he can't remember the name--and that it was the queerest message. it ran like this: time almost ripe. have you the necessary papers? sail next month. when his uncle heard this he became terribly excited and began to walk up and down the room very fast. but when louis asked him what it all meant, all he would say was: "it is not for you to inquire or for me to explain just yet, monsieur!" louis says his uncle often calls him "monsieur," and he can't understand why. he thinks it's generally when the old gentleman forgets himself or is excited. but it makes louis feel very queer. after that his uncle wouldn't say anything more, but louis says he began to rummage around through all his letters and papers, and looked through all his books and in all the closets, evidently hunting for something he couldn't find. and the more he hunted, the more nervous and excitable he grew. every once in a while he would exclaim, "ah, why is not that yvonne here?" by bedtime he was pretty well worked up, for it was evident that he couldn't find what he was searching for. louis tried and tried to get him to explain and let him help in the hunt. but the old gentleman would only mutter, "no, no! that cannot be!" louis says he doesn't think his uncle slept all night, because he heard him rummaging about in all sorts of places till nearly morning. to-day he seems terribly used up. he just sits in his chair by the window, staring out and watching for his daughter to come. louis says he had to go down to the village at eight o'clock last night with a telegram, telling his aunt yvonne to come home at once. how mysterious it all sounds! louis declares he can't imagine what it means, and it makes him very uneasy, because he is almost certain that it is something concerning himself. he says he sometimes thinks his uncle is planning to send him to france before he gets much older, to complete his studies there and to become a french citizen, and he doesn't want to go. my idea was that perhaps he had some relatives there and that they wanted him to come back. but louis says his uncle has often told him that he hasn't any relatives living. and if he had, he says there's no reason why there should be all this secrecy about it. but he can't understand who the people are with whom his uncle is corresponding. carol's opinion was that perhaps louis was a descendant of some titled person,--a count or a marquis or something like that,--and that these people are trying to bring him back to his legal title and estates. louis simply hooted at that. he says that his great grandfather was a plain "monsieur" when he came over here long ago; that he never had been anything else and didn't want to be. so that carol's idea was all nonsense. carol is always romancing like that, and generally getting laughed at. just at this point the imp came suddenly around the corner of the veranda and demanded: "what are you talking about? i warrant dollars to doughnuts it's about louis." that child has a perfectly uncanny way of lighting on just the thing you don't care to have her know about. she's a veritable mind-reader. none of us cared at that particular moment to explain what we were discussing, so no one said a word. meanwhile the imp eyed us with a grin. and before any one could think of something to say that would change the subject, she exploded this bomb in our midst: "louis' aunt yvonne has come home. she's having a fit!" louis just scooted for his own house as fast as he could. we asked her how she knew miss meadows was having a fit, and she said: "because i saw her drive up and get out of the hack and run up the steps. i had climbed a tree in their side yard to look into an oriole's nest, and i heard her open the door and call out a lot of things in french to old mr. meadows." the imp is terribly quick about picking up languages, and she has teased louis into teaching her quite a little french, which he declared to us she picked up with lightning speed. it makes carol and me furious sometimes to feel that she has this advantage over us, for we haven't come to french yet in high school, and are so busy digging out our latin that we haven't either time or interest to learn another language on the side. well, it humiliated me to pieces to have to ask her what miss yvonne said, but i swallowed my pride and did so. all the little wretch answered, as she walked away, was: "wouldn't you like to know?" [illustration: "wouldn't you like to know?" she replied, exasperatingly] we didn't see anything more of louis to-day, and carol and i are just burning up with curiosity. i could shake the imp till her teeth chattered! there was a cosy group gathered about the open fire in the birdseys' big, comfortable, and not too tidy living-room. at a large center table, drawn close to the blaze, sat carol and sue, scribbling away for dear life in two large, fat note-books and covering the table with many trial sheets of mathematical figuring. they were exact opposites in appearance. sue was tall and slim to the point of angularity. she had dark eyes, and her dark hair was coiled heavily about her head. carol was short and plump, with dreamy blue eyes and wavy auburn hair that still hung in a thick braid. on the davenport, curled up like a kitten in one corner, sat the imp, or "bobs," as she was generally called,--her chin propped in her hands, a book balanced against her knees. in sharp contrast to the other two girls was her tiny body and dark, straight hair, and the big blue eyes that could at one moment gaze with liquid, angelic candor, and at the next snap with impish mischief. there was mischief in them at the moment, as she stared reflectively at the two girls bent over the table. unaware of her gaze, they scribbled on, comparing notes at intervals. "do you get the answer ab(ab+ bm) ½ to your third problem?" presently inquired sue, without looking up. "no, i don't!" moaned carol in depressed tones, pushing aside her work and running her fingers through her hair. "i don't get anything at all." "well, don't worry. let's see what's wrong. hand over your work and i'll compare it with mine," said her companion soothingly. she dragged carol's note-book toward her and compared it with her own. "oh, i see what you've done!" she exclaimed in a moment. "in the first equation you didn't put down--" at this instant the imp, whose eyes had been smoldering with suppressed mischief, yawned loudly, stretched herself, and remarked with apparent irrelevance: "it's a long day when you don't go to school, isn't it?" both girls sat up with a jerk and surveyed her sternly. "do you mean to say that you haven't been to school to-day?" they demanded in a breath, and sue added, "i'd like to know why not." "i had a bad headache this morning, susan," explained the imp sweetly. "mother let me stay home. i was all right by two o'clock, though. louis and i had a game of basketball before it began to rain." her companions glanced at each other with a meaning expression, none of which was lost on the imp. with a grin of satisfaction, she proceeded: "his aunt called him in just before we finished, and he didn't come out again." with a visible effort, sue inquired: "did he say why he wasn't at school to-day? we thought it rather queer when he didn't come, but perhaps, after the strange thing that happened yesterday--" this was precisely the trap into which the imp had planned that they should fall. "i didn't ask him," she remarked, with exasperating calm. "no doubt you didn't," retorted carol heatedly, "but perhaps he told you without being asked." "perhaps he did," returned the imp, "and perhaps he told me a lot more. however, i must say bye-bye for the present. i've got to go and study my lessons somewhere where i won't be disturbed!" she scrambled down and sailed out of the room, waving airily to them from the doorway. "isn't she simply maddening!" exclaimed sue. "the idea of saying she had to go and study! i never knew her to study a thing in my life. she seems to know her lessons by instinct." "but what _do_ you suppose louis told her?" mused carol. "not much, or i miss my guess," returned sue. "she's only trying to tease us. but it is strange that he stayed home to-day. something serious must be the matter. he hasn't missed a day this term before." "but if it was serious," argued carol, "why should he be out playing with the imp?" at this moment the door opened and a tall, slender boy of seventeen or eighteen strolled in, his hands in his overcoat pockets, his cheeks and overcoat still wet with the driving rain. "hello, girls!" he remarked, warming his hands by the blaze of the open fire. "hello, dave!" they replied. "where did you come from?" "been over to louis's. queer thing about it, too," he commented, dropping down on the vacant davenport. "what?" they gasped in breathless chorus. he looked at them inquiringly. "why all the astonishment on _your_ part?" he demanded. "what do you know about it, anyway?" "oh, a lot of queer things seem to be happening to louis lately," explained carol. "but go on! tell us all about it." "well, father didn't need me to-night, so i thought i'd stroll over to louis's and see if he wanted a little session with that higher mathematics course that he and i are working at together on our own hook. i rang at the front door several times, but didn't get any response. then i tried the back door, with no better luck. there was a light in the parlor, too, but, on glancing in the window, i saw that no one was there. mr. meadows had evidently gone to bed. i had just started out to the barn, thinking that louis might be in his work-room there, when i noticed a light in one of the cellar windows. i then felt sure that louis was down there, clearing up or getting vegetables for his aunt, so i went over and peeped in, thinking to give him a surprise. it was _i_ who got the surprise, though!" "what did you see?" demanded sue in an awestricken whisper. "funniest sight ever! there miss yvonne was standing with a lamp in her hand, and louis, with a pickaxe and shovel, had pried out one of the stones in the foundation near the big chimney and was poking around in the hole he'd made, while miss yvonne stared into it, those big black eyes of hers as round as saucers. while i was still looking, she shook her head, motioned louis to put the stone back, and pointed to another a little farther along. i began to feel as if i'd lit on something that wasn't any business of mine, so instead of knocking on the window as i'd intended, i just got up and came away. guess they must be hunting for buried treasure or something. never knew they suspected the presence of any in their old ranch. louis didn't look as if he were particularly enjoying the job, however." "well, that's about all," he ended, suddenly remembering what, in the excitement of the little adventure, he had momentarily forgotten,--his superior pose toward all girls and toward his sister in particular. then he vanished swiftly out of the room, lest they be moved to ask him any further questions and lest he be tempted to answer. after he had gone, sue and carol stared at each other in a maze of excited conjecture. "what do you make of it?" sighed carol. "i don't make anything of it," declared sue. "it sounds too mysterious for words. but i know this much. they weren't hunting for buried treasure. it's for papers of some kind. i'm sure of it. but what can they be about, and why should they be in the cellar?" but carol was off on another tack. "at last we'll have something worth while to write about in our journals," she remarked. "don't you ever think again, susette birdsey, that nothing exciting happens in our lives! i can fill up three or four pages about it." her companion assented absently. "do you realize," she suddenly exclaimed, "that here's where we got way ahead of the imp? serves her right for playing us such a mean trick and going out of the room. i call it a piece of downright luck!" chapter iii the imp has the best of it december . this is new year's eve and it's nearly twelve o'clock. carol and i promised each other that we'd sit up and see the old year out, and write in our journals. carol is finishing a lovely poem she's been writing, called, "on new year's eve." it begins: the silent snow is falling light, on new year's eve, on new year's eve,-- that's all i can remember of it. the only trouble is that there isn't any snow falling to-night. there's a regular thaw on, and it's dreadfully warm and mushy. there's something awfully solemn about new year's eve. it makes you feel sorry for all the mean things you've done, and you form all sorts of good resolutions for the future. at least, i do, and so does carol. but i have my doubts about the imp. i don't believe she is sorry for a single thing she's ever done. she doesn't act so, anyway. and speaking of her, i've made it my principal resolution for the new year to be more patient with her. i suppose every one has to have some great trial in life, and the imp is certainly the chief one for carol and me. lately she has been more than usually infuriating. every afternoon during the past month she has inquired of us, "have you written in your journals to-day, my dears? if not, run and do so at once." when she first began to say that, i made the mistake of asking her how she knew i was keeping a journal. she retorted: "oh, that's easy. i found out that cad was, so of course i knew you were up to the same trick. you're as like each other as two penny hat-pins." all i could think of to answer was: "well, i don't see that it is any one's affair but our own, if we _are_ keeping them." to this she returned: "who said it was?" "you did," i retorted, "and i'll be obliged to you not to take it upon yourself to remind us about writing in them." all she replied to this was: "louis's folks got another cablegram this morning. you'd better put that in." then she walked off and wouldn't say another word. that's just exactly like her. she's bound to light on the very thing you'd rather she didn't know about. and she always seems to have inside information about something you'd give your head to know about and never seem to get hold of. how she knew about the cablegram, i can't think, unless she saw the messenger-boy come up with it and questioned him afterward. we've never said a word to louis about the queer thing dave told us he saw on that rainy night nearly a month ago. at first i wanted to, but carol said that it would look as if we had been spying on them, and, in thinking it over, i agreed with her. another thing, i felt sure that if he wanted us to know, or thought we ought to know, he'd tell us himself and explain what it was all about. but he never has, so either he thinks we oughtn't to know, or his folks have warned him not to speak of it. i'm quite certain it must be the latter, because several times he has almost been on the point of speaking of something and suddenly stopped short, as if he remembered he oughtn't to. dave, of course, has been as mum as an oyster ever since. he's a dear fellow in lots of ways, but he does act too absurdly at present about us girls. you would think we hadn't any more sense than babies in a nursery, the way he treats us,--not exactly unkind, but just sort of condescending and superior. mother says he'll grow out of it soon. he and louis are still great chums, but they don't see as much of each other since dave left high school. nothing further that's strange seems to have happened over at the house across the green, except for one little thing. a few days before christmas i went over to return to miss yvonne a package of spice that mother had had to borrow in a hurry, and i found the place in the greatest upset. miss yvonne seemed to be giving the whole establishment a thorough housecleaning, which is rather strange, for she gave it the usual autumn cleaning only this last october. i can't for the life of me see why she wanted to do it all over again so soon. i spoke to louis about it next day, and he said she was having some papering and painting done, too. they were all upset during the christmas season, and had to eat their christmas dinner in the kitchen. louis says it was a miserable holiday for him, all except our party in the evening. i can't imagine why miss yvonne should do such a curious thing. and louis says she's having one big room that they've never used fixed up in great style,--fresh, handsome wall-paper and new furniture and a brass bed, and everything to match. "do you think she expects any visitors?" i said. "why, no!" he answered, looking awfully surprised. "she hasn't said anything about it to me." then i asked him if he knew they had received a cablegram two weeks before, and he was astonished and said that he didn't, and asked how i knew. i told him what the imp had said, and as soon as he heard this, he answered: "it's more of that beastly mystery, sue, and i suppose i oughtn't to talk about it, because i've promised them i wouldn't. i hate it! _i hate it!_" i never saw louis so worked up before. but he wouldn't go on talking about it any more,--because of his promise, i suppose,--so there matters rest for the present. new year's day, january , . i just stopped a while ago to listen to the village church-bells ring twelve o'clock. i turned out the light and opened the window and leaned out. it all sounded very solemn, but it would have been much more impressive if there had been a lovely white fall of snow, with full moonlight glistening on it. instead of that, it was raining and everything smelled damp and drippy. i like things to seem appropriate, but somehow they never seem to be,--at least, not the way you read about them in books. while i was looking out, i happened to glance over at louis's house and saw such a queer thing. way up in one of the little attic-windows there was a light. after a moment i made out that it was from an oil-lamp that some one was carrying about, for it didn't remain steady long at a time. i hated to be spying on our neighbors, but i couldn't have taken my eyes away from that sight if i'd been offered a thousand dollars. it was _too_ uncanny. in another moment i discovered that it was miss yvonne moving slowly about in front of the immense chimney that is opposite the window, feeling carefully of every brick and picking at them with her fingers, as if to learn if any were loose. it seemed the strangest thing to be doing at midnight on new year's eve, but all of a sudden it dawned on me that she must be trying to discover if any brick was loose _because_--something might be hidden behind it! i got so excited about it that i could hardly stand still. but the next minute the light disappeared, and i realized that she had given up the search and gone downstairs. whether she found what she was looking for or not, i don't know. probably she didn't, or she would have stayed longer. after that i shut my window, lit my light, and now am finishing this. i wonder if carol saw what i did? she was going to look out of her window at midnight, too. but she couldn't have seen it, i'm sure, because her house is on the other side of louis's, and that attic-window wouldn't have been visible to her. my, won't i have something exciting to tell her to-morrow! mother has just opened her door and called out "happy new year!" to me. she told me to put out my light and go to bed, or i'd fall asleep at anita brown's party to-morrow night--no, i mean _to-night_. i guess i'll have to end this for the present, but i don't believe i'll be able to sleep. life is certainly growing more and more exciting, with your neighbors receiving mysterious cablegrams from abroad and digging in the cellar and hunting about in the attic at midnight and all the other curious doings. i hope it doesn't seem like prying into their affairs to have discovered all these things. each time it was quite by accident. but mother and father have always taught us how horrid it was to be curious about your neighbors. well, as long as i don't deliberately pry or talk about it to any one except carol, i'm sure no harm will be done. as this is my first entry in my journal for , i'll wish everybody a "happy new year" and hope this will be a glorious _good_ year for every one in the world. sue birdsey lay on the davenport by the fire. she was covered by an afghan and her face was propped up on a hot-water-bag. on the table near her was a huge packet of absorbent cotton and several bottles of medicine. near her hand lay a book, unheeded. unheeded, also, was the brilliant mid-january sun streaming in at the west windows. of what use are books and sunlight, indeed, in the face of a raging toothache! on the opposite side of the hearth sat carol, disconsolately urging a renewal of some one of the medicines. "it's no earthly use!" moaned sue. "i've tried it a dozen times. wait till the imp gets back with that stuff your aunt agatha recommended. i'll try that, and if it doesn't stop it, i'll walk straight down to the dentist and have it out." "i believe it's going to ulcerate," remarked carol, like the "job's comforter" she was always inclined to be. sue's only reply was to hurl a sofa-cushion at her and subside again on the hot-water-bag. no further remarks were exchanged. the sun sank in a few moments and the room grew dark. carol turned on the light and muttered something about how long the imp was. after a few more gloomy moments, punctuated by groans from sue, the door was flung open and the imp rushed in, bringing a blast of chilly air with her. "here it is!" she cried. "i had to wait an awful while for him to get it ready. you fix her up, cad." while carol administered the remedy according to directions, the imp straightened out the rumpled afghan and refilled the hot-water-bag. she could be singularly helpful in case of sickness or an emergency, and seemed actually to delight in being of use,--a change of demeanor that never failed to astonish the other two girls. so accustomed were they to regard the imp as their sworn enemy that this angelic demeanor quite disarmed them. five minutes after the remedy had been applied sue sat up with a jerk. "hurrah! the pain's all gone. it went like magic. i feel like a new creature. no more of this for me!" she rose from the couch, pushing away the signs of her temporary invalidism. "imp, you certainly are a trump. come, carol, let's get at our work for to-morrow." ten minutes later they were busy at the long table, and the imp again settled on the couch, apparently deep in a book. it was sue who looked up after a while, to find her eyeing them with the pleased, quiet, provoking smile whose meaning they had come to know so well. the desire to investigate its cause proved, as usual, irresistible. "what are you grinning at, bobs?" sue demanded. "you look as pleased as punch. anything happened?" it was well always to placate her by appearing agreeable. "oh, nothing special!" she replied, in a manner that made them perfectly certain there was something very special. "i happened to notice a while ago that an automobile drove up to louis's gate, and that miss yvonne got out and began to give the chauffeur a regular tongue-lashing in french, because he'd driven up from the station over the joltiest road, instead of taking the smooth one. he doesn't understand french, so he didn't in the least get what she was driving at. it made me laugh." "but what under the sun was miss yvonne coming up from the station in an automobile for?" carol exclaimed. "she hasn't been away. she hasn't even been to bridgeton, for i've seen her around early this afternoon. she always walks up from the village. you must be crazy." "she walked down to the village about four o'clock," the imp informed them. "i saw her start off. and i guess she had good reason to come back in an auto." the imp went on reading after this, just as if she hadn't any idea that she was driving them wild. "well, what _was_ the reason?" inquired sue, trying to look only mildly interested. "was she ill, or did she have a lot of bundles to carry, or was she in a great hurry?" "i'll tell you the reason," answered the imp, "if you'll give me that nice, fat, new blank-book you bought the other day. it's worth it, too." "i'll do nothing of the sort!" sue cried indignantly. "i have a special use for that book,"--as a matter of fact, she was going to re-copy her journal in it--"and i'll find out some other way." "you won't find out anything before to-morrow afternoon, probably," the imp returned, "for louis isn't going to school. he told me so." sue made up her mind that she wasn't going to give in to her, but carol broke up that intention. "oh, give it to her!" she whispered. "i've another just as good that you can have. and i'm wild to hear what's up across the green." sue handed the blank-book across to the imp, and said, as witheringly as she could: "here, take it, if you want it as badly as that! of course you know you're taking a mean advantage of us, but that's nothing to you. fire away!" "i thought you couldn't wait till to-morrow," the imp retorted. "well, here goes. miss yvonne rode up in an auto because--she had some one with her." "who _was_ it?" cried carol impatiently. "don't dole out your information in little drops. tell us the rest." "i didn't ask the person's name," said the imp, in that maddeningly polite way she sometimes assumed. "it didn't seem any affair of mine." "naturally," sue answered, as calmly as she could. "we'd only be much obliged to know whether it was a man, woman, girl, boy, or baby. please remember you've got the book and that you haven't paid for it yet." "i always pay my debts," she answered, trying not to giggle, "and i only agreed to tell you the reason why miss yvonne came up in the auto. i've done that. but since you're so hard up for information, i'll hand out a little more small change--just because i'm sorry for you. it was a man, a very old man, all wrapped up in a big fur coat." "did louis know he was coming?" carol demanded. "oh, no! louis didn't know," answered the imp, "but i did; for i heard miss yvonne telling old mr. meadows yesterday, when they were out by the barn, that all was ready for 'monsieur's' arrival to-morrow." "you're a mean little thing to be always eavesdropping about," cried sue, "and meaner yet never to tell us a word of what you hear." "you're quite mistaken if you think i eavesdrop, as you call it," retorted the imp indignantly. "i was in plain sight all the time yesterday, patching up that snow-fort of louis's, and they both saw me. only miss yvonne spoke in french, and i guess she doesn't know that i understand it. as for not telling you two anything, i'd like to know why i should. you never tell anything to me, that is, if you can possibly help it." this was entirely true, as they were bound to confess. the imp took up her book and marched huffily to the door. but before she left the room she turned and called back: "it's a thankless job trying to be nice to you two. you're absolutely ungrateful. and i'll tell you right now, i know one piece of information, besides all this, that you'd give your eye-teeth to hear,--but you won't. it's about who this mysterious 'monsieur' _is_!" with that she went out, slamming the door behind her. chapter iv the mysterious "monsieur" there had been a heavy fall of snow during the night. it lay on trees and hedges in great, powdery clumps, and drifted over the green in huge, wind-swept hillocks. but the sky that afternoon was blue and cloudless, and the click of snow-shovels rang out on the still air. in front of the birdseys' gate carol and sue were frantically shoveling a footway, not because they had to, but for the sheer joy of exercise in the invigorating air. "it's queer we haven't seen anything of louis since that visitor came," commented carol. "he's missing a lot of time at school, and i'm sure he hates that." "yes, it's three days since 'monsieur,' as the imp calls him, came. we haven't seen anything of _him_, either," added sue. "do you suppose he's going to stay shut up and invisible all the time? who do you suppose he is, anyway, and doesn't it make you furious to think that the imp knows, or says she does, and that we don't?" "there's louis now," was carol's only reply. "he's just come out to shovel his walk," and she waved her own shovel to him in greeting. in another moment louis had strolled over to join them. he was of medium height, a slenderly-built fellow, with short-cropped, wavy, chestnut hair and fine brown eyes. he also possessed a smile that was peculiarly winning. "hello, you strangers! i thought you'd be out this afternoon. isn't it ripping weather?" he greeted them. "where's dave?" "he's gone to bridgeton with father," answered sue, "but where have _you_ been all this time? not sick, i hope?" the boy's face clouded and he dug his shovel viciously into a snowbank. "no, not sick, but dilly-dallying around the house, helping to wait on that old gentleman. they don't seem to care how much time i lose." it was the first time the girls had ever heard him speak so bitterly. "we heard that you had a visitor," said carol, striving hard to seem only politely interested. "oh, we have a visitor, all right, but i'm blest if i know why he's taken up his abode with us, nor even who he is, for that matter." at this rather astonishing statement both girls looked somewhat startled. "i know it sounds queer to say it," went on the boy, "and i'm not sure they'd thank me for saying it, either, but it's the honest truth, and i've got to say it to some one, or i'll explode with indignation." "but what do you call him, if you don't know who he is?" queried sue. "well, he _says_ his name is monsieur de vaubert, but i strongly doubt it. i found his handkerchief lying on a chair yesterday, and it had the initial f on it. later i asked aunt yvonne what his first name was, and she said 'philippe.' so can you figure out where f comes in? i can't." "all that aunt and uncle will tell me about him," he went on, "is that he is a descendant of an old friend of my father's family in france; that he has always been much interested in me and has come over here to visit and make my acquaintance. it sounds all right as far as it goes, but i'm morally certain that that isn't the whole of it. they treat him as if he were some sort of high mogul, and he treats them in the most politely condescending manner you ever saw. but the way he acts toward me is a caution. in some ways you'd think i was the grand lama of tibet, and that he was my most humble slave. then at other times he gets so dictatorial about my studies and work and the way i spend my time that i just have to hold on to something to prevent going up in the air. i confess that i don't know what he's driving at, and i could chew his head off sometimes, i get so mad. and yet in other ways he's a fine old chap, and i can't help but admire him. here he comes now. he said he would come out a few moments this afternoon." they all looked across the green as he spoke, to see the figure of an elderly gentleman, very much muffled up in a fur coat, slowly pacing down the walk. he seemed about seventy-five years of age, and he walked with a visible stoop, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bent slightly forward. his eyes were black and piercing, and his hair and mustache were almost white. his nose was sharp and eagle-like, and his whole appearance was very distinguished and foreign. both sue and carol were decidedly impressed. "well," added louis, "i must go back and be polite, i suppose, and also shovel my walk. by the way, i'll be over at your house, sue, to-morrow evening, if it's convenient, and get some idea from you girls of what i've been missing at high school all this week. tell dave i'll spend an hour or two with him afterward. so long!" after he had left them the girls went on with their shoveling, but they could not, for the life of them, keep from gazing occasionally across at the mysterious stranger on the other side of the green. they saw louis return and speak to him for several moments, pacing along at his side, and later he left him to commence a vigorous attack on an unshoveled path. then they saw a curious thing. monsieur de vaubert, stopping short in his pacing, stared almost aghast at louis. next, striding up to him and snatching the shovel from his hand, he spoke loudly and rapidly in french, as if in remonstrance. they heard louis expostulating in the same language and exhibiting every sign of disagreement and dismay. at length he shrugged his shoulders hopelessly and turned to go into the house, leaving monsieur to continue his pacing alone. "well!" exclaimed carol. "what on earth do you make of _that_?" "it looks very much as if 'monsieur' didn't approve of louis's snow-shoveling," commented sue, wonderingly. "but why? do you know, i believe he thinks louis is delicate and oughtn't to exert himself. what a crazy idea! louis is really as strong as an ox, even if he is slender. he can throw dave at wrestling every time, even if he is lighter in weight. i can imagine how furious it must make louis to be coddled that way." they went on digging industriously. suddenly carol whispered to sue: "for pity's sake, look at that!" it was the imp, who had evidently walked up from the village and was just passing louis's house. on beholding the visitor still pacing up and down the walk in the sunlight, she had called out, "_bon jour, monsieur!_" she had been answered by the most courtly of bows, and "_bon jour, petite mademoiselle hélène._" then she passed on, turning the corner of the green toward her own house. the two girls stared at each other, speechless. "will you tell me how under the sun she came to know him?" gasped sue, indignantly. "and she never has said a single word to us about it!" "don't ask me," returned carol. "find out from her, if you can. she's the most exasperating mortal i ever came across." the imp came on gaily, waving to them as affably as if she were quite unaware of the shock she had just given them. they did not acknowledge her salute,--a mistake they were sorry for later. "how long is it since you became acquainted with 'monsieur'?" demanded sue, as soon as she had joined them. she did not try to keep annoyance out of her voice. "oh, a whole twenty-four hours has elapsed since the event!" grinned the imp, more impishly than usual. "didn't i tell you?" "you know perfectly well that you didn't!" cried sue. "well, i'm sorry,--since it seems to worry you so much. louis introduced us yesterday afternoon. we met just outside of louis' gate. monsieur was taking the air just before the snow began, and, as it happened, so was i. you two might have been, also, if you hadn't felt so lazy and hung about the fire indoors." as usual, she had hit them on the raw. they might have known it! "i think he is quite charming," went on the imp amiably. "we had a long talk. he praised my french accent, and says that he prefers to call me 'mademoiselle hélène,' instead of 'bobs' or 'bobbie' or even 'roberta.' he asked me a lot of questions about this place and the village and all that, and finally he told me why he came here." "he _did_?" gasped the two girls. "what was the reason?" at that moment they could have hugged her for seeming so communicative. "i'll tell you," she answered with dangerous sweetness. "he came over to see louis!" their faces fell, but they tried hard not to show their indignation. "of course," agreed sue, "but _why_ did he come over here to see louis? that's the question." "if i told you _that_, i wouldn't have any interesting secret of my own," answered the imp loftily. then, feeling her revenge complete, she sped away into the house, leaving the puzzled and indignant pair behind her. january , . louis told us the _strangest_ thing to-night. i must write about it before i go to bed. it makes this mystery about the queer old gentleman at his house deeper and deeper. he came over (louis, i mean) to our house to-night, as he said he would yesterday. but he seemed perfectly furious about something, and instead of wanting to study, he said he'd just have to tell us what had happened, or burst. fortunately, carol and i were alone. if the imp had been around, i just couldn't have stood having her hear everything that we did. she knows too much already,--sometimes i think a great deal more than we do,--about all this, and i'm glad to get ahead of her on something. anyhow, this is what louis told us: "this morning was the limit," he began. "i thought i'd take a spell at working on that little motor-boat i'm building in the old feed-room at the back of the barn. i haven't done much at it lately, because the weather's been so cold. but to-day was mild, and i thought i could make a lot of progress. you know i've saved up enough of my pocket-money for the engine, and i'm going to send for it next month. well, what must monsieur do, but trail out to the barn after me. i couldn't very well prevent him, so i let him come along, but i didn't explain what i was doing there till we got into the room. "and, if you'll believe it, no sooner did he lay eyes on that cedar hull, and realize that it was my work, than he flew into a towering passion. he stamped around the room, muttering a lot of things in french that even i couldn't understand, though i caught the expression, 'the blood of that mechanic--_always_--_always!_' repeated several times. i was simply speechless with astonishment, and just stood staring at him open-mouthed. "all of a sudden he raised his cane and hit the boat a horrible whack right on the gunwale. it made a dent that i don't suppose any amount of tinkering or painting will ever remove. then i 'saw red,' as they say. the idea of his presuming to do such a beastly thing! i just rushed at him, tore the cane from his hand, and threw it straight through the window. it smashed the glass and sash and everything. and i shouted, 'how dare you! how dare you!' i guess i was really too furious to think what i was doing. but it had the strangest effect on monsieur. "he stopped suddenly, and his face, from being a brick-red with anger, went perfectly white. he drew himself up in a sort of military way, as stiff as a poker, and then bowed very low and made a military salute. 'i beg a thousand pardons, monsieur. i am deeply sorry!' he said. i asked him what in the world he meant, anyway, but he only kept repeating that he was 'deeply humiliated at his fit of temper,' and begged me to think no more of it. then i asked him if he didn't approve of my making the boat, and he said, 'no; that i was cut out for something better than that laborer's work.' "that remark made me madder than ever, and i asked him if it was not a good piece of work, and oughtn't any one to be proud of doing a thing like that so well. he only replied that i had far other things to be proud of, but i noticed that he didn't say what. so i just faced him. "'look here,' i said. 'just tell me one thing, like a man, won't you? what are you here for, anyway? am i the descendant of some duke or marquis or that sort of thing, and are you here to try to get me to go back to france and be one myself?' you see, what carol said the other day sort of stuck in my crop, and that boat business rather confirmed it. i went on to say to him, 'because if that's so, you needn't bother. i won't go!' "he didn't say a word for a minute or two. he just stood staring at me as if he'd never seen me before. then he said, very quietly: "'no, monsieur. you are quite mistaken. it is something vastly different, and i cannot explain it now. you must be content to wait. but, be assured, it will both astonish and delight you when it is disclosed.' and with that he walked off and took to his bed again, i guess, for i haven't seen him since. but i've been 'hot under the collar' ever since at the damage he did to my boat." "well, all that is mighty strange," i said, another idea suddenly dawning on me. "he doesn't seem to want you to do any work. was that why he objected to you shoveling snow yesterday?" "the very thing," replied louis. "i was astonished when he said to me, 'where is that meadows and his servant? why are you required to do this menial work?' i tried to explain to him that i liked it and was doing it for exercise, but he simply couldn't understand. he kept exclaiming, 'it is not fitting!' till i got so disgusted that i gave it up. if this sort of thing keeps up, i'll run away to sea or do something desperate. i declare i will!" "are you glad, louis, that you're not a duke or a marquis or anything like that?" i asked. "i should think you'd have thought it fine." "i'd simply detest it, sue," he answered. "i don't want to be anything but an american citizen--_ever!_ but if this mystery business doesn't clear up soon, i'll be a raving lunatic." well, i'm disappointed myself to have carol's nice theory all knocked to pieces, for it would have been so romantic and unusual. but if it isn't that, what on earth _can_ it be? and _how_ much does that wretched little imp know? chapter v two accidents and a mystery february . i'm writing this under a good deal of difficulty, for my left hand is in a sling and this blank-book slips around dreadfully. the truth is that i had quite an accident the other day, and have been laid up ever since. it was the day after i last wrote in my journal. we'd had a heavy fall of snow overnight, followed by a hard frost. the coasting on eastward hill was gorgeous, and we spent the whole of the next afternoon there. just at the last the imp suggested that we try the slide down the north slope of the hill. it's ever so much steeper than the one we usually take, and is considered rather dangerous. louis said we'd better not, but the imp begged so hard that we agreed to try it just once. so louis took carol on his bobsled, and the imp and i had the other. she was steering, because she's awfully good at that. they went first, and we followed. everything went finely at the start. it's the most exciting thing going down that steep slide, and i was just enjoying it when suddenly something went wrong. i'm not sure yet just what it was, but the imp says there must have been a buried branch or something under one of our runners. anyhow, the first i knew i was lying with my head in a snowbank and my left arm doubled under me in the queerest manner. the imp had been landed in the bank, too, but she wasn't a bit hurt and was up in a jiffy, dragging me out. first i thought i was all right, but when i stood up my left arm began to hurt me so that i thought i'd die with the pain of it. they put me on one of the sleds and hustled me home in a hurry, and louis went for the doctor. he said it was only a sprain, but that i must stay in the house for a while and take good care of it. so here i've been ever since. the imp has been an angel. that sounds funny, but i mean it! she nearly died of remorse at having been the cause of my accident, and she can't do enough for me. she waits on me hand and foot, and hasn't teased or been a bit exasperating once. to show how angelic she can be, i must write what she told me yesterday. she came in from a walk to the village, where she'd been to get me some grapefruit, and announced: "what do you think? i walked back most of the way with monsieur. his things have come." "what things?" i asked, astonished, for i knew that his trunks came the day after he arrived. "oh, didn't you know? a few things he brought with him. two or three pictures and a big lot of books." "but what did he bring over things like that for?" i demanded. "if he's only here for a visit, it's rather queer for him to be carting books and pictures about with him. i shouldn't think he'd be staying long enough to make it worth while." "i think he's going to stay quite a long while," the imp replied. "perhaps it will be a year or more, judging from what he says." "how do you know all this?" i asked. it aroused all the old, jealous feeling again to think that she knew so much more about it than i did. "why, this way. you see, we were walking up together, and we'd got about as far as louis's gate when we both noticed a cart, with those things piled on it, standing there. miss yvonne was talking to the driver. monsieur suddenly said, 'ah, my things have come! that is well!' then he turned to me and said, 'they are my most precious possessions. i never travel far without them.' i said it was too bad that they'd been delayed so long getting here from the steamer. for you know he's been here nearly a month. then he said, 'they were not delayed, mademoiselle hélène. i did not send for them at once because--i was not sure i should stay. now i feel that my stay may be long.' "wasn't that queer?" added the imp. "why do you suppose he first thought he mightn't stay long, and then decided that he would?" "perhaps he likes it here better than he thought he would," i suggested. "nothing of the sort!" answered the imp. "he hates it. he told me the climate was abominable. he didn't see how any one could exist in it." "then it must be because he likes the meadows' and louis so much," i decided. "i don't think that has anything to do with it," replied the imp. "i'm certain it's something else. he's staying on because things haven't gone the way he'd planned. if they had, he'd have gone right home. i've figured that much out about him." we didn't have any more time for talk just then, for mother came in to say that dinner was ready. but i've been thinking and thinking ever since about what the imp told me. she was never so communicative with me before. it's worth while to have a damaged arm, but i wonder how long it will last. i wish carol were over here right now, so that i could tell her. but she has a cold, and i haven't seen her for two days. it has seemed rather curious to me, right along, that we young folks were the only ones who seemed interested in louis's affair and the new visitor. i wondered why. but something that was said at table last night made me realize that we are, after all, the only ones who know much of the _inside_ of that affair. for instance, mother said to father: "who is that queer old gentleman visiting across the green? he seems like a foreigner." "monsieur something-or-other," father answered. "i didn't catch his name, though louis tried to introduce us the other day, when they were passing where i was working in the north pasture. i've never quite understood the meadows' household, anyway. they seem queer and foreign--all but louis. he is a true american boy. i've often wondered where john meadows hailed from. he brought louis here as a small baby, and i never knew where he came from. he would never say much about it. by the way, simpson wrote that we could have that new fertilizer next month." and that's all they thought or cared about it. but, at any rate, their conversation had given me one bit of news--about louis having been brought here as a little baby, and that folks didn't know the meadows' people before. i'd always supposed that they had lived here all along, too. i wonder if louis knows this? i wonder if i had better tell him? i don't know. somehow that, and the news the imp brought to-day, has made me feel about as mixed up as possible. i can't make head or tail of anything. i wish carol were here. i've just been looking over this journal from the beginning, noticing all the queer things that have come up about louis since i began it. i think i'll put them down in order and see if it will help me to make anything out of the strange situation. first, the queer way that louis's folks have always treated him and the fact that he isn't any real relation. that looks to me very much as if his antecedents or his forefathers or whatever you call them must have been of some different station of life from the meadows people. and yet louis says their families have always been old friends. at any rate, they must feel, for some reason, responsible for him to some one, or they wouldn't be so careful about him. by the way, that some one must be "monsieur"; who else _could_ it be? next there were those mysterious cablegrams. of course they were from "monsieur," but what did he mean by saying, "the time is ripe"? sounds as if some sort of plot was being hatched. and then about those papers. _what_ are they, and _where_ are they? have they anything to do with louis? i suppose they must. does louis himself know anything about them? he has never said a word to us. besides, there was that queer performance when miss yvonne had louis dig in the cellar at night. i'm simply positive she must have been hunting for the papers then, and also on new year's eve in the attic. i believe they must be documents to prove that louis is to come into a great fortune, perhaps one that his ancestors left him. yes, that's a brand new idea, and i'm certain it's nearer the truth than anything we've thought of yet. "monsieur" is probably the family lawyer in france, and has come to straighten everything out. hurrah! i do wish carol was here, so that we could talk this over. it's a much more sensible idea than the one that louis is the descendant of some titled person. it would explain a number of things,--why "monsieur" doesn't like louis to do any work, and that sort of thing. and probably, too, that's why they would like him to go back to france and be a statesman, since he can't be a duke or a marquis and flourish around with the nobility. i suppose it's the next best thing, in their estimation. it might even explain, too, why "monsieur" expects to make so long a stay here to get things all straightened out. oh, i'm so glad i thought of this! i can hardly wait for to-morrow to come, so that i can tell carol. and i believe i'll even tell the imp, too. she's been so decent to me of late that i'm willing to do 'most anything for her. "ahoy, girls! come over and see the big smash!" it was the imp who thus hailed the two girls as they were coming home from the village one saturday afternoon early in march. she was one of a group that was standing in louis's front yard, and the girls hurried over to see what it was all about. they found that a fine old cherry-tree had been half blown over by a high wind the night before, and now it threatened to fall at the slightest jar. its fall would do serious damage to the fence near which it stood. louis had decided to chop it down so that it would fall in the opposite direction. it was not the first time that he had had the experience, and he rather enjoyed the thought of the task before him. it was quite evident, however, that "monsieur" did not at all approve of this scheme. he paced back and forth on the path, muttering impatiently to himself in french and occasionally urging louis to be extremely careful. as this was the first time that either sue or carol had met "monsieur," louis stopped long enough to make the introductions. monsieur bowed formally and murmured that he was "charmed to meet mesdemoiselles," but there his interest in them ended, and he continued to pace back and forth and mutter to himself. once the imp poked sue and whispered: "he says, 'always, always this servant's work!' he's been having a fit about this ever since they came out. but louis was determined to get it done. monsieur certainly does make him mad and nervous, though." the tree was almost ready to topple over, when an unfortunate thing happened. it may have been that louis _was_ nervous, or that his foot slipped on a patch of ice, or that it was a combination of both. at any rate, just as the ax was raised for one of his most telling blows, he missed his aim and brought it down directly on his left foot. with a slight groan, he dropped to the ground. an instant later blood began to pour from the wound in sickening spurts. so sudden had it all been, that his watchers hardly realized what had happened till the spouting blood revealed the accident. immediately all was confusion. monsieur uttered a cry that was almost a scream and, stooping down, tried to lift louis in his arms. miss yvonne rushed out, wringing her hands and screaming, too, in her excitable french fashion. old mr. meadows raised the parlor-window and stood calling out all sorts of impossible directions, half in french and half in english. carol turned as white as a sheet and looked as if she were going to faint away. she usually did at the sight of blood. only the imp seemed to have any sense left. she called out to carol: "you run to our house and telephone for any doctor you can get, either in the village or at bridgeton!" then she said to monsieur: "please let louis alone. he'll bleed to death if you lift him that way." lastly she turned to miss yvonne: "don't you think that between us we could manage to carry louis into the house? i'll hold his poor foot so that it won't bleed so much." it was almost absurd to hear that small child giving everybody orders, but it was rather fine, too. and somehow it restored them to their senses. carol went flying off to telephone, only too glad to get away. miss yvonne stopped screaming and lifted louis in her strong arms, while sue held his head and monsieur his uninjured foot. louis had fainted by this time. the imp held his injured foot in such a way that as little blood as possible escaped. sue admitted later that she would scarcely have had the nerve to do it, even if she had been able. she was very much hampered, because her left arm was still in a sling, so that all she could do was to hold up the boy's head with her right hand. somehow or other they got louis into the house. monsieur insisted that they carry him up to his (monsieur's) room, though the others thought it would have been better to take him to his own room on the ground floor. but monsieur would have his way, and they got louis there somehow. by the time they had laid him in the big brass bed, carol came flying back to say that she couldn't reach a single doctor in town. every one was out. but she had managed to get a promise from dr. langmaid in bridgeton that he would come over directly in his car, as soon as he could leave a serious surgical case that he was treating in his office. meanwhile louis's foot was still bleeding horribly. something had to be done at once. miss yvonne had got his shoe and stocking off and was bathing the horrid wound, but that didn't help much. no one but sue seemed to know how to stop the bleeding and she was practically helpless because of her hand. the reason she knew was because she had just finished a course of "first aid to the injured" lectures that had been given to the young girls' club in school by a trained nurse. carol didn't take the course, because she hated all that kind of thing and it made her sick. but sue had enjoyed it. one of the principal things she had learned was about the tourniquet and bandaging. but how was she to do anything with only one hand? suddenly the idea that she could give the imp directions and let _her_ do it dawned on sue. the imp was so quick that she would understand in a wink. so sue asked miss yvonne if she'd tear up a sheet for some bandages, and told the imp that if she'd do as she told her, she thought they could stop the bleeding. miss yvonne went right to work, and the imp followed sue's directions well, while the latter did what she could with one hand. they used a buttonhook for a tourniquet, and in five minutes louis's foot was bandaged roughly and not bleeding any more. monsieur had been spending the time in bathing louis's head and holding ammonia to his nose. presently louis came to and tried to ask what was the matter. but they made him stop talking, because he was so weak from loss of blood. after that there wasn't anything to do but wait for the doctor, so they sat around the room, not talking and all looking nervous and embarrassed. at last dr. langmaid arrived. he came jumping upstairs two steps at a time. after he had taken one look at louis's foot, he said: "whoever did that bandaging had good common sense. perhaps it saved his life." that was all, but it made sue feel proud for the imp. the imp, however, declared that it was sue's work, for she would never have known how to do it herself. at any rate, after that the doctor turned out every one but miss yvonne, and they stayed there with louis for an age, while all the rest waited downstairs for news. at last the doctor came down and told them that louis had almost severed an artery, but that he had broken no bones. he sewed up the wound and left directions that louis was to stay in bed for some time and have careful attention, lest blood-poisoning set in. but he said it was a miracle that nothing worse had happened, and left his compliments for the two young ladies who did the bandaging. at which the imp and sue pinched each other and took their departure. it was after they had left the house and were walking across the green to their own home, their knees still shaking with the excitement they had experienced, that the imp remarked: "did you see the queer thing that hung on 'monsieur's' wall, right opposite to the bed?" "why, no," answered sue. "that is, i suppose i did, but i was so nervous and worried that i can't remember anything about it. i hardly took my eyes from louis. what was it, anyway?" "three pictures, but the only one that i could see was the middle one. it was a life-sized picture of a little boy about six or seven, i should think. he had big brown eyes and brown wavy hair, and was quite a pretty little chap, but he was dressed awfully queerly. i guess the picture must be quite old, for his clothes weren't like anything that's been worn for years. i wonder why 'monsieur' carts it around and has it hanging there. must be some relation, i suppose, or some child of whom he was very fond." "but i thought you said his clothes were so queer and old-timey," suggested sue. "i imagined from the way you spoke that they must be of a fashion more than a hundred years old." "i guess they were, too," admitted the imp. "i had thought that perhaps the boy was a son or a brother, but i guess he was from way before _that_ time." "must be some famous ancestor, then," said sue. "by the way, what did you mean by saying that the boy's picture was the only one you could see? if the three pictures were all hanging on the wall at the foot of the bed, you could see the other two just as well, i should think." "no, i couldn't; and for a very queer reason," replied the imp darkly. "oh, for gracious sake, don't begin to tease!" cried sue impatiently, suspecting that the imp was up to one of her usual tricks. "things have been so exciting, and you've been such a dear, that i hate to have you spoil it by beginning that 'mysterious' business." "but it _was_ mysterious," argued the imp, "and you'd have seen it for yourself, if you'd only had your eyes about you." "well, what was it?" sighed sue. "i'm afraid you're making a whole lot out of nothing." "i'm _not_!" cried the imp. "and i'll prove it this minute. i _couldn't_ see those two other pictures because--they both had a heavy, dark silk covering of some kind stretched completely over them, frames and all! _now_ will you believe me?" at this curious bit of information even doubting sue had to admit that the imp was right. chapter vi in monsieur's room march , . i thought the last entries in this journal were pretty exciting, with two accidents to tell about, but they were just nothing to what's been happening since. my arm is all right again; no trouble at all, except for a slight stiffness. so that's all about that. but _louis_! for the first two days after his accident he seemed to be doing nicely. none of us saw him, for the doctor had ordered that he be kept very quiet. when we went to inquire, miss yvonne said he was better and in no pain, and that he wanted to see us all, but that he must be quiet for a while. then, on the third day, her face was very grave. "he has fever," she said. "it is not high, but the doctor is not pleased. louis is restless, and his foot is swollen. we are all anxious about him." i repeated her words to father, and he said: "poor boy! blood-poisoning, probably. i'm sorry for him. was that ax very rusty?" i replied that it was, for i remember that louis remarked about it at the time and said he could do better work if the ax was cleaned and was sharper. father shook his head and said they'd have to keep a careful watch on him now. next day matters became worse. from then till this evening we have been frightfully anxious, and the meadows' family and monsieur grew almost frantic. it was blood-poisoning, and the doctor said it was so bad that he doubted if he could save louis's foot. at that, monsieur sent post-haste to the city for a famous surgeon, and after days of working over him louis is to-night pronounced out of danger. when i went over this evening to get the news, miss yvonne cried when she told me. i cried, too, and i saw monsieur coming downstairs, his eyes suspiciously moist. what a relief! they have had two trained nurses, and one of them will stay till louis is much stronger. miss yvonne is quite worn out with work and worry, and she looks like a shadow of herself. old mr. meadows appears to have grown ten years older in a week, and seems very feeble. as for monsieur, in the few glimpses i've had of him he looks as if he hadn't had a wink of sleep for four days. as a matter of fact, i heard that he hadn't gone to bed and slept since louis became so ill,--just napped while sitting in a chair. i haven't slept well myself, and neither has carol. even the imp has been very much concerned. she continues to be awfully decent to us, but i wonder how much longer it will last. not long, i'm pretty sure, after louis is well again. i know her too thoroughly to be deceived into thinking she has turned over a new leaf for good! now for bed and a long, peaceful sleep for the first time in a week! march . to-day, for the first time, i have seen louis. he was much better, and he wanted to see us so much that miss yvonne sent over the servant to tell us that we three could come over (dave had gone yesterday), but that we all had better not see him at once. carol and the imp and i went over. one by one we were allowed to go up to the room. but we were warned that no one must stay more than five minutes, and that we mustn't talk to louis about anything exciting. carol went first, but she didn't stay anywhere near her five minutes, for i timed her by the parlor clock. it seemed as if she had scarcely had time to go up and walk into the room before she must have walked out again. she came down looking awfully solemn and scared, and whispered: "he looks awful,--as if he'd been _so_ sick! i was frightened. the trained nurse was there, and monsieur, too. i didn't know what on earth to say, so i didn't stay but a minute." then the imp went up, and i guess she was more successful, for she stayed two minutes over her time. we heard her say, "hello, old sport!" as she entered the room, and we even heard a sound like louis's laugh. then there was a great chattering in french, and i knew that she and monsieur were talking together. when she came down she said that monsieur had been thanking her for what she did on the day of the accident, and that she had been trying to convince him she hadn't done anything, except to obey my directions. he wouldn't stand for that, however, and insisted that she had been the means of saving louis's life. nothing she could say would persuade him differently. then it came my turn, and i went up with my knees shaking, like the silly goose i am, for there was nothing on earth to be afraid of. but somehow it always did seem a solemn thing to me to see a person for the first time after he has been so near to death. but they shook worse when i got into the room and saw how really awful louis looked. he is like a thin shadow of his former self, and _so_ white and hollow-eyed. he's never been sick before, to any extent, so i never dreamed he could look like that. i murmured something or other to louis,--i can't remember what,--and then monsieur began to thank me in very elaborate and formal english for what i had done on the day of the accident. i tried to answer that it wasn't anything, and i could easily see that he didn't think it _was_ so much, compared to what the imp had done. but louis spoke up in the weakest voice, and declared: "sue is a trump! _i_ know what she did, for i wasn't unconscious _all_ of the time. between them they patched me up beautifully." but monsieur wasn't much impressed. it's plain to be seen that the imp is _his_ favorite. i don't care a scrap, however, since louis said what he did! well, i couldn't think of another thing to say, so i bade louis good-bye and took my departure. but before i left the room i snatched a good long look at those pictures. i've been thinking of them constantly, ever since that first day, and longing to see them. it certainly was queer to see those two so tightly covered. there's something about the one of the boy that haunts me, though. i don't know why. carol and i have talked it over and over, and we can't make it out. the trouble is that she practically hasn't seen it at all. that day of the accident she didn't come into the room, for she was telephoning the doctor. she didn't want to come in, anyway, because she knew she couldn't stand it. and to-day she only caught the smallest glimpse of it, because she was so upset when she came out of the room. the nurse says that next time we go to see louis we can probably stay a little longer, if he continues to improve. march . we all went in again to-day. monsieur was not there, to carol's and my great relief, but the nurse was. i warned carol beforehand to take a good look at the portrait this time, and she did. she says she feels as i do about it, as if she'd seen it, or some one like it, somewhere before. and yet she's _sure_ she hasn't, really. i don't understand it. louis is beginning to make all sorts of plans about what he will do when he's well again. he's wild at having to be away from school and lose so much time, but we've promised to keep all our notes for him, and that will help a lot when he goes back. the imp has returned to her old tricks again. i knew she would when the excitement was over. she told me that she met monsieur on her way to school this morning, and that she walked all the way to the village with him. he was going down to get some medicine for louis. but she startled me to pieces when she added: "i asked him who that nice little boy was whose picture he had in his room. he said he'd tell me if i'd promise to keep it a secret. i said that i certainly would, cross my heart." "so he told you?" i asked, trying not to act as if i cared a bit. "why, certainly," the imp answered, with that wicked gleam in her eye. "he did as he said he would. i'd be glad to tell you, but, of course, i've promised not to." "did you ask him why he kept the other two pictures covered?" i inquired. "yes, i asked him that, too, but he said it was for a reason he couldn't explain at present." the imp wouldn't have told me if he _had_ explained. i'm positive of that. and what's more, i simply can't believe that he told her all about the other one. she can make things sound so mysterious, when there's really nothing to them at all. however, i can't be certain, even of this. maybe he really did explain, though why he should make her promise not to tell is a puzzle. i'm not going to think about it any more just now. it makes me too furious. march . such a strange, strange thing happened to-day. dave went with me to see louis this afternoon, for the imp had to go on an errand to the village, and carol was in the house with another severe cold. dave went up first, stayed quite a while, and then went on home. miss yvonne took me up and told me that the nurse was out for the afternoon, and that monsieur was lying down in louis's room. so, for the first time since his accident, i actually saw louis without a lot of other people in the room. we chatted for a while about school matters and what we had all been doing while he was laid up. and louis told me how much better he was, how he was soon going to be allowed to get up, and that the nurse was going in a few days. after that we were both quiet for a few moments. it was one of those pauses that sometimes come in conversation, which get so prolonged that you hardly know how to break them. then, just to end the silence, i asked louis why monsieur had insisted on his being in this room, and how inconvenient it must have been for monsieur. to my surprise, louis became much excited and said: "i can't think whatever made him do it that day! _i_ didn't want to be here. i'm horribly uncomfortable about it all the time. i _hate_ it! it would have been so much more sensible to have put me in my own room on the ground floor. and, sue, what do you think?" here louis sank his voice to a whisper. "i came to myself one day, out of a sort of stupor that i'd been in, and found him kneeling by the side of the bed and actually _kissing my hand_! i was so astonished and disgusted that i snatched it away, weak as i was. he never said a word, but rose and walked out of the room. what does it all mean?" "i'm sure i don't know, louis," i replied; "but tell me, do you know anything about those portraits that hang on the wall opposite your bed? why are two covered up, and who is that boy in the middle?" to my astonishment, louis seized hold of my arm and whispered: "sue, sue, i hate those pictures. i hate that one in the middle. i'm _afraid_ of it! i--" before he could say any more we heard miss yvonne coming up the stairs to tell me that my time was up and that louis must rest. and so he couldn't go on. but why, _why_ does louis hate the picture of that boy, and why, above all things, is he afraid of it? was there ever so curious a mystery? chapter vii the imp makes a discovery despite the fact that sue and carol boiled with impatience for over a week, conjecturing what it could possibly be that made louis afraid of the picture in monsieur's room, they found out nothing new on the subject, for the simple reason that there was never a moment when they again saw him alone. to ask him about it when others were in the room was impossible. two days after sue's last visit he was allowed to sit up, and a day or two after that he was permitted to walk about for a few steps. then the nurse took her leave, and louis insisted on returning to his own room on the ground floor. "and only to think," sighed sue, when she heard of it, "now we'll probably never see those strange pictures on monsieur's wall again. i could cry with vexation when i think of it. carol, do you feel as if there were something terribly mysterious about them,--not only the two covered ones, but the boy's, also? i wonder if it haunts you the same as it does me?" "it certainly does," admitted carol, "and yesterday i wrote a little poem about it. here it is. what do you think of it?" she handed sue a scrap of paper on which the verses were written. the two girls had dropped off the trolley on their way home from high school, and were bound for the library. sue took the paper and studied it carefully as she walked. "i like it a lot," she acknowledged, as she handed it back. "especially those last two lines: 'o boy of nut-brown hair and smiling eyes, speak out and tell the secret that you know.' really, it's awfully pretty and the best thing you've done yet. why don't you show it to miss cullingford. it hasn't any direct reference to louis's affairs in it, and i'll warrant she'd recommend it to be published in our high school paper, _the argus_." "well, perhaps i will," agreed carol, visibly pleased with sue's unstinted praise. she folded the paper back into a book as they went up the steps of the library. it was while the two were wandering round the big, sunny room, scanning the shelves for an interesting book, that they made a startling discovery. "will you look at that!" whispered carol, suddenly pinching sue as they were passing the door of the smaller reference room, a spot they themselves seldom entered. there, near a shelf of immense volumes, stood--who but the imp! she was deeply engrossed in the pages of a tome nearly as large as herself. the sight was the more amazing because the imp was neither a member of the library, so far as they knew, nor did she ever enter it, if she could help it, except rarely to get a book for the girls. the two stood rooted to the spot with astonishment. suddenly the imp caught sight of them. she promptly closed the book and slipped it back on the shelf. all she would admit in reply to what she felt to be their intrusive inquiries was the statement: "i'm looking up something on the advice of miss hastings. i guess i don't have to explain everything to you." after which remark she marched majestically out of the room. the girls tried to guess from the shelf where she had stood what book she had been consulting, but as it was a long row of encyclopedias, all exactly alike, they could not glean the least inkling. giving up that course, they questioned the librarian on the way out, and found that the imp had joined the library several days before. "did you ever know anything to beat it?" demanded sue, as they passed down the steps. "what can she be up to? i know she's awfully bright and reads lots of books that interest grown-folks, but she's so lazy about things and so crazy just to be outdoors that she never thought it worth while to join the library before." "she said," carol reminded her, "that her teacher, miss hastings, advised her to look up something. you know she always tells the truth, at least." "that's true," admitted sue, "but it must be something out of the ordinary, or she would simply have come to us and bribed us to go and do it for her. and besides, in her class they don't have to look up things in encyclopedias; they haven't got to that yet. no, i'm certain it's something else." wondering about the imp's strange behavior, they harked back, as they walked homeward, to that other subject that was constantly puzzling them. "do you know," said carol, "i believe that i've come to agree with you in your theory about louis and monsieur. you know i didn't when you first told me, because i was awfully disappointed about his not being a count or a duke. but now i think that you're right. monsieur is probably the family lawyer, and louis is going to inherit a big french fortune. but if that is the case, why is it that monsieur seems to be trying so hard to make louis like him? you remember, louis said the other day that he constantly feels as if monsieur were doing everything in his power to win his affection, for some reason or other. if he were only a family lawyer, he wouldn't care a penny whether louis liked him or not. and why was he kissing his hand the other day? i'm half-inclined to believe that he's some relative--a grandfather or an uncle or something. yet he could scarcely be that, and the lawyer, too. isn't it a puzzle?" "but don't you remember that miss yvonne told louis he wasn't any relative?" sue reminded her; "only an old friend of the family." "susette," remarked carol solemnly, stopping stock still in the middle of the road, "you may call me all kinds of an idiot if you like, but i want to tell you one thing. i've been feeling lately that there's some mystery here, bigger than anything you or i imagine. it's just a feeling i have, but it haunts me continually. i'm _certain_ something is going to happen that will make us gasp with astonishment. and when that does happen, i want you to remind me of what i've said to-day. i'm sure i'm right. i feel it in my very bones, as aunt agatha often says." and sue, much impressed, as solemnly promised to remind her. march . there's something that the imp is up to,--something that she has discovered. i'm as certain of it as i am that my name is susette birdsey. the reason i know this is because of what happened to-day. carol and i had gone down this afternoon to anita brown's to go over some english history with her for an exam we're going to have in a day or two. anita is great on history, and somehow can make it seem so simple and sensible and easy to remember. i don't know how she does it, but we always like to study that subject with her and get her to explain all about the succession of kings and what relation they were to each other. she has the knack of making them seem like real people. well, we had stopped at her house on the way from high school, so we hadn't been home this afternoon. about half-past four we left, and happened to come out of her gate just a little behind two people who were walking up the road. (anita lives about half-way between our house and the village.) it didn't take us an instant to recognize those two people as monsieur and the imp. carol was all for hurrying along to join them, but i said no, we might just as well keep to ourselves, for they probably didn't care for our company, anyway. so we kept on behind them, and they were talking so fast and hard that they didn't even notice us. presently the imp did a queer thing. she opened her school-bag, took out a book--it wasn't a school-book, either!--opened it at a certain page, and showed something to monsieur. whatever it was, it had the strangest effect on him. he gave one look at the page, then stopped stock still in the road and stared at the imp, making a queer sound in his throat, as if he were trying to clear it and didn't succeed very well. then he said something in french that we caught the sound of but couldn't understand. but the imp was evidently so excited that she forgot to speak french, for we heard her say in english: "then i'm right, monsieur? it's the same? i was sure it was." and he answered: "_oui, oui, petite mademoiselle!_" (i know enough french to translate this as "yes, yes.") after that the imp went right on to chatter in french. but by this time we'd made up our minds that it was high time _we_ were let in to that little secret, so we hurried to catch up with them. but the imp saw us too quickly. she shut the book, slipped it back in her school-bag, and by the time we had joined them they were conversing sedately in english about the weather. when we reached our own gate the imp went off about her own devices, with never a word about the queer performance on the street. but carol and i made up our mind that we'd take a peep at that book in her school-bag when she wasn't around. so when she had gone upstairs for a while, we opened the school-bag that she had flung down on the couch in the living-room. but when did we ever manage to get ahead of the imp? she had carefully removed that book, and it was nowhere to be found. i remember noticing that it was a thick book with a light green cover, and there was nothing even faintly resembling it anywhere about, so far as we could discover. what she could have done with it, or when she could have taken it out without our notice, beats me. leave it to the imp, however, to accomplish that sort of trick. of course we plainly saw that there was nothing we could do, except to question her, and we debated the longest time about whether to do so or not. it's such a hopeless performance, if the imp has made up her mind beforehand that you're not going to find out anything from her. carol suggested that we ask her right out what she had discovered that monsieur was so interested in. i told her there was only one kind of answer to expect to _that_, so what on earth was the use? i thought i had a better scheme. the imp has been wild for a long time to have a fountain-pen like the one i bought in bridgeton two months ago for a dollar. i was going to save up and give her one for her birthday. but that's a long way off yet. so i suggested to carol that i offer to let the imp have mine, and then buy a new one with the dollar uncle ben gave me at christmas. she said it was an awful waste of a good pen, and might not accomplish what we wanted, anyway, but that i could try it if i liked. so a little later, when the imp came in where we were studying, i began on the subject, but very carefully, so that she wouldn't suspect something right at the start and spoil everything. after she had settled herself to read--it was _my_ book, by the way!--i began thus: "you and monsieur seemed to be having a nice time while you were coming up the road this afternoon. does he think you talk good french?" the imp glanced at me warily, but replied in an amiable manner: "oh, yes. he says i'm the only person he's met in america, except louis and his folks, who speaks it with a decent accent." then she went on reading. it was plain that _she_ wasn't going to give us any opening, if she could help it. "do you always talk to him in french?" i went on cautiously. "yes, always. he likes it best," she answered, without looking up again. "but we heard you say something to him in english this afternoon," i ventured, for i had a scheme as to just how i was going to trap her. for a wonder, she fell into it. "i didn't! i don't remember saying a word in english." this was just what i had thought. she was so excited at the time that she _hadn't_ remembered. "oh, but you _did_!" broke in carol. "we heard you say: 'then i'm right? it is the same? i was sure it was.'" "you horrid things!" burst out the imp. "always tracking me around and eavesdropping! you once accused _me_ of that, but i think the tables are turned now." "look here," i said, and i felt downright mad, "you know perfectly well we weren't doing anything of the kind. we happened to come out of anita's house right behind you, and we refrained from joining you at first because we knew you didn't want us. we couldn't help it if you talked so loud that we could hear what you said." she calmed down at that, and i seized the advantage and determined on a bold stroke. "bobs dear," i said, in as friendly a way as i could, "we know you've discovered something about monsieur or louis or some one from what you said and did this afternoon. won't you tell us about it, too? you know we're awfully interested. and just to show you that we only mean to be friendly, i'll give you that new fountain-pen of mine, if you care to have it. i don't mean it as a bribe, but only to make you feel that we aren't really hateful." at this her eyes fairly sparkled for a moment. then she shook her head. "i can't do it, girls, much as i'm crazy to have that pen. honest, i can't. i'm not teasing you about it this time, either. i really _have_ discovered something quite important, and it just happened by accident, too. but monsieur was so upset about it, and asked me so politely not to say anything to any one, that i just feel it wouldn't be right. i think i took him terribly by surprise. i don't know what it all means yet myself. there's something awfully mysterious about things over at louis's. and really, you've been so decent to me lately that i'd tell you if i could, even without the pen." well, that was too much for me. i knew she meant every word she said, and i could understand, too, why she felt she couldn't tell us. so i just gave her the pen, anyway, and she was so happy and grateful. she said: "it's all right, girls. you're trumps! and i'll do something for you yet, never you fear." but only to think that it was the imp who made the first real, important discovery about this mystery! well, things do happen queerly. i wonder what in the world she can have discovered? chapter viii the portrait of mystery it was well into april before louis came back to school, looking a trifle thin and pale, but otherwise not impaired by his serious accident. carol and sue traveled back and forth with him on the trolley several times, but never once picked up courage to ask him the question, the answer to which they were burning to know,--why had he been afraid of the strange portrait in monsieur's room? it was not till one evening when he had come over to see dave that the subject was broached. dave was detained out in the barn, helping his father with a sick farm-horse, and while they were waiting for him in the living-room the talk drifted to monsieur and his devoted kindness during louis's illness. "he simply couldn't do enough for me," the boy asserted. "beginning with his insisting on my having his room, he loaded me with delicacies and attentions of every sort the whole time. i began by quite despising him, but he's been so jolly good to me that i've just _got_ to like him, whether or no! honestly, it's almost pathetic sometimes, he tries so hard. i feel like a brute if i don't respond in just the way he wants me to. he's stopped talking about all the things he knows i don't care for, and even stands for my talking about mechanical engineering and that sort of thing. and that's going some for _him_!" "louis," ventured sue, a little timidly, "do you mind telling us now why you hated and were afraid of that portrait? you were going to tell me that day, if you remember, when we were interrupted." the boy looked hesitant for a moment. then he replied: "i believe i might as well. it can't hurt any one that i can see. i've had the most peculiar feeling about that picture ever since my accident. before that i'd seen it, of course, but had never thought much about it, and those two others that are covered i only thought were just another eccentricity of monsieur's. he's awfully eccentric, anyway, about a number of things. but after i landed in that room with my chopped foot, and had to stay there when i didn't want to and lie staring day and night at that picture at the foot of my bed, first i began to hate it and then i actually became afraid of it. you'll hardly believe me, girls, when i tell you that i covered up my head with the bedclothes at times, when i was alone in the room, so that i wouldn't have to look at it." "but _why_?" interrupted carol. "what was strange about it?" "well," louis answered, "it's not so much that there's anything strange about the picture _itself_; it's more the way it made me feel and the way monsieur acted about it and--well, a dream i had about it one night." "a _dream_?" the girls exclaimed. "what was it?" "i'll get to that presently," he said. "but first i want to tell you what monsieur said about it. a day or two after i was taken to that room i asked him whose portrait it was. he said he would tell me all about it some time, but that all he could say at present was that the child had been one of the world's heroic martyrs. that, of course, didn't give _me_ much information, but it made me a little more interested, and i used to lie and stare at it by the hour, wondering how in the world a youngster of six or seven could have been what he said. "then came the time when i took that turn for the worse, and they thought it was all up with me. i had a terrible fever and was delirious, too, i guess. and that wretched picture haunted me the whole time. sometimes it seemed to be coming toward me rapidly, growing larger and larger, and the eyes would glow like balls of fire. i used to scream out loud, because it somehow seemed as if it would wrap itself round me and crush me. then it would seem to retreat way off where i could hardly see it, and almost disappear through the wall. at other times it would turn over, hang upside down, and cut up all sorts of antics. and all the time i couldn't seem to take my eyes from it. "the last night that i was so very ill i had an awful dream about it. i thought that suddenly i looked at it, and a queer change had happened to the whole thing. instead of the youngster being dressed up in that natty little silk coat with lace frills at his neck and wrists and the jewelled star on his chest and the little riding-whip, his clothes were all queer and ragged. he had a bright red cap of some kind on his head, and his hair was matted and tangled. instead of being plump and smiling, he was thin and half-starved looking, and the tears were running down his cheeks. and while i looked, he suddenly held out his arms to me, as if for help. i felt as if i must get right out of bed and give him some assistance,--i simply _must_. and i guess i tried, too, for i remember the nurses held me down. even after i was much better, i couldn't seem to get over the horror of that dream. i hated to look at the picture after that, for fear i'd see it again the same way." "but you also said," sue reminded him, "that monsieur acted queerly about the picture, too. what did he do?" "oh, yes, that's another thing," added louis. "he used to stand in front of it the longest time, gazing at it as steadily as if it were the most wonderful thing on earth. next he would turn and stare at me, and then look back again at the picture, till i could have yelled, it made me so nervous. it was mostly when he thought i was asleep or in a stupor, but i wasn't either one of those things half as much as they thought i was. once he came and stood over me, after i had had my eyes shut for a long time, and i heard him muttering something about 'the temple look,' whatever he could have meant by that. it all seemed horribly uncanny. i didn't like it at all. i never was so glad of anything in my life as to get out of that place and back to my own room at last." "but, louis," began carol, in an awed tone, "whatever do you suppose caused you to have that queer dream? it's one of the queerest things i ever heard. did monsieur ever say anything to you about the picture that would make you think of a thing like that?" "not a single thing," declared the boy stoutly, "except what he said about the 'heroic martyr' business, and i can't believe i would have made up the rest out of my head. it's singular--" at this moment, however, dave came in, and the conversation shifted to other topics. april . carol and i debated a long while as to whether it would be a good idea to tell the imp what louis had told us last night. at first carol was shocked at the idea of such a thing, and she looked at me as though i'd proposed to dynamite her house. but i reminded her that the imp had been awfully amiable to us of late, and really it mightn't be such a bad scheme to let her into this, especially as she had some inside information of her own that some time she might be able to give us the benefit of. this settled carol's doubts, so to-day we told the imp. when we came to the part about louis's dream, she grabbed my arm and said: "are you making this up, or is it really true?" i never saw her so excited before. "of course it's true!" i said. "it's just exactly what louis told us." "then it's the queerest thing i ever heard of," she exclaimed. "o girls, i wish i could tell you what i know! you'd be so startled that you'd jump out of your boots. if only monsieur hadn't asked me not to mention it to any one!" "haven't you even told louis?" i asked. "no. monsieur particularly asked me not to speak of it to louis. he asked me to promise him that i would not, and he seemed _so_ upset about it. but i think i know why now. i've tracked down a whole heap of things lately. some time i'll let you two in on it, if i can do so without breaking any promises." the imp can be a trump when she wants to be. i wonder if we have _permanently_ got on the right side of her at last? to-day i persuaded carol to show her poem, "the mysterious portrait," to miss cullingford. she only agreed to do so for this reason. our paper, _the argus_, is offering a prize of five dollars for the best poem handed in by any member of the freshman class. i don't believe there's another one who can write as well as carol, and this is her best piece of work. so at last she consented to let miss cullingford criticize it for her, before she submits it to the contest committee. i'm just crazy to have carol get the prize. she says miss cullingford took it and read it over,--it's not very long,--and then began to ask her some questions about it. they were principally about where she'd seen this portrait. carol told her it was in the house of a friend, but didn't say anything that would give miss cullingford any clue as to where it really was. miss cullingford told her that the poem was very good, and asked her to describe the portrait to her a little more in detail. carol did this as well as she could from memory. at last miss cullingford told carol to leave the verses with her for a day or two, as she would like to consider them at her leisure. it looks rather promising for carol, i think. april . another awfully strange thing happened to-day. our last hour for the day was english literature, and when it was over miss cullingford asked carol to come to her after dismissal, as she wanted to talk to her a while about her poem. so carol went to her room, but i didn't wait, because i was anxious to get home and help mother with a new dress she's been making for me. i told carol that i'd watch out for her when she came home, and run out to the gate to hear what miss cullingford had said about the poem. carol said she wouldn't have but a minute to spare, because her mother and her aunt agatha were going to take her to dinner with some friends at bridgeton, and so would be anxious for her to hurry and dress so they could catch the four o'clock trolley. i went home by myself and sewed hard for an hour or so. about five minutes of four carol came rushing up the road and dashed in at her gate, late as usual. i grabbed up my coat, and hurried out to catch her before she went into the house. she was breathless with running, and her eyes had the wildest look. i thought it was because she was so late, but she panted out: "o susette! i'd give _anything_ if i only had the time to talk, but mother and aunt agatha will be wild at me, as it is. i'm _so_ late! but what do you think? you'll never guess. i've found out _whose portrait that is in monsieur's room_!" i was simply stunned. "i don't believe you!" i cried. "this is just a trick. you can't catch me that way." "no, no! it isn't a trick. it's _true_!" she panted. "you'll have to wait till to-morrow. i'll tell you all about it then." and she was gone into the house without another word. this is simply _horrible_. can i _ever_ wait till to-morrow? chapter ix carol makes a discovery of her own to sue, the night that followed seemed endless. the mere idea that carol had actually discovered something, and then hadn't even had a chance to give her the faintest inkling about it, was enough to keep her from a wink of sleep. but dawn came at last, and with the first light she was up and dressing frantically. if she had thought of it, she might have known that her chum would not be about for the next three hours. breakfast on that day was only an empty form, and no sooner was it over than sue snatched up her books and rushed madly from the house, much to the amazement of the rest of her family. never doubting that she would hear the whole story from carol as they walked to the village, she was filled with despair when she found that carol's aunt agatha proposed to walk down with them, in order that they might assist her to carry a heavy basket of things she was taking to some sick woman in the village. aunt agatha's progress was slow, and to sue's agonized signals carol could only shake her head and dumbly signify that her friend must wait till later for revelations. but even this was not the end. also waiting for the trolley was louis. "do you mind telling him, too?" whispered sue. "i'd rather not," returned carol. "i really don't think i ought to yet!" this only added to the mystery. louis wondered much at their unresponsiveness that morning, and, in fact, during all the school day and the returning trip that afternoon. for not another moment offered itself as entirely suitable to the tale that carol was to unfold. once they had reached the green, however, louis betook himself about his own affairs, and the two girls were left alone with their secret. "come up to the den in our barn," said carol. "that's where i want to tell you." "but it'll be cold," objected sue. "can't you come into the house?" "no. i don't want to be interrupted, and i've something to show you," insisted carol darkly. consumed with wonder, sue obediently followed her up the hay-loft ladder, and they locked themselves into the chilly, hay-scented den. "now do begin at once!" exclaimed sue. "i never spent such an awful, maddening day of suspense in my life. don't wait a minute!" "i'm just as crazy to tell you as you are to hear it," responded carol. "do you think _i_ haven't been boiling with impatience all day? well, here goes! susette, it's the queerest thing in the world, the way i happened across this. it's all through miss cullingford. that day, after i'd described the picture to her as well as i could, i remember that she looked puzzled and said, 'that somehow sounds familiar to me.' but i didn't think anything of the remark at the time, because i was too interested in what she was going to say about my poem, and i soon forgot it. but yesterday, when i went to her after school, she asked me if i'd recognize the picture if i saw it again, and i said that of course i would. then she suddenly drew a book out of her desk and opened it at a certain page. and, sue, will you believe me when i tell you? there was a copy of that _very same picture_, right before my eyes!" "well, for goodness sake, tell me who it was, or i'll die of curiosity!" cried sue impatiently. "that's just what i don't know," carol answered. "but i have the book here. it belongs to miss cullingford, and she offered to lend it to me. of course, when i saw it, i acted surprised, but not half as much so as i felt, because i didn't want to have to tell her anything about louis. i only said that it seemed to be the same picture, and she said it must have been some copy that i'd seen, for the portrait was a famous one, painted by a famous artist. then she went on to criticize my poem, and made one or two suggestions about some little changes in it. she said that if i made them, she thought the poem stood a fair chance of winning the prize. then she offered to lend me the book to take home and read, because she thought i might be interested in it. she little knew how _desperately_ interested i was! but come! let's look at it for ourselves, and see if we can find out anything we'd like to know." carol took the book out of a desk where she had locked it, and opened it at a certain page. and there, staring right up at them, was the selfsame picture that hung in monsieur's room,--the "boy of nut-brown hair and smiling eyes." only of course the picture was in black and white, not colored as in the oil-painting. but it was the _same_; you couldn't mistake it. and underneath the portrait it said, "the dauphin of france." "carol," said sue, after she'd read it, "will you tell me what on earth a 'dauphin' is?" "i haven't the faintest idea," answered the other. "i never heard the word before, and i haven't had a chance to look it up anywhere. it looks something like the word 'dolphin.' perhaps it's the french for it. and yet i don't think that is likely. a dolphin is some kind of a sea-creature, like a porpoise, isn't it? so it _couldn't_ have any such meaning here." "but what is this book?" asked sue. they looked at the title, and it was, "memoirs of madame lebrun." carol said that miss cullingford had told her that it was an account of the life of a famous french artist and of the pictures she had painted. as that didn't give them any special help, they turned the pages eagerly, but couldn't seem to find out a thing about this particular picture that interested them. "wait a minute," said carol. "i'll run into the house and look up the word in our big dictionary. maybe i can find it there." she came flying back after a few moments, all excitement, panting: "it _was_ there! i didn't dare hope it would be. it gave a whole lot about how the word originated. we weren't so far off the track when we thought of 'dolphin.' it _did_ come from that! but anyhow, the principal meaning was, 'the eldest son of the king of france. the heir to the throne.' it also says that there isn't any such title in france now." after that they just sat and stared at the picture in silent amazement. what in the world could it all mean? if they'd been confused before, they were now more muddled than ever. suddenly an idea occurred to sue. "which dauphin do you suppose it was?" she questioned. "there must have been a lot of them." "maybe we could find out if we read the book through," suggested carol helplessly. the task, indeed, appeared herculean. neither of the girls were in the least interested in memoirs, or in any other literature of that "dull" class. both had frequently acknowledged that only stories of adventure and mystery and excitement contained the least interest for them. there seemed, however, no other way out of this tangle. "well, all right! if we must, we must, i suppose," said sue. "i'd attempt 'most anything for the sake of solving this mystery. suppose we read it aloud, turn and turn about. but for goodness sake, don't let's try to do it up here. we'll freeze. what if people _do_ see us with it? they'll probably only think we're reading it for study. the imp might suspect something, but she--" suddenly carol interrupted with: "see here! why not _tell the imp_? she's evidently found out a lot of things on her own hook, and she even said she might tell us about them some time, if she could. perhaps we've got ahead of her on this. i'd just enjoy getting ahead of her for once! let's tell her and see what happens." it was now sue's turn to demur. carol was so insistent, however, that she finally gave a reluctant consent, and they went out to hunt up the imp. a little triumphantly sue led her younger sister up to the loft, and with just a touch of patronage she promised her the surprise of her life when she got there. but to their intense chagrin, the two girls found, as they had discovered many times before, that they had, so to speak, to get up very early in the morning to get ahead of the imp. "look!" cried carol, exhibiting the picture. "what do you think of that?" the imp gave it only one disdainful glance. "huh!" she sniffed. "aren't you a little late in the day? i discovered the same thing about a month ago in the same book, or in one just like it!" the two sat staring at her in stunned silence. then carol glanced at the book. "it's so, sue," she murmured. "it's the very same kind of a book that we saw her showing to monsieur that day. look at the light green cover." it was indeed the same! but the imp had had her triumph and now could afford to be magnanimous. "since you've discovered the same thing," she said, "i'll tell you how _i_ happened to come across it. our teacher, miss hastings, recently brought and hung up in the schoolroom some pretty new pictures. one that i liked very much was called 'the girl with the muff.' one day i asked miss hastings something about it, and she told me who the artist was and said there was a book in the library about her, with pictures of her other paintings in it. next day she brought the book to school and let me look at it. and, girls, it was this book, or one like it, and while i was looking it over i almost jumped out of my shoes to come across this very picture. i didn't say a word about it, though, but just went and joined the library and got the book out and read it all." "and did you find out who this dauphin was?" sue asked breathlessly. "i certainly did," answered the imp, "and a whole lot more besides." "well, who _was_ he, then?" "i wonder if i ought to tell you?" said the imp reflectively. "you see i promised monsieur i wouldn't say anything about what i had discovered. as you can guess now, i showed it to him, and it quite took him off his feet with surprise. he begged me to say nothing about it to any one." "look here!" exclaimed sue suddenly. "you told us once, quite a long while ago, that you asked monsieur one day who the picture of the 'nice little boy' in his room was, and that he told you then. so how could he be surprised when you found it out later?" sue thought she'd surely caught the imp _that_ time. but the other only laughed. "he only told me just what you said he told louis--that it was one of the world's 'heroic martyrs.' i was teasing you girls into thinking i knew it all. you'd been pretty hateful to me just around that time." "i thought as much!" said sue. "but we'll forgive you now, if you'll tell us what you know. there can't be any harm in it, since we've discovered just what you have." but the imp wouldn't have been herself, if she had acted in a way like ordinary folks. she stood and thought it over for a moment, keeping them on tenter-hooks all the time. then she remarked: "no, i don't honestly think it would be keeping my promise, if i said a word to you about it. i'm going to keep _that_, whatever else i do. but i'll open the book at one picture before i go, and that's all the hint i'm going to give you." she took the book and laid it open at a certain place, and then dashed down the stairs before they had time to say another word. the two girls almost fell over each other in their hurry to see what the picture was. it was a beautiful woman, and underneath it were the words, "marie antoinette." "what in the world has _she_ got to do with it?" demanded sue. "of course we all know who _she_ was. didn't she get killed, or something, in the french revolution? but what has that to do with this dauphin?" "perhaps she was some relation," suggested carol. "if she was the queen, maybe he was her son?" "tell you what!" sue interrupted. "let's go to the library to-morrow and hunt up some book on the french revolution, or some other french history, and see if we can clear this thing up. i'm not going to wade through _this_ book. it doesn't seem to say a thing about what we want to know." carol agreed that this seemed the best course to pursue. plainly, it would be useless to consult "madame lebrun" any further. they took the green book that had given them its startling revelation and hid it safely in the desk. then they turned to go. suddenly carol faced her friend. "susette birdsey, what do you make of all this, anyway? what has it to do with monsieur and--with louis?" "i'm as much at sea as ever," admitted sue. "well, you remember what i told you the other day," remarked carol impressively. "there's more here than we have ever dreamed. i'm more firmly convinced of _that_ than ever!" chapter x jottings from the journal april , . well, we've found out all about that dauphin, and an exhausting piece of work it was. i never waded through so much history before in all my life. if the imp hadn't given us that hint, though, it would have been far worse, for we wouldn't have had the least idea where to begin. we went to the library this morning and spent till lunch-time there, and then went back again this afternoon. as it was the easter holidays, we fortunately had all the time to spend on it that we wanted. but i must tell all about what we've discovered. some of it is very, very confusing. we can't understand what it can possibly have to do with louis, and yet there are things about it that make us sure that it somehow has _something_ to do with him. to begin with, there isn't a shadow of doubt that this portrait is of the dauphin who was the son of louis xvi and marie antoinette, king and queen of france around the time of the french revolution. they seemed to be having a pretty mixed up and bloody time in france just about that period, and everybody had it in for the royal family and all the nobility. the common people somehow got control of things, and first they put the king and queen and dauphin and his sister in prison, and then they killed the king and queen. the dauphin was a little boy of six or seven at the time, and they didn't kill him, but kept him a prisoner for three years in a place called the temple tower, till finally he died of neglect. i think it said that he died in . it just made us wild to read about how shamefully they treated that poor little fellow. they gave him in charge of a horrible, cruel cobbler, named simon, who beat and ill-used him abominably,--just because he happened to be the child of a king,--and then afterward they shut him up in a room by himself, where he never saw a single soul for six months, and handed him his food as they would to a dog in a kennel. at the end of that time they appeared to be a bit sorry for the way they'd acted, and let him come out into a decent room and tried to take a little better care of him. but it was too late, for he died soon afterward,--as i should think he would after standing that kind of treatment for three years. carol and i got so worked up over the thing that we almost cried. we felt awfully to think that a poor, innocent, little chap should be treated that way by people who were fighting for liberty and justice, as the french were. it didn't make any difference if he _was_ a king's son. he had just as much right to be fairly treated as any one, and _more_, because he was so little and helpless. i don't wonder that monsieur said he was one of the world's heroic martyrs. one book said that he was always so sweet and gentle and winning. his pretty manner at times even softened the hearts of some of his cruel jailers. well, that's the history of the dauphin. he would have been louis xvii, if he had lived to become a king. the portrait of him must have been painted before all the trouble broke out. at that time the poor little fellow could not have dreamed what he was going to suffer later. it's well that he didn't know. as there didn't seem to be any more to find out, we decided we'd better go home. i was longing for a chance to tell the imp what we'd discovered, but she had a bad sore-throat from getting her feet wet this afternoon, and mother had put her to bed. so i must wait till to-morrow. but since i've had an opportunity to sit down and think this all over quietly, i've been trying to see what connection all these things can possibly have with affairs across the green. so far, however, nothing but unanswered questions has been the result. for instance, i can _not_ understand why monsieur should consider that portrait as one of his most treasured possessions. of course the story about the boy is terribly sad, but unless he was some relative of monsieur's (which is quite impossible), why should monsieur cherish the picture? he never saw the child, and can't possibly have any affection for him. i don't understand it. and what are those two other pictures, so carefully covered? perhaps they are more portraits of the same child, painted later and too sad to be looked at? i'd love to know. i wonder, too, if louis knew about this dauphin, would he still continue to hate the picture? or would he be afraid of it? i'm just crazy to tell him, yet i suppose it wouldn't be fair,--at present, anyway. good gracious! an idea has just occurred to me. i happened to think of that strange dream louis said he had when he was sick. was there ever anything so curious? i remember that he said the little fellow seemed so changed, with ragged clothes and matted hair and tear-stained cheeks and a red cap on his head! why, that is just the way one of those books described him after he was put in charge of the cobbler. simon took away all his nice clothes and made him wear a red "liberty-cap," and forced him to sing the songs of the revolution and dance for him. and louis dreamed all that change in his appearance, yet he doesn't know who the subject of the portrait is and very little, if anything, about this dauphin, in all probability. this is simply uncanny! i must tell carol in the morning. april . i haven't had a chance to write a thing in this journal for a week. we have been having the dressmaker. she's getting all our spring things in order, and i've had to help her and mother with the sewing every spare minute that i've had. father's been laid up, too, with an acute attack of rheumatism, and was in bed several days. for nearly half the week i didn't even go to school. so, altogether, i've been having a rather strenuous time. but, all the same, i haven't forgotten our mystery for a single minute. carol has kept me posted on anything new that has happened, though nothing special did happen till yesterday. she has been madly reading history ever since. she always did have a taste for it, and this has given her the inspiration to read up french history from the very beginning. she says she's finding it as interesting as a story. well, maybe she is, but i'm sure _i_ wouldn't. one thing she said was that the more she read, the more she felt that the french weren't much to blame for what they did while getting rid of their kings and queens in that revolution. of course they might have used gentler means, but they were probably too exasperated by the way they'd been downtrodden. from almost the beginning the reigning monarchs were a _precious lot_, evidently considering it their chief business in life to squeeze the most they could out of their subjects. each one felt he'd lived in vain, apparently, if he hadn't gone his ancestor one better at that occupation! carol says that louis xvi seems to have been a lot better than most of them, but by that time the french were too furious to consider that, i suppose. anyway, he had to suffer for what his ancestors had done. we haven't seen much of monsieur lately. louis says he hasn't been well. this climate doesn't agree with him, and he has rheumatism and gout, and has caught a dreadful cold. i don't see why he stays here, if it makes him so miserable. anyhow, he was in such bad shape that he decided to go to new york to spend a few days at a sanitarium, and miss yvonne had to take him there, for he was too sick to go alone. he went yesterday, and last night a queer thing happened. carol told me about it this afternoon, giving the account as louis told it to her while coming home from school on the trolley. it seems that he and his uncle were sitting downstairs in the living-room when, about nine o'clock, they heard a dreadful crash upstairs, directly over their heads. they couldn't think what in the world it could be, and were so startled that neither of them moved or spoke for a moment. then louis jumped up, exclaiming: "something's the matter in monsieur's room! that's right overhead. i'll go up and see." at first his uncle didn't seem to want him to go, saying he'd rather go himself. but as he's very feeble and doesn't go upstairs often (his bedroom is on the lower floor), louis wouldn't hear of it and insisted that at least they go together. so up they went. when they reached monsieur's room and struck a light, they saw that the picture of the boy had fallen to the floor and that the glass was broken. evidently, the wire by which it was hung had become rusty and given way, for the picture is very heavy. louis didn't think much of the occurrence. he merely remarked that he'd clean up the broken glass and get a glazier to come in the morning and put in a new one. also, he said he'd get some new wire and rehang it. but for some unknown reason old mr. meadows was nearly wild. he stood and wrung his hands, and walked up and down, as if something perfectly awful had happened. louis couldn't make out what in the world was the matter with him. finally he said: "it's all right, uncle. what are you so excited about? i'm going to have it all fixed up to-morrow. it will be as good as ever. the picture itself isn't damaged a bit." but even then his uncle couldn't seem to calm down, and all louis could get from him was this remark, repeated over and over: "'tis an evil omen! an unfortunate sign! on no account must monsieur know of it!" louis said that was all right; he needn't know of it. the picture would be all fixed up long before monsieur came back. and even miss yvonne needn't hear of it, for he'd see that it was in place before she came home to-day. this seemed to calm mr. meadows somewhat, and he finally consented to have it so. but all the evening he kept muttering, "an evil omen!" to himself, and acted uneasy. louis says he doesn't see any sense in it. i can't say that i do either, even with what i know, and yet it does seem sort of queer. i'm too tired to write much more to-night, and yet i must tell about how the imp acted when we told her of what we'd unearthed in the histories about the dauphin. we were awfully enthusiastic over telling her, for we felt sure she would think we'd done a good piece of work. as a matter of fact, carol and i doubted very much whether the imp could possibly have found out as much as we had, for we'd dug into things so thoroughly. we felt sure we were giving her some points she hadn't discovered, and we were rather proud of ourselves. imagine our disgust when she remarked, after we'd finished: "well, you've done very nicely, children!" she always calls us "children" when she wants to be patronizing and unpleasant. i thought it strange that she should suddenly turn horrid, when she's acted so friendly of late. "don't be hateful," i said, "but admit that we have given you some good points." "i don't mean to be hateful," she retorted, "but it makes me mad to see how little you girls use your brains." "i don't think that's a nice remark," i said, "but i'll forgive you for it, if you'll be kind enough to explain what you mean." "why, just this," she answered. "there are one, two,--yes, three points in things you know about that you haven't connected with this picture or this history at all, so far as i can see." "what are they?" i demanded. "you know that i can't tell you," she replied. "i can only advise you to use your brains and your memories." "anything else?" i inquired, as mildly as i could, for by that time i was getting furious with her. "yes, one thing more," she said. "you were trying to be patronizing, weren't you, when you asked me if you hadn't given me some good points. as if it wasn't _i_ who put you on the right track in the beginning! i've always said that you two were an ungrateful pair, and now i'm sure of it. i'll give you just one more piece of information, and then i'm through. you thought you had discovered more than i have? why, i've unearthed so much more that you haven't even touched or suspected that you'd be perfectly amazed, if you knew what i do!" with that, she flounced out of the room. i can't help but believe the imp, mad as she has made me. goodness knows when she'll come round to being amiable again, for once she goes off on a tangent like this, she _stays_ off for a good long while. it's too bad! what in the world can those three things be that she was talking about? chapter xi louis springs a surprise--and the consequences thereof may , . nothing special has happened during the last two weeks that is worth writing about. carol and i haven't made the least progress in solving the riddles i last mentioned. the imp fulfilled all my expectations, and has been most objectionable ever since that day. queer how she turns completely around at times, especially when she feels the least bit touchy, and acts as if we were her mortal enemies. she has hardly spoken to us lately. monsieur came home from his sanitarium, and seems a lot improved. the weather is lovely, anyhow, and he stays outdoors a good deal, so i suppose that helps, too. carol and i have had several interesting talks with him. you can't help seeing a good deal of your neighbors in this shut-off spot around the green, when the weather is nice, and even monsieur seems to have become used to strolling over and having little friendly chats with us. he has "thawed out" a lot, and actually seems quite human _now_. the imp is still his favorite, of course, but he has come to realize _our_ existence when she isn't about. what i wanted specially to write about to-night was the delightful time we had to-day. louis gave us all a treat, and besides providing such a good time, he also gave us the surprise of our lives. there was to be a big aviation exhibition over in bridgeton this afternoon, and yesterday louis gave us all invitations to go with him and see it. he said he had unusually good seats on the flying field. it was something we wouldn't have missed for anything, and so we all went,--dave, carol, and myself, and even the imp. louis said he had invited monsieur, too, but monsieur did not care to go, not feeling as well as usual to-day. i've never seen an aëroplane near by before. to tell the truth, the nearest i ever _did_ see one was probably a thousand feet up in the air, sailing over our house one time. we had gorgeous seats right in front, and could see everything plainly. i was so thrilled when the first one rolled out and soared up majestically that i could have risen and shouted myself hoarse. carol had to pull me down once, to keep me from tumbling right over the railing in my excitement. but that was nothing to what was to come. we were so absorbed that we didn't notice that after a while louis slipped away and disappeared. what was our astonishment to see him suddenly strolling down the field in a regular aviator's costume, with a helmet in his hand. he came over to us, laughing, and said: "i know i've given you all a shock, that is, all except dave. he's been in the secret. but i might as well up and confess my crimes now. i've been mad about this aviation business for a year or more, and i have been studying it secretly for some time. a fellow i know here in bridgeton has a machine and is to fly to-day. his name is page calvin. he hasn't gone up yet. i've studied and worked on his machine till i know it by heart, but i've never been up in it yet. to-day he's going to take me up, and if i stand it all right,--some people can't, you know,--why then it's aviation for _me_, in preference to everything else!" well, we were so thunderstruck that we couldn't say a word for a moment, and just gasped. at last i managed to stammer: "and--and is dave going in for this, too?" "not i!" said dave. "i haven't any head for it. i get too dizzy. but i'm going to help louis build a model aëroplane when we've finished that motor-boat. i'm interested in the mechanical part of it." "but what about monsieur?" carol asked louis. "have you told him about this?" "no, i haven't," said louis. "that's why i wanted him to come to-day, so that i could surprise him, too. i'm sorry he couldn't--" just then some one came and told louis that the biplane he was to go up in was ready, so that he said good-bye and walked away. we watched him put on his helmet and climb into the machine, and i confess now that i never expected to see him alive again. it's all right when some one you _don't_ know is going up; you're just excited and thrilled. but when it's some one that you _do_, you're simply frozen stiff with fright, and you're morally certain that he'll come crashing to earth any second! carol and i gripped hands and held our breath, and i believe it was the longest fifteen minutes i ever knew or expect to know. they sailed completely out of sight for a while, and then the suspense was worse. but at last the biplane came back and settled on the field as gracefully as a bird. louis was wild with excitement when he returned to us, and he says it's the most wonderful experience imaginable. the imp was so worked up over it that she wanted louis to persuade his friend to take her up and "loop the loop"! he laughed, and told her it was not allowed, but i believe that for a while she really thought she could tease him into it. there was one other exciting thing that happened. toward the last a machine went up and something went wrong with the engine when it was about two hundred and fifty feet in the air. it began to droop over in a sort of lopsided fashion, and then began to settle, like a bird that has been wounded in the wing. before it reached the ground it was almost upside down, and every one was nearly frantic, thinking the man in it would fall out. but he didn't, and at last it came to earth with quite a crash. a lot of people rushed to help the aviator out, louis among them. he wasn't killed, but they said he had a badly fractured arm, and we saw him being fairly carried off the field. it made me actually sick to think what a horribly dangerous career louis was letting himself in for. but it didn't seem to disturb _him_ a bit. all he would say was that a careful aviator would never let a thing like that happen. it was late when we came home, so we invited louis and carol over to our house to tea, and had a jolly evening afterward. i've had a gorgeous day and, as louis said, "the surprise of my life." but i cannot help wondering how monsieur is going to take this piece of news. it was the day after louis's great surprise, and, since it was saturday, he was out in the barn hard at work putting the finishing touches to the motor-boat that was to be launched on the river during the coming week. carol, sue, and the imp had also drifted over to admire the "toot-and-scramble," as the imp insisted on pronouncing louis's favorite french expression, _tout ensemble_. "won't it be jolly to have our first picnic up the river in her?" remarked the boy, stopping to glance critically at a stroke of varnish he had just administered. "do you know, i really began this boat just to get my hand into that kind of mechanical work, but i believe we're going to have a lot of fun out of her, too. however, just you wait till i begin my biplane--" at that moment a shadow fell across the doorway, and the figure of monsieur entered unexpectedly behind the group. "_bon matin_," he began, as was his custom. then suddenly and sharply he added in english to louis, "what is that you say?" "good-morning," said louis, politely. "i haven't seen you, sir, since our expedition yesterday, or i would have told you what i told the girls at the aviation field. i hope you'll be pleased." with a visible effort, for, in reality, he greatly dreaded this revelation to monsieur, yet simply and directly he told the old gentleman what he had said and done on the previous day. the result was as unexpected as it was distressing. not one of the listeners but was fully prepared to see the excitable french gentleman rage and storm and attempt to forbid louis to engage in so dangerous a pursuit. from all they had heard of him, they could imagine no other course of action. they were entirely unprepared, however, for the strange quiet with which he received the news. it was not till louis began to tell of yesterday's flight that monsieur suddenly raised his hand and cried in a low voice: "stop! a chair, if you please! i--i feel very--ill!" not till then did they notice the strange, gray pallor that had crept into his face. louis hurried into the main part of the barn and came back with a rickety chair. when he had placed it, monsieur sat down heavily and, groaning slightly, pressed his hand to his side. "hurry in--to--mademoiselle yvonne!" he gasped. "tell her--bring my medicine. my heart! it--it has been weak for years!" louis dashed out of the barn to obey his command, and carol dashed after him, glad to get away from the sight of physical suffering. but the imp and sue stayed with the old gentleman, the imp steadying him in his chair with her strong young arm, for he seemed to be slipping down. sue began fanning him frantically with a newspaper. it seemed as if the other two were gone for an age, and, in fact, they were gone longer than might have been expected, for miss yvonne was not about the house and had to be hunted up in the big garden. before they came back, however, monsieur appeared to grow a trifle easier. but the only word he said during the absence of the others was just before they came back with miss yvonne. "it is useless!" they heard him murmur, and the imp, bending over, asked him what he had said and if they could do anything. but he acted hardly aware of her presence, and went on murmuring something in french. then the others returned, bringing miss yvonne, breathless and excited, but carrying a bottle and spoon. a few moments after taking the medicine monsieur seemed easier, and with the help of all he managed to get back to the house. "it's all right now," louis told the girls. "he says he will go to bed and rest, but the worst of the attack is past. don't you worry." the three girls wandered back across the green, subdued and upset by what had happened. even the imp was apparently forgetful of her past grievances toward the others. "i wonder what he was trying to say?" marvelled sue, as the three roamed aimlessly toward carol's barn. "did you catch it, bobs? you were nearest to him, and i think he spoke in french." "yes, i caught it," said the imp, turning to them suddenly. "and look here, girls, i believe i might as well tell you the whole thing now, if you care to hear. i'm getting tired of the worry of carrying this thing around by myself!" if she had exploded a bomb in their midst, she could not have startled them more. "gracious! what has made you change so?" demanded sue, wonderingly. "well, i feel kind of upset by what has happened this morning," admitted the imp, "and so i feel like getting this thing off my mind. do you know what he was muttering in french, as he sat there? it was this: 'it is useless to try any longer to keep the secret. i must tell him at once'!" "so you see, if he tells louis," went on the imp, "there's no reason, so far as i can see, why i shouldn't tell you _now_. come up into your den, and i'll tell you all i know!" she began to climb the ladder to the haymow, and the two followed her, silent with amazement. chapter xii what the imp knew the three filed into the den off the haymow, and carol solemnly padlocked the door on the inside. as there were only two chairs, the imp perched herself on the old desk, curling her feet up under her. the one window was wide open, and through it was wafted the scent of lilacs and the sound of a lawn-mower propelled by dave somewhere across the green. for a moment after they were seated no one spoke. "well?" said carol, impatiently. "go on, imp! begin _some_where." "i was just wondering where to begin," admitted the imp. "i was trying to remember what you actually _do_ know, but i guess, except for the fact as to who that picture is, you don't know a single thing." "you once said," sue reminded her, "that there were three things we actually knew that we hadn't connected with this affair. we've tried and tried to think what they were, but somehow we never could seem to strike them. perhaps you'd better begin with _them_." but the imp ignored this suggestion. "i suppose it _has_ dawned on you that that picture has some connection with louis?" she asked. "we've thought of it, but it seemed so impossible that we finally gave up the idea," replied sue. "what _could_ it possibly have to do with him?" "everything," answered the imp briefly. "go on, then!" commanded sue. "you've kept us on tenter-hooks long enough. if you're going to tell us at all, do please begin at the beginning, and don't stop till you're through." "the trouble is just this," admitted the imp. "i don't actually _know_ anything much at all. it's just guesswork, except for one or two things. you seem to think monsieur has told me the whole business. well, he hasn't,--not a single thing,--except that i was right about knowing who that portrait was, and he asked me not to say anything about it, especially to louis. everything else i've worked out for myself, and it _may_ be all wrong; but somehow i don't think it is." the two listeners looked crestfallen. for some time past they had come to believe that the imp was wholly and entirely in monsieur's confidence. it was a shock to learn the truth. carol immediately intimated as much to the assembled company. "you're a pack of sillies," exclaimed the imp scornfully, "to imagine such a thing, anyway! why, this thing is of--of immense importance to--well, i was almost going to say to the whole world. do you suppose for one moment that a youngster would be let into such an important secret?" "what are you saying? 'to the whole world'?" cried carol. "are you going crazy, or do you think you are taking us in again with some of your nonsense?" "i'm _not_ talking nonsense, and i'll prove it. do you know what i discovered by reading a little more than you did at the library, and also from an old book that miss hastings lent me, because i told her i was interested in the subject? well, i found out that, although most people think it's a settled fact that that poor little dauphin died in prison, still there are a lot of legends that he really escaped, that he was helped to escape by some of the royalists, and that the little boy who died there wasn't the dauphin at all!" the imp stopped to let this startling news sink into the minds of her hearers. "but--but--" stammered sue, "if he escaped, what became of him?" "that's something that never was known," answered the imp. "after the downfall of napoleon and the restoration of the bourbons in france, there were a lot of pretenders who _said_ they were the escaped dauphin and claimed the throne. but they never could prove it, so no one paid much attention to them. only you see there must have been some truth in it,--his escape, i mean,--or no one would have thought of such a thing." "but i don't see, anyway, what all that has to do with this affair," remarked carol. "don't you?" replied the imp coldly. "then you're more stupid than i gave you credit for being." carol quite wilted under this rebuke, but sue, who had been doing some rapid thinking, cried: "mercy! it can't be possible that--" "wait a minute," interrupted the imp. "i'm going to answer your question about those three things, and see what you make of it. do you remember what they used to call louis xvi--the people, i mean? i'm sure you know, because you mentioned it to me that day you were telling me what you'd found out." "'louis the locksmith,'" answered carol promptly. "right," said the imp. "does _that_ make you think of anything?" carol shook her head. "oh, you're hopeless!" groaned the imp. "try the next one. when louis was sick one time monsieur stood over him murmuring something about 'the temple look.' does _that_ convey anything to your mind?" "it does to mine," interrupted sue. "oh, i believe i'm beginning to understand." but carol still looked hopelessly confused. "well, here's the last," went on the imp. "why should monsieur and all the others treat louis in the queer way they do? why should louis have found monsieur kissing his hand that time?" "oh, please explain _clearly_, bobs!" moaned carol. "you mix me up so, firing questions at me, that i can't think at all. just say straight out what it is." "all right, i will. i'll say it in words of one syllable, suitable to your infant mind," laughed the imp. "it may sound like the craziest idea that ever was imagined, but i believe louis to be a descendant of that little dauphin, and i believe monsieur knows it and the meadows people, too." the conjecture was so stupefying in its scope that the three girls sat for a moment in dumb, confused wonder. "i can't believe it," murmured carol, at length. "right here on little paradise green, way out of the world, to have such a thing happen? impossible!" "it's no stranger than lots of other things that have happened in history," asserted the imp, "when you come to think it over. and it's so possible, too." "but here, _here_!" cried sue. "what in the world would louis be doing in america? i could believe it more easily if we lived somewhere in france." "i read in one book," replied the imp to this objection, "that there was a rumor that after the dauphin escaped he was taken to america. there was an american indian, named eleazar williams, or something like that, who claimed to be the dauphin. so you see it's not so impossible, after all." "now i begin to see," remarked carol, after a long pause, "what you meant by some of those three things. if monsieur thinks louis is a descendant of the dauphin, i can understand why they all treat him with such respect. why, girls," she cried enthusiastically, "just think,--louis--_our louis_--may have royal blood in his veins! i simply can't believe it!" "that remark about 'the temple look' meant, i suppose," murmured sue, "that louis looked so awfully when he was sick that it reminded monsieur how the dauphin must have appeared after his bad treatment and illness in the temple tower. that never occurred to me. but i can't yet see any connection with what you said about 'louis the locksmith.'" "that's easy," answered the imp. "it was one of the first things i thought of. don't you remember how louis xvi was always tinkering with things and fixing locks, and how fond he was of mechanical work? the whole court used to resent it. well, the meadows and monsieur evidently think that louis has inherited that trait, and it drives them wild. don't you remember what louis told us miss yvonne once said when she found him fixing the lock on the kitchen-door? 'the ancient blood! it will ruin everything!' doesn't that indicate what they think?" "true enough," sue had to admit. "but what foolishness all this is, girls, when you think of louis's history and the history of his family! i was asking father about louis's folks not long ago, just out of curiosity. he said that the durants had lived in and owned that house across the green for many, many years, even longer than our descendants have lived in our house. it was way back in the eighties when louis's father left here and went out west. he was a young man then, about father's age. in fact, they'd gone to school together. but this charles durant went away out west to better himself, and rented the old house on this green. father says he never saw him again, because charles durant and the wife he'd married out there were suddenly killed in an accident. the first father heard about it was when old mr. meadows and his daughter, whom nobody had ever seen before, came to this place with the tiny baby who was louis, and settled here for good. they never said much about themselves, except that they were old friends of the durant family and that they had always lived in france. they explained that they had come over here to take care of and bring up the last durant baby, since its parents had been killed. now will you tell me how anything about a dauphin could come in there?" "maybe they didn't bring the baby from out west," suggested carol, "but brought him over from france with them. maybe he isn't a durant at all." "that's possible, too," said the imp, "but, after all, it doesn't make any difference where he came from, does it, if louis is what we think he is?" "but who is this 'monsieur,' and what has _he_ to do with the whole thing?" suddenly cried carol. "that," admitted the imp, "is what i can't figure out. i'm sure he must be some relative. they say there are descendants of the bourbons still living. it wouldn't be strange if he wanted to hunt up a long-lost relative, but why he should make such a secret of it is beyond me." "bobs," cried sue, suddenly going off at a tangent, "have you any idea about those two other pictures in monsieur's room,--the ones all covered up? i've stayed awake nights trying to guess who on earth they could be, and why he keeps them covered." "why, of course i don't _know_," laughed the imp, "but i can make a good guess. i believe they're portraits of louis xvi and marie antoinette. i can't imagine why he keeps them covered, unless it's to keep louis or any one else from guessing anything about this affair. of course they're very well-known portraits, and almost any child would know who they were at first sight. but it's different with the dauphin. very few people know that picture by sight. that's the only reason i can think of." it seemed such a simple explanation, after they'd heard it, that both girls felt a little chagrined to think that they'd never had the wit to work out this easy problem. but so humble were they now, after the imp's astounding revelation, that they were willing to admit their inferior wit twenty times over. it was sue who presently voiced the unspoken thought that was in each mind. "i wonder how louis will take all this?" she sighed. this was a matter that went beyond their conjecture. how, indeed, _would_ louis take it? chapter xiii suspicions may , . it may seem a strange thing, but two whole weeks have gone by since the imp told us what she did, and nothing has happened at all. by "nothing" i mean that no astonishing developments of any kind have occurred. we went out from carol's barn that day perfectly certain that everything--about louis, at least--would be changed and strange and upheaved. we lived on a tiptoe of expectation for hours and days, but all has gone on over there just the same as ever. i can't understand it. that morning, about eleven o'clock, louis came over to tell us that monsieur was feeling much better, and that we need no longer worry about him. we all gazed at him curiously,--_so_ curiously, i'm afraid, that he noticed it. "what's the matter?" he asked. "you all act as if you were seeing a spook. is there anything wrong about me anywhere?" "oh, no!" i hurried to assure him. "we were wondering how monsieur was getting on." "well, he's getting on famously," said louis, "but i certainly did manage to upset him. i was afraid he wouldn't take the news well, but i didn't dream it would be as bad as that. i only supposed he would rant and tear his hair. i'm horribly sorry, for i'm actually getting a bit fond of the old gentleman, queer as he is." "did he say anything more to you about it?" asked the imp. i knew she couldn't resist asking that. i was crazy to, myself, but couldn't pluck up the courage. "not another word," louis replied. "i expected he'd say a whole dictionary full. he did start off once with a word or two, but evidently changed his mind. he hasn't even hinted at it since." this seemed a little queer, but we decided (after louis had gone) that monsieur was probably putting off the ordeal till he felt stronger. that would be entirely likely. so we told each other that by the next day louis would probably know the whole strange truth. but the next day came and went, and louis was just the same and nothing was changed, even at the end of a week. he told us that monsieur had never so much as alluded to the subject again, and, for _his_ part, he was mighty glad that the affair had blown over. he said he was sure monsieur would get used to the notion after a while. so time has passed, and things remain just as they were. we cannot imagine what has come over monsieur,--carol, the imp, and myself, i mean. why is he waiting? why doesn't he tell louis, as he said would have to? what does all this delay mean? but if everything remains outwardly the same, it is not so with the way we three _feel_ about things. i don't know if i can explain the strange change that has come over our feelings toward louis and monsieur and all that concerns them,--especially toward louis. all our lives he has been just 'louis durant,' the nice boy who lived across the green, who played with us from the time we were babies and studied with us in the same classes in school, who was just like our brother, except that he didn't live in the same house. we have always thought of him in the same way that we do of dave. now, however, everything is different. he _isn't_ 'louis durant' any more. he's some strange, unknown, long-way-off person, whose ancestors were monarchs of one of the greatest countries on earth, and who might have been a king himself, if things had gone a little differently. i simply _can't_ feel near to, and well-acquainted with, a person like that. carol says she can't, either, and the imp admits that she's felt so a good while longer than we have. it seems as if _our_ louis had been taken away forever and a strange, unapproachable person had been put in his place. not that louis _himself_ acts any differently. he's exactly the same as ever, of course, and he's said a dozen times in the course of the last week: "what's come over you girls, anyway? you're all the time gazing at me with eyes as big as dinner-plates, and you act so queerly and are so absent-minded that i don't know you! has a realization of the fact that i hope some day to be a full-fledged aviator had such a doleful effect on you as all that? you haven't been the same since that day. i wish to goodness that i'd never told you, if you're going to take it in this silly way." of course we try to assure him that nothing at all is the matter, but it doesn't work very well. we three have talked a number of times about whether we ought to breathe a word of what we suspect to louis, but the imp says positively, "no." if he is to know, she says, he must learn it from monsieur and from no other. in fact, by rights she ought not to have let us into the secret, and she wouldn't have done so, except that she thought there would be no reason why she shouldn't after monsieur had told louis. since he apparently hasn't told him anything yet, it is our duty to keep the secret. i guess she must be right. _i_ wouldn't want to be the one to tell louis, anyway. our final exams for this year are coming in a week or so, and we are all "cramming" hard, so i probably won't have a chance to think of much else for some time to come. june , . everything is just about the same as when i last wrote in this journal. nothing is changed, as far as we can see, in affairs across the green. we are all so busy working for and taking our examinations that we haven't had much time to think about it, especially carol, who is weak in mathematics, and i, who always dread latin. only the imp remains unworried by these troubles. her studies never did cause her a moment's uneasiness, as far as i can see, though how she gets through them, when she never makes even a pretense of studying, is beyond me. monsieur is about again in the usual way, and two or three times carol and i have had a few moments' conversation with him, while he was strolling on the green. i simply can't describe the uncanny feeling i have when with him now. if he was a mysterious person before, he's a million times more so now, and every moment that i'm talking to him i find myself in a panic, for fear those eagle eyes of his will bore into my mind and discover the fact that i know his secret. of course i don't suppose he realizes for a moment what he said that day he was taken so ill, and certainly he does not dream that the imp was keen enough to unearth what she did. he is polite and courteous and stilted--and very french--in his manner toward us, and i suppose he no more dreams that we know what we do than he supposes that the sky will fall on him. one thing is beginning to disturb me very much. it's a suspicion that occurred to the imp, and that she confided to us a day or two ago. she rather startled carol and me by suddenly putting this question to us: "what do you figure out that monsieur's plans are?" "how on earth should _we_ know?" said i. "well, you must admit that he probably has some, or he wouldn't be dangling around here so long," replied the imp. "why shouldn't he tell louis what he has to tell, and then go away or take louis away, as the case may be?" "what do _you_ think, bobs?" asked carol. "i'll warrant you have worked it all out." "if i tell you what i think, you'll tell _me_ i'm a lunatic," declared the imp. "it does sound rather crazy, and yet why shouldn't it be so?" "why shouldn't _what_ be so?" i cried. "you haven't even told us yet." "well, here's my notion," she said. "suppose--well, just suppose that somebody wanted to overthrow the present government of france. wouldn't this be a lovely chance?" we were struck dumb with amazement by this astounding proposition. "i guess you _are_ a lunatic!" i said. "but even lunatics ought to have a chance to explain themselves. go on." "oh, i know it sounds foolish," returned the imp, "but, after all, is it any more foolish than the possibility that our louis may be a descendant of a king of france? just think what that means. suppose there are a lot of discontented descendants of royalists in france, who are dissatisfied with the present form of government. and suppose that they hear there _is_ a direct descendant of louis xvi now living. wouldn't it be a lovely chance to get up a secret insurrection in his favor and so restore him to the throne? it wouldn't be the first time that a republic has been overthrown in that country, if you remember. and if this monsieur happens to be a bourbon relation, he'd be all the more interested." just then carol gave a gasp, and cried out: "yes, and do you remember the way that first cablegram commenced? 'time almost ripe'! i always did think that was queer." "exactly what i said," continued the imp. "and what do you suppose monsieur is twiddling his thumbs around paradise green for? just because louis isn't falling in with his plans as nicely as he'd hoped. i'll warrant monsieur has been horribly disappointed from the first, because louis was so thoroughly _american_ and didn't take a scrap of interest in his french affairs. he sees plainly that louis isn't going to be easy to handle. and if _louis_ won't stand for this restoration business, then 'the fat's in the fire.' _that's_ what's bothering monsieur. and he's waiting around to see if he can't win louis over unconsciously somehow. at least, that's how i've figured it out." we couldn't help but agree with her, and wondered that we'd never thought of it by ourselves. besides, the more we thought of it, the more we remembered dozens of little incidents that seem to confirm it. if we all weren't so busy pegging away at our exams, and so had more time to think about this, i feel sure that we could come to some definite conclusion about it, but as matters stand, i, for one, am too bewildered to know what to think. and louis goes about as happy as a lark, unconscious of it all! june , . examinations are over at last, and i'm thankful to say that we all passed, except that carol has a "condition" in mathematics that she'll have to make up during the summer. anyhow, it's over, and we can breathe more freely and look forward to vacation. last evening after tea the imp asked carol and myself to go for a walk with her, as she had something important she wanted to tell us. we suspected that she'd thought out something else about louis, so we went quite willingly. otherwise, i'm bound to confess, we'd have been bored stiff with the prospect of spending our time with her. it was quite true. she _had_ thought of something new. "girls," she began, "has it occurred to you that if what we suspect about monsieur and louis is true, it's a very serious affair?" we said we supposed so, but that we didn't see how we could help it. "that's just it," she answered. "we _ought_ to help it, somehow. i told you once that this was a matter that might affect the world, and you can easily see now that it is. ought we to simply sit down and let it slide gaily along?" "but what on earth can _we_ do about it?" i demanded. "just remember that we're nothing but three young girls, one not even out of public school, and that not a soul on earth would believe us if we were to make such fools of ourselves as to tell what, after all, we only suspect." "history has sometimes been in the hands of as young people as ourselves," she remarked. i'm sure i don't know where the imp gets all her information, and yet somehow i'm bound to believe her. _i_ couldn't think of a single case where history had been in the hands of any one of our age, but i didn't dare say so, because she would probably have promptly pointed out half a dozen cases. so i said nothing. "i haven't made up my mind what we ought to do," she went on, "but i'm sure _something_ must be done, and pretty soon, too!" "suppose we begin by telling father," i suggested. "he has a pretty level head about most things." "pooh!" she scoffed. "he'd just laugh his head off at us, and tell us to run away and play and forget all about it. you know father doesn't take much stock in anything that isn't agriculture." this was quite true, and we saw at once that the imp had the right of it. "no, don't speak to any one yet," she added. "we'll keep the secret a while longer, till i've thought out a better plan." this morning another queer thing happened. as there was no school, we were all sitting on the veranda discussing the startling news in the paper, the assassination of the archduke of austria, which happened yesterday. just then louis came over to ask us to go out in the launch. "what do you think of the news?" he asked. we said it was awful, and that we were wondering what would happen next. "you ought to have seen monsieur when he read it," went on louis, laughing at the recollection. "he got up, crumpled the paper into a ball, and stormed about the place as if he were having a fit. i asked him why he was so excited about it, and he immediately began to reel off a lot about the 'balance of power' in europe,--how it would be upset and what austria would be likely to do, where russia would object and how france might be affected, and a whole lot more that i couldn't begin to understand. he's a great student of international politics, he says, and this news seemed to upset him a lot. i'm sure i can't see why." the imp poked me so hard in the ribs that i almost shrieked aloud, but i saw at once what she must be thinking. _are_ monsieur's plans upset by this, i wonder? or are we just imagining trouble where there is none? i'm sure i don't know. but of one thing i'm certain. i never realized how strange it would feel to go off for a picnic up the river in a launch run by a boy in a pair of paint bespattered overalls, whose ancestors sat on the throne of france and who might, in his turn, become the future ruler of that country. anyhow, i don't like it. i'm not happy, and i wish things were just as they used to be. so does carol, but i'm afraid the imp enjoys all the excitement. chapter xiv a solemn conclave--and what came of it it was a hot morning toward the middle of july. about nine o'clock three girls might have been seen issuing from the birdseys' gate, two carrying between them a well-filled lunch-basket. the third,--none other than the imp,--bore a couple of shawls and two or three books, also a thermos-bottle of large proportions. "i know you're not awfully keen about this picnic," she was saying to the others, "but it's only because you're a lazy pair and desperately afraid of getting a little overheated. it'll be cool and pleasant down at the old boat-house on the river. we can put on bathing-suits and have a swim first, and then eat our lunch when we feel like it." "but i don't see why you're so anxious for this picnic just to-day," grumbled carol. "it's blazing hot getting there, and we could have a much more comfortable lunch at home and go for our swim this afternoon." "yes, and i was planning to do a lot of work in the house this morning," added sue, discouragingly. "i wanted to rearrange my room and make that new waist for which mother gave me the material. i hate to have things so upset." "look here!" exploded the imp. "didn't i make all the sandwiches and pack the lunch-basket and do every blessed thing for this picnic before you were even out of bed? do be a little grateful, just for once. i had a reason, and a precious good one, for wanting to get off by ourselves to-day. i want to talk over something with you." the other two pricked up their ears. "what is it?" they demanded, with an increase of interest. "oh, yes," scolded the imp, "you're anxious enough, now that you think there's something worth while in it. i've a great mind not to tell you." "oh, go on, imp!" soothed carol. "you can't blame us for being a little grumpy on this hot morning. have you found out something new?" "i'll tell you after we've had our swim," was all the imp would vouchsafe, and with that they were forced to be content. at the end of a hot walk across the meadows in the blinding sun, they emerged on the river bank at the cool little boat-house under the willows. here they donned bathing-suits and splashed about in the river for an hour. when they were dressed again they lounged on the wide platform, amply shaded by one immense willow that overhung the water. they were comfortable and lazy and cool, and even the two reluctant ones acknowledged themselves quite happy. "well, let's have lunch," suggested the imp, "and while we eat i'll tell you what's been in my mind for several days." they spread out the sandwiches and fruit, and during the meal the imp, who had not put on her shoes and stockings, sat on the edge of the platform and dabbled her feet in the water. "i guess i don't need to give you three guesses as to what i'm going to speak of," she remarked, between two mouthfuls of a sandwich. "oh, no; it's monsieur, of course, and louis," replied sue. "has anything new come up? _i_ haven't heard of anything. louis has been away at bridgeton a lot, and i imagine he's been with that page calvin, puttering around the old biplane he's always talking about. i've had a mind to ask dave, who certainly knows, but of course _he_ wouldn't give me any definite information. i think louis is trying to pluck up courage to begin work on that model, but he knows he'll have another awful fuss with monsieur when he does." "that isn't what _i_ was going to talk about, anyway," said the imp. "it may all be true, but something more important has been on my mind for several days. it's this: how much longer are we going to let this affair go on, and do nothing about it?" "you've asked that before," remarked sue, uncomfortably, "and i can't for the life of me see what we _can_ do." "you've made that brilliant remark before," replied the imp, scornfully, "and it doesn't help matters one bit. the point is that things have come to such a state that something _has_ to be done, and done pretty soon. i had a little talk with monsieur yesterday, and i'm going to tell you some of the things he said. he was sitting out on that seat on the green about five o'clock in the afternoon, reading his paper. you and carol were off down at the village getting the mail, and i didn't have a thing to do, so i strolled over to talk to him. "he began by saying the news was bad, very bad. i was sort of surprised, because i'd looked at the paper every morning, and there hasn't been a single exciting thing in it since that archduke what's-his-name was assassinated some time ago. i thought that fuss had all blown over, but monsieur says it hasn't, and that europe is on the verge of some tremendous upheaval. he said that that murder was only the match that would start the conflagration, or something like that. anyhow, he ended up with these words: "'i tell you, petite mademoiselle, i have seen it coming this long, long time. kingdoms will fall; republics will totter; the face of europe will be changed. france, france herself, will experience a mighty upheaval! it is inevitable!'" the imp stopped impressively, and her hearers were evidently thrilled. "what does he mean? what _can_ he mean?" she went on, her voice unconsciously rising higher and higher, "except that he's mixed up in all this. if austria and russia and germany and england and france are all going to be in a big fuss, as he suggested, can't you see what a lovely opportunity it would be for him to put through this scheme about restoring the bourbon monarchy? what else can he mean by saying, 'republics will totter; france herself will experience a mighty upheaval'? i tell you, girls, it's time this thing was reported to the authorities. i'm sure our government could prevent it, if it only knew, and then, too, if we really care anything about louis, we ought to protect him, even if he _is_ a royalty,--i'm sure he doesn't _want_ to be one!--from being caught in all this mix-up." "but how can we report it to the authorities?" asked carol, in a scared voice. "i wouldn't know the first thing about how to go about it." "then i'll tell you," announced the imp, dramatically. "i don't believe that in so important a thing as this we ought to stop short of the very highest authority there is. i propose that we write to the president himself. and i propose that we do it this very afternoon. i've thought it all out. i've even brought along the things to do it with." true enough, she produced a fountain-pen and some notepaper. so impressed were her hearers that sue could only quaver, in a voice that shook with nervousness: "well, you go on and write it, bobs. i'm sure you'll know what to say. and we'll all sign it, if you wish. perhaps that will make it look more important. but somehow i feel as if we ought to tell father first." "then you'll spoil everything," declared the imp. "he wouldn't believe it, to begin with, and by the time he was convinced it would probably be too late. no, this must go off to-night. how ought i to address the president of the united states,--'dear sir' or 'your honor' or what?" "if mademoiselle will delay this proceeding for a moment," said a strange voice with startling unexpectedness, almost at her elbow, "it may not be necessary to write the note." the imp turned about so abruptly that she dropped her fountain-pen into the river. the two others, fairly turned to stone in their astonishment and fright, sat motionless. it was monsieur himself. he had emerged from the bushes close to the water's edge, and now stood beside the platform of the boat-house. as no one of the three sufficiently recovered their wits to address him, he went on: "i owe you a thousand apologies for this intrusion and for being an unwilling eavesdropper. i came to a spot among the trees a short distance away early this morning, before the sun was hot. i have often been there before. the nook is a favorite one of mine. i bring my book and mademoiselle yvonne contrives me a little lunch, so that i do not have to go back in the heat of the day. i must have fallen asleep before you arrived, for i was not aware of your proximity till i awoke. then you were eating your luncheon and conversing. i was about to make my presence known to you, when i caught the drift of your conversation and astonishment forced me to listen. mesdemoiselles, i know not how you have arrived at this conclusion, but i take it that you think me a conspirator, a--a plotter against the government of one of the world's greatest nations. you think it is your duty to report me to the authorities of your country. is it not so?" it seemed as if the three found it impossible to break their abashed silence. at length the imp plucked up sufficient courage. "yes, i guess that's about it," she admitted, nervously. "would you be so good as to inform me on what grounds?" he inquired, with the courtesy that never failed him. the imp glanced at her companions and back again to monsieur. they were plainly caught in a trap. should she tell what she knew, or refuse point blank? for an appreciable moment she hesitated. it was evident that if they put monsieur in possession of the facts, they also would put themselves quite completely in his power. that would, on the face of it, be a foolish proceeding. yet how could they do less? there was something about the old french gentleman's perfect courtesy and frankness that disarmed even the suspicions of the imp. while she hesitated, however, sue, to her own and every one else's astonishment, took up the cudgels in his behalf. "i think it is only fair to tell monsieur what we have been thinking," she said in a trembling voice. "he may be able to show us that we are in the wrong." monsieur turned to her with a grave bow. "i am sure there is some misunderstanding," he declared. "i have heard only enough to cause me to suspect that my actions and motives here may have been misjudged." then he turned once more to the imp. "p'tite mademoiselle hélène, you and i have always, so i thought, been the best of friends. may i not understand from you the cause of this serious suspicion of me?" then and there the imp, her feet still unconsciously dabbling in the river, told monsieur in halting fashion the whole history of their discoveries about the portrait and their consequent conjectures. he listened to it all, an inscrutable expression in his eyes, till she had finished. when the recital was over he stood quite still for several moments, while the others waited breathlessly. "you are marvelous children--you americans," he said at last, "especially petite hélène here! who would have dreamed that you could piece together this story so accurately, with so little ground to work on? yes, so accurately, as far as its foundation goes, for there you are right, astonishingly right. but, my good little friends, your premises may be right, but your conclusions are most deplorably wrong." "do you mean that we guessed right about the portrait and louis, but were wrong about what _you_ intend to do?" demanded the imp, scrambling to her feet and approaching monsieur excitedly. "i will permit you to judge of that after you have heard my story," replied monsieur. "for i will now put you in possession of the whole truth, since you have discovered so much. allow me, if you please, to sit down, while i render this accounting of myself." chapter xv monsieur's story he stepped up to the platform and took a seat on one end of an old bench that flanked one side of it. on the other end sat carol and sue. the imp, unable in her excitement to remain seated anywhere, stood near him, her great, blue eyes wide with wonder. a catbird sang at intervals in the willow above them, and the incessant _lap-lap_ of the river ran like a musical accompaniment in their ears. not one of the three girls was ever to forget this strange moment in their lives, not even its beautiful setting. "it is hard for me to know just where to begin," monsieur at length broke the silence by saying. "but, as i have said, _mes enfants_, you three have worked out for yourselves a difficult problem, so perhaps it is best that i commence by telling you where you were right, and end by pointing out where you erred. i hasten to begin. "it may have been a foolish whim of mine that i bring with me to this country the three portraits that are so dear to me, and especially foolish to leave the one unveiled. i had, however, my reason for that, but i did not contemplate that the public was to be admitted to my room, as it had to be during our--during louis' serious accident. all this, however, is beside the point. i will begin by telling you that i am not, as you have so shrewdly suspected, this 'monsieur de vaubert' that i call myself here. truly, 'de vaubert' is a part of my name, but it is not all. in france i am known as the marquis philippe de vaubert de fenouil. it is a title that is ancient and honorable. it goes back to the time of louis xiii--yes, and even before that. when our louis discovered the 'f' on my handkerchief, he was entirely right in his surmises, and i was not very astute to leave it lying about. _n'est-ce-pas?_" he smiled deprecatingly at his three listeners, with a smile so genuine, so utterly friendly, that they found their dark suspicions melting away, even before his tale was well begun. "to go back to the portrait, however. yes, it is a very beautiful copy of madame lebrun's original. it was executed many years ago by an exceedingly clever copyist, and i doubt if many would know it from the original. it is my dearest possession. i will tell you why. "my little friend, petite hélène here, by her wonderful ingenuity and perception has deduced the conjecture that the ill-used dauphin, who should have been louis xvii, did not die in the temple tower, as history has recorded it. there have, indeed, been many legends to that effect. but the truest one, the truth, was never known to the world. there are remaining to-day but two families who are in possession of the facts,--my own and that of our friends the meadows, whose real name, as you perhaps know, is mettot. all the rest of that wonderful brotherhood which helped to rescue him are dead and gone, and the secret is dead with them. "in order that you may fully understand, i will now give you a short account of the real story of the dauphin's rescue. as you know through your researches, after simon the cobbler was released from the care of the young king, the dauphin was placed in a small room and completely isolated from the world by bolts and bars. not even his jailers saw him, only hearing him speak through an aperture in the door. it was the most inhuman treatment of a child that the world has known, and it is a thousand wonders that the boy survived. but he did. at the end of an awful six months, when robespierre himself was sent to the guillotine and barras came into power, the boy was removed from this horrible incarceration and brought to a large, clean room, where he was taken care of by two or three guardians chosen for their humanity and kindliness. "it was at this period that a plot was formed by a league of warmhearted, loyal men,--not only royalists, but republicans, too,--to rescue the dauphin from his long imprisonment and send him somewhere, possibly out of the country, to live out the rest of his life in peace. this league was known as 'the brotherhood of liberation,' and the world to-day would stand amazed, did it know the members, the many _famous_ members, who composed it. it has even been whispered that barras himself and the great napoleon bonaparte--then young, poor, and comparatively unknown--were concerned in this plot. all that, however, is as it may be. "but the main thing is this. the brotherhood was accustomed to meet secretly at the house of my grandfather, another marquis de fenouil, in paris, for he was one of the chief leaders and originators of the scheme. among them was a young fellow scarcely more than five years older than the dauphin, one jean mettot, who was deeply and devotedly interested in the plan. it seems that he and his little foster-sister, yvonne clouet, had once become acquainted with the dauphin as he played in happier years in his garden of the tuileries. through his intervention, the queen, marie antoinette herself, had given the young fellow's foster-mother quite a large sum to defray the overdue taxes on her home and thus enable her to keep it for her children. so grateful was this poor washerwoman, mère clouet, and her little daughter yvonne and her foster-son, jean mettot, whom she had adopted from the foundling hospital, that they had vowed to help the poor, ill-used dauphin, even to the extent of risking their lives for him. "it was jean mettot who played one of the most important roles in the plan to smuggle the dauphin out of the temple tower. he was employed in that citadel as cook's assistant, and thus was able to give aid right on the spot, as it were. one of the dauphin's three guardians, gomin, had also become a member of the brotherhood, else the plan could never have been carried out. "on a given day a sick child who greatly resembled the dauphin was smuggled into the tower in a basket of clean linen brought by mère clouet, laundress for the temple. this child was so ill that there was no possibility of his recovery. he was speedily substituted for the dauphin, who was carried up to the great unused attic of the temple. there he was kept for several weeks, unknown to the world and tended only by jean mettot. when the sick child at length passed away, the authorities proclaimed that the dauphin was dead and that there was no further need to guard the tower. it was then that the _real_ dauphin was smuggled out of the temple in a basket of soiled linen and taken to the home of the clouets, where he remained for several days. he was finally removed by some of the members of the brotherhood in high authority, and was sent to a distant and obscure corner of france to be cared for and brought up, under an assumed name, by humble people. the brotherhood was then disbanded, being first sworn to secrecy by an inviolable oath never to reveal what had been done. "the boy, jean mettot, later became a soldier in napoleon's army and rose to the rank of officer. he finally married little yvonne clouet, and, as you have doubtless surmised, this john meadows whom you know is his descendant,--his grandson, in short. the original jean mettot, however, and my grandfather, the marquis, kept closely in touch with each other for a time, drawn together by their mutual love and loyalty to the little dauphin. it was jean mettot alone who, several years after the escape of the dauphin, was summoned by that young man to havre, in order that the dauphin might bid farewell to his rescuer. the dauphin was sailing for america, never to return. he intended, he said, to live there incognito, in some obscure capacity, as he had no desire ever to return to france and certainly never wished to rule over that nation. "jean mettot later attempted to communicate the news of the dauphin's departure to my grandfather, but found that he had suddenly passed away and that his son had assumed the title. as mettot was not certain whether the secret had been handed down to the son, he did not reveal his news. many years later, when he was a middle-aged man, the notion took hold of him to go to america and see if he could discover any trace of the dauphin. he had nothing whatever to assist him, except the assumed name of the dauphin, 'louis charles durant,' and the fact that the ship on which he had sailed had been bound for a new england port. i think it was boston. with only these two points to aid him, he sailed for america to engage in his almost hopeless task. "in all the years he had heard not so much as one syllable from the exile, but even this did not discourage him. he began his search in new england, shrewdly suspecting that 'louis durant' might not have traveled very far from his first landing-place. many weeks and months of absolutely useless and fruitless effort followed. no one in any of the large cities, or even in the smaller towns, seemed to have heard of 'louis charles durant' or of any one corresponding to his description. it was by sheer accident--when jean mettot's horse (he made it a practice to travel about on horseback) went lame one stormy night right by your paradise green--that he was forced to ask for a night's shelter in one of the only two houses on the green at that time. it was on the door of the durant house that he knocked, and none other than the dauphin himself opened it!" at this point in the narrative sue and carol breathed a long sigh of intense interest, and the imp came closer and rested her hand on monsieur's knee. "yes, it is marvelous, is it not?" he went on. "there is a proverb which says, 'truth is stranger than fiction,' and i have always found it so. i leave you to imagine the meeting between those two, for they quickly recognized each other. after a time mettot heard the whole story from the dauphin. it ran like this: "he had come to america, landing in new england and wandering about for a time, almost penniless and earning his way as he went by doing odds and ends of labor for the farmers. singularly enough, he enjoyed it. does it seem strange to you, _mes enfants_, that a king should enjoy himself in this fashion? ah, but he no longer wished to be a king! not for all the riches of the earth would he have gone back to his country and assumed his rightful title. his terrible childhood years in prison had given him a longing only for freedom and independence of thought and action and a desire for the most absolute simplicity of life. "to jean mettot he confided how at length he had drifted out to this present farmstead, had apprenticed himself to the good farmer who owned it, and how for several years he had served him faithfully and well for a sum that was a mere pittance, but on which he could live happily. two years later the farmer's daughter, who had married some time before, came home to her father's house a widow. after a time she and the dauphin became mutually attracted to each other and married. six months after their marriage the farmer died, leaving his farm to his daughter and her husband, the unknown dauphin. at the time of jean mettot's visit they had a fine little son, then ten or twelve years old, and were as happy and contented as could well be imagined. "mettot made them quite an extended visit, but never did the dauphin reveal to his wife that he had ever known mettot before, or give the least hint of his own identity. he said that he preferred these things to remain secrets forever, buried in the past. he told mettot that he desired his descendants to remain in complete ignorance of his past and of their own origin. should a crisis ever arise (now unforeseen by him), when it would be wise for any of his descendants to know their forefather's history, he had prepared for such an emergency a document which he had securely hidden away. he acquainted jean with its hiding-place and gave him permission to transmit the secret to his own descendants. on no account, however, was it to be communicated to the dauphin's descendants, unless the aforementioned crisis should arise. "jean mettot went back to france, and never again saw the son of louis xvi. but he continued to keep in touch with 'louis charles durant' of america, and to his own son he communicated the strange secret. and his son, in turn, communicated it to a son of his own, the present jean meadows whom you know. the dauphin died when he was scarcely more than middle-aged, for his constitution was never robust after the cruel hardships of his childhood. the son whom he left lived to a ripe old age on the same farm, and left an heir in his place to continue the line. this child, the father of our own louis, becoming discontented, as he reached manhood, with the life on a simple new england farm, leased the property, as you probably know, and went out west to make his fortune. he married a young western girl on the canadian frontier, and both were mortally injured in a terrible accident on one of the great lakes' steamers. he had time, however, before he died, to send word to france, to this present jean mettot, leaving their baby son in his care. the two families had always kept in touch, though none of the present generation had seen each other. "i am sure you must be wondering during all this recital where _i_ come into the story. it is about time for me to make my entrance. that is what i am about to disclose. mettot and his daughter yvonne, on hearing the sad news, forsook all and came to america to take possession of the baby, which was still being cared for at the hospital where its parents had died. the mettot family had not prospered with the years, the present jean's father having unfortunately lost the modest fortune that the original jean had amassed. they were living in a humble way in a small french village, and had practically sacrificed everything to come over to america on what they considered an almost sacred charge. "what, then, was to be done? jean mettot cast about in his mind for some time, considering the matter, but at length came to the conclusion that the crisis, spoken of by the original dauphin, had now arrived and that the time was come to disclose the secret to some one. but to whom? that was the great question. suddenly he bethought himself of me, the present marquis de fenouil. he had not the slightest idea whether the secret of the dauphin's escape had been transmitted in our family, but, taking the risk, he wrote me a full account of the whole proceeding, throwing the present little orphan, so to speak, on my mercy. "and now at last i enter. i cannot, indeed, give you the slightest idea what this wonderful news meant to me. the secret _had_ been transmitted,--aye, it had become a sacred tradition in our family! many long and fruitless searches had we made,--i, my father, and my grandfather before us,--to trace, if possible, the fate of that lost dauphin. not one of us but would have sacrificed his all to have made sure of the after-history of our adored little monarch. the portrait that you have seen, and those of marie antoinette and louis xvi, which i have always kept veiled, have been our most cherished family possessions, especially that of the dauphin. we worshipped the memory of that heroic little uncrowned monarch. "can you then understand what it meant to me to find myself at last on the track of a true descendant of the dauphin? for a time i could scarcely credit it. but i knew from my grandfather the part played by the original jean mettot, and i could see no reason to doubt that this tale of his descendant was genuine. my first impulse was to send for them at once, and to bring the child up as my own son, till he should be of suitable age to disclose the secret to him. but there were a number of strong objections to that course. i need not mention them all. one is sufficient. for the past twenty years i have not been strong. my health is only sustained by constant treatment from physicians, and i spend three quarters of my time at sanitariums and health resorts. i am seldom, if ever, in residence at my french estate. there were a number of other legal reasons why it was not wise for me to appear to adopt a child, presumably as my heir, which you would scarcely understand, so i will not recount them. suffice it to say that i decided on a course which may seem strange to you, but which appealed to me as wisest at the time. "the child was a mere baby, not yet a year old. i concluded that for the present it would be best to leave him in america, the land that his kingly ancestor had chosen to adopt. in jean mettot's name i leased the same durant farmhouse that belonged to his father and that one day would be his own, sent the mettots there with their infant charge, and instructed them to bring up the boy in ignorance of his real ancestry, until such time as i should deem it best to come over to america and take charge of his affairs. they have worthily fulfilled that charge, having kept me constantly informed of his growth and progress. "in truth, i never supposed the interval would be so long before i should find it possible to come here. one matter after another,--my health chiefly,--has delayed me from year to year, though i have planned the trip more times than i care to count. during this past year, however, the news sent by our friends the mettots proved somewhat disturbing to me. in order to explain this, i must now disclose to you my plans for 'louis charles durant.' they are, as you will see, far from any schemes to restore the bourbon monarchy in france. that would be in direct opposition to the wishes of the dead dauphin. no, i wished him to learn of his wonderful ancestry secretly, and only as something to be proud of. i wished him to grow up as my own son, and, when the time was ripe, i would legally adopt him. at first there were several obstacles in the way, but these have lately been removed. in my own heart, however, he would never be my son, but the _king_ who should rightfully have ruled over me. i wished him to study statecraft and become a great political light--a french statesman--and perhaps some day make a great name in the world. he should be a king of men in deed and act, if he could not be in name and right. these were my ambitions for him. i felt that he _must_ fall in with them." the three listeners stirred uneasily, and the catbird in the tree above them uttered its odd, mournful cry. monsieur paused a few seconds to gaze out over the blue heat-haze on the river. then he went on: "it was, therefore, disturbing tidings that i began to receive from jean mettot. at first his reports had been satisfactory in every respect. the boy was upright, manly, and entirely lovable in nature. up to his tenth or twelfth year he had developed no traits that would seem in opposition to my plans for him. but of late my news of him had been very unwelcome to me. to begin with, he openly avowed that he cared nothing for france or french history and traditions. he was american to the core, and he actually boasted of it. this was not surprising, however, considering the fact that he had been born and brought up in this land. i promised myself that this difficulty would be easily overcome later. but there was something that troubled me more. "the mettots began to report that the boy was developing a strongly _mechanical_ turn of mind, that he was constantly working with tools and contriving unique devices of his own for various mechanical purposes,--in short, that he was following directly in the footsteps of the unfortunate louis xvi. it has always been my contention that if that monarch had devoted himself more to the affairs of his kingdom and less to puttering about with tools and locks, he never would have lost his throne. it was an ominous sign to me. but even then i hoped that it might prove merely a childish whim and fade away into other interests as the years progressed. it did not, as you very well know. i now feel it to be a family inheritance, impossible to overcome. i have resigned myself to it, only praying that in time other matters more important may overgrow and stifle the tendency. "but i also realized that the day could no longer be delayed when i must make the trip across the ocean and see with my own eyes the great-grandson of our long-lost dauphin. perhaps you think it strange that i did not send for him to be brought to me. but i had my reasons for that, also. i wished to see the boy in his natural environment. i wished him to know nothing of me. i wished to study him and learn his character, watch him at his work and play, observe him with his friends, and discover for myself his ambitions and tendencies. how could i know that i would really care for him _personally_, or he for me, unless i followed this course? i loved him already for his _ancestry_, but i wished to love him, if possible, for _himself_. and as i am an old, childless, lonely man, i wished him to love me for _myself_. only by coming here incognito, i deemed, could this be accomplished. "well, _mes enfants_, i came. the history of my stay here you are fairly well acquainted with. at first, i confess, i was bitterly disappointed. the boy was a fine, upstanding, splendid specimen of american boyhood, but he was thoroughly _american_. he resembled in no way that i could see, facially at least, the portrait that i had brought with me. that, of course, was entirely natural; yet i was disappointed. at times i thought i could discern a fleeting resemblance, but it was always fleeting. only at the time when he was so ill did i seem to see in him a resemblance to the little dauphin after he had been some time in prison." at this point the three girls glanced at each other, and, noticing the exchanged look, monsieur went on: "yes, that is what i meant by the 'temple look,' which remark you say louis overheard. but to proceed. the worst disappointment, however, was that terrible mechanical trait, a trait i found it impossible to overcome and to which i have now resigned myself. we had our quarrels and disputes over that subject, as you know, but at last i felt myself unable to cope with so strong a passion. i pass on to other things. "i need scarcely tell you that during these passing months i have come to care deeply and tenderly for this boy. he may be different, entirely different from my ideal of him, but i have come to recognize his fine, genuine manliness, the entire lovableness of his character. his attitude toward me has never deviated from the courteous and thoughtful and attentive, except in the one instance of his boat, and i myself was at fault there! i feel that he is even developing a sort of fondness for me with the passing of time. when you realize that he knows nothing whatever of my real identity or my object in coming here (i think he rather suspects both at times), this is all the more admirable. as for my feeling for him, i _adore_ him, mesdemoiselles,--i can say no more. he is the worthy descendant of a king, even though he be not _french_ in anything but ancestry. "you can easily see, then, what it meant to me when he made that astonishing announcement a few weeks ago. could anything be more unutterably terrible for me to hear than that this most dangerous of all careers should be the chosen one of my adopted son-to-be? it is incredible to me, even yet. i am praying daily that the whim shall pass from him. in the first shock of it i thought that the time had come for me to disclose the truth to him, whether i was ready to do so or not. yet on second thought i again hesitated. there is one link in the chain that is still missing. it is for that i am waiting, for i do not wish him to be made acquainted with the secret till i can lay the complete evidence before him. "you remember, perhaps, that i spoke of a document, prepared by the dauphin and hidden by him in some spot, the secret of which he disclosed only to the original jean mettot. it was his wish that the document be found and delivered to his descendants, should a crisis ever arise when it would be deemed necessary to disclose the secret to them. that document, i am sorry to say, we have as yet been unable to discover. the original mettot wrote the directions for finding the hiding-place in a sealed letter and left it with his son, who, in turn, left it in care of our john meadows. unfortunately, when this john meadows and his daughter came to america they failed to bring the letter with them, because they supposed that they would return at once to france. more unfortunately still, since they have been here their little home was burned to the ground, and the letter, of course, disappeared in the conflagration. meadows himself never read the letter, and he has only a vague remembrance that his grandfather once said in his hearing, when he was only a small child, that he believed the hiding-place to be somewhere near a chimney. that is absolutely the only clue we have had to work on. "i need not tell you that the search for that document has been unceasing since i first arrived, and even before that. every nook and cranny, from attic to cellar, has been ransacked without the slightest result. unless the house itself is torn down, i see no possible hope of finding it. however, i do not yet utterly despair; and when the document does come to light, i will make the great disclosure to louis and formulate my future plans. circumstances _may_ be such, however, that i shall have to put him in possession of the secret before the document is found. i should be sorry for that, as i wish him to feel that our evidence concerning this strange story is complete. "and now, my friends, you know it all. i have hidden nothing from you. i have shown you my inmost heart. i have only one request--that you still keep this thing a secret from every one, especially from louis." he stopped, and there was silence. the catbird above them had flown away. the river was unruffled by the slightest breath. the water had ceased its _lap-lap_. the afternoon stillness was complete. carol and sue sat motionless in their corner, their hands clasped, their eyes wide and intent. suddenly the imp flung herself to the ground and buried her face on the old french gentleman's knees, a passion of choking sobs shaking her little body. he laid his hand on her head and murmured in a startled voice: "little one, little one! what is it that troubles you?" "o monsieur, monsieur!" she gasped. "what a little _beast_ i've been! can you ever forgive me? _how_ i have misjudged you!" chapter xvi august fourth, july , . it is ten days since that strange afternoon down at the old boat-house on the river. i have been living in a kind of dream ever since. i cannot somehow believe that i'm just plain, ordinary susan birdsey, living on out-of-the-way little paradise green, to whom nothing unusual ever has or ever will happen. paradise green is no longer the prosaic place it was. it is the secret spot chosen by history as the home of one of her most romantic characters. who would ever have thought it? and i, susan birdsey, am one of the three humble persons fate has chosen to be the sharer of this marvelous secret. i cannot help thinking of what miss cullingford said when she suggested that we keep a journal,--that some journals had been interesting and valuable additions to history. that, at least, is what i never supposed mine could possibly be. and yet, if she could only see it _now_! but she never will, of course, nor any one else, for i have promised monsieur that i will never, without his permission, reveal a single word of what he has told us. this is not, he says, because it would harm any one, or make the slightest change in the world's affairs, but because of the poor "lost dauphin's" wish. we three have talked of it incessantly,--carol, the imp, and i. somehow the wonder of it never grows any less. that such a thing _could_ happen here, here on little paradise green! and yet the imp says it is no new thing in history for an exiled king to hide himself away in a strange country amid the humblest surroundings. where _does_ she get all these historical facts, anyway? even carol, who is fond of history and reads a lot of it, doesn't know half as much about things as the imp does. i am changing my opinion of the imp very much lately. i used to think she was such a scatter-brained, harum-scarum child, without a serious thought in her head. but i guess we really didn't _know_ her then, and misjudged her a lot. but it's louis, our louis, who seems to us the strangest, the most impossible thing to believe. before we heard monsieur's story we imagined this about him, but half the time we told ourselves it wasn't, it _couldn't_ be true. we _must_ be on the wrong track, we said. now we know that it is all true, and louis can never be "our louis," the friend we've always known, any more. how could he be? to begin with, he's going to be the adopted son of the marquis de fenouil (i _hope_ that's the way to spell it!), a great nobleman of france, and go away to france and inherit a title, and probably we'll never see him again as long as we live. in addition, as if that weren't enough, he's not the plain american boy we always thought him, but the great-great-grandson of a king of france. and _we_ know this, even if the rest of the world does not, and can never, never feel on the same footing with him again. not that that will make any difference, i suppose, if he's to go away from here for good. but it's like losing your brother,--like losing dave, for instance,--only dave never has been, especially of late years, as friendly and near to us as louis has been. we have seen almost nothing of louis since that day with monsieur. he has been to bridgeton every day, spending the time, i'm perfectly certain, with that page calvin and his miserable aëroplane. it makes me perfectly sick to think of it, especially since monsieur has told us everything. by the way, i can't get out of the habit of calling him "monsieur," but it's just as well, i suppose, because we're not supposed to know he's anything else. of course louis doesn't realize what all this means to the old gentleman, but if he only knew that it was fairly breaking his heart, i do believe he'd be willing to give up the dangerous scheme and take to something else. i feel sure monsieur suspects why he's away at bridgeton, but he never says a word to us,--just suffers in silence. the imp sees monsieur and talks to him very often as he sits on his favorite bench on the green. he sits there a great deal, on that bench under the big elm, and reads his paper and watches us play tennis. sometimes we all go over and talk to him, but he never says a word about what he told us that day on the river,--not, at least, when we're all together with him. he does speak of it sometimes to the imp when they're alone. she says that to-day he told her that the situation in europe is very grave. he is certain that austria is about to declare war on serbia, and that if she does, the whole of europe will be involved. there will be the most awful conflict the world has ever known, if this happens. the imp asked him if france was likely to go into it, too, and he said he did not see how this could be avoided; france would always do what was right. but here's the worst. he says that if france declares war, he will have to return immediately, since important political matters will demand it, and he intends to tell louis the whole truth and take him back with him. that piece of news seems perfectly ghastly to us, and yet i honestly don't see how monsieur can do anything else. i felt to-day, after hearing this from the imp, that i simply must understand this european situation for myself, so i got the daily paper and read up everything i could find about it. but i have to confess that i was not much wiser after i had read it than i was before. so i went to the imp and asked her if she could explain the thing. she said: "why, it's this way. monsieur has told me all about it. austria considers that she's got to make serbia get down on her knees and beg pardon, because an austrian archduke was killed there. so austria's sent serbia a note proposing all sorts of concessions that serbia will never stand for in the world. the serbians answered that note yesterday, and were willing to make whatever reparation they could about the archduke, but they won't hear of some of the other things. austria wants the 'whole hog,' or nothing, so of course she'll take this opportunity to declare war. russia has always sort of sympathized with the serbians, so if they get into trouble, she's going to give them a hand. and monsieur says she's already mobilizing her troops. germany is in a compact always to help austria out, so that's where _she_ comes in. monsieur says germany's been waiting forty years for this opportunity to get gay and let loose on europe, so she isn't going to let such a lovely chance as this pass." (these are the imp's words, not monsieur's, i feel certain!) "and france has a compact to be an ally of russia, and england's in that, too, so you can easily see what a beautiful parrot-and-monkey time it's going to be!" the situation is a little clearer to me now, i'll admit, but the whole thing makes me terribly depressed. i'm glad i don't see much of louis now. i simply cannot be with him and act naturally, as if nothing were out of the ordinary. i cannot face him and think who he really is, and keep the wonder and pain and bewilderment of it out of my expression. so perhaps it's a good thing he's away so much. august , . austria declared war on serbia a few days ago. the imp, in a terrible state of excitement, rushed up to my room with the paper that morning to announce the news. but we've had worse since, and it's all turning out as monsieur said it would. we--that is, the imp, carol, and i--were all going into bridgeton to the circus to-day, but we've given it up. none of us seemed to have the heart for that kind of a lark in the face of what is going on and what it means for louis. he still unsuspectingly goes off to see page calvin every day, and never gives the european situation a thought, i'm certain. of course he can't for a moment imagine that it will have any bearing on _his_ affairs. the imp told us to-day that miss yvonne is not a bit well. she's had a nervous breakdown of some kind. monsieur thinks it's because of this awful state of affairs in europe, and also because they can't seem to find the least trace of those papers. that has been preying on her mind for a long time. she thinks it's her fault and her father's that they didn't bring that letter with them from france. it really wasn't, because they came away in such a hurry, without knowing much about the actual circumstances. nevertheless, she is continually worrying about it. we told mother she was ill, and mother and the imp went over to see her yesterday. they took her some grape conserve and some raised biscuits we'd just baked, and they said she seemed awfully grateful for the attention. the imp said she seemed more _human_ than she ever had before, and more communicative, too,--not about any of their secret affairs, of course, but on general topics. she says her eyes bother her a lot, so the imp offered to come over every day and read the paper to her, and she actually said she'd like it. louis's birthday comes in a few days--on august fourth--and we're planning a little surprise-party for him. we're going over there early in the morning,--dave, carol, the imp, and i,--and just casually ask him to walk across the fields to the old boat-house with us. when we get there we're going to suggest to him that he take us out in the launch for a while. and when we get back we're going to produce a big spread that we'll have previously hidden in the boat-house, and have a regular feast on the platform. in the middle of it all we're going to present louis with a gold watch-fob that we all chipped in for, and monsieur is going to give him the most beautiful watch. monsieur, of course, is to be a member of this party. the imp asked him, and he seemed delighted with the idea. under ordinary circumstances, i would consider it the greatest lark, but as things are, it seems as if i could hardly endure it--to sit there all day and look at louis and think what he's soon going to learn from monsieur. august , . the worst has happened, the _very_ worst! it makes me sick beyond words to read what i last wrote here--about having a surprise-party, a _picnic_! it was a surprise-party right enough, but the surprise was very much on our side, after all. we all started over for louis's this morning, just as we'd planned. we'd been up at six o'clock, carrying the "feed" (as the imp calls it) down to the boat-house, and everything was quite ready. at the last minute dave couldn't go over with us, because father had some urgent errand he wanted him to attend to in bridgeton, but he promised to join us later. i confess that we weren't any of us as hilarious over this party as we'd ordinarily be, for we all feel a lot depressed about this thing. but we hadn't a suspicion of what was ahead of us. we'd hoped to see monsieur or louis around outside, but no one was anywhere in sight. so we knocked at the front door, and louis came and opened it. in all my life i'll never forget how that poor fellow looked. he was _stricken_! i can't think of any other word that expresses it so well. he didn't seem surprised to see us, but instead of inviting us inside, said: "come out on the green and sit on our old bench for a few minutes, will you? i've something to tell you." we followed him in dead silence, and we felt that something awful, must have happened. "have you seen the morning papers?" louis asked, when we were seated. "no," i said. "what's the matter?" "_france has declared war!_" he answered. somehow he didn't need to say another word. we knew the whole thing. it had come at last. there wasn't one of us who could think of a word to say, not even the imp, though she's usually quick enough with a reply. but this time she seemed struck dumb. after we'd all sat there for what seemed like six months, louis said: "i've heard the whole story from mon-- i mean from the marquis. i know that you know it, too. he told me so. i understand that he didn't intend to tell me to-day,--that you were going to give me a surprise-party for my birthday. thank you, girls, all the same. i--i--" he couldn't say any more just then, but sat staring away at nothing. "it was the news in the paper that changed it all," he went on at last. "germany has invaded french territory and violated the neutrality of belgium, so of course the war is inevitable. the marquis is much excited and has to go back at once to offer his estates and his assistance to the government. i shall go with him." he said all this in the strangest way, in a sort of dull, monotonous voice, as if he'd just learned it by heart and hadn't the slightest interest in it. it was the imp who spoke first. "louis," she said, very quietly, "were you sorry to hear about--about that other matter?" he didn't answer for a minute, and just sat looking off into space again. finally he said, in the same monotonous voice: "it's _killing_ me!" "but, louis," i found the courage to say, "it's really a wonderful thing. you ought to be proud of it." "proud of _what_?" he demanded fiercely. "of--of being the descendant of a french king," i said. "i've been proud as lucifer all my life to be an _american_," he answered. "what are french kings to me? and i _am_ an american, too! not a thing he's said can make me anything else. i don't care if my ancestor did come here from france. every american's ancestors came from somewhere else, if you go back far enough. that doesn't alter things." "yes, that is perfectly true. you are just as much an american as ever," i admitted, thinking of that side of it for the first time. "but if that's so, i can't see what you're so down-hearted about." "what do you think it means to me to give up all my plans and ambitions in life and go over to france and become a french nobleman by adoption; to devote myself to every interest but the one i'm wrapped up in and fitted for during all the rest of my days?" "but, louis," began the imp, "if you feel so--strongly about it, why do you have to do it? couldn't you persuade monsieur to let you do something else? he's simply devoted to you. surely he'd be willing to meet _your_ wishes, somehow." "you don't understand," answered louis. "can't you see that i'm under an absolute _obligation_ to meet his wishes? i'd be an ungrateful brute, if i did anything else. you must realize what his ancestor did for mine. i wouldn't be in existence to-day, if it hadn't been for what the original marquis did to help the--the dauphin to escape. why, i'm also under a tremendous obligation to the mettots for the same reason. and then, there's something else you don't know about that makes it even worse. i haven't a cent in this world, nor ever have had, that hasn't been supplied by mon--by the marquis." "you had this farm, didn't you?" i interrupted, for louis has always told us that this farm was his, or at least would be his when he came of age. that was all the mettots had ever told him about his affairs. "oh, yes; so i thought!" he answered bitterly. "but of course i didn't know that my father had died deeply in debt, leaving this place mortgaged to the hilt. i would never have owned a penny of it if the marquis hadn't stepped in and redeemed it, paying every cent of the expenses of my bringing up. why, the very pocket-money i've had was his, and i always supposed it was the proceeds from the sales of our garden-truck. oh, i'm tied hand and foot by the deepest of obligations! there's nothing else to do. i'm helpless." we all were silent for a long time after that. i, for my part, couldn't think of one thing more to say. louis was resigned and quiet and utterly hopeless. and to try and comfort him and put the best side on things was a perfect farce. none of us attempted it. "when do you go?" i asked, presently. "in a week or so," he said. "as soon as things can be arranged. monsieur--i mean the marquis--has asked me to beg that we be excused from the surprise-party, in view of what has happened. i don't know what he means by that, but probably you do. he also wished me to explain to you that you are at liberty to tell any one you wish that i am to go to france to become his adopted son, but that the other secret you will always kindly keep to yourselves." "louis," said the imp, "we were going to have a surprise-party for you at the boat-house to-day because it was your birthday, but i guess the surprise is on us. anyhow, here's a little trifle we wanted to give you, but we hadn't intended to present it in _this_ way. you'll understand, though." she handed louis the watch-fob, and he took it in a sort of dazed, unseeing way. but he thanked us a lot, adding that monsieur had given him the watch after they had had their interview. "i'll never forget you," he said, "and you needn't think because i have to go to france that i'm not going to see you again, either. i'm coming back here as often as i can manage it, and i'll be the same old louis. you'll see!" this thought seemed to give him the only comfort he had. "but what about the meadows?" asked carol. "oh, they're going, too, of course," louis answered. "their mission here is over now. the marquis is going to close the house, but he's granted, as a concession to me, that he'll keep it, and not sell it or even rent it to any one else. there i can come back to it once in a while, and live in the old way for a time. he's an awfully good sort, i will say, and is only doing this because he sees i'm all broken up over things. well, i must go back to help him send off despatches and pack. it's a hateful job. come over and see aunt yvonne. she's upset over this, and instead of feeling joyful, as i should suppose she would, is quite miserable over something. i can't understand what it is, though." louis went off directly across the green. it was heartbreaking to watch him. but the imp says that one thing is certain. they evidently haven't told louis about those papers that can't be found. chapter xvii the imp makes a last discovery a burning august sun shone down pitilessly on the parched brown grass and dusty roads about paradise green. the great elms stood absolutely motionless in the stifling air. into this merciless atmosphere, quite early in the morning of august , emerged three girls, bound for the home of louis durant. "isn't it awful!" moaned carol, perspiration streaming down her face, as they plodded on in the blazing sun. "this terrific heat has lasted a week, and there isn't a sign of let-up yet!" "and to think that poor miss yvonne has to tear up the house and pack at such a time as this!" echoed sue. "she isn't a bit well, either. i'm awfully glad she's letting us help her. i never supposed she would, but she must be kind of desperate, with their servant gone. she's fine to have let her go, though, for the servant said her son had to join the army, and she might never see him again, if she didn't leave for france at once." "yes, it is great of miss yvonne to struggle through this alone," put in the imp, "but i still don't see why monsieur didn't want her to get help from the village, except that he didn't wish strangers to pry around and ask questions at this time, i suppose." they reached the gate and turned into the yard. monsieur was sitting under a tree, reading a paper and striving to imagine that he was as cool as possible in its shade. louis was in the house, helping miss yvonne. "come in, girls!" he called through an open window. "we are precious glad to see you. can you help us pack these books?" the tone strove to be his usual, careless, care-free one, but it was patently anything but that. not one of the girls but realized the effort he was making. they entered the room, donned dust-caps and aprons that they had brought with them, and entered on the work with assumed zest. they were in miss yvonne's room on the ground floor, and the dismantling process had begun to be complete. the bed was taken down, the bookshelves emptied and their contents piled on the floor, and the furniture was shrouded in sacking. little remained to be packed, except the contents of a big closet built into one wall. miss yvonne was elsewhere, so the young folks had the room to themselves. "isn't the weather awful!" groaned carol, for the second time in ten minutes. "the news in the paper is worse!" commented louis. "oh, what is it?" chorused the girls. "none of us have had time to read the paper to-day." "the germans are demolishing belgium. they've entered france at several points and are bound straight for calais and paris. it seems as if nothing could stop them. they're walking away with everything. they're hideously prepared for this, and not one of the other nations is. it makes my blood boil! oh, if i could only _do_ something, instead of just going over to france and watching the show! but i suppose monsieur wouldn't hear of it." "louis, you mustn't get into this fight. you're too young!" exclaimed sue. "yes, that's what he says," muttered louis, viciously scrubbing a book with a dust-cloth. "but i'm seventeen; and i don't agree with him. i've lost all interest in life, anyhow. why shouldn't i go in and smash a few of the enemy's heads?" the three girls shuddered, but did not answer. "there!" cried the imp, glad to change the subject. "i've finished these books. now what else is there to do here, louis?" "aunt yvonne said that closet was to be emptied and all the things piled on the floor." the imp straightway dived into the closet, calling back: "i'll hand the things out, and you all put them where they are to go." she began hurling out packages and bundles in an endless stream, for it seemed as if the closet had been used for years as a storage-place, and that the contents had seldom been moved. "my, but there are a lot of them!" coughed the imp, choking with dust. "yes, aunt yvonne said she was rather ashamed of this closet," said louis. "she's used it as a catch-all for years, and most of these bundles are things she never has any use for, yet won't under any circumstances give or throw away." "we have the same kind of a closet at home," remarked carol. "mother says she doesn't know how she'd get along without it,--i mean the kind of place where you stow things away that you hardly expect to touch again." "so have we," echoed sue. they worked for a time in silence. at last the imp, dusty and cobwebby, tossed out a final bundle, with the remark: "that's the last, i guess, except some scraps of wrapping-paper and so on. i'll just look among these to see that there's nothing more." they heard her grubbing about for a moment or two, and then came a stifled exclamation. "what's the matter?" cried every one simultaneously. "somebody bring a candle!" commanded the imp. "there's something queer here!" louis rushed away to get one, and was back in a jiffy. "here it is," he said, handing it in to the imp. while she lit it the three crowded into the doorway to see whatever was to be revealed. "it's this hole," explained the imp, holding the candle to a space about six inches in diameter, near the base of the wall. "it was back of a pile of bundles, and i guess it must have been made by mice or rats, for the gnawed bits are lying all around. it must be rather recent, too, for it looks so. my hand slipped into it a moment ago, and the boarding came loose as i was trying to get it out. i think it must be because it was so old and rotten. anyhow, it pulled away, and i just caught a glimpse of something behind it that seemed strange." louis crowded into the closet at this, and gave the board a wrench. it fell away, disclosing a sight that made the four stare with surprise. "why, it's a _fireplace_!" cried the imp, poking her head in as louis pulled away another board. "a great, immense fireplace, even bigger than the one in your living-room." it was nothing less. each girl took a turn at poking her head into the open space, and all were amazed at the breadth of the great chimney-place, which still contained the andirons and curious old hooks and cranes of bygone years. "i must tell the others!" cried louis. "i'm sure they'll be interested in this." and he rushed away to inform them. while he was gone, the imp suddenly emerged from the closet in great excitement. "i have an idea," she whispered to the others. "i may be crazy, but i believe we're on the track of the hiding-place of those papers. don't you remember what monsieur said about a _chimney_?" the two girls looked startled. before they could discuss the matter, however, back came louis with monsieur and the meadows couple behind him. "it's perfectly clear to me," louis was explaining to them, "that at some time or other, pretty far back, some one had the great 'long kitchen' in this house made into two rooms, and the original walls and fireplace were entirely boarded-up and concealed. i always thought it rather strange that this house, which is exactly the same build and design as the old caswell place, for instance, or a dozen others around here, should be entirely without that immense 'long kitchen,' as they call it, that all the rest have. you know it's the original kitchen of the former new englanders. they used it as kitchen and dining-room and everything. the fireplace is the biggest in the house, for often they would have an ox drag into the room a great log that would entirely fill the chimney-place. somebody has evidently had that room made into two smaller ones, with no fireplace at all. queer thing to do. i wonder why they did it?" in his interest in this explanation, louis had not appeared to notice the evident excitement of monsieur and old john meadows and miss yvonne. now he was thunderstruck when monsieur asked him if it was possible to pull down the boarding around the fireplace. "why, of course," exclaimed louis, much astonished. "i have some tools i could use, and it wouldn't take much strength, but what's the use of demolishing it now? it will make an awful mess, and there probably isn't much beyond what we've already seen, anyhow. it would be a good thing, perhaps, to have this fine old room restored while we're away, but i don't see any use in beginning it now." the marquis, trembling so that he was forced to support himself by leaning on a packing-case, spoke with more decision than his hearers had ever heard before: "tear down the woodwork, louis. it is my wish. there may be an excellent reason." without further protest, louis went to work. the noontide sun grew hotter and hotter, but the company in that curiously littered room did not notice it. not a word was spoken as they watched louis, but a breathless suspense gripped them all,--all, that is, except louis. to him it was only a useless whim of monsieur's that he was obeying, and he was secretly rather irritated. he found, during the course of his labor, that the chimney-place ran clear behind the walls into the next room, which was that of old mr. meadows, but even this did not daunt the marquis. "tear down the wall between, if you can. knock it down, break it down, somehow. i do not care, so long as we free the chimney!" before louis was finished, the place looked as if it had suddenly been subjected to an air-raid and earthquake combined, but no one cared. by that time even louis had begun to feel a vague suspicion that they were on the track of something. when the fireplace at last stood free amid the surrounding débris, he stepped aside, remarking: "there! that's about all i can do, i think. that was a clever piece of work--the way this other room has been entirely concealed. not one of us has ever suspected that it was here, though i suppose if we'd been any sort of architects, we might have done so." "oh, here are the old dutch ovens!" cried the imp, rushing forward to examine the curious little iron doorways in the sides of the chimney-place. "i saw the same thing in the caswell house. they used to bake bread in those, when the chimney became good and hot." she pulled open one of them and thrust in her hand. "gracious! there's something in here!" she almost shouted, hauling out a small iron box covered with the rust and dust and cobwebs of what must have been a century in hiding. "give it to me! give it to me!" cried old john meadows, striding forward and fairly snatching it from her grasp. "it is the one, the very one my grandfather spoke of, and in the _chimney_, just as i have always thought he said." with tears of excitement in his eyes, he took the box and placed it in the hands of the marquis. miss yvonne, sobbing quietly in the intensity of her relief, sat down on a small packing-case and hid her face in her hands. the three girls, understanding something of this strange discovery, stood by, breathless in their excitement and interest. only louis, to whom the whole proceeding was a dark mystery, stared at them all, open-mouthed and questioning. monsieur took the box and placed it in louis's hands. "can you open it for us?" he asked. "i suppose we might find the key, if we hunted long enough, but i cannot wait for that. open it without a key, if that is possible." "i suppose i could get it open with an ax," remarked louis, examining the box carefully, "or even with a hammer and chisel, if you're not afraid that the contents may be hurt." "it will not harm it, i am sure," replied monsieur, and louis brought the necessary tools. it took a long while to break the lock, for the workmanship was stout and strong. but at last this was accomplished, and louis handed the box to monsieur for further investigation. they all pressed around him eagerly, as he opened the lid. it contained nothing but a paper, folded, tied, and sealed--a paper so faded, stained, and tender that they scarcely dared touch it, lest it fall apart. monsieur took it out with extreme care, broke the seal, and handed the unread document to louis. "read it," he said. "it concerns you, and you alone. it is your right to have the first reading of it. it is a sacred message, transmitted to you through the years by your great-grandfather, the lost dauphin." "shall i read it aloud?" inquired louis, in a voice of hushed awe. "if it pleases you to do so," replied the marquis. [illustration: louis began to read aloud, stopping often to decipher a word] louis cleared his throat nervously, and began to read aloud in french, stopping often to decipher a word that was blurred by the stains of time. as the two girls, carol and sue, could understand little or nothing of what he read, they could only watch curiously the expression on the faces of the other auditors. but before louis had read far, that expression became singularly different on each of those five eager countenances. miss yvonne leaned forward from her packing-box, her eyes startled and unbelieving. old john meadows ruffled his white hair distractedly with his hands and muttered, "what? what?" in english, and other expressions in french. the imp's big blue eyes fairly danced with amazement, and pleased amazement, at that. monsieur stood listening, his hands clenched, his head thrust forward, his eagle-like gaze intent, unbelieving, stricken. only louis read on stolidly, as if the content had not yet registered itself on his mind. suddenly he threw down the paper and shouted, "hurrah! hurrah!" and then more solemnly, "oh, thank god! i'm so glad." "what is it? what is it?" cried sue and carol, simultaneously. "_please_ tell us! we haven't understood a word of it." "you poor things!" he exclaimed gaily. "listen! i'll translate it for you. it's very short." and he went on to translate from the ancient paper as follows: i who write this am the dauphin of france, who should have been louis xvii. i escaped from the temple tower in my tenth year by means which i shall not attempt to explain here. all that is known to others who could make it public to the world if i so wished. i do not, however, wish it. my only desire is to remain forever hidden. should there, however, arise at any future time a cause or reason for making descendants of mine aware of the truth of their real ancestry, i wish to make this statement. _i have no descendants._ the boy whom jean mettot supposes to be my son is no flesh-and-blood heir of mine. the boy is the son of my wife by her former husband. he was a young child, less than two years old, when i married her, and so fond did i become of him that i felt no difference and wished to feel no more difference than if he were truly my own. but no bourbon blood runs in his veins, praise god, and heirs of his may never inherit the throne of france. i am ill and weak, when writing this, and i feel that death is not far away. only jean mettot knows the hiding-place i have designed for this document. i pray god there may never be need to disclose it. louis charles. "but--but," stammered sue, when louis had finished, "what does this mean?" "it means," cried louis, "that i haven't a drop of bourbon blood in me! it means that i'm a plain, _american_ boy, after all!" he threw his cap into the air exultantly and shouted another hurrah. strangely enough, it was sue who first gave a thought to the marquis. glancing suddenly toward him, she exclaimed in a low voice: "o monsieur!" he was still standing in the same tense attitude, his expression dazed and unbelieving. not one of them but expected that this news, so happy to louis, so tragic to him, might cause an attack, possibly a fatal one, of his physical ailment. but the marquis was made of sterner stuff than they knew. with a sudden squaring of his shoulders, he walked over to the window and stood staring out, his back toward them all, his hands clenched behind him. so long did he remain thus, that the tense silence became almost unbearable. it was louis at last, with his head up and the kindest expression the girls had ever seen in his eyes, who walked over to monsieur and laid a hand on his shoulder. "will you forgive me, sir," he said very quietly, "for my beastly expressions of joy? i ought to have realized what a blow this news would be to you,--whatever it may mean to me." the marquis turned and looked deep into his eyes. "my boy," he spoke in a husky voice, "you are worthy to be the lineal descendant of a king, even if fate has willed that you are not." he could say no more at that moment, and louis went on: "i want you to know i feel, sir, that my obligation to you remains precisely the same, even though conditions are changed. i owe you everything i have. you undoubtedly will no longer contemplate taking me for your adopted son. there isn't the slightest reason for it now. but i want to give you and the country you love the very best that is in me. i am an american of the americans, and i'm prouder of it than ever. but i want to 'do my bit' for france and for you. will you allow me, sir, to go with you to france and join the french flying corps? it is the only way that i can repay you." the marquis was still gazing straight into the boy's eyes. now he laid both hands on his shoulders. "you shall have your wish, my boy," he said, still huskily. "i now see that i should never have striven to restrain you. but, king or no king, an adopted son of mine you shall be, if you yourself will consent to it. i love you for yourself. what matters any other reason? but, before god, i promise you that in no way will i put the slightest obstacle in the path you have chosen for yourself. france will yet be as proud of you as i am. louis charles, will you be my son?" "i never knew any parents," answered louis, in a shaky, unsteady voice, "and i've--i've missed them horribly. will you be--my father?" when the girls looked around, they found that old mr. meadows and his daughter had vanished from the room. at sue's beckoning finger, the three girls tiptoed out after them. chapter xviii the end of the journal september , . it's so long since i've written in this journal that i'm quite discouraged about it. not a single entry have i made since that wonderful day over at louis's when they found the document. well, there hasn't been much to write about, and we've all felt lonely and blue and _apprehensive_ (that's the only word i can think of to express it) ever since louis sailed for france. they did not get away quite as soon as they had expected. changed conditions and sailing dates delayed them a week or more longer than the original plan. i think it was at least the twentieth of august before they left for new york and their steamer. oh, it is such a desolate place now, across the green, since they went away,--all shut up and dark and lonely! but monsieur has left the key with us, and asked us to go through it once in a while to see that everything was all right. in the spring he intends to have an architect come and restore the "long kitchen" to exactly its former appearance, and to put all the rest of the house in good shape. he says that, since louis wishes it so much, he shall come back here whenever there is an opportunity, that is, whenever his duties will permit, and that he can live here as long as he likes. that is glorious news. we are all so happy about it, and louis was just wild with joy. but _will_ he come back? that is the awful question. aviation is dangerous enough, even here in a peaceful country. what earthly chance of life has one over there in the midst of this horrible war? it makes me shudder every time i think of it, and i don't dare think of it much. i have awful nightmares about it every night. the imp has taken to reading up everything she can find on the subject, and she insists on telling us hair-raising tales about the dangers and accidents that happen to military aviators. i asked her once if it didn't simply make her sick to think of such things in connection with louis, but she only said: "oh, no! louis's not going to have things like that happen to _him_. he's different!" i only wish i had her faith. louis's departure with the marquis was a nine-days' wonder here, of course. everybody talked about it incessantly for a while, speculating at the greatest length on why in the world a french nobleman should do such an eccentric thing. but naturally, no one except we three girls ever guessed the truth, or ever will. for it was the marquis's wish that, even as things turned out, the truth about the dauphin should never be made public. we have all gone back to school, and are plodding along in the same prosaic way. the only thing we're doing that really interests us is to knit an outfit for louis--a sweater, a helmet, some wristlets, and socks. he said before he left that he'd probably need them, and we promised to make them as quickly as possible. september . we had a letter from louis to-day,--the first since he left. of course it caused the wildest excitement. he said they had a safe voyage across, and he wasn't seasick a minute, though the marquis and old mr. meadows were very ill. louis said that they went straight to paris, and there the marquis used his influence and had him enlisted in the french air service. in a few days louis was notified to report for duty at the hôtel des invalides. here he went through his physical examination, passed it, and then was sent to dijon to get his outfit, which is provided by the government. after going through all that, he was sent to pau (we've looked up these places in the atlas, and know exactly where they are!) to become a member of the flying-school. louis had been there only a week when he wrote this letter, but he says that, owing to the hard study he put in on page calvin's machine, he's almost perfect in the mechanical parts,--the engine and steering,--and instead of having to spend several weeks at that, he can soon begin the actual flying. of course i don't understand all his technical talk, but one thing is easy to see--he's completely and absolutely _happy_. he says he'll write again when he's actually "been up," but that he has hardly a moment to himself during the day, and at night he's so tired that he almost falls asleep on the way to bed. the french course must be very strict and exacting. november , . i didn't suppose it would be so long before i'd write here again, but there's generally nothing much to write. paradise green has returned to its old, sleepy nonentity of a place since louis went away. only one thing has stirred the quiet surface of our family. dave has been extremely morose and uneasy ever since louis's departure, and yesterday he launched a thunderbolt in our midst by asking father if he could go off to "the front" and enlist in the french army. father was very quiet about it, but he refused absolutely. then dave broke down and blubbered like a baby. he said he wanted to do something to help in this beastly mess, and that he thought america was "rotten" not to get into it, too. but father said: "if america ever does get into it, dave, you'll go with my full permission,--but not till then!" so dave had to be content with that. we heard from louis to-day,--the most _wonderful_ letter! two weeks ago he finished his course in aviation and was ordered to duty at the front. so off he went (he wasn't allowed to tell us where the "front" was) and has been there ever since, scouting over the enemy's lines in a biplane with the _chef pilote_, to familiarize himself with conditions. he will soon be actively engaged with the enemy. it makes me sick and cold to think of it. will we ever see louis alive again, walking about paradise green in the old way? i have simply made up my mind that it is not possible,--that if it ever happens, it will be nothing short of a _miracle_. on looking back in this journal, i find that i have kept it exactly one year. i have fulfilled my promise to miss cullingford, and i believe, if she could only read it, she'd find it a very interesting "supplement to history." but of course she never will read it. that would be breaking my promise to the marquis. i do not think i will write in it any more. the year is over, and louis has gone--and may never come back any more. april , . to-day, in an old drawer of my desk, locked away and almost completely forgotten by me, i found this journal that i kept three long years ago. how long, how _very_ long they seem now! i was sixteen then, and still in high school. i am nineteen--nearly twenty--now, and have been a year in college. at present i am home for the easter vacation, back in little paradise green, and in rummaging through my desk i found this journal. the idea has come to me to add one more entry, because it will make the story complete. when i last wrote here, i was positively certain that louis would die, that he would be killed in some terrible battle or have some accident to his aëroplane. nothing of the sort has occurred, marvelous as it may seem. yes, the miracle has happened, and louis, our same old louis, is back in his home on paradise green! what is more, the meadows, or mettots, as i now call them, are back here with him, just as in the old days. it's too wonderful for words! but the marquis is not here. he never will be here any more, for he died a year ago, leaving his title and what little remains of his estate to louis. the greater part of it has been turned over to the french government. but louis! oh, that has been the wonderful part of the story! he has been known for two years as one of the most daring and successful members of the french aviation corps, with a record of captured enemy machines and successful engagements to be proud of. he has been decorated by the french government and honored in a dozen ways, and has never been wounded or injured till just lately. in an engagement at eaucourt l'abbaye last october, toward the finish of the great somme battle, he was wounded in the side, but managed to land his machine safely. the wound was not serious in itself, but his old enemy, blood-poisoning, set in, and for a while it was nip-and-tuck whether he could recover. but louis says his constitution is "sound american," and after a long siege he was pronounced out of danger and recovered. he has been compelled by his commanding officer, however, to take a long leave of absence, to recover complete health before he returns to the front. so he came back to paradise green, to take up life, as he says, where he left it. during this easter vacation we four have been rollicking around, just as we used to when we were children and hadn't a care on our minds. carol is as grown-up as i am, and is attending college with me. the imp is a tall, lanky creature now, nearly through high school, and at times can be quite as exasperating as ever. they say she's cut out for a brilliant future, but just at present her whole mind is concentrated on becoming a red cross nurse, so that she can go off to "the front" and get in the thick of it. mother and father won't stand for it, of course, but trust the imp to get her way--somehow. and that brings me to another thing. america has at last entered the war. we can scarcely believe it yet. louis is jubilant, and dave promptly claimed the promise that father made him three years ago. father has consented, as he said he would, but is feeling pretty grave about it. and the look in mother's eyes is enough to keep dave from effervescing too openly. i dare not think very far into the future, but for the immediate present we all are trying to be happy. i had almost decided to destroy this journal, but something louis told us has made me change my mind. he said that before monsieur (i cannot get out of the habit of calling him that!) passed away, he told louis that he had changed his mind about keeping secret any longer the story of louis's descent. he said that he believed the dauphin would have been filled with pride at the wonderful attainments and service to france of the descendant of his own adopted son, and would glory in the world's knowledge of his connection with him. so louis said that, although he wasn't ever going to say anything about it himself, he didn't specially care if the rest of us did. the matter seemed of little importance to him, anyhow. he said that probably no one would believe it, anyway, as there were too many stories already concerning the escape and claims of the "lost dauphin." probably they won't, and i wouldn't blame them, for it does seem well-nigh incredible. however that may be, i've changed my mind about this journal. i'm going to show it to miss cullingford. she and i have always been great friends, even after i left high school, and i want her to read for herself the whole history of this wonderful thing that happened on little, out-of-the-way paradise green. generously made available by internet archive (https://archive.org) note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustration. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) images of the original pages are available through internet archive. see https://archive.org/details/yellowpearlstory tesk the yellow pearl a story of the east and the west by adeline m. teskey author of "where the sugar maple grows," etc. [illustration: logo] hodder and stoughton new york george h. doran company copyright, , by george h. doran company [illustration: frontispiece] the yellow pearl adeline m. teskey the yellow pearl _march st, ----_ here i am in this strange country about which i have learned in the geography and history, and about which i heard my father talk. the daughter of an american man and a chinese woman, i suppose i am what is called a mongrel. my father was a commissioner of customs in china, and living for years in that country he fell in love with my mother and married her--as was natural. who could help falling in love with my dear, yellow, winsome, little mother? my name is margaret, called after my father's mother; my father said that the word margaret means a pearl, so he gave me the pet name "pearl." dear father! "it was a monstrous thing for brother george to marry away there," i overheard my aunt gwendolin remark a short time after my arrival. "why could he not have come back home to his own country and found a wife?--and above all to have married a heathen chinese!" "not a heathen," said my grandmother, reproachfully, "she had previously embraced the faith of europeans; so my dear george wrote me from that far-away country." "oh, they are all heathens in my estimation," cried my aunt gwendolin, scornfully; "what faith they embrace does not change the fact that they belong to the yellow people." my mother died while i was yet a child, and my father has died and left me alone in the world within the last year. grandmother, my father's mother, when she learned about her son's death, sent at once for me. "i cannot leave a granddaughter of mine in that country, and among that heathen, if not barbarous, people," she wrote to the american consul, "and i ask your services to assist her to come to my home in america." the consul, absent-minded, gave me my grandmother's letter to read, and thus i learned her feeling about my mother's people and country. i never would have come to this horrible america if i could have helped myself; but i am scarcely of age, and by my father's will grandmother is appointed my guardian. the result of it all is, that having crossed the intervening waters, i am here in the home of my grandmother, my aunt gwendolin and my uncle theodore morgan. when i arrived this morning i was ushered into the sitting-room by a maid, and the first one i beheld was my grandmother, sitting in a rocking-chair. she called me to her, and crossing the room, i kotowed to her, that is i went down on my hands and knees and touched my forehead to the floor, as my chinese nurse had taught me when i was yet a baby that i should always do when i came into the presence of an elderly woman, a mother of children. "my _dear_ grandchild!" cried my grandmother, "_do_ get up. all you should do is to kiss me--your grandmother!" and she put out her hand and assisted me from the floor. grandmother is the dearest, prettiest little woman i ever saw, with white hair and the brightest of eyes, and i have to love her, although i had made up my mind to hate everything in america. a moment after she had lifted me from the floor, my aunt gwendolin came in. she is tall and thin, not nearly so beautiful a woman as my chinese mother. she wears skirts that drag on the floor, and her hair is built up into a sort of a mountain on top of her head. i am reminded every time i look at her of a certain peak in the thian shan mountains. i very much prefer little women, like my own dear mother, like the women of my own country. my uncle theodore is long-armed, long-legged, long-bodied. he looks a little like my father, and for that reason i hate him a little less than my aunt gwendolin. after my mother's death, my father brought into our home a french governess, daughter of a french consul, to teach me. father seemed to be lost in his business, or his grief at the loss of my mother, and paid very little heed to me after the arrival of the governess. "she is an educated woman," he told me when he had engaged her, "and i want her to teach you all you could learn in a first-class girls' school in europe or america." after that the french governess spent hours with me every day, and i saw my father only at intervals. how much we talked about, that french lady and i! everything, almost, except religion; _that_ my father vetoed, as her faith was not the one he wished me to embrace. "i'll take you over to your grandmother by and by," he used to say, "to get the proper religious instruction." the governess said that i inherited more from my father's side of the house than my mother's; that although i was born in china, i was more of an occidental than an oriental; more than once she said that my american mannerisms and tricks of speech were really remarkable, and that i was a living example of the power of heredity. but i am never going back on my mother's people, _never_, my dear little oval-faced mother whose grave is under a spreading camphor tree at the heart of the world. does it not mean something that china is at the centre of the world--the kernel? "the girl is not bad to look at, in fact i think she is a beauty--a face filled with the indescribable dash of the orient," said my uncle theodore, when they were talking me over in the sitting-room after i had retired to my chamber upstairs. evidently they had forgotten the opening in the floor which had been left by the workmen while making some changes in the plumbing. and they did not know my extraordinary keenness of hearing, which my governess said was an oriental trait. it seemed to give my governess some pleasure to talk about that keen sense of the orientals, and to speculate as to how they had acquired it. "they have lived in a country where it is necessary, for self-protection, to hear all that is being plotted and planned," she said, "a country of conspiracies and intrigues, of plots and counterplots. centuries of this have developed abnormal hearing." "she has a superb figure," said my uncle, continuing to talk about me, "and that oval face of hers, with her creamy complexion, is really bewitching." "yellow! you mean, _yellow_!" interrupted my aunt gwendolin; "she's entirely too yellow for beauty. i'm terribly afraid that some of our set will discover her nationality. that's _one_ thing you must remember, theodore, nobody on this continent is ever to learn anything about her chinese blood. they are so despised here as a race. she is our brother's daughter, with some foreign strain inherited from her mother; that is enough; never, _never_, let us acknowledge the chinese. the italians and spanish are yellowish too,--i have it!" she exclaimed, "_spanish!_--spanish will do!--some of those are _our_ people now, you know! it will be quite interesting to have her a native of one of our dependencies--a descendant of some old spanish family!" "do not be foolish, gwendolin," said my grandmother. "i could not endure the thought of introducing a celestial," continued my aunt. "none must know that we have introduced the yellow peril into the country!" "why, gwendolin, how you do talk," said my grandmother; "the child's father was an american, and she was admitted into this country as an american." "you must talk with the girl to-morrow, theodore," continued my aunt, ignoring my grandmother's remark, "and tell her to keep sacred her progenitors. she speaks such perfect english no one would suspect that there was much foreign about her." "she has a striking, unusual air that would attract a second glance from most people," said my uncle. "if you can keep her nationality from professor ballington you will do better than i think you can; he is a great ethnologist; it is his life-work to make discoveries in that line." "well it _must_ be kept, no matter what means we resort to," returned my aunt gwendolin, with a ring of determination in her voice. "poor child," said my dear old grandmother, "she is my granddaughter, and i love her already, my george's child. she looks beautiful to me whether yellow or no." i had gone down to dinner on this first evening in a soft yellow silk, with long flowing sleeves trimmed with dragons, i know i looked well in it. governess always said i did. it was partly chinese and partly european in design. governess planned it herself, and she said the french were born with a knowledge how to dress artistically; she boasted that she made it to suit my peculiar style. "did you notice that china silk she had on at dinner?" said aunt gwendolin; "there must be an end to all that; a ban must be put on everything chinese." "it was rather becoming i thought," said uncle theodore, "in harmony with the clear yellow of her skin. let her dress alone, she seems to know how to put it. that is a born gift with some women, and if it is not, they never seem to acquire it. there is great elegance in the straight lines of the oriental dress." "let her alone," said aunt gwendolin scornfully, "and let the whole city know we have introduced the yellow per----" "gwendolin, dear," interrupted grandmother, "do not speak so." "those chinese silks, of which she seems to have gowns galore--i was at the unpacking of her trunks--must be tabooed," said my aunt. "her father has evidently intended her to dress like an european or american; she has _some_ waist line, and does not wear the sacque the women wear in china; but her sleeves are _years_ old." "the dear child may object to having her attire changed at once," said my grandmother. "she is used to those soft clinging silks, and may not want to give them up. and sleeves are of little consequence. let her alone for awhile." "let her alone!" again retorted aunt gwendolin, "and let professor ballington see her? he'd know her nationality at once in that yellow silk covered with sprawling dragons, as almost anybody might. i cannot have anything so mortifying occur when the girl is calling me 'aunt'!" "ballington is a curious kind of a chap, and values people on their own merits; _he'd_ think none the less of the girl because she has some chinese blood in her," returned uncle theodore. "i'll take her out to-morrow," continued my aunt, "and buy her some taffeta silks and french muslins, and dress her up as a christian _should_ be dressed." grandmother said no more. the mother is not the head of the house in america as she is in dear old china. i suppose it is the daughter who rules in this country. i am so sleepy i cannot listen any longer, even to talk about myself. my governess has taught me that eavesdropping is not honourable, but i cannot avoid hearing so long as i stay in my room, and i have nowhere else to go. i will turn out the electric light, throw myself on the bed, yellow silk and all, and cry myself asleep. i wonder is that an american or a chinese act? my governess was continually tracing my actions to one or other of the nations. _march , ----_ it happened this morning! that man aunt gwendolin thought would be so sure to know that i was the yellow pearl, came to the house, and was ushered into my uncle's den by the maid, a few moments after i had been sent in there to have the "talk" with him which was spoken about the night before. "he is a tall man, very, very white," were my thoughts regarding him, as he bowed politely before me, when my uncle introduced us; and i suppose his thoughts regarding me were: "she is a short woman, very, very, yellow." he left after a few moments' conversation with my uncle; and turning to me the latter said, "that gentleman who has just gone is professor of ethnology in the state university. he knows all about the peculiarities of all the peoples and tribes that ever have graced or disgraced the face of this planet we call the world---- has your aunt told you that she thinks it better that you should say nothing about your chinese ancestry?" he added hastily and awkwardly. "have the chinese done anything disgraceful?" i asked him. "no, no, i don't suppose they really have," he answered with an air of annoyance. "a girl like you cannot understand; you had better simply follow instructions. i hope it will not be necessary to mention this subject again," he added meaningly. i could not mistake him; i must not _dare_ tell professor ballington or any one else in this great country that my mother was a chinese woman. in the afternoon aunt gwendolin took me down into the shops of the city, "to select an outfit," she said. we stood for hours, it seemed to me, over counters laden with silks and muslins of every colour in the rainbow. aunt gwendolin held the various shades up against my face to see which best became my "spanish complexion." this was said, i suppose, for the ears of the sales-people, and the fashionable customers standing around. when selections were made among the goods, i was taken to the establishment of a "parisienne modiste," where i was pinched, puckered, and pulled until i was nearly numb. a sort of a steel waist was put on me, which my aunt and the modiste called a "corset," and was so tightly pulled i could scarcely breathe. "i can't stand it, aunt gwendolin," i whisperingly gasped. "yes, you _can_!" she returned peremptorily, "you'll get used to it; that's nothing like as tight as the girls all wear them in this country." "i can't breathe," i gasped again, when the modiste had turned her back; (aunt gwendolin had signed to me the first time not to let her hear me). "hush!" said my aunt; "for pity sake do not let the modiste know that you never had a corset on before." "i'd rather have my feet bound like the women do in chi----" aunt gwendolin placed her jewelled fingers over my mouth before i had finished the sentence. just as i was through being "fitted," one of aunt gwendolin's fashionable friends came in. "arabella," my aunt called her, but the modiste called her mrs. delaney. i was not noticed, and slipped off into a corner, and this newcomer and my relative fell into a deep and absorbing talk about the new style of sleeve. i saw my opportunity and slipped unnoticed out the front door, which fortunately was behind them. hurrying down a few blocks i reached a bookseller's window. with one glance i had noticed, when my aunt and i were passing the window on the way to the establishment of the parisienne modiste, the word china on the cover of a book. "i'll buy that book," i had said to myself, "and learn what there is about china that makes americans despise her people." entering the store, i found a number of books about china and the chinese: "one of china's scholars," "how the chinese think," "the greatest novels of china," "chinese life." i paid for them all and ordered them sent to my grandmother's house. the bookseller looked at me very curiously for several moments, and then ventured, "you speak english very well." "of course i do," i said, tossing my head and trying to act saucily, as my governess had told me the american girls did. i would not have dared to treat a man that way in china. he did not venture to speak again. it is funny to be able in this america to frighten a man! confucius says that women should "be always modest and respectful in demeanour, and prefer others to themselves"; but i have not to mind confucius any longer; i am now in the "sweet land of liberty," as they sing in their national anthem. i heard my father say once that the gentleness and modesty of oriental women was really beautiful; but it would not be beautiful in america. i hurried back to the establishment of the parisienne modiste, and found my aunt and her friend still talking about sleeves. they had never noticed my absence. how very important sleeves are in america! i never heard them talked about in china. the talkers had evidently forgotten me, so i slipped out again, and walked several blocks, watching the manners, and catching snatches of the conversation of americans. "i'm going to have mine eighteen gores----" "pleating down the front, frills at the side----" "pocahontas hat, and prince chap suit----" "front panel, and revers turned----" "frills and pipings all around----" "gored, or cut in one piece----" "oh, pompadour, by all means, with----" these were the snatches of conversation which i caught from the women as they passed me. the men were mostly silent and glum. this curious country, that aunt gwendolin says has gone away ahead of the rest of the world, why do its women talk more about dress than anything else? and why have its men such pushing, hurrying, knock-you-down-if-you-stand-in-my-way faces? when i got back to the establishment of the parisienne modiste i found my aunt ready to take me to the milliner's to be "outfitted with hats." walking a block or two we entered a much-decorated room, and at my aunt's request an attendant brought several hats for our inspection--curious-looking things like straw bee-hives, or huge wasps' nests, covered over largely with wings and the heads of poor little dead birds, ends and loops of ribbon, roses and leaves, looking as if they were only half sewed on and liable to tumble off if touched, and long feathers, buckles, and pins. my aunt selected several, fitted them on my head, and declared they were very becoming to my spanish style of beauty. i, almost in tears, whispered into her ear, so the attendant would not hear me, "i shall not have to wear them where any one can see me, shall i?" aunt gwendolin smiled (the attendant was looking) and replied sweetly, "yes, they are very pretty, indeed." we in china could never kill our birds and wear them on our heads--the breasts of our beautiful mandarin ducks, the wings of our gold and silver pheasants, the heads of our pretty parrakeets--we never could do it--we would feel like murderers. our majestic-looking wild geese, that fly over our heads in flocks sometimes thirty miles in length, going south in the autumn and north in the spring, we never molest them. the buddhists believe that all geese perform an aerial pilgrimage to the holiest of the lakes in the mountains every year, transporting the sins of the neighbourhood, returning to the valley with a new stock of inspiration for the people in the locality where they choose to alight. here in this civilised country--i have been reading in one of their magazines that grandmother loaned me--they catch the beautiful water-fowls, kill them, and hack off their downy breasts to make ladies' hats. and the little young birds starve in the nest, because the mother never returns to feed them. ugh! civilised countries are dreadful! when the hats were selected my aunt conducted me to the furrier's. "the cold weather is not over yet," she said, "and while we are about it i shall select some necessary furs." i had noticed as we were passing through the streets that the ladies had curious looking things around their necks and shoulders, capes trimmed with heads of animals, and tails and paws of the same. i wondered the dogs did not bark at them. they looked like some hunters who had been out shooting and had thrown their dead game over their shoulders. the furrier whose shop we had entered seemed to know my aunt, and as soon as she said, "i want you to show me some of your best fur garments suitable for a young lady," he brought down from some shelves the greatest quantity of fur articles, ermine, mink, seal, sable, all covered with heads, tails, paws, claws, eyes, mouths, teeth, whiskers. i shuddered and drew back when my aunt went to place one around my neck. "oh, auntie!" i cried, "don't touch it to me!" "ha, ha, ha," softly and politely laughed the shopkeeper, "the young lady has not become acquainted with the newest thing in furs, so beautiful and realistic--so charming!" aunt gwendolin frowned. she evidently did not like my display of nerves, and resolutely fastened around my throat an ermine scarf with seven or eight heads, and twice as many tails. "there!" she said, "that will do nicely, it is very becoming to her creamy spanish." "it could not be better," said the polite shopkeeper. a muff was then chosen to match the scarf, with just as many horrible grinning heads, and little snaky tails; and paying for them, my aunt ordered them sent home. on my return home i dropped a silver coin into the housemaid's hand, and told her when the parcel of books arrived she was to carry it up to my room and say nothing about it. she seemed to understand, and asked no questions. an hour later she came to my door with the books in her arms, and found me examining my new set of furs. "betty," i cried, throwing wide the door of my room, "come in and tell me all about my furs--how the man that sells them gets all those little heads and tails. where do they get them? and how do they catch them? i want to know it all." "oh, miss," said betty, stepping briskly into the room, nothing loath to accept the invitation to examine the new furs, "they lives out in the wild woods--these little critters, an' men poisons 'em, an' traps 'em. an' when they is dead, they skins 'em, tans the skins, an' makes 'em up into muffs, an' boas, an' tippets, an' fur coats, an' so forth, an' so forth." "poison and trap them!" i cried, "doesn't that make the little creatures suffer?" "you bet!" said betty. "how cruel!" i added. "yes, miss, ain't it awful?" returned betty, making a wry face. "they's a book just been throwed in at the door to-day telling all as to how it is done. the american humane association has wrote the book--_they_ don't approve of killin' things. i'll bring it up an' let you read it." suiting the action to the thought betty rushed away down to the kitchen for the book. she returned in a few moments with a small pamphlet, and thrust it hastily into my hand--my aunt was calling her--and hastened away. i glanced down at a picture on the front page--a hare caught by the hind leg in a trap. a most agonised expression was on the little animal's face. below the picture was the title of the story, "_the cost of a skin_." i dropped into a rocking-chair and read the story: "furs are luxuries, and it cannot be said in apology for the wrongs done in obtaining them that they are essential to human life. skins and dead birds are not half so beautiful as flowers, or ribbons, or velvets, or mohair. they are popular because they are barbaric. they appeal to the vulgarians. our ideas of art, like our impulses, and like human psychology generally, are still largely in the savage state of evolution. no one but a vulgarian would attempt to adorn herself by putting the dead bodies of birds on her head, or muffling her shoulders in grinning weasels, and dangling mink-tails. indeed, to one who sees things as they are, in the full light of adult understanding, a woman rigged out in such cemeterial appurtenances is repulsive. she is a concourse of unnecessary funerals; she is about as fascinating, about as choice and ingenious in her decorations, as she would be, embellished with a necklace of human scalps. she should excite pity and contempt. she is a pathetic example of a being trying to add to her charms by high crimes and misdemeanours, and succeeding only in advertising her indifference to feeling. "of all the accessories gathered from every quarter of the earth to garnish human vanity, furs are the most expensive; for in no way does man show such complete indifference to the feelings of his victims as he does in the fur trade. "the most of the skins used for furs are obtained by catching their owners in traps, and death in such cases comes usually at the close of hours, or even days, of the most intense suffering and terror. the principal device used by professional trappers is the steel-trap, the most villanous instrument of arrest that was ever invented by the human mind. it is not an uncommon thing for the savage jaws of this monstrous instrument to bite off the leg of their would-be captive at a single stroke. if the leg is not completely amputated by the snap of the terrible steel, it is likely to be so deeply cut as to encourage the animal to gnaw or twist it off. this latter is the common road to escape of many animals. trappers say that on an average one animal in every five caught has only three legs." "we'd never do it in china--_never_!" i cried, throwing the leaflet from me. "it is only this horrid, civilised america that could be so terribly cruel! i shall never wear my furs--_never_! i shall beg grandmother--she seems to be the only civilised being i know that has any heart--to allow me to go without them!" i looked again at my leaflet, which i had picked from the floor, and continued to read the words of the author: "i would rather be an insect--a bee or a butterfly--and float in dim dreams among the wild flowers of summer than be a man and feel the wrongs of this wretched world." i rose from my chair and thrust my headed and tailed ermine scarf and muff into a box, and pushed them far back on the closet shelf. "stay there! stay there!" i cried. "the yellow pearl will have nothing to do with civilisation!" "yellow pearl," i said to myself, accusingly, half an hour later, "_you_ know that they have fur in china, that the rich wear fur-lined garments." "yes," i replied to that accusing _i_, "the rich wear fur-lined garments, but they procure the fur from animals that have to be killed for food, or for man's self-preservation. they are not caught in the cruel steely traps of america. linings, mind you, _linings_," i reiterated, "to keep them warm, not the heads, tails, paws, claws, eyes, teeth of the little animals to bedizen their persons." _march th, ----_ the result of all the pinching, puckering, fitting, which i underwent at the establishment of the parisienne modiste is that i am walking around arrayed in taffeta silk, and squeezed out of all my natural shape by the steel waist. my sleeves are made so that my shoulders appear very much nearer my ears than nature intended them to be. my hair is done up in a quarter hundred--more or less--little puffs, and a quarter hundred hairpins are scratching my scalp. i have had to lay aside my nice soft shoes, and pretty chinese slippers, and am gyrating around in tight shoes, with a french heel somewhere about the middle of the sole. i almost fell downstairs the first day i wore them; and when i wanted to take them off my aunt gwendolin was indignant. "you'll learn to walk in them soon," she said; "you are in a civilised country now, and must do as the people do here. you cannot pad around without heels any more." i look ugly, and i feel cross. i have reached the land of bondage! oh, for my beautiful china silks, thick, soft, lustrous, and loose enough to be comfortable--which have been bundled up and put in a large cedar chest in the attic. oh, for my own country, my heathen china, with its dress thousands of years old in fashion! what frights some of the women in this stuck-up country look--in their tight waists, showing their figures! that may be pretty enough--if really modest, which my country denies--when they are young, slender, lithe; but fancy a great stout woman in a "shirt waist," as they call it, with a belt defining her girth, and perhaps a tight skirt making her look positively vulgar. ugh! grandmother has had me in her room; indeed, she took me in a couple of days after my arrival, and locking the door to keep out all intruders, she talked long and solemnly to me. she was shocked when she learned that i had scarcely heard of christ, and that i had never read the bible. "my dear child," she cried, "what was your father thinking about? why did he so neglect your religious education?" "he always said that he was going to bring me over to you, grandmother, to teach me religion," i replied. "i know all about confucius and buddha, my nurses used to talk about them; but they never mentioned christ." the result of this conversation is, that grandmother has me go into her room for a half-hour every day to study the bible. we began at the first chapter of genesis, and already we have got as far as abraham. between times i am reading the chinese books in my own room upstairs, and i learn from one of them that more than a century before the birth of abraham, china had two great and good men; fully as good as abraham i should think,--yao and shun--who framed laws that govern the nation to-day. why did not yao and shun get a "_call_" as abraham did? i think they deserved one fully as well. after we get through our study of genesis and abraham, grandmother usually has a little talk about that great and beautiful man, christ; telling me how kind and gentle he was, and how he always considered the good of others rather than his own good. "the princely man!" i cried the first time she mentioned him. she wanted to know what i meant, and i told her that my nurses had told me about china's ideal and model, the "princely man," and i thought the christ must be _he_. "more, much more than confucius, the princely man," returned my grandmother. "it is my sincere hope, my dear granddaughter, that your mind may become illumined as you proceed with your study, until you understand the vast difference between the princely man and christ." "there is a pretty legend about christ," she added, "which says that as he walked the earth sweet flowers grew in the path behind him. the legend is true in a spiritual sense--wherever his steps have pressed the earth all these centuries, flowers have sprung up, flowers of love, kindness, gentleness, thoughtfulness." then grandmother began to sing softly, in the sweetest old trembly soprano voice one ever heard, asking me to join her: "let every kindred, every tribe on this terrestrial ball, to him all majesty ascribe, and crown him lord of all." _march th, ----_ we went to church this morning, it being sunday--aunt gwendolin, uncle theodore, and i. grandmother was indisposed and did not go. it was my first attendance at church, for aunt gwendolin said i had nothing fit to wear until she dressed me up. "are _you_ going, theodore?" i heard my aunt, through the opening in the floor, say in a surprised tone, as if she were not accustomed to seeing him go. "i think i'll go this morning," returned my uncle, continuing to brush his coat, which act had prompted my aunt's question. "i want to see how our fashionable way of worshipping god will impress the little celestial. it will be her first attendance at church." aunt gwendolin came up to my room and selected the gown i was to wear, in fact my whole outfit. she took from the wardrobe a white french cloth costume (it was very much in harmony with my feelings that i should appear in america's church for the first time in the colour which china uses for mourning), and one of the beehive hats with several birds on it. "oh, i can't wear that if anybody is going to see me," i cried when she brought out the hat. "well, if you are going to make a scene," said my aunt curtly, "wear _this_," and she brought from its bandbox a "sailor" covered with white drooping ostrich feathers. "you'll look sweet in that," she added; "and when you get more used to civilised head-gear you can wear the others." "do we go to church to look sweet?" i inquired. "oh, dear, no," she answered impatiently, "but there is nothing gained in being a fright--were there no christians in your country to hold meetings?" without waiting for my reply, she dived into the closet and brought out my fur tippet, but i begged so hard not to wear it, that she said as the day was mild i need not. i'll have to see grandmother and have it disposed of before another churchgoing time. aunt gwendolin herself was beautifully dressed in a light blue-gray; at a glance she looked like a passing cloud dropped down from the sky, but a closer inspection revealed a mystery of shirrings, tuckings, smockings, frillings never seen in a cloud. in reply to my questions she had told me the name of all the strange puckerings. i'd like the cloud-gown better without the puckerings. "what do we go to church for?" i asked as we were being whirled along in the automobile, which was controlled by a very good-looking young man whom they called "chauffeur." "why--why--what a heathen you are! to worship god, of course," said my aunt shortly. "does god require us to wear such fashionable clothes to worship him?" i asked, feeling wearied with the effort of dressing--collars, belts, buckles, pins, gloves, corsets, shoes, hats, buttonings, and lacings. uncle theodore laughed, and aunt gwendolin frowned, and looked carefully round to see whether her white taffeta petticoat was touching the ground--we were by this time at the church and walking from the automobile to the church door. following aunt gwendolin's lead, we were soon in a front seat. we were there but a few moments when a number of young men and women, dressed in black robes, with white ties under their chins, came in through some back door behind the gallery where they afterwards stood, and began to sing. "lead me to the li-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ight," sang one young woman, all in a tremble. "lead me to the li-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ight," sang a man in a heavy voice. then the woman screeched in as high notes as her voice could reach, i am sure, and the man ran away down to a growl. after the whole company had repeated "lead me to the light," they began to sing against each other, all in a jumble; they seemed to finish the song in some foreign language. i did not know a word of it. i suppose as it was for the worship of god it did not matter whether any one else understood it or not. after the singing was done, a man--the minister they call him--uncle theodore has since told me--stood up before the people and read a verse from the bible--one of the verses i have not got to yet in my reading with grandmother. then he began to talk about the hardships of poor missionaries out in what he called "the unchristianised west of our own country," and the _awful_ need of the natives. it was "missionary sunday;" a bulletin lying in the seat acquainted us with the fact, and the music and the sermon were to be of a missionary character. the minister told a story about a young man who had gone out as a missionary to the indians, who was living in a shack, twelve by fourteen, cooking his own meals, and eating and sleeping in the one room. he had not salary enough to pay his board. when the minister had talked half an hour, and had us all wrought up about the woes of the missionary, and the needs of the heathen, he closed his sermon. and we leaned back in our seats and were lulled into forgetfulness of the grievous story, by low-toned, dreamy, soothing music, from the echo organ. aunt gwendolin has told me since that the organ cost seventy thousand dollars. christians are most extraordinary people; they rouse one all up to the pitch of being willing to do most anything by a heart-rending address, and then scatter all the impression by their music. when the organist had finished, i wasn't the least worried about the ills of the missionary or the indians. indeed all the people looked relieved, as if a burden had been lifted from them. when we were again in the automobile aunt gwendolin said: "didn't the church look well this morning? it has been undergoing some repairs, and three thousand dollars' worth of cathedral oak has been added to the wainscoting." "that would pay the board of the young missionary among the indians for a long time," i said. "hush!" said aunt gwendolin impatiently, "do not talk foolishness!" perhaps uncle theodore thought she shut me up too peremptorily, for he said: "paying that young man's board out in the west would never be noticed or talked about, my dear; other denominations would pay no attention to it, while this cathedral oak wainscoting--oh my! oh my! will excite the admiration and jealousy of the whole city." "i _love_ beautiful churches," returned my aunt gwendolin poutingly. "i shall take pearl around to see st. george's, where the altar cost five thousand dollars. it will be an education to the girl. a man gave it in memory of his wife, which was a very beautiful thing to do." "pooh!" exclaimed my uncle, "why didn't he do something for some poor wretches who need it, in memory of his wife?" while they had been talking i was looking at the curious, high-crowned, black, shiny hats (a stove-pipe, uncle theodore has since told me they ought to be called) which the men all were wearing. they seem to be as essential in america as the queue is in china. in the afternoon grandmother invited me into her private room to have a quiet talk with her, she said. "everything is very new to you, my dear margaret--pearl i believe your father called you--in this country, and you must come to me with all your troubling problems. i feel for you, my dear grandchild, and do not fear to say anything, _anything_ at all you feel like saying to me." she took my small yellow hands in hers, and looked at me lovingly, saying as she gently chafed them that they were very pretty and plump. there _were_ things puzzling me, had puzzled me that very day, and i felt inclined to place them before my kind granny. "what are christians, grandmother?" i asked. "my dear child," said my grandmother, "the word simply means the followers of christ." "oh, it cannot mean _that_!" i cried, then stopped, abashed. grandmother raised her glasses from her eyes, placed them on her forehead, and stared at me in a puzzled way for a few seconds, then she said: "my dear pearl, why do you say that?" she was looking at me and i must answer, although fearing that i had hurt her feelings in some way by my abrupt contradiction. "you said that the man, christ, was very kind and gentle, and that he always thought of the good of others before his own," i continued. "would _he_ pay thousands upon thousands for a grand church, in which to sit and be happy, and feel rich; and thousands upon thousands for a great organ to play sweet music and make him forget the world's sorrows, while his brothers were too poor to pay for their board----?" "no, he would _not_!" said grandmother, tears welling into her blue eyes. jumping from my seat i threw my arms around her neck and kissed her wrinkled, quivering face, saying, "_you_ are a follower of the princely man--of the good man, christ, _you_ are, grandmother----" a peremptory rap at the door stopped further conversation, and when i opened it, a lady was ushered in to see grandmother. i was introduced to mrs. paton, of whom i had before heard my grandmother speak as "a great christian worker," and whom i heard my aunt gwendolin denounce as a "tiresome crank, spoiling every one's comfort." i looked very earnestly at the lady, trying to fit her into the two definitions. mrs. paton began almost at once to talk about the "temperance movement," and the "evils of intoxicating liquors," and "the selfishness of the onlooking world, who were not the real sufferers." she left after the expiration of half an hour, and grandmother said to me: "you would not understand mrs. paton's remarks, my dear. you will have to be longer in the country before you know what is meant by the 'evils of intoxicating liquors.' did you ever really see a drunken man?" "no, grandmother," i said, "i never even _heard_ of one. _drunk!_--what does it mean?" "oh," said grandmother, "something that as a country we have reason to be terribly ashamed of--men drinking intoxicating liquors until they lose their senses----" another rap interrupted grandmother, and we were called out to tea. the only really delightful thing they do in this america is to drink tea, just the same as we do in china. i see how it is; they have a new confucius in this america, but they do not live the new confucius--none but my dear grandmother. _march th, ----_ it is settled--but not without a fight--i do not have to wear the furs with heads and tails, and all the rest. to please my grandmother, who was so afraid i might catch cold, i submitted to accepting a plain set, a set which dear grandmother had selected herself. aunt gwendolin was furious, and fought hard that i should be compelled to wear the first set, but grandmother overruled. i see the mother can be the head of the house in america when she chooses. it was the kittens that decided grandmother. one day she and i were out for a short walk, and we met a girl with two little kittens around her hat--not real live kittens, but the skins of two little gray and white kittens stuffed with cotton batting, and with glass eyes, arranged as if meeting and sparring around the crown of that girl's hat. "it is barbaric," said grandmother. "there are two kinds of heathen. there are the heathen who are born such, and there are the heathen by choice. and if we look about us we must acknowledge we have a great multitude of them at home." it almost made grandmother sick, and she decided at once that i could get the furs changed. "i never seem to have awakened to the enormity of it before," said poor grandmother with a sigh. how glad i am that the mother can be the head of the house in america when she chooses! a young man whom we all call cousin ned, because he is a distant relative of the family, comes here to grandmother's house very often. he talks incessantly about "first base," "second base," and "third base," "innings," and "runs," "pitchers," and "short-stop," "outfield," and "infield," "right-fielder," "centre-fielder," and "left-fielder," "scores," and "catchers." it is all greek to grandmother and me, but we can get him to talk about nothing else. i asked uncle theodore the first time i saw this cousin of ours, what he was doing--his home is many miles away, and he is boarding in the city. "he is here ostensibly to attend the university," said uncle theodore, "but ned is a great sport." as uncle theodore was walking away he sang lightly: "if fame you're on the lookout for and seek it over all the words you must engrave upon your mind are these: play ball!" this was rather unusual, for uncle theodore rarely sings, and i am sure i do not know what he meant by it. by reason of the relationship, cousin ned feels free to come to the house without ceremony at all hours of the day. most of the time he is wearing a "sweater," with a large letter on the breast. _march th, ----_ aunt gwendolin decided, soon after i came, that i must begin at once to take lessons in spanish. the teachers are now visiting the house daily, one to teach me the spanish language, and the other to instruct me how to sing spanish songs. señor de bobadilla has just been here, and i have been screeching away for half an hour in a small room where my aunt has had a piano placed specially for my use. she says she is not going to "bring me out"--that means introduce me to society, grandmother says; that was one of the puzzling questions i carried to her--until i can sing spanish songs. i see through it all, because of the conversation i heard through the floor opening; she thinks by that means to convince her society friends that i am spanish instead of chinese. how very funny! there was a small dinner-party at this house the other evening, but of course i could not be at the table. i have not "come out." grandmother argued for my appearing, but aunt gwendolin was firm to the contrary, and she won. ancestors are not much regarded in america. my aunt gave me permission, however, to look in on the guests when they were seated at the table. she had a large mirror fastened to the door, and by leaving it open at a particular angle i could watch--myself unseen behind a curtain--the ceremony of dining as practised in america. mercy! those women with bare arms and bare shoulders sitting there before the men! how could they help blushing for themselves! i just gave one glance at them, then ran away and hid my face! having the evening to myself, i went up to my room and enjoyed myself reading my chinese books. my aunt said that i was to stay at the curtained door, and learn the ways of society by watching the manners of the guests at dinner; but i saw all i wanted to see in one glance. i'd like to carry all those women little shawls to put around their bare shoulders. mrs. delancy's was the barest of them all, but i have heard my aunt talk since about how "elegantly gowned mrs. delancy was." a strange thing happened up in my room; i opened one of my books just at the page where it tells about the chinese ambassadors, on the occasion of their visits to christian countries, noticing with grave disapproval the décollete costumes of the women at the state functions. what wonder!--if they looked anything like the women at my aunt's dinner party! señor de bobadilla says that i am making remarkable progress with my spanish songs; he tells grandmother in a half-whisper, as if fearing to let me hear him, that i am very bright and intelligent; he congratulated her on having such a prodigy for a grandchild. oh, cunning señor de bobadilla, you want to continue my lessons indefinitely. i am learning to quiver and shake, and trill, run up the scale, and down the scale, jump from a note away down low to a note away up high. i'll soon be able to sing "lead me to the light," as well as the church choir. the professor looks very spanish in brown velvet coat, red necktie, shoes shining like a looking-glass, a moustache waxed into long points on each side of his top lip, and hair hanging in a curling brown mat down to his shoulders. seated at the piano, his thin yellow fingers sprawl over the white and black ivory keys, while in response to my efforts he keeps ejaculating, "goot! goot! _excellent! superb!_" i, dressed in muslin, cream-coloured ground dashed over with wild roses, or blue ground with white chrysanthemums (the latter is not very becoming to my yellow skin) stand at his left hand stretching my mouth to the utmost, trying to give utterance to the tones he is striking on the piano, and trying to look spanish, too. señor de la prisa is teaching me the spanish language--a lesson every day, and i am beginning to jabber the strange gibberish like a parrot: "_es un dia bonita. el viento es frio. se esta haciendo tarde. es temprano._" i'll soon believe myself that i am _really_ spanish, and have never come from "the country of yellow gods and green dragons," as uncle theodore calls my dear native land. i have been watching people, reading the daily newspapers and my chinese books, and asking grandmother questions until i feel very wise. i am almost as wise as a real american now. some weeks following mrs. paton's sunday visit to my grandmother, i was out for a short walk of pleasure when i overtook her. she was pleased to meet me again, she said, and we walked along together, chatting, at least she talked and i listened, sometimes asking questions. "just think of it, my dear," she said, "this is the day on which men are applying for licenses to sell poison to kill their fellow-men." then she told me story after story of the terrible misery caused by intoxicating drinks, and the sin and crime they caused people to commit, until i was almost in tears. a noise of voices and tramping feet interrupted her, and there came around a corner, marching toward us, a long procession of men. "who are they?" i inquired, slipping my arm into hers. i had never before seen so many men together. "strikers," she returned sadly. "strikers?" i exclaimed. "yes," she added, "men who will not work until their employers pay them the amount they think they ought to be paid." tramp! tramp! tramp! the great crowd passed us in long file, dusty, worn, hard-worked men. my heart swelled as i looked at their strained faces; i could not go any farther on my walk; i had to rush home to ask grandmother questions. "grandmother!" i cried, panting into her room, "strikes in a country that follows christ!--and men asking for a license to sell poison to their fellow-men!" i fell on my knees in front of her chair and sobbed, i could not have told why. she took my face in her soft old withered hands, and holding it was about to speak, when my aunt gwendolin, who had overheard me, came into the room and cried indignantly: "that crank of a mrs. paton has been talking to the girl; i know her very words. that woman should be forcibly restrained!" grandmother did not answer her, but continued to stroke my face until i grew quieter, and until my aunt had left the room. then in reply to my many pointed questions she told me in brief, that the reason men got licenses to sell liquor was that they paid money for them, and the country granted them for the sake of the great revenue they brought into its treasury. "oh, grandmother!" i cried, raising my head from her lap, "when britain tried to induce the chinese emperor to legalise the opium traffic because of the import duty, he said, 'nothing shall induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of my people'!"--i had read all this in my books on china. grandmother was wiping away tears, and i said no more. i went up to my own room, and half an hour later i heard my uncle theodore, to whom my grandmother had repeated my words, say: "she is preternaturally sharp. no girl of this country thinks of the things she does. i suppose they develop younger in those eastern climes." "it is all new to her," said my grandmother; "she has just come in upon it and sees it with fresh eyes. the girls here have grown up with it and become used to it by degrees." "oh, it's that oriental blood--half witch, half demon--that's at the bottom of all her tantrums. the orientals are all a subtle lot, and we as a country are wise to make them stay at home," said my aunt gwendolin. _april , ----_ aunt gwendolin has discovered my chinese books that i had intended to keep hidden in my room. she came in suddenly one day and found me seated in the midst of them. "what's this? what's this?" she cried in great agitation. "how are we ever going to get you into the ways of christianised, civilised folk if you keep feeding your mind on literature about uncivilised people?" and she gathered my books up into her arms and carried them away. i have them all read, however, and she cannot carry away the thoughts they have left in my mind. what great creatures we human beings are! what a world with which no one else can meddle we can carry around in our little brains and hearts! it is all the same whether they are american or chinese brains or hearts. "i see now where she has gotten all her smart sayings about the chinese," my aunt said to my grandmother and uncle theodore. "how can we ever hope to do anything with her when she is being poisoned by such stuff as is in those books? 'for ways that are dark and tricks that are vain' commend me to the chinese!" "i'll sicken her of the chinese," she added: "i'll bring one into the kitchen to cook; then perhaps she'll feel more compunction about acknowledging that she is part celestial. she actually seems as if she were proud of the fact now." grandmother remonstrated, but my aunt replied: "i have always been wanting to try a chinese cook; they are really the world's cooks and so careful and clean, it is said. then i would like to give pearl enough of it. she will not be so fond of claiming kinship with the cook." the result of all this was that inside of twenty-four hours a chinaman was installed in the kitchen--and the biscuits are perfect. his name is yee yick; of course he has three names, all chinamen have; but trying to become americanised they use only two in this country. my aunt has decided that it is sufficient to call him yick. "the english call their servants by their surnames," was all the explanation she made. yick is a dude; he has a suit for almost every day in the week, and is very vain of his appearance. his queue is rolled up around his head, which is a sign that he has not yet abandoned his home gods. he is very anxious to learn english, and betty tells me that he has a slate hanging up in the kitchen on which he is writing english words every spare moment. i had watched yick a good deal, but i never exchanged a word with him, until the event occurred about which i am going to write; and i know he never dreamed that i could speak his language. poor yick! if he is "chief cook and bottle-washer," as my aunt says, he is my countryman, and i cannot help taking an interest in him. one day i walked to the end of the veranda which runs the whole length of the house, and glancing in through the kitchen window as i passed, i saw yick making his tea-biscuits. he had the flour and shortening all mixed, and raising the bowl of milk which was on the table, he took a great mouthful, and then began to force it out in a heavy spray through his teeth into the dish of prepared flour, in the same manner as the chinese laundryman sprinkles clothes. i wrung my hands, and cried within myself, "oh, yick, you terrible man! you horrible little pigtail!" but i slipped back to the front of the veranda without making an audible sound. how could i tell on poor yick, and bring down such an awful storm on his head as would result? he was a stranger in a strange land, and it was my duty to protect him. was it such a very wicked thing he had done? he never killed little birds, anyway, and wore them on his head; nor trapped cunning little animals, and strung their heads and tails around his neck! i decided i would not tell on him. but that evening at dinner i passed the plate of white, flaky biscuits without taking any. i sat at grandmother's left hand, and when she was not looking, i slipped the biscuit which she had taken away from her bread-and-butter plate, and let it slide from my hand down onto the floor. dear, absent-minded grandmother never missed it. aunt gwendolin and uncle theodore ate three biscuits each. "it seems to me that yick keeps constantly improving in his biscuits," said my aunt, as she reached for her third. "they ought to be better than other people at most everything," returned my uncle theodore, "they have been a long while practising. they may have been making biscuits before moses was born. the chinaman possesses a history which dwarfs the little day of modern nations. it is a saying of theirs that from the time heaven was spread and earth was brought into existence china can boast a continuous line of great men." i looked pleased and smiled. my aunt seeing it said, with a toss of her head: "a continuous line of great cooks and laundrymen." that evening when my aunt and uncle were out, and grandmother had gone to bed, i slipped down to the kitchen and stood face to face with yick. he almost kotowed to me, but commanding him to stand up, i told him in plain chinese that i had seen him mixing the biscuits, and disapproved of his plan. his hair almost seemed to stand on end when he heard me speaking his native tongue. he started to tremble, and his knees bent under him. "yee yick," i continued, in the language he thoroughly understood, "if you ever put the milk in your mouth again, and sift it out through your teeth into the flour, i shall inform the mistress of the house, and you shall be dismissed!" trembling all over yick began rapidly in chinese to promise that he would never, _never_ be guilty of the act again. then, as if scarcely able to believe that i could understand his native tongue, he repeated his promise in english. "no, missee, yee yick not putee milk in mouthee! no, missee, yee yick not putee milk in mouthee!" i assured him in chinese that i would keep the secret of what i had seen on condition that he would keep his promise, and went out of the kitchen, leaving the poor fellow almost in tears. i believe he scarcely knows whether to regard me as a spirit or a being of flesh and blood, it is so hard for him to understand how i can speak chinese. the plumbers have closed up the hole in the floor, so i shall hear no more about the "wily celestial." _april th, ----_ while i have been waiting to be prepared to "come out," i determined to walk around the streets and see some more of the doings of americans. grandmother gave her consent, with a warning to keep off certain streets. "it is quite safe for a young girl to walk alone in most places in our country, thank god," said dear grandmother devoutly, "and i am very willing that you should look about you. i remember when i was a girl i liked to walk and see things, too." but aunt gwendolin knocked the whole thing in the head--apparently. "it is so plebeian for her to go tramping through the streets," she said to my grandmother. "cannot she be satisfied to go out every day with us in the automobile? the grounds are spacious around this place, and she can have all the exercise she wants right here." so the question was settled--to all appearance. a week after my aunt's fiat i read in the daily newspaper that in the "house of jacob," a certain jewish synagogue downtown, there was conducted on a certain afternoon every week sewing classes for young jewish girls. instantly i decided that i wished to visit it, and see those "children of abraham," about whom grandmother had been teaching me in the bible, those people who were god's favourites, and i set about laying plans to accomplish my desire. happily, when that afternoon came around, aunt gwendolin went out to a bridge party--i have not yet found out what that means, but i hoped that afternoon that she would have a good many bridges to cross, so it would keep her a long time away--and it was betty's day out. previous to this i had found in a closet a black skirt and shawl formerly worn by grandmother, and a bonnet which she had laid aside. as soon as my aunt had safely departed (i had seen betty go an hour before), i hastily threw the heavy black satin skirt over mine, draped the black embroidered silk shawl around my shoulders, and tied on the bonnet. with a black chiffon veil, which was not very transparent, tied over my face, i felt very comfortable. it was quite proper for an _elderly_ lady to go anywhere she wished. grandmother was taking her customary afternoon nap, as i slipped down the backstairs into the kitchen. yick, preparing the flour for his biscuits, saw me and started. i could not keep my secret from him; i decided to take him into my confidence and trust him. so lifting my veil, i looked at him markedly, and told him rapidly in chinese that he was not to tell any one he had seen me. he smiled, winked, and nodded knowingly, assuring me in voluble chinese that he would keep my secret. "you no tellee onee me," he said significantly, with grimaces and gesticulations. going out through the back door, and down through a lane at the back of the house, i was soon on the street. taking the street-cars--in which aunt gwendolin thinks it is very plebeian to ride--i was soon whirled down in front of the "house of jacob." what a mercy it is, in this curious america, that so many people are plebeian and ride in street-cars that they do not pay any attention to one another. nobody noticed my grandmotherly garb. a woman reporter entered the front door of the synagogue along with me, and i imagined that i was regarded with some deference--grandmother's old skirt and shawl are made of rich material. i followed the reporter around the room in which the classes were held, a few yards in the rear. there they were, a hundred or more little jewish children, red-headed, black-headed, blonde-headed, and jewish women had them arranged in groups, and were teaching them to sew. "these little red-heads are typical russian jews," i heard the director of the ceremonies say to the reporter, "only in this country a few months. _there's_ one that has the marked jewish features," she added, pointing to another type of child. "they are all fond of jewellery--an oriental trait." dear, dear, i only stayed a short time looking at them. they are not much different from others, those people who struck rocks and water gushed out, had manna and quails rained down on them, and walked through a wilderness led by a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. i have seen hundreds of chinese who looked just as remarkable. i cannot understand why god showed partiality to abraham's children. i went out onto the street again, and wandered on till i came to what i recognized as chinese quarters. there were the laundries of hoy jan, lem tong, lee ling, and the shops and warehouses of moy yen, man hing, and cheng key. the dear names; it did me almost as much good to look at them as it could to make a visit to my own country. as i walked down the quiet street, a wistful oval face looked down on me from a window. a chinese woman's face, and the first i had seen since coming to america. stepping into a little shop near by, a shop containing preserved ginger, curious embroidered screens, little ivory elephants and jade ornaments, i asked who lived in the house where i saw the face at the window, and was informed that it was the home of mr. and mrs. lee yet. it was drawing near dinner time in my grandmother's house; already i had stayed out longer than i had intended: i had no time to investigate further regarding mrs. yet. when i got back to the house i found that my aunt had returned before me, but fortunately had not noticed my absence. when yick walked into the dining room with the steaming plum-pudding for our dinner, aunt gwendolin said: "yick, who was that little old woman i saw coming up our back lane half an hour ago?" "me nevee see no little old womee," returned yick, with a child-like smile. "how stupid those chinese are," said my aunt, when yick had left the room. "i certainly saw an old woman, and there that creature never saw her!" the _creature_ had helped a _young_ woman take off her black bonnet and shawl, and escape up the backstairs half an hour before. i suppose it's "that oriental blood--half witch, and half demon" that's at the bottom of my tantrum of this afternoon. _april th, ----_ mrs. paton has been in to make another sunday visit to grandmother; she is an old friend and privileged to come when she chooses--and as before i had the privilege of hearing her talk. "we are calling ourselves a christian country," she said to grandmother, "and yet we care more for pleasure than for anything else. an actress is paid more money in one month than a preacher of the gospel is paid in a year. does not that show what the people of our country care most for? going over to christianise the heathen forsooth! we are not following christ ourselves! what an example we set them! how can we expect them to think much of our religion when they see it has done so little for _us_? "christianity is despised, and rightly so. it is called cant, and so it is; going around with the bible under its arm, and never obeying its precepts. we want more men overturning the tables of the money-changers, and upsetting the commercialism that is grinding other men down to starvation!" dear grandmother was not argumentative, and gently assented to all her visitor was saying. "when this country is really following christ itself," continued the visitor, "we shall see our wealthy men, instead of using their wealth to build palaces, and to minister to the pride of themselves in a thousand forms, choosing to lead the simple life, with personal expenditure cut down to a minimum, and their ability to minister to others increased to a maximum; in short we will find them following in the footsteps of their lord. man is really the richer as he decreases his wants, and increases his capacity to help." when she rose to leave, at the end of an hour's chat, she said very solemnly to me as she held my hand in a farewell clasp: "my dear, each man and woman is born with an aptitude to do something impossible to any other. _you_ have an aptitude that the world has no match for. it is your aptitude for your own peculiar and immediate duty." oh, how solemn the words look as i write them down. what can my duty be? i wonder when i am going to find out. aunt gwendolin thinks it is to sing spanish songs, i know; she firmly believes that to be my own _peculiar and immediate duty_. grandmother thinks it is to study the bible. and uncle theodore thinks it is to look artistically dressed. i have not come to a conclusion yet as to what i think myself. when i get so terribly lonesome in this america that i cannot stand it any longer, i get betty to steal down my yellow silk out of the box in the attic, the one trimmed with green dragons, and i dress up in it, and put on my head the pretty embroidered band that the chinese women wear instead of the hideous hats of america, and sweep up and down the room like a peacock with a spreading tail, betty going into raptures over my appearance, sometimes laughing hysterically, and sometimes almost in tears, because they have "no such grand clothes in america." if aunt gwendolin hears a noise and comes trailing along the hall, i jump into bed and cover myself up, yellow silk and all, and betty proceeds to bathe my head for a headache--i really have one by that time. how many foreigners they have in this great country, shanghai roosters, turkey hens, persian cats, arabian horses. i wonder do all those foreign creatures feel something calling them back, back to their own country? cousin ned spends most all his time at grandmother's at present. he had his arm broken at a baseball game, and is carrying it in a sling. _april th, ----_ we had the pleasure of professor ballington's company at lunch to-day--uncle theodore had him down in his office on some business, and insisted on his coming home and lunching with him. when he and my uncle walked in unannounced they found grandmother, aunt gwendolin, and me in the sitting-room. the professor shook hands with me in a very friendly manner; he really seemed pleased to see me. oh, it is awfully nice for a girl in a strange land, feeling alone and lonesome, to have some one glad to see her. he had not spoken to me since that morning my uncle introduced me to him, but he has seen me a number of times when i have been out in the carriage with my grandmother and aunt. he seated himself beside me, and we were just beginning to chat pleasantly when my aunt gwendolin said: "you have not heard our little dependency sing, professor ballington?" grandmother's cheeks flushed, and uncle theodore looked embarrassed. "pearl, dear," she added sweetly, addressing me, "give us one of your stirring spanish songs before we go to lunch. you can sing better before lunch than after." in obedience to the request--which i felt to be a command--i went to the piano and sang lightly the only spanish song _i could_ sing. all the hearers seemed pleased with my effort. professor ballington looked calmly at me, but a smile lay behind his blue eyes. what did that smile mean? we immediately sat down to lunch, and i was saved the embarrassment of having to tell that i could only sing _one_ spanish song. i guess aunt gwendolin made sure that no such a dilemma should occur. by some stray remark of uncle theodore's, the conversation at the table turned on what he calls the "asiatic problem." "those dreadful asiatics," interposed aunt gwendolin, "so sly and subtle, they certainly should be shut out. they are a menace to any country." "above all nations is humanity," smilingly returned professor ballington. "especially those inferior people, the chinese," added my aunt. "we can scarcely call the chinese inferior, miss morgan," returned professor ballington. (how i wanted to give him a hug!) "the chinaman despises our day of small things. like the jew he possesses a great national history which dwarfs that of all other nations. the golden era of confucius lies back five hundred years before the coming of christ, and the palmy days of the chan dynasty antedate the period of david and solomon." "oh, yes," said my aunt curtly, "but what has he accomplished in all that time? we regard them as a nation of laundrymen." "and they regard us as a nation of shopkeepers, and express lofty contempt for our greed of gain," said the professor. "the idea!" said my aunt scornfully; "the fact is i always feel inclined to relegate the yellow-skinned denizens of china to the brute kingdom. think of the _dreadful_ things that happen there! life itself is of small account to them!" "one of our own writers," returned the professor, "says, 'life is safer in pekin than in new york.' another writer adds, 'chicago beats china for official dishonesty!'" "it is a nation which for thousands of years has set more store by education than any other nation under the sun," said uncle theodore, "i have been reading up about them lately" (that's because of me) "and it is perfectly astonishing, their high ideals. there are clearly marked gradations in society, and the highest rank is open only to highly educated men. first, the scholar; because mind is superior to wealth. second, the farmer; because the mind cannot act without the body, and the body cannot exist without food and raiment. third, the mechanic; because next to food and raiment shelter is necessary. fourth, the tradesman; men to carry on exchange and barter become a necessity. and last of all the soldier; because his business is to destroy, and not to build up society. how does that compare with our country which makes more of the destroyer than of any other citizen? no man in china can rise to any position of responsibility except by education; money in _this_ country will carry a man into the legislature if he cannot write his own name." "chinese ethics are grand," added the professor. "listen to the teaching of lao teh. 'i would meet good with good, but i would also meet evil with good, confidence with confidence--distrust with confidence. virtue is both good and trustful.'" "there isn't a doubt that they are a wonderful people," returned uncle theodore. "when our ancestors were wandering about in sheep-skins and goat-skins--if in any other skins but their own--china had a civilisation. wrong seems to be not a question of right with us, but of might. we do not attempt to stop people taking chances on the stock exchange; taking such chances is perfectly legal, but taking chances in a lottery is a serious offence. if a chinaman takes chances in a little game which he understands, the morals of the community are endangered, and the poor celestial must be hurried off to jail. we civilised people allow betting at a horse-race, and disallow it in other places. it is only the uninfluential people we send to jail for violation of the law." they talked back and forth in an animated way for some time. i was dying to speak, but did not dare; but i am sure that once in the heat of the argument, professor ballington shot a glance across the table at me which spoke volumes. the same smile was in his eyes that was there when i sang for him my _one_ spanish song. what did he mean? can he guess? does he know that i am not spanish?--that i am the yellow pearl? _may th, ----_ a very important item has appeared in the newspaper to-day--poor lee yet has fallen into trouble; rather, other people are trying to get him into trouble, and his wife, the little oval-faced mrs. yet, has been subpoenaed to appear as a witness in his behalf. that dear little sad woman to have to go to court before all those americans! "she shall _not_ be studied and laughed at as a curiosity. she _shall_ be dressed up like an american woman!" i declared as soon as i read the item. in pursuance of my idea this afternoon, i a second time donned grandmother's garments--lucky that grandmother and i are the same height--and a second time left the house unnoticed by any one except yick. how very much at home i feel in the garments of an elderly gentlewoman! perhaps i am walking around the world the eighteen-year-old reincarnation of some dear, silken-clad old granny who inhabited this sphere hundreds of years ago. i quickly found my way down to the home of mrs. yet, and rapped at the door. it was opened by the little woman herself, who looked even sadder than when i first saw her. i addressed her in chinese and lifting my veil, told her that i had come to make her a visit. she smiled in a pleased way, opened wide the door, and invited me into the house. she had never noticed the discrepancy between my antiquated dress and young face, and was blissfully unconscious that my garments were fifty years (more or less) out of date. on my entrance something small and pink moved behind a wire screen in the corner of the room, and mrs. yet clipclapped across the floor in her chinese sandals, and picked up a little bundle of chinese life, saying: "this my baby. he eighteen month. he sick--get tooth--got one tooth." we talked about the baby, she sometimes speaking in chinese, and sometimes in broken english, until we felt acquainted. then i said: "mrs. yet, i see by the newspaper that you will have to appear in court to give evidence in behalf of your husband. you do not want to go there in chinese dress to be the subject of curiosity, and newspaper remark?" the trouble which had left her face while she was talking about the baby, reappeared, and tears gathered in her almond eyes. it was more than i could stand, and i cried, "don't! don't! mrs. yet--i have come to make things all right--i, your country-woman--speaking your own language. i am going to give myself the pleasure of dressing you like an american woman." she remonstrated politely but i urged so strongly that at last she yielded; and it seemed when she did so as if a great burden had rolled from off her pale little face. immediately i went out to one of the great stores and ordered several costumes for her to "fit on"--i wasn't a child any longer. grandmother's rich old skirt and shawl carried weight a second time (they could not see my face distinctly through the veil), for without hesitation a woman was despatched with the costumes. this woman expert worked over the little mrs. yet, pinching, and pulling, and puckering, after the manner of american dressmakers, until she had her resplendent in a rich maroon-coloured wool costume, which exactly suited her olive skin, and made her almost a beauty. at last the costume was satisfactorily settled and paid for. oh, it is nice to have plenty of money to pay for all one wants. father left me plenty (and although i do not control it until i come of a certain age, i get a liberal monthly instalment). i then went to a milliner's and bought a hat of a shade to harmonise with the costume. it was trimmed with ribbon, and deep, rich, maroon roses, and just looked _too sweet for anything_. "youthful and stylish," as the milliner said. why not? mrs. yet is young, and she has just as good a right to look stylish as any american woman! happy? i should say i am! i never was happier in my life than i am to-night; even if i did steal out in grandmother's old clothes, and am a "sly, subtle oriental." _may th, ----_ the court met to-day, and there has appeared in the evening papers this notice: "a novelty in the shape of a chinese woman witness appeared in the sessions yesterday. mrs. lee yet went into the box in behalf of her husband. her trim little figure was becomingly attired in a dark-red, tailored costume, and a reddish trimmed hat set off to perfection her rich oriental complexion and features, beautiful in their national type. she gave her evidence without an interpreter, and did much toward clearing her husband of the accusations falsely laid against him." oh, isn't it delightful to think that i have been instrumental in bringing all this to a happy issue! i shall carry this newspaper down to mrs. yet's home, and read to her this pleasing paragraph. _may th, ----_ a "windfall," as uncle theodore calls it, has come to the family; grandmother was quite a "well-to-do" woman before, now she is a _rich_ woman. some investments in mines that grandfather made years ago have turned out to be of marvellous value, and the result is that my grandmother, my uncle theodore, my aunt gwendolin have greatly increased in wealth. aunt gwendolin wanted to change the form of our living at once; she would introduce a page and a butler to our household staff. but grandmother said she was accustomed to a quiet life and preferred it. she insists, in spite of my aunt's protests, that a chinese cook, a house-maid, a laundress, a gardener, and that lovely chauffeur ought to be enough to attend to the wants of four people. aunt gwendolin stormed, and said it was so _common_ to live as we did, that the english always kept a butler; but grandmother was firm. another example that mothers in america can rule in the house if they wish. grandmother seemed a good deal concerned about this sudden acquisition of wealth. "an addition of silver to bell-metal does not add to the sweetness of the tone," she said. "i fear an undue proportion of silver impairs more than bells." _may th, ----_ "bulls and bears in a hard struggle over wheat." uncle theodore read the great headline from his evening paper. "wild scenes prevailed to-day at the board of trade," he continued, "when john smith began taking in his profits on wheat. it is estimated that he made a profit of over three hundred thousand in less than half an hour. altogether he has cleared more than five millions on his wheat deal, and that within six months." "dear me! dear me!" cried grandmother, "and people dying for want of bread!" "well," returned uncle theodore, "smith is only a highly sensitive product of our so-called civilisation; the civilisation we are rushing and straining to carry to the quiet, unassuming people whom _we_ call heathen. they have no millionaires, made so at the expense of their brothers. when we teach them all the graft, lynching, homicide, enormities of trusts, railroads, new religions, and quack remedies, we shall have them civilised." "christianity has to blush for christendom," sighed grandmother. i have been asking grandmother since how bulls and bears could struggle over wheat; and she tells me that the strugglers are not four-footed beasts at all, but _men_. i see how it is, bulls and bears are both cantankerous animals, which, if they come in conflict about anything, are sure to have a fight; and men who have given evidence of like natures have been called after those fierce animals. it must be that way. i have asked grandmother whether that is not the way they came by their names, and she said she supposed it must be. _may st, ----_ my poor despised people have fallen upon hard lines. lee yet met with an accident on the street and had to be taken to the hospital where he must remain for weeks, and the day following mrs. yet was stricken down with diphtheria. i was out in the automobile with grandmother and aunt gwendolin and chancing to pass the house of lee yet, i saw the awful word "diphtheria." in black letters on a scarlet ground, tacked to the door. that night when all his day's work was done i gave yick a coin and asked him to go down and learn who was stricken with the disease. he came back with the intelligence that it was poor little mrs. yet, and that there was no one waiting on her. fortunately the next afternoon aunt gwendolin went to "bridge," and again donning grandmother's garments, i slipped out of the house and down to the home of mrs. yet. meeting the doctor at the door, just as he was coming out, i ordered him to engage a nurse. he looked at me in surprise, but i paid in advance for a week's service, so he could do nothing but obey me. opening the door i went into the front room of the little home and found the celestial baby fretting away in its cradle just as any other baby would fret if left to itself. i began to call it all sorts of pet names in chinese, and the little slant-eye cooed and smiled back at me as if he really liked it. a chinese neighbour woman came in and told me that the baby was to be kept in the front room, while its mother was quarantined in a room upstairs. she further informed me that she came in twice a day to feed the baby, and the rest of the time he was alone. "i have it! i have it!" i cried exultingly to my own interior self, "i know now my _aptitude_! i know now what i can do that is impossible to any other; it surely is _impossible_ to any other--in this nation of an hour--to jabber the chinese i can jabber to this eighteen months' old baby! i shall come here and take care of him, while the trained nurse is taking care of the mother upstairs. i'll come for awhile every day anyway, and will pay the chinese woman, who cannot leave her laundry-minding in the daytime, to take care of him at night! he's just as much a dear human baby as any purple-and-fine-linen american baby!" how fortune favoured me that evening! aunt gwendolin announced that she was going in the morning on a month's visit to another city. she was not much more than out the door the following day when i asked grandmother's permission to go where i liked every afternoon of the week. dear grandmother remonstrated a little--for fear i might tire myself too much--or might go where it was not wise to go, etc., etc. but i coaxed, and i won the day. a strange event happened the very first afternoon. just as i had passed through the lane at the rear of the house, who should be standing there at the back gate but the chauffeur, beside the automobile. he knew me despite my grandmotherly garb (as i had commenced going to the house of mrs. yet in grandmother's black shawl, bonnet, and skirt, i thought it better to continue doing so), politely touched his cap, and said if i had far to go it would take him but a few minutes to whirl me there in the automobile. he is very good looking, and a gentleman. uncle theodore says he is a student who is taking this means to earn money further to pursue his medical studies. sometimes uncle theodore familiarly calls him "sawbones." nodding my assent, i entered the car, gave my directions, and soon was down in front of mrs. yet's small house. i lifted the fretting little baby out of his cradle as soon as i entered, washed and dressed him, he kicking and squirming just as i suppose any other baby kicks and squirms. all the fear i had was that he would roll out of my hands, he was such a slippery little eel when his body was wet. where did i learn how to wash and dress a baby? i must have known how by instinct, for i never did it, or saw it done before. the chinese woman who keeps the little oriental at night told me the articles that went next the skin, and i had no trouble guessing about where to put the others. after one or two attempts i did it as well as a mother of twenty babies. every day i am being conveyed down to my duties in the automobile. the chauffeur seemed to divine that i would go out every afternoon (perhaps because aunt gwendolin was away) without my telling him, and is always waiting at the little rear gate in the back street to obey my commands. what a delightful time we are having! "when the cat's away the mice can play!" dear grandmother has never seen me either leave or return to the house, but necessarily yick and betty are both into the secret. "'for ways that are dark and tricks that are vain,' commend me to the chinese." _may d, ----_ a most impressive occurrence has transpired, as mrs. paton would say. just as i was coming out of mrs. yet's house this afternoon who should be passing but professor ballington! i had not yet dropped my black chiffon veil, and glancing down from his great height of six feet, he looked me full in the face. at the same instant he saw the word, "diphtheria," in the great black letters on a scarlet ground, and stopping he exclaimed: "why, miss pearl! this is a surprise! do you know where you are--what risk you are running? diphtheria is contagious--_very_!" "i know," i replied, "but some one has to mind a little chinese baby in there. its father is in the hospital, and its mother is shut in a room upstairs with diphtheria, and there is no one to stay all afternoon with the baby if i do not. he's a chinese baby, and of no account in america," i added. (i came within one of telling him that i was the only one who could call him pet names in the language he could understand; wouldn't aunt gwendolin have taken a fit?) "i just _had_ to come," i pleaded, seeing his look of disapproval. "each man and woman is born with an aptitude to do something impossible to any other, an aptitude that the world has no match for, mrs. paton says; and i have just found out that my aptitude, impossible to any other, is to mind this chinese baby; no one else can _match_ me in this!" he looked less severe, almost kind, and half as if he could scarcely keep from laughing. then he said, "have you disinfectants? they are very necessary." i shook my head, and he said: "come with me to a drug store and i will supply you with a stock." and i, decked in my grandmother's cast-off clothes, walked along the street, and into the "palace drug store" with the elegantly dressed and caned professor. he didn't seem the least ashamed of me; indeed, he was so polite that i forgot for the moment that my dress was anything odd--forgot it until i saw a young man clerk looking at me in an amused way; then i dropped my thick veil. the professor insisted on my taking a certain kind of lozenge to hold in my mouth while i was in the infected house, and ordered quantities and quantities of disinfectants carried there, giving me instruction as to how they should be used. when we were walking back to the house of mrs. yet, the professor remarked that the chinese were a people worth studying. "have you heard any of their poetry, miss pearl?" he questioned. and before i had time to reply--perhaps he thought he had no right to make me give an answer to that question, he is a "great philologist"--he continued: "could anything be more exquisite than those lines to a plum blossom? "'one flower hath in itself the charms of two; draw nearer! and she breaks to wonders new; and you would call her beauty of the rose-- she, too, is folded in a fleece of snows; and you might call her pale--she doth display the blush of dawn beneath the eye of day, the lips of her the wine cup hath caressed, the form of her that from some vision blest starts with the rose of sleep still glowing bright through limbs that ranged the dreamlands of the night; the pencil falters and the song is naught, her beauty, like the sun, dispels my thought.' "a certain collection of chinese lyrics," he continued, "'a lute of jade,' moved a london journal to observe that, the more we look into chinese nature as revealed by this book of songs, the more we are convinced that our fathers were right in speaking of man's brotherhood. here's another to a calycanthus flower: "'robed in pale yellow gown, she leans apart, guarding her secret trust inviolate; with mouth that, scarce unclosed, but faintly breathes. its fragrance, like a tender grief, remains half-told, half-treasured still. see how she drops from delicate stem; while her close petals keep their shy demeanour. think not that the fear of great cold winds can hinder her from bloom, who hides the rarest wonders of the spring to vie with all the flowers of kiang nan.' "this is wang seng-ju's tiny poem," he added, "i presume a great many people in this greatly enlightened america never ascribe any sentiment to the chinaman: "'high o'er the hill the moon barque steers, the lantern lights depart, dead springs are stirring in my heart, and there are tears; but that which makes my grief more deep is that you know not that i weep.'" the moon had appeared in all her full-orbed glory, although it was early twilight, and the professor looked at me so earnestly while quoting those words that i actually believe i blushed. "'there yet is man-- man, the divinest of all things, whose heart hath known the shipwreck of a thousand hopes, who bears a hundred wrinkled tragedies upon the parchment of his brow.' "ou-yang hein penned those lines," he added, raising his hat in adieu. but before we parted i made him promise to write out for me the chinese verses he had quoted; and it is his beautifully written lines i have copied. i am going to learn them off by heart. how i would love to recite them at one of aunt gwendolin's "drawing-rooms!" the professor had gone but a few paces when he returned to inquire what hospital poor lee yet was in, saying that he would go around and see how he was faring. "this is such a very selfish world," he added, as if half to himself, "i sometimes fear those poor foreigners that come to our shores get woefully treated." that was lovely of him! after all, men are brothers under their skin. that was what their great man, christ, taught--that all men are brothers; he did not except the chinese, as some americans want to do. _june th, ----_ almost as soon as mrs. yet was pronounced well, and was allowed to go among people again and before mr. yet had left the hospital, baby yet fell seriously ill--his teeth. he grew worse, and worse. yick told me about it one day in a few concise chinese words, which he snatched an opportunity to drop to me in passing through the dining room. the wily celestial seems to understand, without being told, that no one is to know that he and i can exchange thoughts in our native tongue. that afternoon i stole out again, and went down to the little yet home. it was just as yick had said, the baby was very ill. he lay on his little pallet, white and still, almost unconscious, and his mother stood over him wringing her hands, and shedding bitter tears. "oh, my baby! my baby! he die and leave me! my heart break!" she cried in chinese when she saw me. "precious treasure! precious treasure!" she continued, bending toward the almost inanimate form on the pallet. the latter is the almost universal term of endearment in china, and no american mother ever agonised more bitterly than did that chinese mother over that atom of herself lying before her. i had to do something to comfort her, so i began to tell her about heaven. _i_, who was not sure that i could get to that blessed place myself (stealing out on the sly in a grandmother's clothes is not a very heavenly trick), said that whoever missed it, babies would be there. "will chinese babies be there? they do not want them in america," she asked rapidly and tremblingly in chinese. "certainly," i replied; and at that moment i seemed to have a vision of all the babies of this wide world that had died--black babies, brown babies, yellow babies, red babies (probably the colour of their skin was only the earth garb); i saw the whole throng, for grandmother had read to me from the bible that of such was the kingdom of heaven. "his tooth not bother him there?" she added. "no," i returned, "there shall be no more pain there." "he like it," she continued, almost smiling through her tears. then she grew very, very still, and a glow stole over her yellow face which made it beautiful. i stepped nearer, put my arm around her, and kissed her on the cheek. she looked at me in a startled way, then drawing a tiny handkerchief from her bosom, she carefully wiped the spot on her cheek where my lips had touched. the practice of kissing is unknown in china. on the way home, when but a few yards from the house of mrs. yet, i met professor ballington again, and told him the story about the sick baby. he asked me to go back with him, and take him in to see it, which i did. he looked scrutinisingly at the little hard pallet on which the baby lay; and what did that dear man do but go out to one of the great stores not far away, and buy the prettiest little cot, and the softest and best mattress that could be found in the market, and order them sent home without delay to that little yellow baby. was it the soft mattress that did it? i do not know; but almost immediately the baby seemed to rest easier, and by degrees came back to life and strength. oh, this would be a glorious country to live in!--if the people were all like professor ballington. _june th, ----_ i made my first visit to the theatre. aunt gwendolin said i should not go until i came _out_, but uncle theodore said he would take me himself, and defy all fashions and formalities. "i enjoy seeing the little girl absorbing our civilisation," he said to grandmother; "sometimes i fancy it seems rather uncivilised to her." grandmother demurred a good deal; she said she did not know but i would be quite as well, or better, if i never went near a theatre. but uncle theodore said that was an old-fashioned idea that grandmother held to because of her puritan ancestry; that it was generally conceded now that the theatre is a great educator, the greatest educator of the people extant to-day. "there is going to be a world-renowned actress to-night, a star of first magnitude in the theatrical world," he added, "and i want my niece to have the advantage of hearing her." i dressed my very prettiest for the occasion. uncle theodore always has an eye for the artistic in dress. i donned soft silks, soft ribbons, and soft feathers. it is one of my uncle's ideas that women should be softly clad; he absolutely hates anything hard, stiff, or masculine-looking on a woman. when we entered the theatre the orchestra was playing most ravishing music. i could have stayed there all night and listened to it without tiring, i believe. it must be the american half of me that is the music-lover, for the chinese are not very musical. the boxes were full of wonderfully well-dressed men and women. how beautiful women can look in this great country, dressed in every colour of the rainbow! men are of less account in america; but they looked well enough, too, in black coats and white shirt-bosoms. after awhile the heavenly music stopped, the curtain on the stage rolled up, and the play began. at first it was entrancing, magnificent--the stage-furnishings, gorgeously dressed women, clever-looking men, all acting a part--a lovely world without anything to mar it, right there in that small space of the stage before our eyes. then a woman, the star actress, came in wearing a very décolleté gown (i am getting hardened to them now), and began to talk in a manner i never had imagined people in good society would talk--right before those hundreds of men and women. i'll not write it down; i do not wish to remember it. but the party of women on the stage, instead of being shocked or ashamed, all laughed little, rippling, merry laughs. my cheeks burned, and i did not dare to look at anybody, not even uncle theodore. after that i could not like the theatre any more and drawing away within myself, i looked and listened as if the actors had been hundreds of miles from me. when the play was over and we were on the way home uncle theodore said: "if i had known the nature of the play, i would not have taken you to-night, pearl." "but _i_," i cried, "_i_ am only _one_! there were hundreds of people being _educated_ as well as _i_!" uncle theodore turned and looked at me quickly; then he said coldly: "my dear, you have a great deal yet to learn." when we reached home i went at once upstairs to my room, and uncle theodore retired to his den. neither of us has ever mentioned the subject since. cousin ned is around morning, noon, and night now. he is walking with a crutch, having had his shin kicked at a foot-ball match. _june th, ----_ i went with grandmother to-day on her weekly visit to the "home for incurable children." grandmother goes to carry her presents, and "to cheer up the little folk," she says; i went prompted by curiosity. we were ushered in by a cheery, wholesome-looking maid who knew grandmother, and gave her the freedom of the house. we first entered the ward where the older children were kept, and there grandmother distributed her books and pictures. while she sat to rest i wandered from one cot to another, where white little faces looked up at me, pleasantly answering my questions, or volunteering information. "i am a _new_ patient," one midget said, with a placid air of importance. "i'm goin' to have an _operation_ to-morrow," said another exultingly. "that's one blessed fact about children," said the attending nurse, "they never fret in anticipation. they look forward with positive pride to a new experience--even if it is an operation." in one bright room three boys were playing a game of number-cards, one a hunchback, another with crippled lower limbs, and a third, seated on a long high bench, handling the cards with his toes, his arms and hands being useless. the top part of the foot of the socks belonging to this last lad had been cut off, and he was picking the cards off the table with his bare toes; passing them from foot to foot, and replacing a certain card on the table, quite as expertly as another boy might do it with his fingers. i walked into another room to see the little babies; blind, crooked-limbed, distorted, never going to be able to use their bodies properly. "why does god leave them here?" i demanded of grandmother as soon as we had reached the open air again. "perhaps," said grandmother quietly, "to give us the blessed privilege of acting the god toward them." "christianity means brotherhood, pearl, dear," she added, after we had walked several yards in silence. what a great country this america is! caring for its ailing and crippled in such a beautiful way! "oh, china!" i cried, when i was all alone in my own room, "_you_ would drown your blind, crooked-limbed, distorted babies, or throw them out on the hillsides to die! oh, china! china! would you could come over here and see how america treats her 'weak and wounded, sick and sore?' these are the words of a church hymn." i said something to this effect the same evening to grandmother, and she replied: "perhaps, my dear, it may be the duty of some of us to carry america to china." seaside, _july st, ----_ we are at the seaside. it is the fashion in america for whole families to shut up their houses in hot weather and go off to some summer resort--the women of them--whether to be cool, or to be in the fashion i do not yet know. grandmother wanted to go one place, aunt gwendolin to another, and uncle theodore, who said he might run over for a few sundays, to yet another. at last a charming spot upon the atlantic coast was decided upon. uncle theodore settled the question emphatically, because dear grandmother needed the revivifying influence of the sea air. aunt gwendolin fretted a little at first for fear it might be humdrum, and commonplace, and for fear none of "our set" would be there; but she recovered from her depression when she heard that mrs. delancy, mrs. deforest, mrs. austin, and others of the same clique had also chosen that particular part of the coast as their recuperating place. mrs. delancy dropped in one day to tell her that the whole fashionable tide had turned toward that coast this summer, and she knew we should have a "simply _grand_ season." aunt gwendolin's spirits rose after that, and she immediately went about ordering a most elaborate summer wardrobe--morning gowns, evening gowns, walking suits, yachting suits, bathing suits. uncle theodore went ahead of the rest of the party and engaged a suite of rooms in the most fashionable hotel on the beach, from the broad balconies of which the view of the sea is grand, and the air delicious. grandmother and i spend much time together. as i am not "out" aunt gwendolin says that i cannot attend any of the functions to which she is going daily--and nightly. i do not know what i miss by being obliged to stay away from the parties and balls, but i know it is very delightful wandering on the beach with grandmother, watching the lights, shades, and colours on the water, the dipping and skimming of the water birds, the movements of the lobster fishers, the going out and coming in of the tide, and all the many, many objects of interest around the great sea world; never caring whether i am fashionable or not fashionable, whether anybody is noticing me or not noticing me. the only objects that i do not like to look at on this sea beach are the human bathers. the sea-gulls taking their bath are graceful, but, oh! those grown-up women in skirts up to their knees, and bare arms, wandering over the beach like great ostriches! they mar the picture of beauty which the earth and sky and sea unite to make, and i would shut them up if i had the power--or add more length to their bathing suits. perhaps the sea-gulls would not look graceful either if they had half their feathers off. we were here a week when professor ballington came. we were all a little surprised to see him because he is not a "society man," as aunt gwendolin says. he does not appear to care much for "functions," and spends much time wandering on the beach. grandmother and i meet him frequently. one time when i went out for a little run before breakfast i found him staring at the great green sea that kept restlessly licking the sand at his feet. he looked lonesome, and i tried to say something to cheer him up. then he asked permission to join me in my stroll, and we had a most delightful time, finding shells, and stones, the formations of various periods of time, professor ballington said. he seems to know everything. i do not wonder he cares so little for society, or the company of women in general. strange how much more the men, the cultured men, the society men, of america know than the women! i suppose it is because the women have to spend so much time talking about the change of sleeves. there was a dance one night in the ballroom, which is around at the opposite side of the house from our apartments, and leaving grandmother absorbed in her book, i slipped around on the balcony and peeped through the slats of the closed shutters on the dancers within. all was in a whirl, and there i saw, with my own two eyes, men with their arms around the waists of women, whirling those same women around the great room in time to music played by an orchestra. it made me dizzy to look at them. "wouldn't that shock china!" i cried. "shall _i_ have to submit to that when i come _out_? oh, why cannot i always stay _in_?" i was so excited i did not know i was talking aloud, until the voice of professor ballington over my head said: "you do not like the thought of coming out into society? you would like always to stay in domestic retirement?" "yes, yes," i said; "what can save me from coming _out_?" "marry some good man," he said, "and spend your energies making a quiet, happy home for _him_." he was looking at me in a very peculiar way, and i felt frightened, i don't know why, and skipped along the balcony back to grandmother's sitting-room. when i entered who should be there talking to grandmother but mrs. paton. she said she had felt lonesome without grandmother in the city, and had made up her mind to spend a week at the seaside. "oh, grandmother!" i cried, as soon as i had greeted mrs. paton, "shall i _have_ to come _out_? cannot i always stay _in_?" grandmother clasped my hand in hers, in the old way she had of quieting me, and explained to mrs. paton that i did not incline to the ways of society people, and had a dread of entering the world which aunt gwendolin loved so well. "give your life to some noble cause, my dear," said mrs. paton earnestly, turning her eyes upon me. "the world is in sore need of consecrated women. you could be a foreign missionary, or a home missionary. oh, don't waste your life on the frivolity called society!" this is not professor ballington's advice. which is right? how glad i am that in this "land of the free," i am not compelled to follow any will but my own! _august_ seaside. well, i did get a surprise last evening while out strolling on the beach, for whom should i meet but "sawbones," otherwise chauffeur graham. he is having summer holidays now, and before settling down to some work to make money for his autumn college expenses, he snatched a day to get a whiff of sea air, he said. he seemed very pleased to see me, and i was _delighted_ to see him, and extended my hand to him in cordial greeting. i know aunt gwendolin would object to her niece shaking hands with the chauffeur--it was the medical man i shook hands with. i stayed out there as long as i dared, and we had a lovely stroll along the beach in the moonlight, the waves whispering at our feet as we walked and talked. chauffeur graham said that it always seemed to him that the waves were coming from the many far-off lands with their incessant pleadings that we carry our enlightenment and advantages to the suffering places of the earth. that was the medical man speaking in him. he must be noble or he would never hear those voices in the waves. how i wish it were proper for me to give him some of the money i do not know what to do with, so that he could go on with his studies and not need to work between times to earn a pittance. grandmother says she is going to engage him again in the autumn, when we all return to the city; she knows him now, and feels safe in his hands, he is so careful. "it is such a nuisance to have a man that you cannot command at any hour of the day--or night," said aunt gwendolin. "make him understand, if you engage him again, that all his time belongs to _us_. these gentlemen chauffeurs who are straining after a university education are unendurable!" "he shall have whatever time he wants for his studies or examinations. it is the least i can do to show my sympathy with his life work," returned my grandmother. _another stroll_. i had another stroll this evening on the beach with chauffeur graham--while aunt gwendolin was getting ready for the dance--and he told me something. "when i am through with my medical course," he said, "i intend to go to china to practise what i have learned." i stopped suddenly in my walk and faced him. "why are you going to china?" i demanded. it makes me indignant to have this nation, an infant in years, patronising my hoary-headed empire! "if a man is going to do his duty by the world," he returned, "he will go where his work is most needed. they have no native medical school in china. "they are a great people," he added after a short pause, "likely to be in the van of the world's march in the ages to come; and i want to have a hand in getting them ready. napoleon said, 'when china moves she will move the world.' all the broken legs will be set in this country whether i am here to set them or not; i want to go where they will not be set unless i do it." "go where the vineyard demandeth vinedresser's nurture and care." i repeated the lines which i had heard them sing in the church. "that's about the way it is," he returned, looking at me in pleased surprise. he left this morning on an early train, to go back to the peg and grind, and now the place is slow and lonesome. after all i think it is better to have to peg and grind; it surely must be the spice of life which rich people miss. i do not care how quickly the hot months pass, and we can go back to the city again. _sept. th, ----_ we are all back in the city again, and settled into the old routine; but there is a new excitement in the air. aunt gwendolin insists that i require to go to some fashionable "young ladies' boarding school," to be "_finished_." she says (but not in grandmother's hearing) that i do not talk as i should, that my voice is quite ordinary, and i must learn the tone of society ladies before i can be brought _out_. "you mean the _artificial_ tone?" said uncle theodore, who was present when i was getting my lecture. "call it what you like, theodore," snapped aunt gwendolin, "it is the tone used by an american society woman; the girl talks yet in the natural voice of a child." "would that she could always keep it," returned uncle theodore. after much talking my aunt persuaded my grandmother that i should go to some such school. "my dear," said grandmother timidly, "your aunt seems to think you may gain much by a period spent in some good school. she may be right. it certainly cannot hurt you, and if it can be of any benefit there is nothing to prevent your having it." to comfort dear grandmother i raised no objection, and it is settled that i go in the fall term. the choice of a school was left entirely to aunt gwendolin, and she has decided upon the most expensive and most fashionable one in the country. she has been corresponding with the lady principal; my rooms have been ordered; and everything is complete. one day my aunt placed in my hand one of her monogrammed sheets of writing-paper, pointing to the following paragraph: "it is the family's wish that much attention be given to preparing the young girl whom i am sending to you, for society; heavy or arduous work in any other line is of secondary consideration. the prestige of your school could not fail to be enhanced by the presence of a spanish girl of good family." "i am not a spanish girl, aunt gwendolin!" i said. "i did not say you were," returned my aunt, "i simply said the prestige of her school could not fail to be enhanced by the presence of one." have i got to live up to _that_? boarding school, _october th, ----_ i am here at last, accompanied by two large leather trunks, which aunt gwendolin has filled with all sorts of costumes, for all sorts of occasions. a page opened the door in response to the hackman's ring, when after some hours' journey by rail, i arrived at the fashionable "boarding school," and a maid conducted me up a flight of softly carpeted steps to my appointed rooms. i had not more than taken off my wraps, when madam demill (she has declared that her name should be spelled de mille, but it has become corrupted in this democratic america) the head of the establishment, called upon me. she was cold, hard, stately; a creature of whalebone and steel as to body, and of pompadours and artificial braids as to head. she announced after her first greeting that there was going to be a party that evening, and she wished me to be dressed in evening costume, and appear in the drawing-room at half past eight o'clock. "if you would wear some of your distinctly spanish costumes it would be very _apropos_," she added. "i see you have the decided spanish complexion. i am glad you are pronounced in your nationality; it is so much more interesting. as you did not arrive in time for dinner, a tray shall be brought to your room with sufficient refreshment to keep you in good feature until you partake of the refreshment offered at the party," she added as she swept from the room. how helpless i felt! i was to dress in evening costume for the "party." what was i to put on? for the first time in my life i wished that aunt gwendolin were near me. how i longed for my yellow silk gown that my governess in china had designed with flowing sleeves trimmed with "sprawling dragons!" i knew i looked better in that than in anything else, and i knew how to put it on; no infinitesimal hooks and eyes, pins and buttons, to be found, and put in exact places; which if one fails to do in the american gown the whole thing goes awry. my worry was dispelled by the arrival of the maid with the promised tray. it was not too heavily laden to prevent me from completely emptying it, with the exception of the dishes. while i was eating the maid unpacked my trunks,--you have not got to do much for yourself in a fashionable boarding school--hanging the articles in an adjoining clothes closet. during the same period of time a happy thought occurred to me. "i will call aunt gwendolin over the long distance telephone and ask her what i shall wear at the party to-night!" was the happy inspiration. in response to my request the maid conducted me to the telephone, and when the connection was made, i called: "hello, aunt gwendolin! this is the yellow pearl speaking!" "how does that little minx know that she is the yellow peril?" i heard my aunt say, probably to uncle theodore in the room beside her. then she turned to me and replied: "well." "what gown shall i wear to-night at the party?" back over the two hundred miles of field, forest, lake, came aunt gwendolin's thin, squeaky voice: "wear your cream-coloured oriental lace." "does it fasten in the front or back? if in the back i cannot put it on myself!" i returned, over the fields and trees and waters. "yes, you _can_, get some of the girls to fasten it for you," cried the voice through the phone. "be sure and wear _that_; it so emphasises your spanish style of beau----" i hung up the receiver. at my request the maid helped me to get into the cream oriental lace; and at half past eight i made my appearance in the drawing-room, as to dress, looking like a spanish grande dame, and as to face, looking as yellow, and lonesome, and sour as the fiercest spanish brigand. i was introduced to mr. this-one, and mr. that-one and mr. the-other-one. they all looked alike to me, with high collars, and patent-leather shoes. after awhile there was a little dance, but as i did not know how i had to sit against the wall, and madam demill said i must be put under a dancing master at once. the day following, in the afternoon (all the so-called lessons are gone through in the forenoon, and we have nothing to do but amuse ourselves the rest of the day) a number of the girls came to call on me in my apartments. there were a dozen or more of them present when an arrogant-looking one, with her hair arranged in an immense pompadour over her forehead, from ear to ear, drawled through her nose. "i suppose you do not love americans since we beat your country at the battle of manila?" "no," i said truthfully, "i do not love americans." (of course i mentally excepted grandmother, professor ballington, chauffeur graham--and uncle theodore when he acts nice.) the girls threw their chins into the air, their eyes shot fire, and i heard several faint sniffs. then a slim, golden-haired, blue-eyed girl stepped out from the group, and coming quickly to my side, she put her arm around me and said: "we'll _make_ her love us!" and she actually touched her rosebud lips to my yellow cheek. since that i have not hated americans quite so savagely. the act seemed to have a softening effect on the others, too, for from that time they all have treated me very decently, even the girl with the pompadour. golden hair seems to have a great deal of influence in the school. there are _some_ nice girls in america. _oct. th, ----_ life in this "fashionable boarding school" is just about a repetition, daily, of what transpired the evening of my arrival. it is not worth recording, so i am closing up my diary until i return to grandmother's. it takes yick, and mrs. yet, and chauffeur graham, and professor ballington, and even a pinch of aunt gwendolin to give a little spice to life. _thanksgiving_ i took a run back to grandmother's for what those americans call thanksgiving--it is most amusing to foreigners like me--and yick. on grandmother's table there was what they tell me is the regulation dinner for the day--roast turkey and pumpkin pie. when yick, in his best costume, had walked proudly into the dining room with the immense turkey on a platter, and deposited it on the table, he returned to the kitchen convulsed with laughter, betty has told me since. "christians queer people! christians queer people!" he sputtered merrily. "thank god eat turkey, thank god eat turkey!" i knew what yick meant, the oriental idea of thanking god would have been some act of self-denial. it was hard for the poor "heathen chinee" to construe the american self-indulgence into an act of thanksgiving. poor yick, and poor yellow pearl! how far both of you are from comprehending civilisation. _holidays, dec. th, ----_ i am back again at grandmother's for the holidays. grandmother and uncle theodore seemed so glad to see me that i am beginning to feel quite as if this were home. yick and betty are still here, chauffeur graham still manipulates the automobile. mrs. delancy gave a "little christmas dance," as she calls it, last night, and the description has come out in the morning paper: "the home of mrs. delancy was transformed into a bower of flowers, ferns and softly shaded lights, on the night of her christmas dance. the hall and staircase were decorated with southern smilax entwined with white flowers, and the dressing-rooms with mauve orchids; while in the drawing-room the mantelpiece was banked with richmond roses and maidenhair ferns, and that in the dining room with lily-of-the-valley and single daffodils. passing through the dining room, where an orchestra was stationed behind a screen of bamboo, twined with flowers, the guests entered the japanese tea pavilion, which had been erected for the occasion. the entrance was formed of bamboo trellis work covered with southern smilax, flowers, and innumerable tiny electric lights. the walls were covered with fluted yellow silk, and from the ceiling depended dozens of baskets filled with flowers interspersed with japanese lanterns and parasols. huge bouquets of chrysanthemums were fastened against the wall. the table was exquisitely decorated with enormous baskets of flowers; in the centre was one with large mauve orchids over which was tilted a large pink japanese umbrella, trimmed with violets, while from each basket sprang bamboo wands suspended from which were japanese lanterns filled with lily-of-the-valley and violets, the whole forming the most beautiful scheme of decoration seen this season." how tired i am writing it all! i wonder if any one felt tired looking at it. then followed a description of the ladies' gowns: "the ladies were simply stunning in their smartest gowns, mrs. delancy queening it in an exquisite apple-green satin, with pearls and diamonds; miss morgan (which means my respected aunt), whose sparkling blonde beauty always charms her friends, in maize chiffon, through which sparkled a gold-sequined bodice and underskirt, and mrs. deforest, dark and graceful, in a rich white satin gown. mrs. austin looked extremely handsome in a most becoming orchid gown, with ribbon of the same shade twisted in her dark hair." there was a lot more of the same, but my hand refuses to write it. one would think it was a number of half-grown children the newspaper reporter was trying to please by saying nice things about them. strange that in this america nothing is ever said about what the women _say_ or _do_ at those social functions; nothing seems worth noticing about them but the kind of clothes they have on. the men do not count for anything at all. i wonder was professor ballington there. i wonder did he look at any one with that smile away back in his eyes which was there when he looked at me the time i sang my _one_ spanish song. _december st, ----_ yick has given us a new diversion. aunt gwendolin gave him orders to make a _particularly_ nice layer-cake for an afternoon "tea." yick is quite proud of his cakes, and this day he wished to outdo anything he had previously done, so he made a layer cake, icing it with red and white trimmings. he delights to get a new recipe, or find some new way of decoration. the daily paper, which always in the end finds its way into the kitchen, had evidently attracted his attention. he saw in the advertisement pages a round box with an inscription on top. taking the box for a cake, he decorated his culinary effort in imitation of the picture. aunt gwendolin never saw it until it was carried in to the table, before all the finest ladies of the city, and this was what they all read, in three rows of red letters across the white icing: dodd's kidney pills who says my people are not clever and original? _dec. d, ----_ it is drawing near the festive season in this remarkable land, and there is a great bustle everywhere. some people are concerned about providing luxuries for themselves, and some are concerned about providing for those poorer than themselves. mrs. delancy came in all fagged out from her arduous work of shopping. "i have just been treating myself to a few little christmas presents," she gasped, as she carried a great, fat, pug dog and deposited him on grandmother's best white satin sofa pillow. she called the dog many endearing names, such as "darling," "little baby boy," "sweet one," and "tootsy-wootsy." dogs are thought as much of as babies in america; those are the very same terms of endearment that the women address to their babies. "i had to leave this little darling in a restaurant to be fed and cared for while i did my shopping," she explained. "he _would_ come with me, the pet." she then informed aunt gwendolin that she had been to the milliner's and ordered five hats, and had just completed the purchase of a three thousand dollar jacket at the furrier's. the dog on the pillow whined in the midst of her recital, and she stopped long enough to go over and give him a kiss. she was still enlarging on the beauty of the fur coat, when the housemaid tapped on the door, and ushered mrs. paton into the sitting-room. "i heard that you ladies were here," she said, "and i thought you might like to have the privilege of helping a little in those charities," and she began to unfold some papers which she held in her hand. "oh, my dear mrs. paton, do not ask me to-day, _really_," exclaimed mrs. delancy, holding up her hands. "i am among the poor myself to-day, and you know charity begins at home. i really haven't a cent to give to any one else. i'm stony broke, as the boys say. i have laid out so much money to-day for necessities!" mrs. paton then turned to my aunt and said, "gwendolin, _do_ give something out of the thousands you are expending on self-indulgence to help those who have not the necessities of life!" taking the paper into her hand with an ungracious air, my aunt wrote down a certain amount, and then passed it back. "dear me!" sighed mrs. delancy, as soon as mrs. paton had left the place, "how tired i get of those people with their solicitations for some y. m. c. a., or y. w. c. a., or something else _eternally_. they'd keep a person poor if one paid any heed to them, _really_! some one starving or unclothed every time! it does annoy me so to hear harrowing tales!" _january st, ----_ last night there was a sound of revelry in this great land. at the solemn hour of midnight, when the old year was dying, and the new year was just being born, one class of people in this american city rushed out into the open streets, cheering, blowing horns, ringing bells, and making all possible noises on all sorts of musical instruments. another class celebrated the birth of the new year by eating an elaborate meal. this is what appeared in the morning paper regarding the latter: "one million dollars was spent last night in this city celebrating the birth of another year. more than twenty-five thousand persons engaged tables at from three to ten dollars a plate in the leading hotels and cafés." how fond of eating americans are! this is the first time i have seen the birth of a new year in any but my native land, and my mind goes back to the celebration on a similar occasion in china. it is a solemn event there. for weeks the people are preparing for it; houses are cleaned, and debts are paid, for a chinaman, if he has any self-respect, will be sure to pay his debts before the new year. i told this to uncle theodore a few days ago, and he said, "i wish that americans would rise to that state of grace." nobody goes to bed that night, but all sit up waiting for the first hour of the new year, when the father of the home, his wife and children all worship before the spirit tablets of their ancestors, and then at the shrine of the household gods. then the door is opened, and the whole family with the servants go outside and bow down to a certain part of the heavens, and so worship heaven and earth, and receive the spirit of gladness and good fortune, which they say comes from that quarter. at the same hour, when the old year is dying, china's emperor, as high priest of his people, goes in state to worship. kneeling alone under the silent stars he renders homage to the superior powers. he on his imperial throne makes the third in the great trinity, heaven, earth, and man. should there come a famine or pestilence, upon him rests the blame, and he must by sacrifice and prayer atone for the imperfections of which heaven has seen him guilty. oh, china! i would prefer kneeling with you under the silent stars on new year's eve, to feasting at the groaning tables, or ringing the bells and blowing the horns of this great, civilised, noisy america! _january th, ----_ oh, glorious! grandmother says i need not go back to boarding school for the winter term; she says the family always go south during the cold weather, and she wants me to go with them. wants me, think of it, _wants_ me. isn't it nice to have somebody want one along with her! i believe grandmother really loves me. aunt gwendolin doesn't; she wanted me sent back to school. she said i would never be fit to be brought _out_ with that kind of carrying on. i love those that love me, but as for loving those that _hate_ me, as grandmother had been teaching me from the bible, i haven't come to that yet. that reminds me, i wish aunt gwendolin would stop snapping at yick; i am afraid some day he will kill himself on the doorstep, so his ghost may haunt her the rest of her life. but i think he likes grandmother and the other members of the family sufficiently well to cause him to refrain from that act of chinese revenge. mexico, _february st, ----_ a great migratory movement has taken place in our family--we are now in the warm, sunny country called mexico. aunt gwendolin was the cause of it. she said she was tired of going to florida, that it was so _common_ to go there now, everybody was going there, that the latest thing was to winter in mexico, and she thought we all ought to follow suit. she talked and argued so much about it that she persuaded grandmother and uncle theodore to her way of thinking, and after travelling hundreds of miles in pullman and sleeper cars, here we are in this land of cactus fences, tortillas, great snakes, and parrots; this land where roses and strawberries grow all the year round; where in some parts are luscious tropical fruits, flowers, and palms. mrs. delancy has come along with us, and professor ballington says he may join our party later. there are many americans around us in the various towns--it is so fashionable at present to winter in mexico. uncle theodore takes me out for long walks with him in this land of perpetual summer, and we see many strange and interesting sights. the rich are so _very_ rich, and the poor are so _very_ poor. there is one drawback--we had to leave behind us our automobile. of course we can hire one here, but we can not have our own lovely chauffeur, and grandmother says she is afraid to trust any of those mexicans. i suppose our poor chauffeur is pegging away hard over his medical lore now, while i am lounging around doing nothing. the granddaughter of a millionairess, with money to get anything i want, and yet i am beginning to think there is nothing worth getting. it is lovely to be poor like the chauffeur and have to work hard for something. my life is so small and worthless that i am oppressed with it. one of the sights that interest us the most when we are out in the country are the cactus hedges. there are great palisades of the organ-cactus lining the railways, and there are ragged, loose-jointed varieties used for corralling cattle. great plantations of a species of cactus called maguey with stiff, prickly leaves a dull, bluish-green, are seen in abundance. from this plant the mexicans get not only thread, pins, and needles, but pulque, the juice or sap of the plant, which they ferment and make into a national beverage. pulque is used by the mexicans as whisky is used by americans, and opium by chinamen. great fields of maize are cultivated, of which there are two or three crops a year. the food of the people is tortillas, made out of this maize mashed into a paste and baked into flat cakes. i ate those tortillas when i first came, as a curiosity, a native production, but i am not going to eat any more. while uncle theodore and i were watching a woman making them, great drops of perspiration fell from her brow into the paste. she pounded away, poor tired creature, and paid no heed to the drops. poor women of mexico, they have to work so hard, preparing the paste, and making those little cakes to be eaten hot at every meal! but no more tortillas for me. we visited the old churches which are beautifully decorated with veined marble and alabaster. precious stones seem to grow in this remarkable land. "keep your eyes open, pearl," said my uncle, "and you may pick up some opals, or amethysts. they grow in this country, and i have heard they can be had for the picking." mexico, _february th, ----_ i have made a discovery--i have found out america's princely man! it is abraham lincoln, and this is his birthday! magazines have been coming down from the north telling us all about this princely man, and i have asked grandmother and uncle theodore hundreds of questions, it seems to me, about him. and i can see that they never get tired answering those questions, but seem as if they could talk about him forever. scarcely a political debate occurs, either in congress or in the press of the country, but the possible views or actual example of abraham lincoln are quoted as the strongest argument, uncle theodore says. the magazines find it impossible to publish too much about him. mention of his name in an incidental fashion from a stage or forum draws a burst of cheering; or if the reference is of a humorous nature the laughter is close to tears. "with love and reverence his memory is cherished by the american people as is the memory of no other man," said dear grandmother. "quoting a 'decoration day' orator," she added, "'he was called to go by the sorrowful way, bearing the awful burden of his people's woe, the cry of the uncomforted in his ears, the bitterness of their passion on his heart. misunderstood, misjudged, he was the most solitary of men. he had to tread the wine-press alone, and of the people none went with him. but he turned not back. he never faltered. as one upheld, sustained by the unseen hand, he set his face steadfastly, undaunted, unafraid, until in death's black minute he paid glad life's arrears: the slaves free! himself immortal!'" yes, it is quite certain that abraham lincoln is america's princely man! _i_ would like to make something happen in the world that would be talked about after i am dead. grandmother says that it is only something that one does for the _good_ of the world that is remembered after he is dead. "if a man has money, people will lionize him as long as he is living for the sake of it," she says, "but money counts for nothing when a man is dead." "money!" said uncle theodore, who had been listening to our talk. "i doubt whether abe ever owned enough to buy a farm." _february th, ----_ one comfort, i am not bothered much with aunt gwendolin--she has become acquainted with a french nobleman, count de pensier, and he is attracting all her attention, thanks be to goodness! mrs. delancy is delighted, and is doing all she can to further the acquaintance. "it is not every day that one has the privilege of associating daily and hourly with one of the _titled aristocracy_ of the old world," she has said several times in my hearing. when we first arrived aunt gwendolin saw some of the spanish ladies wearing mantillas on their heads, and she immediately bought one for me. "there!" she said when i put it on, "isn't that simply perfect? doesn't that make her spanish through and through?" she says that when i become a thorough spanish-american she is going to give a "coming out party" for me. the scarf is really quite becoming. uncle theodore admired it, or admired me with it on, so i wear it wound around my head when i go on my rambles through the country with him. i really much prefer it to the bristling hats of the american women, and it is quite pleasant to be called "señorita," and to be thought spanish. these long head scarfs are also worn by the poor women, but theirs are made of cotton. on the street they carry their babies strapped to their backs with it, the little heads and legs bobbing up and down until one would think they might snap off. sometimes the scarf ties the baby to the mother's bosom, thus leaving her hands free for other work. "our american sensibilities" (quoting aunt gwendolin) "are sometimes shocked by mexican doings." one day we saw a procession headed by the father carrying a tiny coffin on his head. behind him walked the mother dragging by the hand a little bare-foot girl, of two or three; and behind them again trotted a dog. the father was drunk, and staggered as he walked. as we watched the little procession on the way to the graveyard they passed in front of a saloon where they sold pulque. the father wanted another drink, so he started to enter the saloon taking the little coffin under his arm. he stumbled on the threshold, and the little pine box fell out of his hands down onto the flag-stones, the cover coming off. and we saw a little dead baby within the coffin, with a crown of gilt paper on its head, and a cross of gilt paper on its brow. in its little hands were a bunch of flowers. the man laughed awkwardly, put the lid on the coffin and placed it on his head again, proceeding toward the graveyard without his drink, followed by the mother, the girl, and the dog. "why do not the american missionaries who are crossing oceans to find heathen, look for them at their own doorstep?" said uncle theodore afterwards, when he was telling the story to grandmother. "sure enough," returned grandmother, "it does look as if the unenlightened of its own continent is america's first duty." aunt gwendolin is having moonlight walks and talks innumerable with count de pensier--and--oh, i am having liberty! _february st, ----_ we have had some unusual excitement lately--a bull and tiger fight. the day following, the description came out in a morning paper: "a fight between a tiagua bull and a bengal tiger in the bull ring this afternoon was most ferocious, and will result in the death of both animals. the sickening spectacle was witnessed by , people, largely americans, and many of them tourists, who stopped over here especially to witness the barbaric spectacle. after three bulls had been despatched in the regulation manner, the star performance was pulled off. the two animals, enclosed in an iron cage, about thirty feet square, were brought together, and the battle between the enraged brutes commenced. the bull was first taken into the enclosure and given the usual bull fight tortures to arouse his ire, and then the iron cage containing the tiger was wheeled up to the entrance; but the tiger refused to get out and open the battle, and the bull attempted to get into the small cage and get at his adversary. the bull was badly scratched about the face. finally the tiger came from his cage, and the bull gored the cat with a long, sharp horn as he emerged. with a screech of pain, the cat, with a powerful lunge, broke the bull's right leg, and then the two animals went into the fight for their lives. the tiger was able to spring out of the way of the bull in a number of instances, but when the big, heavy animal caught his adversary it went hard with the tiger. the bull stepped upon the tiger in one instance and there was a crunching of ribs audible in the seats of the amphitheatre. "the bull disabled the tiger in the back, and after that the fighting was tame, and the americans cried for pity, while the mexicans cheered and wanted the performance to continue." mrs. delancy, and aunt gwendolin, along with uncle theodore and count de pensier, attended the fight. grandmother would not go, and i stayed with her. "a _christian lady_ going to a bull fight," i said to grandmother under my breath. "yes, my dear," returned grandmother looking really pale, "it shocks me quite as much as _you_. it was not so when i was young. american women of the present day must see everything. it is deplorable!" when the scene was the most harrowing, and the americans were calling for the fight to be stopped, aunt gwendolin, and i believe several other american women, fainted, and had to be carried out. "dear me, dear me," said grandmother again, when she heard the harrowing details. "that is just the way with americans of the present day; they must see everything. it was not so when i was young." who should walk into our presence at that very moment but professor ballington. he had heard grandmother's remark, without knowing the cause for her words, and as he was shaking hands with us he said: "you believe the poet watson diagnosed uncle sam's case when he said: "'but when fate was at thy making, and endowed thy soul with many gifts and costly, she forgot to mix with those a genius for repose; and therefore a sting is ever in thy blood, and in thy marrow a sublime unrest.'" "it was not so when i was young," said grandmother. "how can we lay the shortcoming at the door of fate?" "chinese women would never attend a bull and tiger fight, grandmother," i whispered into her ear when the professor was looking the other way, "nor chinese gentlemen." "i hope not, my dear," is all the reply dear grandmother made. professor ballington only stayed with us a day or two; he was just on a tour, he said, and had to cover a certain amount of space within a certain period of time. grandmother and i were very desirous that he should remain longer; but i really believe aunt gwendolin felt relieved when he was gone. she did not appear to feel comfortable with his comprehending eyes upon her when she was entertaining count de pensier. _february th, ----_ the count has proposed to my aunt gwendolin, and she has accepted him. grandmother is in tears ever since, and uncle theodore is furious. i heard the latter talking to my grandmother--in his excitement he seemed to forget my presence--and he said: "that frenchman is just a fortune-hunter, one of those penniless, titled gentry that swarm in europe. he wants gwendolin's money to regild a tarnished title, and gwendolin wants the title! he has found out from arabella delancy the size of gwendolin's fortune, in possession and in prospective, and he has offered his title in exchange for it! that's the size of the whole affair!" "that's what grieves me most," said grandmother, with quivering lips; "it is not holy matrimony." "i look for a divorce within five years!" continued my uncle. "i had always hoped that gwendolin and professor ballington would make up some time," added grandmother. "oh, gwendolin would never suit ballington," returned uncle theodore. "your granddaughter--the little celestial--is the making of a woman much more to his taste--" he looked up suddenly, and seemed to remember for the first time that i was in the room. i, sly, subtle oriental that i am, worked away on my shadow embroidery and never by the wink of an eyelid, or the movement of a muscle showed that i heard a word. _april th, ----_ we are home again, and all is bustle and confusion--aunt gwendolin is going to be married. she pays no attention to me now at all; and you know, dear diary, how that grieves me. dressmakers, milliners, caterers, florists, decorators, throng the house. count de pensier is staying in a hotel downtown. he calls every forenoon, and every afternoon; and declares, with his hand on his heart, that he cannot return to his own country without his bride. cousin ned has asked me to marry him. he is down in his luck, and blue--missed in his examinations--and he says he believes he might settle down and do something if he were only married. he says the relationship is so far out that there is nothing to hinder him and me from being married. get married, indeed! there's nothing farther from my thoughts. _may th, ----_ well the fuss and flurry are all over--they are married, aunt gwendolin and count de pensier. i cannot do better than copy a paragraph out of the newspaper to describe the doings: "the church was beautifully decorated with azaleas, palms, orchids; tall white wands supporting sheaves of palms stood at each aisle. the walls of the church were festooned with green wreathing. the bride was given away by her brother, theodore morgan, esq. she looked exceedingly handsome in an exquisite gown of heavy, ivory-white satin, with panel of filet lace, seeded with pearls. the long train was trimmed with lace and pearl seeding. with this was worn a costly lace veil, caught to her titian hair with a chaplet of orange blossoms, and she carried a shower bouquet of bridal roses. "the six bridesmaids were gowned in ivory taffeta silk, wearing picture hats; and each carried an immense bouquet of bride's-maid's roses." as is usual at american functions, the men did not seem to be of enough importance to mention anything more than their bare names. it all took place in _christ's_ church. was he there? grandmother says he is back in this world now in spirit. what did he think of it all? "grandmother," i said when it was all over--the church display, the reception, the eating and drinking, the dressing--"if i am ever married let it be in china." "my dear child," said grandmother in alarm, "why do you make such a wild request as that?" "seated at a table the bride is offered a tiny cup of wine," i replied, "of which she takes a sip, while the bridegroom in a seat opposite her also sips from a similar cup of wine. the cups are then exchanged, and again tasted, and the marriage service is completed. they have time to think about each other, instead of thinking of what a grand show they are making for the world." grandmother looked at me in silence a few moments, then she said: "your grandfather and i were married quietly in our own little home parlour. i was dressed in white muslin, and your grandfather in corduroy. we were thinking more about each other than anything else, my dear." the bride and groom, count and countess de pensier, started at once for the ancestral home in sunny france, i suppose to begin regilding the tarnished title uncle theodore spoke about. oh, be joyful! i shall not have to go to the "fashionable boarding school" any more! i shall not have to appear at a "coming out party!" i shall never come _out_ now; i shall always stay _in_! grandmother says i may stay in if i want to, and i _do_ want to. i shall never have to steal out the back door in grandmother's clothes any more, sing any more foreign songs, or pretend i am spanish! it is lovely to be able to act the truth! "it is an ill wind that blows nobody good." (this last is one of grandmother's familiar sayings.) cousin ned has lost one of his eyes! got it knocked out at the last "play." _may th, ----_ i have made a most astounding discovery. walking down the street yesterday i saw a great placard on a wall announcing a lecture; subject, "_the yellow peril_." what did it mean? i thought _i_ was the yellow pearl, and that nobody outside of the family knew it. but this was spelled p-e-r-i-l instead of p-e-a-r-l. what could it mean? i could go no farther, but returned at once to question grandmother. "grandmother!" i cried, entering her room, "what is the yellow peril?" dear grandmother's cheeks flushed, and she said, "my dear child, why bother yourself about that?" "why, grandmother, i thought when i overheard aunt gwendolin talk, that _i_ was the yellow pearl; she called me such the first day i came," i said. "but on the placard it is spelled p-e-r-i-l. what does it mean?" "i am sorry you saw it," said grandmother hesitatingly. "there is too much being said on that subject by a certain class of people--it is the _world_ god loves," she added as if talking to herself, "not the united states, great britain, germany; the yellow people are just as dear to god as we are. the gentle christ looked widely over the world, shed tears for it, shed blood for it." "what does the yellow peril mean, grandmother?" i repeated anxiously. "the mongolian races are more yellow than the caucasian races," said grandmother, when forced to answer. "they are also more numerous, and some people fear that if we allow them in the country they may get the upper hand, and become a menace to our people. do not think any more about it, pearl. our dear late phillips brooks," she added after a short pause, "said, 'no nation, as no man, has a right to take possession of a choice bit of god's earth, to exclude the foreigner from its territory, that it may live more comfortably and be a little more at peace. but if this particular nation has been given the development of a certain part of god's earth for universal purposes, if the world in the great march of centuries is going to be richer for the development of a certain national character, built up by a larger type of manhood here, then for the world's sake, for the sake of every nation that would pour in upon it that which would disturb that development, we have a right to stand guard over it.'" this was a long speech for dear grandmother, who is not given to speechifying, and i know the subject must have given her serious thought, or she would never have remembered it. "is america being built up by a larger type of manhood, grandmother?" i asked. "oh, my dear, i do not know, i do not know," returned grandmother. i stopped talking to grandmother, because she looked worried, but i could not stop _thinking_, i am both the yellow pearl, and the yellow peril! why am i here? what were four hundred millions of us born into the world for? is yellow badness any worse than white badness? _june th, ----_ what a heavenly time we are having, grandmother, uncle theodore, and myself, living our nice, quiet lives without distraction! sometimes we have professor ballington in to dinner, then he drops in evenings quite often when he is not formally invited. other old friends come too, enough to break the monotony. chauffeur graham was obliged to leave grandmother's employ some time ago; indeed he has never come back since we returned from mexico. he says it is his last term in the medical college, and he has to give all the time to his studies. it would be nicer if he were around. i do not seem to care about going out in the automobile now at all.--how is one to know whether this new chauffeur may not run the automobile into a telegraph pole, or something, and kill us all? _june th, ----_ chauffeur graham has graduated. he is now doctor graham. isn't that lovely! just like a story book! uncle theodore and i went up to see him take his degree. my! wasn't he fine looking! tall, beautiful figure, and, as i said before, a handsome face. uncle theodore is quite interested in him, as well as grandmother. on the evening of the day on which he received his degree, he overtook me as i was walking through the park, and told me that he had noticed me in the audience. he says he is going to put in a year's practice in the hospital before going to china. i was glad to hear that; it would seem rather lonesome in this big america without him, i really believe. poor cousin ned is standing behind a counter downtown, selling tacks and shingle nails. he had to give up his studies on account of his eyes--the one eye could not stand the strain. unluckily about that time his father lost his money in some speculation, and there was nothing for it but poor ned must go to work. _another june._ i have been so happy, and life has been so satisfactory that i have not written in my diary for many months. i believe it is only when one's heart is so sorrowful and distracted that it must overflow somewhere, that one pours it into a diary. i have so much to say now that i scarcely know where to begin. well, to begin at the beginning, one night uncle theodore asked doctor graham to dinner, along with professor ballington, and another gentleman. after that doctor graham began to call quite frequently evenings--he seemed to enjoy grandmother's company so much, and i am sure she enjoyed his. well--oh, i never can tell how it all came about, but i have promised to go to china with dr. graham, to help him learn the chinese language. it is an _awful_ language for a foreigner to learn, and i just could not bear the thought of the poor fellow having to wrestle with it alone. it was one evening we were alone in the drawing-room, grandmother having been unable to appear owing to a headache, that we came to the final arrangement. but suddenly i thought of something that was going to upset it all, i believed,--he didn't know who i was! "oh!" i cried, "i cannot go with you--you will not want me--you do not know--that--i--am the yellow peril!" he smiled down at me, and raised my chin in the palm of his left hand--for he had not let me go from his right, although i had tried to get away--and said, "i expect to be very proud of my yellow pearl." now i am receiving congratulations which are making me feel very happy and proud, with the exception of professor ballington's. i cannot help feeling sorry for that poor old bachelor. he came up to me and said: "my dear miss pearl, i had been vain enough to hope once that i might sometime call this pearl mine, but if i cannot do so, i do not know of any one that i would sooner see claim it than doctor graham. and so i say, god bless you! god bless you! you shall always have the love of an old bachelor. and in this world, obsessed with fever and noise, with the sham and superficial, may you always remain the genuine pearl you are." there were tears in his voice. why must every rose have a thorn? we are going to china, doctor graham and i, my native land; the land of flashing poppy-blossoms, red azaleas, purple wistarias, blue larkspur, yellow jasmine, oleanders, begonias, and flowering bamboos--the flowery kingdom. dr. graham is going to establish a hospital, to set broken legs and bind up broken heads; and i am going to try and prevent any more of those little chinese babies from being thrown out on the hillsides to die. grandmother says if we go to china it ought to be to tell the confucionists and buddhists about the great christ. but i believe if he went there himself he would be mending broken legs, binding up broken heads and hearts, and saving the little babies from being thrown out on the hillsides to die. dear grandmother is a standing proof to me that the christ means much more to the world than china's confucius or buddha. one day when she was seated in her rocking-chair i threw my arm around her and told her so. the dear old lady never seemed to accept my words as a personal compliment at all, but began, as once before, to sing in a low, quavering voice: "let every kindred every tribe on this terrestrial ball, to him all majesty ascribe, and crown him lord of all." learning theory by james mc connell _destiny's tricks can be pretty weird sometimes. and this was one to be proud of. a cosmic joke, a witch that could make a nightmare seem tame!_ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, december . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] i am writing this because i presume he wants me to. otherwise he would not have left paper and pencil handy for me to use. and i put the word "he" in capitals because it seems the only thing to do. if i am dead and in hell, then this is only proper. however, if i am merely a captive somewhere, then surely a little flattery won't hurt matters. as i sit here in this small room and think about it, i am impressed most of all by the suddenness of the whole thing. at one moment i was out walking in the woods near my suburban home. the next thing i knew, here i was in a small, featureless room, naked as a jaybird, with only my powers of rationalization to stand between me and insanity. when the "change" was made (whatever the change was), i was not conscious of so much as a momentary flicker between walking in the woods and being here in this room. whoever is responsible for all of this is to be complimented--either he has developed an instantaneous anesthetic or he has solved the problem of instantaneous transportation of matter. i would prefer to think it the former, for the latter leads to too much anxiety. as i recall, i was immersed in the problem of how to teach my class in beginning psychology some of the more abstruse points of learning theory when the transition came. how far away life at the university seems at the moment: i must be forgiven if now i am much more concerned about where i am and how to get out of here than about how freshmen can be cajoled into understanding hull or tolman. problem # : where am i? for an answer, i can only describe this room. it is about twenty feet square, some twelve feet high, with no windows, but with what might be a door in the middle of one of the walls. everything is of a uniform gray color, and the walls and ceiling emit a fairly pleasant achromatic light. the walls themselves are of some hard material which might be metal since it feels slightly cool to the touch. the floor is of a softer, rubbery material that yields a little when i walk on it. also, it has a rather "tingly" feel to it, suggesting that it may be in constant vibration. it is somewhat warmer than the walls, which is all to the good since it appears i must sleep on the floor. the only furniture in the room consists of what might be a table and what passes for a chair. they are not quite that, but they can be made to serve this purpose. on the table i found the paper and the pencil. no, let me correct myself. what i call paper is a good deal rougher and thicker than i am used to, and what i call a pencil is nothing more than a thin round stick of graphite which i have sharpened by rubbing one end of it on the table. and that is the sum of my surroundings. i wish i knew what he has done with my clothes. the suit was an old one, but i am worried about the walking boots. i was very fond of those boots--they were quite expensive and i would hate to lose them. the problem still remains to be answered, however, as to just where in the hell i am--if not in hell itself! problem # is a knottier one--why am i here? were i subject to paranoid tendencies, i would doubtless come to the conclusion that my enemies had kidnapped me. or perhaps that the russians had taken such an interest in my research that they had spirited me away to some siberian hideout and would soon appear to demand either cooperation or death. sadly enough, i am too reality oriented. my research was highly interesting to me, and perhaps to a few other psychologists who like to dabble in esoteric problems of animal learning, but it was scarcely startling enough to warrant such attention as kidnapping. so i am left as baffled as before. where am i, and why? and who is he? * * * * * i have decided to forego all attempts at keeping this diary according to "days" or "hours." such units of time have no meaning in my present circumstances, for the light remains constant all the time i am awake. the human organism is not possessed of as neat an internal clock as some of the lower species. far too many studies have shown that a human being who is isolated from all external stimulation soon loses his sense of time. so i will merely indicate breaks in the narrative and hope that he will understand that if he wasn't bright enough to leave me with my wristwatch, he couldn't expect me to keep an accurate record. nothing much has happened. i have slept, been fed and watered, and have emptied my bladder and bowels. the food was waiting on the table when i awoke last time. i must say that he has little of the gourmet in him. protein balls are not my idea of a feast royal. however, they will serve to keep body and soul together (presuming, of course, that they _are_ together at the moment). but i must object to my source of liquid refreshment. the meal made me very thirsty, and i was in the process of cursing him and everybody else when i noticed a small nipple which had appeared in the wall while i was asleep. at first i thought that perhaps freud was right after all, and that my libido had taken over control of my imagery. experimentation convinced me, however, that the thing was real, and that it is my present source of water. if one sucks on the thing, it delivers a slightly cool and somewhat sweetish flow of liquid. but really, it's a most undignified procedure. it's bad enough to have to sit around all day in my birthday suit. but for a full professor to have to stand on his tip-toes and suck on an artificial nipple in order to obtain water is asking a little too much. i'd complain to the management if only i knew to whom to complain! following eating and drinking, the call to nature became a little too strong to ignore. now, i was adequately toilet-trained with indoor plumbing, and the absence of same is most annoying. however, there was nothing much to do but choose a corner of the room and make the best of a none too pleasant situation. (as a side-thought, i wonder if the choosing of a corner was in any way instinctive?). however, the upshot of the whole thing was my learning what is probably the purpose of the vibration of the floor. for the excreted material disappeared through the floor not too many minutes later. the process was a gradual one. now i will be faced with all kinds of uncomfortable thoughts concerning what might possibly happen to me if i slept too long: perhaps this is to be expected, but i find myself becoming a little paranoid after all. in attempting to solve my problem # , why i am here, i have begun to wonder if perhaps some of my colleagues at the university are not using me as a subject in some kind of experiment. it would be just like mccleary to dream up some fantastic kind of "human-in-isolation" experiment and use me as a pilot observer. you would think that he'd have asked my permission first. however, perhaps it's important that the subject not know what's happening to him. if so, i have one happy thought to console me. if mccleary _is_ responsible for this, he'll have to take over the teaching of my classes for the time being. and how he hates teaching learning theory to freshmen: you know, this place seems dreadfully quiet to me. * * * * * suddenly i have solved two of my problems. i know both where i am and who he is. and i bless the day that i got interested in the perception of motion. i should say to begin with that the air in this room seems to have more than the usual concentration of dust particles. this didn't seem particularly noteworthy until i noticed that most of them seemed to pile up along the floor against one wall in particular. for a while i was sure that this was due to the ventilation system--perhaps there was an out-going airduct there where this particular wall was joined to the floor. however, when i went over and put my hand to the floor there, i could feel no breeze whatsoever. yet even as i held my hand along the dividing line between the wall and the floor, dust motes covered my hand with a thin coating. i tried this same experiment everywhere else in the room to no avail. this was the only spot where the phenomenon occurred, and it occurred along the entire length of this one wall. but if ventilation was not responsible for the phenomenon, what was? all at once there popped into my mind some calculations i had made when the rocket boys had first proposed a manned satellite station. engineers are notoriously naive when it comes to the performance of a human being in most situations, and i remembered that the problem of the perception of the satellite's rotation seemingly had been ignored by the slip-stick crowd. they had planned to rotate the doughnut-shaped satellite in order to substitute centrifugal force for the force of gravity. thus the outer shell of the doughnut would appear to be "down" to anyone inside the thing. apparently they had not realized that man is at least as sensitive to angular rotation as he is to variations in the pull of gravity. as i figured the problem then, if a man aboard the doughnut moved his head as much as three or four feet outwards from the center of the doughnut, he would have become fairly dizzy! rather annoying it would have been, too, to have been hit by a wave of nausea every time one sat down in a chair. also, as i pondered the problem, it became apparent that dust particles and the like would probably show a tendency to move in a direction opposite to the direction of the rotation, and hence pile up against any wall or such that impeded their flight. using the behavior of the dust particles as a clue, i then climbed atop the table and leapt off. sure enough, my head felt like a mule had kicked it by the time i landed on the floor. my hypothesis was confirmed. so i am aboard a spaceship: the thought is incredible, but in a strange way comforting. at least now i can postpone worrying about heaven and hell--and somehow i find the idea of being in a spaceship much more to the liking of a confirmed agnostic. i suppose i owe mccleary an apology--i should have known he would never have put himself in a position where he would have to teach freshmen all about learning: and, of course, i know who "he" is. or rather, i know who he _isn't_, which is something else again. surely, though, i can no longer think of him as being human. whether i should be consoled at this or not, i have no way of telling. i still have no notion of _why_ i am here, however, nor why this alien chose to pick me of all people to pay a visit to his spaceship. what possible use could i be? surely if he were interested in making contact with the human race, he would have spirited away a politician. after all, that's what politicians are for! since there has been no effort made to communicate with me, however, i must reluctantly give up any cherished hopes that his purpose is that of making contact with _genus homo_. or perhaps he's a galactic scientist of some kind, a biologist of sorts, out gathering specimens. now, that's a particularly nasty thought. what if he turned out to be a physiologist, interested in cutting me open eventually, to see what makes me tick? will my innards be smeared over a glass slide for scores of youthful hims to peer at under a microscope? brrrr! i don't mind giving my life to science, but i'd rather do it a little at a time. if you don't mind, i think i'll go do a little repressing for a while. * * * * * good god! i should have known it! destiny will play her little tricks, and all jokes have their cosmic angles. he is a _psychologist_! had i given it due consideration, i would have realized that whenever you come across a new species, you worry about behavior first, physiology second. so i have received the ultimate insult--or the ultimate compliment. i don't know which. i have become a specimen for an alien psychologist! this thought first occurred to me when i awoke after my latest sleep (which was filled, i must admit, with most frightening dreams). it was immediately obvious that something about the room had changed. almost at once i noticed that one of the walls now had a lever of some kind protruding from it, and to one side of the lever, a small hole in the wall with a container beneath the hole. i wandered over to the lever, inspected it a few moments, then accidentally depressed the thing. at once there came a loud clicking noise, and a protein ball popped out of the hole and fell into the container. for just a moment a frown crossed my brow. this seemed somehow so strangely familiar. then, all at once, i burst into wild laughter. the room had been changed into a gigantic skinner box! for years i had been studying animal learning by putting white rats in a skinner box and following the changes in the rats' behavior. the rats had to learn to press the lever in order to get a pellet of food, which was delivered to them through just such an apparatus as is now affixed to the wall of my cell. and now, after all of these years, and after all of the learning studies i had done, to find myself trapped like a rat in a skinner box! perhaps this was hell after all, i told myself, and the lord high executioner's admonition to "let the punishment fit the crime" was being followed. frankly, this sudden turn of events has left me more than a little shaken. * * * * * i seem to be performing according to theory. it didn't take me long to discover that pressing the lever would give me food some of the time, while at other times all i got was the click and no protein ball. it appears that approximately every twelve hours the thing delivers me a random number of protein balls--the number has varied from five to fifteen so far. i never know ahead of time how many pellets--i mean protein balls--the apparatus will deliver, and it spews them out intermittently. sometimes i have to press the lever a dozen times or so before it will give me anything, while at other times it gives me one ball for each press. since i don't have a watch on me, i am never quite sure when the twelve hours have passed, so i stomp over to the lever and press it every few minutes when i think it's getting close to time to be fed. just like my rats always did. and since the pellets are small and i never get enough of them, occassionally i find myself banging away on the lever with all the compulsion of a stupid animal. but i missed the feeding time once and almost starved to death (so it seemed) before the lever delivered food the next time. about the only consolation to my wounded pride is that at this rate of starvation, i'll lose my bay window in short order. at least he doesn't seem to be fattening me up for the kill. or maybe he just likes lean meat! * * * * * i have been promoted. apparently he in his infinite alien wisdom has decided that i'm intelligent enough to handle the skinner-type apparatus, so i've been promoted to solving a maze. can you picture the irony of the situation? all of the classic learning theory methodology is practically being thrown in my face. if only i could communicate with him! i don't mind being subjected to tests nearly as much as i mind being underestimated. why, i can solve puzzles hundreds of times more complex than what he's throwing at me. but how can i tell him? as it turns out, the maze is much like our standard t-mazes, and is not too difficult to learn. it's a rather long one, true, with some choice points along the way. i spent the better part of half an hour wandering through the thing the first time i found myself in it. surprisingly enough, i didn't realize the first time out what i was in, so i made no conscious attempt to memorize the correct turns. it wasn't until i reached the final turn and found food waiting for me that i recognized what i was expected to do. the next time through the maze my performance was a good deal better, and i was able to turn in a perfect performance in not too long a time. however, it does not do my ego any good to realize that my own white rats could have learned the maze a little sooner than i did. my "home cage," so to speak, still has the skinner apparatus in it, but the lever delivers food only occasionally now. i still give it a whirl now and again, but since i'm getting a fairly good supply of food at the end of the maze each time, i don't pay the lever much attention. now that i am very sure of what is happening to me, quite naturally my thoughts have turned to how i can get out of this situation. mazes i can solve without too much difficulty, but how to escape apparently is beyond my intellectual capacity. but then, come to think of it, there was precious little chance for my own experimental animals to get out of my clutches. and assuming that i am unable to escape, what then? after he has finished putting me through as many paces as he wishes, where do we go from there? will he treat me as i treated most of my non-human subjects--that is, will i get tossed into a jar containing chloroform? "following the experiment, the animals were sacrificed," as we so euphemistically report in the scientific literature. this doesn't appeal to me much, as you can imagine. or maybe if i seem particularly bright to him, he may use me for breeding purposes, to establish a colony of his own. now, that might have possibilities.... oh, damn freud anyhow! * * * * * and damn him too! i had just gotten the maze well learned when he upped and changed things on me. i stumbled about like a bat in the sunlight for quite some time before i finally got to the goal box. i'm afraid my performance was pretty poor. what he did was just to reverse the whole maze so that it was a mirror image of what it used to be. took me only two trials to discover the solution. let him figure that one out if he's so smart! * * * * * my performance on the maze reversal must have pleased him, because now he's added a new complication. and again i suppose i could have predicted the next step if i had been thinking along the right direction. i woke up a few hours ago to find myself in a totally different room. there was nothing whatsoever in the room, but opposite me were two doors in the wall--one door a pure white, the other jet black. between me and the doors was a deep pit, filled with water. i didn't like the looks of the situation, for it occured to me right away that he had devised a kind of jumping stand for me. i had to choose which of the doors was open and led to food. the other door would be locked. if i jumped at the wrong door, and found it locked, i'd fall in the water. i needed a bath, that was for sure, but i didn't relish getting it in this fashion. while i stood there watching, i got the shock of my life. i meant it quite literally. the bastard had thought of everything. when i used to run rats on jumping stands, to overcome their reluctance to jump, i used to shock them. he's following exactly the same pattern. the floor in this room is wired but good. i howled and jumped about and showed all the usual anxiety behavior. it took me less than two seconds to come to my senses and make a flying leap at the white door, however. you know something? that water is ice-cold! * * * * * i have now, by my own calculations, solved no fewer than different problems on the jumping stand, and i'm getting sick and tired of it. once i got angry and just pointed at the correct door--and got shocked for not going ahead and jumping. i shouted bloody murder, cursing him at the top of my voice, telling him if he didn't like my performance, he could damn well lump it. all he did, of course, was to increase the shock. frankly, i don't know how much longer i can put up with this. it's not that the work is difficult. if he were giving me half a chance to show my capabilities, i wouldn't mind it. i suppose i've contemplated a thousand different means of escaping, but none of them is worth mentioning. but if i don't get out of here soon, i shall go stark raving mad! * * * * * for almost an hour after it happened, i sat in this room and just wept. i realize that it is not the style in our culture for a grown man to weep, but there are times when cultural taboos must be forgotten. again, had i thought much about the sort of experiments he must have had in mind, i most probably could have predicted the next step. even so, i most likely would have repressed the knowledge. one of the standard problems which any learning psychologist is interested in is this one--will an animal learn something if you fail to reward him for his performance? there are many theorists, such as hull and spence, who believe that reward (or "reinforcement," as they call it) is absolutely necessary for learning to occur. this is mere stuff and nonsense, as anyone with a grain of sense knows, but nonetheless the "reinforcement" theory has been dominant in the field for years now. we fought a hard battle with spence and hull, and actually had them with their backs to the wall at one point, when suddenly they came up with the concept of "secondary reinforcement." that is, anything associated with a reward takes on the ability to act as a reward itself. for example, the mere sight of food would become a reward in and of itself--almost as much a reward, in fact, as is the eating of the food. the _sight_ of food, indeed! but nonetheless, it saved their theories for the moment. for the past five years now, i have been trying to design an experiment that would show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the _sight_ of a reward was not sufficient for learning to take place. and now look at what has happened to me! i'm sure that he must lean towards hull and spence in his theorizing, for earlier today, when i found myself in the jumping stand room, instead of being rewarded with my usual protein balls when i made the correct jump, i--i'm sorry, but it is difficult to write about even now. for when i made the correct jump and the door opened and i started towards the food trough, i found it had been replaced with a photograph. a calendar photograph. you know the one. her name, i think, is monroe. i sat on the floor and cried. for five whole years i have been attacking the validity of the secondary reinforcement theory, and now i find myself giving him evidence that the theory is correct! for i cannot help "learning" which of the doors is the correct one to jump through. i refuse to stand on the apparatus and have the life shocked out of me, and i refuse to pick the wrong door all the time and get an icy bath time after time. it isn't fair! for he will doubtless put it all down to the fact that the mere _sight_ of the photograph is functioning as a reward, and that i am learning the problems merely to be able to see miss what's-her-name in her bare skin! i can just see him now, sitting somewhere else in this spaceship, gathering in all the data i am giving him, plotting all kinds of learning curves, chortling to himself because i am confirming all of his pet theories. i just wish.... * * * * * almost an hour has gone by since i wrote the above section. it seems longer than that, but surely it's been only an hour. and i have spent the time deep in thought. for i have discovered a way out of this place, i think. the question is, dare i do it? i was in the midst of writing that paragraph about his sitting and chortling and confirming his theories, when it suddenly struck me that theories are born of the equipment that one uses. this has probably been true throughout the history of all science, but perhaps most true of all in psychology. if skinner had never invented his blasted box, if the maze and the jumping stand had not been developed, we probably would have entirely different theories of learning today than we now have. for if nothing else, the type of equipment that one uses drastically reduces the type of behavior that one's subjects can show, and one's theories have to account only for the type of behavior that appears in the laboratories. it follows from this also that any two cultures that devise the same sort of experimental procedures will come up with almost identical theories. keeping all of this in mind, it's not hard for me to believe that he is an iron-clad reinforcement theorist, for he uses all of the various paraphernalia that they use, and uses it in exactly the same way. my means of escape is therefore obvious. he expects from me confirmation of all his pet theories. well, he won't get it any more! i know all of his theories backwards and forwards, and this means i know how to give him results that will tear his theories right smack in half! i can almost predict the results. what does any learning theorist do with an animal that won't behave properly, that refuses to give the results that are predicted? one gets rid of the beast, quite naturally. for one wishes to use only healthy, normal animals in one's work, and any animal that gives "unusual" results is removed from the study but quickly. after all, if it doesn't perform as expected, it must be sick, abnormal, or aberrant in one way or another.... there is no guarantee, of course, what method he will employ to dispose of my now annoying presence. will he "sacrifice" me? or will he just return me to the "permanent colony"? i cannot say. i know only that i will be free from what is now an intolerable situation. just wait until he looks at his results from now on! * * * * * from: experimenter-in-chief, interstellar labship psych- to: director, bureau of science thlan, my friend, this will be an informal missive. i will send the official report along later, but i wanted to give you my subjective impressions first. the work with the newly discovered species is, for the moment, at a standstill. things went exceedingly well at first. we picked what seemed to be a normal, healthy animal and smattered it into our standard test apparatus. i may have told you that this new species seemed quite identical to our usual laboratory animals, so we included a couple of the "toys" that our home animals seem so fond of--thin pieces of material made from wood-pulp and a tiny stick of graphite. imagine our surprise, and our pleasure, when this new specimen made exactly the same use of the materials as have all of our home colony specimens. could it be that there are certain innate behavior patterns to be found throughout the universe in the lower species? well, i merely pose the question. the answer is of little importance to a learning theorist. your friend verpk keeps insisting that the use of these "toys" may have some deeper meaning to it, and that perhaps we should investigate further. at his insistence, then, i include with this informal missive the materials used by our first subject. in my opinion, verpk is guilty of gross anthropomorphism, and i wish to have nothing further to do with the question. however, this behavior did give us hope that our newly discovered colony would yield subjects whose performances would be exactly in accordance with standard theory. and, in truth, this is exactly what seemed to be the case. the animal solved the bfian box problem in short order, yielding as beautiful data has i have ever seen. we then shifted it to maze, maze-reversal and jumping stand problems, and the results could not have confirmed our theories better had we rigged the data. however, when we switched the animal to secondary reinforcement problems, it seemed to undergo a strange sort of change. no longer was its performance up to par. in fact, at times it seemed to go quite berserk. for part of the experiment, it would perform superbly. but then, just as it seemed to be solving whatever problem we set it to, its behavior would subtly change into patterns that obviously could not come from a normal specimen. it got worse and worse, until its behavior departed radically from that which our theories predicted. naturally, we knew then that something had happened to the animal, for our theories are based upon thousands of experiments with similar subjects, and hence our theories must be right. but our theories hold only for normal subjects, and for normal species, so it soon became apparent to us that we had stumbled upon some abnormal type of animal. upon due consideration, we returned the subject to its home colony. however, we also voted almost unanimously to request from you permission to take steps to destroy the complete colony. it is obviously of little scientific use to us, and stands as a potential danger that we must take adequate steps against. since all colonies are under your protection, we therefore request permission to destroy it. i must report, by the way, that verpk's vote was the only one which was cast against this procedure. he has some silly notion that one should study behavior as one finds it. frankly, i cannot understand why you have seen fit to saddle me with him on this expedition, but perhaps you have your reasons. verpk's vote notwithstanding, however, the rest of us are of the considered opinion that this whole new colony must be destroyed, and quickly. for it is obviously diseased or some such--as reference to our theories has proven. and should it by some chance come in contact with our other colonies, and infect our other animals with whatever disease or aberration it has, we would never be able to predict their behavior again. i need not carry the argument further, i think. may we have your permission to destroy the colony as soon as possible, then, so that we may search out yet other colonies and test our theories against other healthy animals? for it is only in this fashion that science progresses. respectfully yours, iowyy [illustration: cover art] [frontispiece: writing up the log. _page ._] [illustration: title page] charley's log. a story of schoolboy life. _by the author of_ "soldier fritz, and the enemies he fought;" "glaucia, the greek slave," etc. london: the religious tract society, , paternoster row; , st. paul's churchyard; and , piccadilly. [illustration: contents headpiece] contents. chap. i. the two friends ii. disenchantment iii. the skating party iv. the accident v. cribs vi. was it robbery? vii. a surprise viii. running away to sea ix. conclusion {illustration: chapter i headpiece] chapter i. the two friends. october th.--i am going to keep a log. i shall have to do it by-and-by when i am captain charles stewart, and so, as i have been sent to school to prepare for my work in the world by-and-by, this will be helping in the preparation. mamma often talks about my work in the world, but i am almost sure there is no sea in the world she is thinking about, while to me--well, the sea is all the world to me. but mamma wants me to forget it, and all uncle alfred's wonderful stories about it, and that is why i have been sent here to school; but tom haslitt is with me, and is not likely to let me forget uncle and his sea yarns. tom is to be my lieutenant by-and-by, and as he will have to help with the ship's log then, he is to take a turn with this. it was kind of mamma to arrange for tom and i to have this little bedroom--cabin, i mean--all to ourselves; but i am afraid she would not be pleased to see how we have rigged it up, considering that she wants me to mount uncle charles's office stool by-and-by. i hope that tarred yarn tom has stowed away under the bed don't smell too strong. the compasses and charts and bits of boats we've got hanging about are pretty ornaments, and by-and-by, when we get our ship finished, our little cock-loft will be furnished. i can't say much about the fellows here at present, but they look a very quiet lot, and one with fair hair certainly ought to have it put in curl-papers every night. i shan't have much to say to him, i know; give him a wide berth, and stick close to tom. if we could only have gone somewhere else, some school where they train sailors, i might learn something, but it will do me no good to come here, i'm sure, and i've told mamma so. october th.--the captain says i must help with the log. i'd rather heave up a couple of hammocks here and bundle these bedsteads out of the window, but i suppose we may look out for squalls if we do too much in the nautical line, for charley has got into a scrape already. what they want to keep housemaids for at a boys' school i can't think, unless it is that they may go poking about where they are not wanted. i'm sure that rope yarn did not smell much, but she found it out, that housemaid did; and when charley tried to get it back there was a row. the fellows here are not so bad, when you come to know them, but i don't think i shall ever like the governor--the doctor, as everybody calls him--or the under masters either; although i think we shall be able to do very much as we like here, as we have done at home; at least, charley and i mean to have our own way in most things, if we possibly can. october th.--what a place this is for rows! everybody looks as mild as turnips, from the governor down to the housemaid that took our yarn. but looks are deceitful, i suppose; at least, tom and i won't have such a pleasant, easy time as we expected. if things get much worse i shall write and ask mamma to fetch me home; i'm sure she wouldn't let me stop if i didn't like it, for i have always had my own way about everything but this sea scheme, and, like all mothers, she's afraid of the sea, of course--thinks it a monster that will certainly swallow me up. i don't know what to make of the governor. yesterday he called me into his room, and gave me a private lecture about duty and conscience, and a lot more about my lessons never being properly learned, and about school being a little world where character was tested, and made stronger and nobler or worse, according as we used our opportunities or yielded to our temptations. i told tom all about it afterwards, and we laughed over it together; but i cannot forget it, or the grave, earnest way in which the governor spoke--exactly as though he knew that tom and i had made up our minds not to learn more than we were obliged. october th.--tom hates keeping the log, but i tell him he will have to do it by-and-by, and so he ought to get his hand in now; but he says we've come to school to have a good time and as much fun as we can. well, so we have, i suppose; at least, that was all i thought about it until lately; but, somehow, mamma's talk about preparing for our life-work, and the governor's talk about it being a test and trial of character, have got mixed up in my mind, and it has made me remember that mamma is not rich, and that i am her only child, and i shall have to work by-and-by. i mean to work and take care of her, buy a carriage for her to ride in, and everything she wants when i am a captain and have made my fortune. but i am afraid i shall have to begin by running away to sea. i've quite made up my mind to do it, for mamma is more than a little unreasonable about this, she won't even let me talk about it to her. but there, i won't grumble; she's a dear mother, and reasonable enough in everything else, and has always let me have my own way about most things. tom has got himself into another scrape, and the governor has threatened to separate us--send tom to another room and put another fellow in here. i should write home to the mater at once if he did that, for it would upset everything, and the place would be unbearable. some of the fellows grumbled, too, yesterday, that we were always in the shed they call the workshop instead of in the playground. what is it to them if we like to make boats instead of throwing a ball about? we can do as we like in the playground, i suppose. i hate cricket, that they make such a fuss about here; and if they drag me into playing it they'll soon find i'm no good, and wish me out again. october th.--this is the last chance i shall get of writing in charley's log, i expect, for i am to be turned out of his cabin, and miss chandos is to take my place. i mean to call him "miss" in the playground now as well as between ourselves, for i hate the thought of his taking my place here. i wonder how charley will like the young lady. miss chandos don't seem to like the prospect much more than i do, but we dare not rebel. charley is packing up my traps while i do the log, grumbling all the time, and threatening to serve out miss chandos. the young lady will not have it all her own way, i can tell her. there will be lively times with her and charley. i wish i could stay and see the fun, but i shall hear all about it to-morrow, and charley has promised to put it all down in the log. he says it will be good fun to read this log over to ourselves by-and-by. we mean to keep it to read on board our ship of an evening, and many a good laugh we shall have over it, i dare say. i wonder whether we shall ever laugh at this turn out. i don't think i ever shall, for charley and i have always been chums ever since i can remember, so that it seems like--like something dreadful to have him turned over to miss chandos. october nd.--no more of dear old tom's sprawling writing in our log, for i wouldn't take it down into the schoolroom for the other fellows to see; no, not for anything. yes, poor tom's gone, and miss chandos has arrived. i soon let her know what sort of a welcome she was likely to have from me. tom's traps had hardly been bundled out before the housemaid came with her hands full, and white-faced miss chandos behind her. "is this your lady's maid, miss chandos?" i asked. "does she curl your hair and powder your face?" his face was scarlet enough then, but he only said, "thank you, ann; if you will put down those things i will put them into their places." "oh, ann," i said, with a sniff; "you had better come back, ann, and bring the curl-papers. or do you use curling-irons?" i asked. ann looked indignant, and chandos too, but neither said a word, and she went out of the room. when we were left to ourselves, and chandos had put away some of his things, he suddenly turned round and said, "i hope we shall be friends, stewart." i hardly knew what to say for a minute, for i felt surprised and half ashamed of myself; but, thinking of tom, and what he expected to hear, i made a mock bow, and replied, "gentlemen must always be friends with a young lady. tom and i will be delighted, miss chandos;" and then i stopped, for such a look came into his fair girl-face as never was seen in a girl's face before, i fancy. there was no more said, and i went downstairs feeling somehow as though i had not got the best of it after all, and that i might even be mistaken in thinking miss chandos such a coward. but after a little time spent in the playground with tom i forgot miss chandos and her looks, until tom reminded me of it, and i promised to let him know everything that happened. of course something was bound to happen then. how could i meet tom in the morning and tell him the young lady had slept in peace, and everything had passed off comfortably? but what could i do? tom and i generally had some fun throwing our clothes at each other, or shooting paper pellets from under the bedclothes after we had scrambled into bed, until swain came and took the light away, and then we ducked our heads down and went to sleep. but there was no telling whether miss chandos would tumble into bed as quickly as we did. i certainly was not surprised to see her sit down and take up a book that lay on the drawers and begin to read. i let her read in peace for about five minutes, and then snatched it away and flung it across the room. i really did not see that it was a bible until it was out of my hand; but i did not mean to let chandos know that, or that i felt sorry for throwing it. "don't do that again, stewart," he said, as he went to pick it up; and i burst out laughing to hide my vexation, and asked when ann was coming to do his hair. he took no notice of my question, and i tumbled into bed, wondering what chandos would do next. i had my pea-shooter and a good supply of pellets ready for whatever happened; but i certainly expected to see him follow my example and tumble into bed. but instead of doing this he kneeled down at the side of the bed as though i had not been there, which rather startled me, for i thought he would and ought to be afraid to attempt it after what i had already done. i waited a minute or two, and then, taking a good aim, hit him right in the back of the neck. it made him start, i could see, and i laughed, though i expected he would jump up and give me a good pommelling the next minute, for it was clear he was no coward, as i had thought at first, and he would never have a better chance of pitching in, if he meant to fight it out. but no, she kept on, and so did i--pop, pop, pop at his head and the back of his neck, until it tingled again, i know. but she wouldn't complain; wanted to make believe she hadn't felt it, and said "good night," as though i was the most civil and obliging companion in the world. it was plucky, anyhow, and i like pluck; but we shall see who gives in first, miss chandos; it will take a good deal to make me tire of pea-shooting, i can tell you, and it will be good practice too. october th.--how tom and i have laughed over that plucky miss chandos! i am not sure that the fellow deserves to be called "miss" either, for he is plucky right through, i know--the sort of fellow that would walk up to a cannon's mouth without flinching if he was a soldier and it was his duty. what a splendid sailor he would make! i could fancy him steering his ship right under the enemy's guns if it was necessary, but never yielding an inch or knowing when he was beaten. he's beaten me at pea-shooting, and made me feel ashamed of myself. i wonder what miss chandos is going to be--a parson, i should think; and he means to do his life-work thoroughly, and is beginning now, as i am in keeping this log. it seems queer that we shall all be men very soon--some sailors, some soldiers, some lawyers, and some tied to a merchant's desk, which is mother's highest ambition for me. she talks grandly sometimes about merchant princes, and how uncle will give me a share in his business; but i always try to get out of the way, for i mean to run away to sea when the time comes, and i hate to be a hypocrite. october th.--another row. i knew it would come if they turned us out of our workshop; but the best of the fun is, they don't know who has been up to this mischief, though tom and i are both suspected, i believe. for a wonder, though, i had no hand in this, i only wish i had. tom managed cleverly, too, to turn all the farm-yard out as he did--pigs and cows, ducks and hens; and didn't they enjoy their hour's feast in the garden! i fancy i see the governor now as he came rushing out in time to see the last of his dahlias disappear, and then the whooping and helter-skelter charge of the servants, with the governor at the head of the fray. this will be something to laugh over many a night when the wind is blowing great guns, and we are pitching and tossing so that it is impossible to read or write up the ship's log, which we shall have to keep then. the picture of to-day's fun will rise up before us long after everybody else has forgotten it. plucky tom! i wish i had had a share of the fun in setting the animals at liberty. i don't dare ask how he did it all yet, for the fuss is at its height, and everybody is being questioned. of course, suspicions go for nothing, and nobody really saw who did it, and so tom is not likely to be found out unless he splits himself, which is not very probable, unless somebody else is charged with it, and then of course he would make a clean breast of it. chapter ii. disenchantment. november st.--chandos has got himself into a scrape, and nobody seems to know what it is about. i have asked several of the fellows, but they only shake their heads and tell me i know more about it than they do. i am sure i do not; but as chandos shares my room they think i must be in his secrets, i suppose. i cannot help wondering what it is--something that has got the governor's back up awfully, i can see. chandos has been locked up all day in the punishment-room, and nobody seems to know whether he will be let out to-night. i wish i was sure he was not coming, and i would try to get tom in here, and we'd have some fun for once. i wonder what the young lady has been up to. november th.--i have not written up my log for a fortnight, and now i have only a miserable tale to tell. at first i thought i'd give up the log, as tom will never be my lieutenant now to laugh over it; but i'll keep on with it a bit longer. i thought we should often laugh over tom's setting the farm-yard at liberty as he did, but somehow it seems to have been a dreadful trouble to everybody; but no one can feel just as i do about it, for it has taken my old chum away from me, and we can never be again what we have been. what did they want to make such a fuss about it for, and punish miss chandos? the governor must have been as blind as a mole to think chandos had anything to do with it. it was ever so long before i found out the tops and bottoms of the business; but at last i found one of the juniors could tell something, and i got him by himself and threatened to break every bone in his skin if he didn't shell out all he knew, and then it came out that he had seen chandos close to the farm-yard just before the animals were turned out, and the miserable little muff had gone with that tale to the governor as soon as the row began. "but you know it wasn't chandos," i said, thinking he must have seen tom too. "wasn't it?" said the youngster. i gave him a shake, and ran off to chandos, who was just going into the cricket-field. "what's this row about you and the farm-yard, miss chandos?" i said. he seems to be getting used to his name, and only said, "oh, it's all right now, stewart." "do you know who did turn the things out?" i said. "do you?" he asked. i nodded. "it wasn't you, and i didn't think you knew anything about it. suspicions go for nothing, you know." "well, let this pass. it's over now, and let's drop it." "but you've been punished for what you had no hand in. did the governor think you did it?" "i don't think he believed i actually did it myself; but he said i was worse than those who did it if i was screening them, for i was encouraging insubordination in the school. do you know who was suspected, stewart?" "me!" "yes; i cleared you at once, but i couldn't say any more, and that vexed dr. mellor." "oh, the doctor be hanged! why didn't you go to tom and tell him the fix you was in? i suppose you knew he did it?" "i couldn't help knowing it where i was, and i did contrive to say a word to him about going to the doctor, but--" "you told tom you were to be punished for his fault, and he wouldn't make a clean breast of it to the governor!" i said, angrily. "there, i told you it was better to let it pass, stewart; you could do no good now," said chandos, walking away. but a sudden thought had seized me, and i placed myself in his path. "but you shall give me a plain answer to my question," i said; "not that i will believe it of tom. it is you that are the sneak; you look one, with your white face and quiet ways, and i know you are only trying to set me against my old chum!" i was almost mad with rage, and longed to knock chandos down; and for a minute he looked as though he would fight it out, but the next he had pushed me aside, and was striding on to take his place as long-stop in the game that was just beginning. i looked after him for a minute, thinking i would go and have it out, when i suddenly thought of going to tom, and turned back to the workshop, where tom was busy hacking at some wood for a rudder. "i say, old fellow, did chandos tell you he was taking your punishment for the farm-yard scrape?" i asked. "oh, never mind chandos; come and rub down this mast," said tom, turning away. "then--he--did--tell--you!" i said, slowly. "didn't you know chandos was a sneak before to-day?" said tom, sharply. "but--but tell me all about it, tom," i said, rubbing my eyes, and feeling as though i must be dreaming. "oh, there ain't much to tell--nothing to make such a fuss about. the fellow came to me, and said he had got into a scrape through the things getting out; but of course i didn't believe him. this was an easy way of getting me into a row, as well as helping himself out." "but, tom, if he took your punishment, you know--" "bah! my punishment! the governor isn't such a duffer as to think that white-faced milksop did that mischief. he hasn't pluck enough. i always told you he was a sneak, and now he's proved it, for he said the thing should always be a secret between us, whether i told or not, and now he's run open-mouthed to you with the tale." "no, he hasn't." and without another word i walked out of the workshop. i didn't feel as though i wanted to fight tom; it didn't seem as though i could fight, for i couldn't understand things a bit. somehow they'd got so mixed up in this row that tom seemed to be chandos, and chandos tom, and whether i should wake and find they were all right, or tom running about with chandos's head on his shoulders, i couldn't tell for a little while. but presently chandos came walking through the gate on which i was mounted, and certainly he had his own straw-coloured hair safe enough. he didn't condescend to look at me as he passed, and i felt as though i hated him for robbing me of tom. what right had he to do it--he with that white face to be so plucky? and not even for a friend either, for tom is no friend to him any more than i am, and all the school have adopted our private name, and call him miss chandos. it isn't as though he didn't care about it either, for i can see he does. no boy likes to be thought a girl, or have a girl's name tacked to him; and chandos is like the rest, but he takes it quietly, although i fancy now he would be as good in a stand-up fight as tom himself. bother tom! i don't want to think about him now. i wish he had left the pigs and cows alone, or i hadn't been in such a fume to find out all about it. i don't like to think he has been mean and cowardly--my brave, bold tom. anyhow, i shall always hate miss chandos for her share in the matter, and i'll call her miss chandos more than ever now. it's been a miserable time, somehow, ever since i heard the tops and bottoms of this row, for though tom and i have never said a word about it since, we both seem to remember it always, and we keep apart as we never did before. november th.--all the school is in a ferment about a special prize that is to be given for the best essay on something or other. i'm not going to try, so it don't trouble me much; but it seems as though everybody else is, and they can talk of nothing else. even tom is going in for this, it seems, though he don't stand much chance, i fancy; but he wants a watch, and thinks he may as well try for this. the weather is dull and cold, and our shipbuilding is almost at a standstill. we haven't done much since that row, and things are altogether miserable. tom seems to be making new friends among the other fellows, and i've dropped shooting at miss chandos and hiding her bible, so that altogether i'm rather glum, and ready to quarrel with anybody that is good for a stand-up fight. i know everybody thinks me a bear, and i am, i think, for i don't care for anybody or anything now. november th.--it seems as though there was never to be an end to this row, which has made everything so miserable for me. the governor has taken it into his head to consider the matter still unsettled, although chandos took tom's punishment, and now poor chandos has been told that he can't try for this prize. it's the meanest shame, for chandos stood as good a chance as anybody, if not better than most, and now he isn't to be allowed that chance. he tries to hide his disappointment, but i know he had begun to read up, and yesterday i asked him if he didn't mean to split on tom, and tell the governor all about it. "i wish haslitt would do it himself," he said; "it would be better for everybody if he did." "of course it would; and i'll tell him so, and the governor too, if you won't." "no, no, don't do that, stewart; the school would send you to coventry if you split on another fellow about anything. and besides--" "well, what more can the school do?" i asked, angrily. "oh, nothing, only your splitting would do no good now, i fancy." "well, tom shall make a clean breast of it, and give up his chance of this prize. it ain't much of a chance for him, and so it won't be much for him to give it up; but you'll get it, chandos--at least i hope you will;" and then i ran off to find tom and have it out with him. i hardly knew how to begin, but i did it somehow; and then tom said, crossly, "what a fuss you make about nothing! i suppose miss chandos has set you on. has she taught you to say your prayers yet?" "saying my prayers has nothing to do with this, tom, you know that." "oh, hasn't it! i thought the young lady was making a milksop of you, you've been so glum, lately." "now look here, tom, i haven't told you what i thought about this sneakish business, but i will if you don't make a clean breast of it to the governor at once." "well, who cares what you think?" said tom, laughing; and he tried to push past me. but i wasn't going to have that. "now, look here, old fellow, we have been chums for ever so long, and i never knew you to do anything mean before, and i believe you're sorry for this; now make a clean breast of it, tom, and let miss chandos go in for this prize." "has she told you she's sure to get it?" "no, of course not; but you know she'd stand a good chance--a better chance than you do." "i don't know so much about that, and i don't see why i should give up my chance just to suit your whims. it wouldn't help miss chandos either." "yes, it would. the governor wants to get at the bottom of this farmyard affair, and that is why he is so hard on poor chandos." "poor chandos! the young lady has bewitched you, charley! as if this had anything to do with that old row! she knows how to come it over you, the mean sneak! as though she didn't know this was for another affair altogether." "i don't believe it, tom." "don't you? ask some of the other fellows, then. here, jackson, what did you tell me miss chandos had been doing to lose her chance of the prize?" called tom. "i don't know now. collins told me it was some artful dodge the governor had found out. anyhow, i'm glad she's out, for the chances will be pretty evenly balanced among us now; but chandos always goes in for such a lot of grind that he'd be sure to swamp us all. do you go in for it, stewart?" he asked. "i'm not fond of grind, and shouldn't have a ghost of a chance, any more than tom has." "oh, well, haslitt will pass muster, i dare say, but we ain't much afraid of him," laughed jackson, as he ran away. "i tell you the fellows will kick up no end of a row now if they find i gave up for chandos to go in; not that i think he would mind. he's a sneak, and has just told you this to hide something he has been doing himself." "well, i shouldn't care for what the fellows said, tom. they want to keep chandos out--a few of them, i don't believe they all do--just because they will stand a better chance of the prize; and it's mean and cowardly, and i wouldn't help them in it if i were you." "but i tell you, charley, you mustn't go against a lot like this. i'm beginning to find out that you must think of others a bit when you are at school like this, and--and--" there tom stopped. "look here, tom; it may be all very well to mind what other fellows say a bit, but i never knew you to do a mean thing in my life before, and i shall wish we had never come here if it's going to make you a sneak now." "who says i am a sneak? chandos, i suppose?" "no, it isn't chandos. he hasn't been your chum as i have; he didn't know what you were before you came to school, and never talks about you--" "only to call me a sneak, i suppose?" "no, he has never called you a sneak; but i do, and mean it, if you won't go to the governor and make a clean breast of everything." "it would do no good, i tell you, charley, and the other fellows would be down upon me directly if i did. three or four are going in for this prize that wouldn't try if chandos wasn't out. i tell you they'd never forgive me if i split now. i'll promise this, charley, i'll never get into a scrape like it again. i wish now i'd gone to the governor at once about it." "i wish you had; but it isn't too late, you know, now, tom. come on at once; we shall find him in the library. i'll go with you if you like." i really thought tom would go then, but just as we were turning round jackson ran to tell him collins and the rest wanted him; and tom went off, calling to me, "it's no good, charley, i can't do it." i felt half ashamed to meet chandos after this, for he knew i had been to talk to tom, and i couldn't bear him to think he was such a sneak as he has been over this; but there was no getting out of it, for he was standing by the lobby door as i went in, and looked at me in such a way that i said, crossly, "why don't you go to the governor yourself and tell him all about it?" "then haslitt won't go?" "no, he won't," i said. "this beastly school has made him a sneak--he never was before; he never served anybody such a trick, and he never would if he hadn't come here." "well, don't get so angry about it, stewart. my mother says one of the principal uses of a school is to try what mettle we are of. we cannot tell whether a character is strong or weak until it has been tried, and the temptations and failures at school prepare us better for the temptations of the world afterwards." "what do i care about the temptations of the world? it's this school that has spoiled tom, and he will never be my chum again, and i shall have to look out for another lieutenant for my ship;" and i rushed off indoors, for fear chandos should say any more, for i could not bear to hear him speak against tom. chapter iii. the skating party. november th.--i haven't spoken to tom for a week, but he's so mixed up with the other fellows now that he don't seem to mind; but i am very dull, and it makes me very miserable not to have tom working with me at our boats as we used to do. i have found out, too, that chandos is not a general favourite in the school, but he has two or three friends--chums, like tom and i used to be--who seem to be fond of reading, and don't get into so many scrapes as tom's set. i belong to nobody just now. i join in a game sometimes when i don't feel too sulky; but i miss tom too much to feel pleased with anybody else, though chandos and i talk a bit sometimes when we go to bed. last night we were talking about prayer. fancy boys talking about that; but it seems chandos believes it is all as real--as real as writing a letter to his mother, and as sure of having an answer. i was as much surprised as when the doctor talked about us having a conscience; for it seems chandos is not going to be a parson after all, but is to go into his uncle's counting-house, just as mother wants me to do. the only difference is that chandos has made up his mind to it because it is his duty, he says, though he hates it as much as i do, and wants to be a doctor awfully. i begin to think the world is a dreadful puzzle. why can't people do just what they like, instead of being driven to do what they hate so often? chandos is a first-rate sort of fellow too, i think, in spite of his white face and curly hair; and yet he's got to do what he don't like, so that being good don't seem to have much to do with it, though my old nurse used to say good boys were always happy. well, i'm not good, anyhow, so it's not very wonderful that i'm pretty miserable; only tom seems happy enough, and he ought to be miserable too, which is another of the puzzles, i suppose. december th.--everybody is essay mad--that is, all the fellows in our class who have gone in for it. chandos and i never talk about it to each other, but i know he is disappointed, for he was ill the first part of this half, and so he will have no prizes to take home at christmas. i suppose i should be disappointed too if i was one of the fellows that grind, but i don't see the use of it, and so prizes don't come in my way. not but what i should like to please mamma, and she would be pleased, i know, if such a wonder was to happen; but then i hate books, unless they are about the sea, or something of that sort. i shall be glad when the holidays are here now. i should not like to confess it even to tom, but i want to see my mother, and ask her some of the questions that have puzzled me lately. then there is always lots of fun at christmas, and there has been so little here. another week and this essay fuss will be over, and then the fellows will talk about the other prizes and going home, and i shall try to forget all the bother, and tom's share in it too, if i can. i wonder who will get this essay prize--not tom, i am certain. december th.--tom has got the prize. i cannot understand it one bit. i know he has gone in for lots of grind lately, like the other fellows, but there were two or three that i felt sure would be better up to that kind of work than he was. i cannot feel glad that he has won it, and i have not told him i am; and some of the fellows that were most urgent for him to go in have scarcely spoken to him since. i wonder whether they think, as i do, that this watch should of right belong to chandos. tom and i are going home together. no one at home knows anything of what has happened, and i shall not tell them if i can help it. chandos has asked me to go and see him in the holidays, and i mean to ask mamma to let him come to our house. i think i shall like that better than going to his place, for i fancy his people are dreadfully religious, and we know nothing about that sort of thing, but i don't like to be thought quite a heathen. january th.--the holidays are over, and we are back at school in our old places once more. tom has taken up the notion that i am envious of his good luck in getting the watch. good luck! i call it bad luck, for it was a bad business altogether, and i let out something about this at home; but mamma only thought it was one of our ordinary quarrels. i went to see chandos in the holidays. he has several brothers and sisters; one of them has come back with him to school, and is among the juniors, although he is only a year or two younger than his brother; but he has been delicate, and is very backward, and so was obliged to go into the lower division of the school. i like mrs. chandos very much. she is religious after a different pattern from my aunt phoebe, and somehow everything seems so real about her that i don't wonder chandos believes everything she says. but i don't mean to like chandos too much. he is all very well, but he is not tom, and can never be my lieutenant. i had a talk to mamma about going to sea, but she is as obstinate as ever. i told chandos of this when he came to see me, and he said, "then i am afraid you will have to give it up, stewart." "give it up! give up the sea! you don't know what you are talking about, chandos!" "yes, i do, for i wanted to be a doctor quite as badly as you want to go to sea; but when my father died, and my mother told me how impossible it was that my wish could be gratified, i set to work at once to conquer it." "set to work to conquer it! but how could you do that?" i said. "i--i began in the only way i could; i asked god to help me for my mother's sake to overcome the selfish desire, and make me willing to do all i could to learn what was necessary to be a merchant." "but you don't hate the idea of being chained to a desk as i do, or you wouldn't talk so coolly about it." "not now. but i did hate it quite as much as you can, stewart; but i remembered that my mother was not rich. when my father died we were very much reduced, and if i should offend my uncle by refusing this offer he might refuse to help the younger ones by-and-by; and so you see it was my duty to forget myself and my own wishes, and do what i could to help my mother." "but my mother does not need my help, and so i don't see why i should give up everything i want, if you do." "your mother may not want your help, but she wants you. you are her only son, and--and shall i tell you?--i have heard of such things happening, you know--she may break her heart if you run away to sea. you would not do that, stewart." "break her heart! kill my mother! chandos, you know me better than that!" "yes, i do, stewart, and that is why i have spoken in time; but i have heard of boys going to sea and coming home expecting to find everything as they left it, and finding mother and father both dead--killed by grief for the runaway." "oh, that's all twaddle, you know, chandos; nobody ever really died of a broken heart," i said. "then you mean to try the experiment on your mother? very well, stewart; if you will, you will, i know; only beware of the consequences, for if the twaddle should prove truth it would cause you lifelong unhappiness afterwards." this ended his lecture, and i made up my mind to forget it as soon as i could; but somehow it mixes itself up with everything, and try as i will i cannot forget it. of course, i don't want to run away, if i can persuade mamma to let me go to sea properly; but if she won't, what am i to do? i can't and won't go to be perched up at an office desk all day, and so there will be nothing else i can do but cut and run some fine morning. of course, i shall write to mamma just before i sail, and tell her i'm all right and jolly, and when she knows that she'll soon be all right. tom and i have talked over the plan dozens of times, for he was to come with me, only somehow i don't want him so much now, though his watch might be handy to sell if we were short of money on the road, for i suppose we should have to go to liverpool, or plymouth, or southampton, or some of those places. bother chandos, making me feel uncomfortable about it. but there, i'm not going to run away to-day, and so i'll forget the whole bother. january th.--at last we are going to have some fun. it has been freezing splendidly these two days, and if the governor hadn't been a duffer he would have let us go out on the ice to-day, for there is a first-rate pond--two or three, in fact--close by, and i know the ice will bear; but he has promised we shall go to-morrow, and everybody has been looking up skates in readiness. i hope it will not thaw to-night, for we are all looking forward to the fun we shall have to-morrow--all but chandos, and he has taken it into his head that his brother ought to stay at home, as he has a cold. but chandos junior has a will of his own, i can see, and i mean to help him to stand out against his brother's coddling, and give miss chandos a fright into the bargain, if i can. it will be good fun to coax the youngster to go to another pond, especially if one happens to be labelled "dangerous." i fancy i can see his brother now running about like a hen after her brood of ducklings, for he does fuss after this youngster, as though he was different from other boys, and i'll stop it if i can. february th.--i wonder whether i can put down in my log all that has happened. i shall try, for i am very dull to-day sitting up here alone while the others are in school. it did not thaw, as everybody feared it would, and we started for the ponds in good time, swain and the other master with us, for the governor would not trust us alone, which made some of the fellows pretty wild, and they vowed swain should not come for nothing. just before we started tom came tearing across the playground to me and said, "you've split on chandos junior!" "split on him! what do you mean? i don't often speak to the youngster; you and your set know more about him than i do," i said. "yes, but you and miss chandos are as thick as thieves, and you know he did not want young frank to go to-day." "yes, i do know that, and i said if i was frank i wouldn't be coddled to that tune. what of that?" "why, chandos has locked him up or something, for he isn't here." "locked up your grandmother! how could he do that without appealing to the governor? and you know chandos is not likely to do that now. the youngster will turn up presently, unless he has made up his mind to do as his brother wishes, and declares himself on the sick-list. there are three to stay indoors, you know." "yes, but young chandos won't stay if he can help it. we've laughed him out of that--told him the school calls his brother a young lady for his meek ways, and the sooner he breaks away from her apron-string the better." "well, chandos is too fussy," i said; "but don't lead the youngster into any harm, tom. i'll help with some fun, just to give chandos a fright, you know." "bravo, charley! jackson was just talking about the same thing, and we'll do it now." and we both rushed off to jackson and the rest, to inquire if they had seen anything of the youngster. "it's what i call confoundedly selfish, if chandos has stopped the young prig from coming out," said one of the fellows. "chandos ain't selfish," i said; for, though i felt cross with chandos myself, i did not care to hear him run down by tom's set. "well, i don't know what you would call it, but if somebody tried to make me stay at home the only day we are likely to have any fun on the ice, i should feel ready to punch him." "i don't believe chandos junior will stay. but now, what are you going to do with him when he comes?" "do with him! do you think we want to eat him, stewart?" "no, i don't suppose you do; but mind, there's to be no harm done--no sousing him, or anything of that sort. if it's just a bit of fun, to give chandos senior a fright, i'll be in it." "i should think you would, for things are awfully slow here now. tom says you used to be up to anything, but since miss chandos--" "there, we won't talk about that; tom knows all about it, if you don't." and i was just turning away when frank chandos ran towards us with his skates in his hand, looking angry and defiant at his brother, who had followed him half across the playground. a few minutes afterwards we started for the ponds in groups and knots of twos and threes, all laughing and chattering together, the masters at the head, and leading the way to the broadest and shallowest. "now, boys, i think you can skate and slide to your hearts' delight here; but mind, dr. mellor has given orders that no one is to go to the pond round by the alder bushes, for there are dangerous holes in it, as you all know, and if the ice should break--well, you know what the consequences are likely to be." "all right, sir, we'll keep clear of that," said two or three, as they were fastening the straps of their skates, while some, who had already begun sliding, laughed at the notion of the ice breaking. "it is as firm as the schoolroom floor, and one is as likely to give way as the other." "i don't believe the governor would have let us come here at all if all the ponds hadn't been safe," i said. "safe! of course they're safe. the governor knows that; only he must tell us something by way of a scare. he's as bad as miss chandos," said tom. "where is the young lady," i said, "and the youngster? we must look after them." we were off now spinning across the pond, tom and i, with jackson close behind, and the three of us managed to keep together. "what a lark it would be to take chandos junior to the alder pond," said jackson, looking at me as he wheeled round on his skates. "we'll do it," i said; "but not just now. wait a bit, till the fellows get warm to the work, and they won't miss us. we must keep our eye on the youngster. is he skating or sliding?" "skating; but that don't matter," said tom. "no, but if chandos senior had the skates on it would be all the better. they are his skates too; i happen to know that, and so i shall tell master frank presently that he ought not to stick to them for the whole afternoon." "i see; if chandos senior should happen to see us he will not be able to fly to the rescue of his duckling at once. but look here, stewart, we'll manage so that he don't know anything about it." "oh, no, we won't! i want him to see us, to tease him a bit. i say, jackson, are you a judge of ice? don't you think this seems to be giving a bit?" i said. "no, it's as firm as a rock. what ice would give in such a cutting wind as this?" and jackson pulled his comforter closer round his throat as he spoke. we were all pretty well wrapped up in great-coats and mufflers and worsted gloves, so that when we had a fall, as most of us did every few minutes, we had something to break the concussion a little; but these heavy things would prove rather awkward if the ice should break and let us through. i said something about this to jackson, but he laughed at the notion, and tom said, "why, what has come to you lately, charley? you have been tied to miss chandos's apron-string until you have got to be a coward. i believe now you are afraid to go to the alder pond." "am i? you shall see about that. where's chandos junior?" and i wheeled off at once to look for the youngster and see what miss chandos was about, and whether swain was likely to have his eye upon our movements. i cannot write any more to-day. to-morrow i shall be stronger, i hope, and then i may finish this story about our skating. chapter iv. the accident. february th.--it helps to pass some of the time i am obliged to spend alone to write in my log, and so i will go on from where i left off yesterday. i found everybody was on the ice, the masters enjoying the fun as much as the boys, and chandos the merriest of the lot. he and two or three of his friends were racing, curveting, cutting figures in the ice, for i found that frank had been glad to give up the skates and take to sliding. "it's rather crowded here," i said, as i ran the youngster down, and then stopped and wheeled round to help him up. "it's crowded everywhere, and the fellows with skates seem to think they ought to have it all their own way," he grumbled. "come over here; there are some good slides at the farther end of the pond;" and i helped the youngster over, purposely going close to miss chandos. but she didn't smell mischief, or was too much occupied with her own fun to notice us, and we soon came up with jackson and the rest. "it's dreadfully cold here," said young chandos, shivering. "yes, it is cold," said tom; "the wind sweeps down upon us, freezing our very marrow if we don't keep moving." "the best place for sliding would be the alder pond. that is sheltered a good deal from this cutting wind," said jackson. "but it isn't safe," said frank chandos. "safe! as if they'd let us come near this place at all if all the ponds were not safe! i tell you it will bear as well as this," said jackson. "shall we go there?" proposed tom. "mr. swain said we were not to go near it," feebly ventured frank. "oh, well, if you're afraid, stay where you are, but i'm going," said jackson. "stewart, will you come? tom will, i know." "yes, i'm off," said tom, nodding to me; but i wanted miss chandos to see where we were taking her duckling, to give her a fright. the youngster saw me looking towards his brother, and said, in a whisper, "if we mean to go, eustace had better not see us. you're sure it's safe?" he added. "safe as the schoolroom floor," i said; and then we went after the others; but i kept looking back towards miss chandos as we went towards the alder pond. we got out of sight as soon as we could, and, screened by the close-growing trees, the bitter east wind did not sting us quite so much. jackson and tom were soon skimming across the pond. "i wonder where the holes are they make such a fuss about?" said tom. "i don't believe there are any," said jackson. "well, holes or no holes, i think we had better keep near the edge," i said; but young chandos did not hear me, he says, and went at once towards the trees for shelter from the wind. the ice was very thin there, and the next minute there was a crack, a splash, and a scream, and young chandos had gone down. "run for help!" i called to tom, and then i skimmed across what i thought was the strongest part of the ice to help frank. but before i could reach him the ice gave way, and we were both struggling for life. i don't remember much of what happened beyond telling frank to catch hold of some of the branches of the trees that were close to the water, and hearing the shouts of the boys when tom gave the alarm. i could hear them coming, but it would be too late to save me, for my heavy clothes kept me down in the water, and i sank, never to rise again, i thought. i seemed to see my mother at that moment more plainly than i had ever seen her before, and to understand her grief for my death in a way that i could not have thought possible. but still, although i longed to escape for her sake, i seemed bound by invisible fetters that were, in reality, my heavy wet clothes. they have told me since that this probably saved me, although they thought i was dead when they got me out of the water. once out, however, i soon began to revive, for i am strong and healthy; but poor frank chandos lay hovering between life and death for nearly a week afterwards. i shall never forget that terrible time. i felt if he died i should be a murderer, for he would never have gone to the alder pond if i had not taken him there. poor miss chandos, too, who had promised his mother to take good care of the lad, he was almost stunned with grief; and it was not until after his mother had come that he could be persuaded to leave his brother even for five minutes. tom and the other fellows who came to see me told me all about it, for i was ill too, from cold and fright, but nothing to cause any alarm, and little notice was taken of me or my ailments, and i did not let any one know how miserably unhappy i was. i tried to talk to tom about it once, but he only laughed, and said, "oh, it's no good crying over spilt milk; let's forget all that miserable affair now. of course we were all in the wrong box, i suppose; but then it was only done for a lark, and we've all been punished for it pretty stiffly. jackson and i had a hundred lines of milton to learn in after hours that took no end of time to get perfect, for the governor was so crabby he wouldn't let us off a single word, and actually heard us himself, so if you don't think that has squared accounts for us, then i don't know what will." "if learning two hundred lines would square things, i'd do it; but think of poor frank chandos lying there dying, and all our fault." "how can it be our fault? we didn't carry him to the pond. he came to please himself, and if he wasn't ill he'd have an imposition as well as us. i wonder whether the doctor will give you one when you get well, charley?" "i wish he would," i said, bitterly. "oh, i dare say it's all very well for you to talk when it isn't likely to happen, for i expect the governor will think it punishment enough for you to be kept up here and fed on slops for ever so long. i don't know myself that i would not rather have the imposition." how glad i was when poor chandos came to see me at last. i almost wished we really had been girls then, that i might have thrown my arms round his neck and kissed him and asked him to forgive me, for i could see he felt sorry for me, and the first words he spoke were meant to comfort me, only somehow they seemed to make me miserable. "you did not mean to do any harm, stewart, i know," he said, his voice shaking as he spoke. "will he die?" i asked. "it don't matter about me and what i meant about it, but tell me about him; is there any hope, chandos?" "not much, i am afraid. only god can save him; the doctor can do no more, he says. stewart, you'll pray for him, won't you--pray that god will give him back to my mother, for she is almost heartbroken over it?" "me pray! what is the good? i don't know how; i never prayed in my life. i've said my prayers; but it's different, that is, from what you mean, and i haven't done that since i was a little chap." "then begin again now, stewart. pray for poor frank. i know you feel unhappy about him." "yes, i do. i'd do anything i could; but that's just it; i can't do anything, and it seems mean to go sneaking to god now, when i didn't care a pin about the whole business until i got into this trouble; and i can't do it." "oh, but you mustn't think of it--think of god in that way. if you had been very ill you would have liked your mother sent for, wouldn't you? and she would have liked to come, i am sure." "yes, i expect there will be a row that she was not sent for as it is. but what has that to do with it?" "everything. god feels as kindly towards us as our mother and father, and he wants us to go to him when we are in trouble, although we may have kept away before. my mother says he often sends trouble to be his messenger and make us come, so that he will not be offended if you should begin to pray now." "i can't, chandos. it's just the meanest business i ever heard of to go sneaking to god whenever i'm in trouble and can't help myself, and forget him directly afterwards." "but why should you forget him afterwards? why not make him your friend, as he desires to be?" "what, be religious and grumpy, and lose all the fun of life?" i said, staring at chandos in amazement. "you need not be grumpy, stewart, and you can have just as much fun, only i think you will be more careful not to let the fun do harm to other people." "well, i will be more careful in future, i promise you that, chandos; but about being religious, why, i never heard of a schoolboy being religious unless he was a dreadful muff and a sneaking prig, and i hate sneaks of all sorts." "so do i," said chandos; "and if i thought praying to god and trying to live in fear and love of him would make you one, i wouldn't ask you to do it. but it won't. look here, you've heard of general havelock, haven't you? and hedley vicars, that fought in the crimean war? did you ever hear that they were sneaks, or anything but brave, noble men--brave enough to serve god openly and fearlessly? i tell you, stewart, it takes a brave man, not a coward, to declare himself determined to serve god. but i have said enough about this, perhaps, and you look tired." "my head aches," i said; "but i should soon be all right if i could only know there was a chance for poor frank to get better too." "i wish i had better news for you, stewart. my mother and i can only pray for him." chandos was going away as he said this, but i caught his hand and held him back. "i will pray too," i whispered; "but if god hears me now, how shall i ever keep square afterwards? and i must, you know, to keep from being a sneak." "look here, stewart; you are mistaken altogether in thinking god's service such a dreadful bondage. he knows you are a boy, and does not expect you to be prim and precise and always praying and singing psalms. i am not sure that it would not displease him if you tried to do that, for he knows it would be a poor preparation for our work in the world by-and-by." "but what would he want me to do, then?" i said. "first of all to think of him as your friend. the lord jesus was a boy himself once, you know, and so he knows all about a boy's feelings and temptations. almost my father's last words to me were, 'be honest and upright and pure;' and i know god will help me to keep my father's command if i seek his help, as he will you if you will take him to be your friend." "and isn't that what i want?" i said; "to be honest and upright and pure?" "i believe you do, stewart, and it's what god wants you to be, and what he will help you to be if you will let him." "but what else must i do? religious folks always are different from others, you know." "well, they ought to be. a religious sailor ought to be the bravest and most fearless man on board the ship, and do his work better and more cheerfully than anybody else." "well, my uncle did tell me of a fellow like that once, and i thought i should like all my sailors to be like him. he was a jolly, good-natured chap, ready to spin a yarn to his mates, and they were willing to listen to the moral he always contrived to bring in. he was as brave as a lion, too, and yet as kind as a woman if any of the others were sick. but there ain't many like him, you know, chandos." "you might make another, stewart; and a captain--you mean to be a captain, you know--and a captain of that pattern might do as much, or even more, good than a common sailor." "yes, but it's the beginning. i don't see that boys have anything to do with religion. what can they do?" "learn better--learn their lessons more thoroughly, so as to be better fitted to do their work in the world by-and-by. i suppose you'll admit that we shall be men by-and-by if we are spared?" "well, yes, of course; but then it's just that. religion seems to be for those who don't live, to prepare them for death and all that, you know. if i was very ill and dying i should want to be religious, of course, but now--" "that's quite a mistake, stewart, to suppose that because you are likely to live many years this matter of serving god ought to be put off. i might ask you how you can be sure that you will live even six months longer, or that you may not be carried off by some sudden accident. but i don't like to think of religion as just something to sneak out of the world comfortably with. religion is to fit us to live--to live well, to fill life full of joy and happiness. you stare, stewart, but i can tell you the happiest people in the world to-day are those who serve god best." "then what makes them pull such long faces, and look so wretched, and talk about being miserable sinners?" i asked. "well, we are sinners, you know, stewart, and one of the first things we have to learn in coming to god is just this very thing. it is because we have sinned that christ died to put away our sins; but some people don't seem to believe in this thoroughly. they know they are sinners, and it makes them unhappy and they fancy they ought to go mourning over them all the days of their life." "that's just my aunt phoebe, and mamma says she is very religious, and one of the best women that ever lived, which makes me say i hate good women, and all religious people into the bargain. but, chandos, there are not many of your sort of religious people in the world." "more than you think for. there are some of the fellows here in this school; i won't mention any names, but two of the best and jolliest in the cricket-field will be just such men, i believe." "boys here in this school are religious!" i said. "of course, i know you are, but--" "you thought i was the only one, stewart? well, now, i'm glad to say when i came here i found one or two trying to solve the problem you think so improbable--how a schoolboy can serve god; and though it may be difficult sometimes--i grant you that, for temptation to do wrong even in fun must be resisted; and then lessons must be learned fairly, not shirked, and no cribs must be used, or else where is our honesty? but still, if a boy once starts to keep on the square all round, things are not so hard as you might think. but i must not stop any longer now, stewart; i will come in and have another chat by-and-by. but--but you will not forget to pray for poor frank?" forget! sometimes i wish i could forget that dreadful day and everything that happened then. it isn't often, i suppose, that such dreadful things happen through a little fun, or else it would help chandos's argument about the happiness of not doing wrong even in fun, for this has made me miserable enough. i wish i could be the sort of fellow chandos talked about. it's different altogether from what i thought, and to be fair and square and honest right through in lessons and everything else has nothing of the sneak about it. but i have promised i'd pray for frank, and i mean to do it. how am i to begin? will god hear me? i'm not good like chandos. he saw me shooting the pellets at him from under the bedclothes only a little while ago, i suppose, and won't he think i'm mocking chandos now if i kneel down as he did? what was it that he said, though, about the lord jesus being a boy once? well, if he was he'll know all about me, and after all it's poor frank i want him to help. i wouldn't venture to ask him to help me yet; i want nothing now so much as for frank to get well. after thinking like this for some time i locked the door, for fear anybody should come in and see me, and then i kneeled down; but i don't know what i said, only that it was about frank and his getting well, and that i'd try and do the square thing, and be honest and upright and pure right through, if god would only make him well again. chapter v. cribs. february th.--i am in the schoolroom again, and poor frank chandos is getting better. he is to go away as soon as he can be moved, but he is too weak even to sit up in bed yet. i went to see him yesterday, and chandos told him i had prayed that god would make him well again. he turned his white face round, and looked at me with his big, dark eyes, and said, "thank you, stewart." "oh, don't do that! i didn't mean to do any harm, you know, but i led you into the mischief, and i've been sorry enough ever since; and i hope you'll forgive me, chandos," i said. but i felt almost frightened when he put out his hand and slipped it into mine--such a thin, white hand it was, with fingers for all the world like claws. i suppose the doctors know best, but i should have thought he was dying if mrs. chandos had not told me he was looking better. chandos seems to expect that i'm going in for plenty of grind, and all that sort of thing. well, it's only fair, for i couldn't think of asking god to help me out of a scrape, and then forgetting all about it as soon as it's over; though what a schoolboy can pray about when things are all right i don't know. of course, i haven't done with frank yet, for i don't feel so sure about his getting well as the others do. he looks awfully thin and white, and if god was just to leave off making him well for a day or two he'd be as bad as ever, i expect. february th.--it's awful hard work to grind away like this--as i have the last two days. it ain't so easy to do lessons on the square, when one has been using cribs for ever so long; and then, grind as much as you may, the lessons don't look so well after all when one is a duffer at them, as i am. yesterday i sat poring over one book for hours and hours, trying to make out what it meant. i suppose i ought to know well enough by this time, for i've learned it all up to there; but then i've used cribs, and swain don't know that, and so he pitched into me, and threatened a heavy imposition if ever i took up such another piece of construing. it's easy enough talking about always doing the square thing, and it mightn't be so hard if i'd always done it; but i haven't, and there's the rub. february th.--there's no end of a row with the fellows over these cribs. i've always used them, and i always shall, they say; and tom backs them, and tells them i'm tied to miss chandos's apron-strings. it began about another wretched construe i handed in to swain. "is this your own work, stewart?" asked swain; and i thought it was so good he could hardly believe i had done it, and i said, quite proudly, "yes, sir, i've done every word of it." "then all i can say is, you have no right to be in this division of the school; and i shall talk to the doctor about it." he was turning over the leaves of the exercise-book while he was talking; and presently, turning up one of the cribs, he said, "look here, stewart; who did this?" "i wrote that a month ago, sir," i said. "yes, i know you wrote it, but who did the construing?" i looked at swain, and then at the map on the wall, for i didn't know who had done it. i always did my lessons with tom and the rest, and they managed the cribs somehow, and i just copied them off the slips of paper jackson or some of the fellows handed to me. "you have been using cribs, sir," thundered swain; and then he looked round at the other fellows, who were all very busy over their books. i wished for once that the schoolroom floor was like the ice on the alder pond, and i could slip through out of sight, for i couldn't tell a direct lie about it; and swain had cornered me so that there was no other way of getting out of it. so i said nothing, though i knew i should catch it from tom and the rest when we got into the playground, for i could see by swain's looks that he suspected cribs had been used by all the lot. "you may go to your seat now, stewart, and i will see dr. mellor about this," he said at last. as soon as ever we got into the playground the row began with the other fellows. "look here, you miserable muff! what right have you to get us all into this awful scrape?" said jackson, pulling off his jacket ready to fight. "who says i'm a miserable muff?" i said, looking round at the others who had gathered near. "well, charley, it was mean of you not to open your mouth when you might have saved us all by a single word. swain would have believed you if you'd said, 'i haven't been cribbing;' and it wouldn't have been much of a fib either, for you haven't cribbed for nearly a month, i know." "no, because i haven't done many lessons lately. you may call it a fib if you like, but i call it a lie, and you know i hate lying, tom, as you did a little while ago. now, jackson, do you want to fight it out?" i asked, beginning to roll up my shirt-sleeves. "no, no, don't fight; things are bad enough now, and the governor will be furious if he hears you have been fighting," said tom; and he caught hold of jackson and held him back. "try and settle it without fighting," said one of the other fellows. "i don't suppose stewart meant to get us into a row." "no, i didn't," i said. "i only wanted to go on the square for myself." "one of miss chandos's tricks for serving us out," i heard jackson whisper to tom, "well, that's all very well, you see, stewart, but you've been using cribs with us for ever so long, and so you must stick to them now." "i shan't," i said. "i mean to act on the square." "go on the square for anything else you like, but you mustn't throw us overboard in this crib business. we're all in the same boat, you see, charley, and it won't do; the other fellows don't like it." "then they can lump it," i said; and i was turning away, but tom ran after me. "now, be reasonable, old fellow; i've stuck up for you," he said, "for jackson and the rest wanted to kick up a row as soon as they found you were doing your lessons on the square; but i said, 'let him be a bit, and have his own way; he'll soon be glad of cribs again.'" "but i don't mean to have anything to do with them again, i tell you, tom; it's downright dishonest." "hoighty toighty--dishonest! you'll tell us next we're all thieves!" said tom, angrily. "what's that he says?" asked collins, who happened to hear the last words. "oh, he's setting up for a solomon after the chandos pattern; says we are all dishonest--little better than thieves, of course." "what do you mean, stewart?" said collins, turning upon me fiercely. "just what i say--what i told tom--it isn't honest to use cribs, and i've done with them." "you'll have to ask us about that now, stewart; we've helped you, and we'll do it again, though you have served us this shabby trick, for it won't do, you know, to have another kick-up with swain about your wretched construing. this may blow over, but the next won't, and then we shall all be in for it." "why don't you give the muff a good pommelling?" said jackson; "he's done no end of mischief. it's no better than peaching to serve us such a shabby trick. swain suspects us, i know." "look here, jackson, a fight will just bring the whole thing out, and we shall all be condemned to no end of grind if it does. there'll be no time for the playground or cricket-field or anything else; we shall just be worked like galley-slaves, for the governor will have all the old lessons done over again by way of extra impositions. i know him better than you; but if you'll just keep cool and take my advice we may all escape." "now then, boys, listen to the words of the sage," said one of the fellows, elbowing his way to the front. "go on, collins, make us a speech," said another. "it ain't much of a speech. you must give up cribs now." "oh, that's all cram; we can't do it," said tom. "we must." "we shall all look as interesting as stewart did to-day when we go up. i say, why didn't you put your finger in your mouth, stewart?" he asked. i was too angry to answer, but the rest burst into a loud laugh, and i punched one fellow's head, but collins wouldn't let us have a fair stand-up fight, and so i walked away, leaving them to settle about the cribs as they liked; but tom came to me afterwards, and said that the fellows had agreed to use no more cribs for a fortnight, but after that i must do as the rest did, or they would send me to coventry. february th.--mrs. chandos is still here nursing frank. i go into his room to see him every day for a few minutes; but there isn't time for anything now except on half-holidays, for it is grind, grind, grind all day long, and the worst of it is we get impositions, and the masters are cross because all the construing is done so badly. i wonder who invented cribs. it's an easy way of getting over the lessons at first, but a fellow is nicely floored if he has to do without them for a bit, as we have just now. i fancy, too, that swain suspects what is going on, and is watching to catch some of us, for we have heard nothing since the day of the row--not a word more about my being sent to the governor. i wish it wasn't so hard to do everything on the square. chandos says i find it hard because i made a bad beginning when i came here, and the longer i go on without altering this the harder it will be to alter. he gave me quite a lecture about this last night--about everything in my life depending upon the sort of beginning i make now. i laughed, and told him he ought to be a parson, and i should expect to see him preaching at some street corner if they wouldn't give him a gown and pulpit; but though i laughed i cannot help thinking he may be right after all. i suppose these lessons they give us to learn will be useful in some way, and when i leave school i shall be supposed to know all about them, as swain thinks i know all about the construing in my exercise-book, and it may be more awkward by-and-by not to know it than it is now. i'll try to think of this. dear old chandos, i like to tease him a bit about his lectures, and yet i like him to talk to me as he does. i can understand now how it is he is so grave and quiet. he is the eldest son, and his mother talks to him as though he was frank's father. what a pity it is he cannot have his wish and be a doctor. it's cruel, i think, that people can't have their own way about things like this. i couldn't give up going to sea, as chandos has given up his wish. march th.--the fortnight is up, and cribs are coming in fashion again, but everybody is very careful, for swain is still on the look-out, i can see. last night i had a talk with chandos about it, and he says if i am firm the boys will not send me to coventry, as they threaten. jackson and a few others may bully me a bit, but the school will not be led by them. to tell the truth, i am not so much afraid of jackson and that lot as of the endless grind i shall have to do to keep on the square and do without cribs. i wish i'd never begun with them, and it wouldn't be so hard now, but once begun, it seems almost impossible to leave them off. i said something of this to chandos, and he said if i asked god's help i should not find things so difficult; but i don't see how praying can help me with my lessons or make them any easier, but still i mean to keep on. march th.--the fellows are awfully rusty because i won't use cribs. yesterday tom came to talk to me about it--the first time he has spoken for a week, for most of the fellows have kept their word, and sent me to coventry for it. "now look here, charley, the fellows have sent me to speak to you once more--mind, it's the last time--and if you ain't reasonable now you won't have another chance." "if it is about cribs you can hold your tongue, for i've made up my mind long ago," i said. "oh, that's all cram. it won't do to come over us with that tale, you know, charley; you've used 'em for months and months before you came here, i know, and you'll be glad enough to use 'em again; but you'll find then the fellows won't help you, and so i've come to give you one more chance. now then, yes or no?" "no," i said, firmly. "oh, i'm not going to take your answer in such a hurry as all that. just think a bit, old fellow, what you'll do when the summer comes, and you have to sit stewing over your lessons in that musty old class-room while we are in the cricket-field. why, you'll never get that big ship of yours finished unless you take to cribs again." "i can't help it," i said, sulkily, and wishing all the time i could get my lessons done sooner. "oh yes, you can, and you needn't think to cram me with the tale that you are fond of grind, because i know better. you hate it like poison, and if you weren't afraid of miss chandos and her slow-going lot you'd take to cribs again like a sensible fellow." "who says i'm afraid of chandos?" "i do, and so do the other fellows; and she's just taking all the spirit out of you, and making you as big a coward as she is herself." "i tell you, tom, you're mistaken in thinking chandos is a coward, and i'll fight any fellow that dares to say so." "oh, everybody knows you can fight, but that isn't the thing. i haven't come to quarrel with you, charley, but to talk over this. look here now, things are getting awfully dull and slow. we haven't had a real good lark this half, for all our time has to be spent in grind." "you and collins and jackson always get done in good time." "yes, and a few others besides, but some of them talk about giving up cribs through you, and it ain't fair. swain will find out about the cribs if you are so much longer over your lessons than we are. mind, this isn't the only thing, charley. we're old chums--" "we were at one time, tom, but i can't forget that farm-yard business," i put in. "oh, botheration to the farm-yard! that was months and months ago, and everybody has forgotten that, if you haven't." "i'm not so sure of that, tom," i said. tom put his hands into his pockets and whistled. after a minute or two he said, "well, charley, you'll never be the sailor i thought you would." "bother being a sailor! what's that got to do with it?" i said. "you were talking about our being chums." "well, only this--sailors don't bear malice like you." "i don't bear malice. it isn't that at all. you didn't hurt me, except that i felt i'd lost my old chum, when you did that sneaking business, and let chandos take your punishment." "oh, bother chandos! i'm sick of hearing the young lady's name, and i didn't come to talk about her, but about these cribs. i tell you, charley, if you don't take them up again there'll be no fun this half." "we can live without fun, i suppose," i said, crossly. "i suppose we can, but you were always up to anything in that line. but now--well, there's been nothing since the skating but just maundering about like a parcel of girls." "would you like that skating business over again?--because i shouldn't! i do like a good lark as well as anybody, but i may as well tell you straight out, tom, i mean to go on the square with our larks as well as with lessons. i shan't forget how near frank chandos was to dying for one while, and i mean to be careful in that direction for the future, for i shouldn't like to be a murderer, even in fun." chapter vi. was it robbery? april th.--a month since i wrote up my log. i have been home for a few days' holiday, but the rest has been all grind, and not a single lark. i'm afraid i shan't be able to hold out much longer; and yet it seems jolly mean when god has made frank chandos almost well, and saved me from being miserable all my life. i had a letter from frank yesterday, and he says he can run about--clamber over the rocks and build castles in the sand now. i wish i was at the seaside, though it would be better to be on the sea. i shall run away soon to get away from this grind if something don't happen, though i'm not sure that it wouldn't be as mean as cribbing. the fellows have sent me to coventry over that, and everything is as dull as can be. i wish something would happen; even a row would be a change. april th.--something has happened, or is going to happen, at least; and i've laughed so much already over it that my sides ached. yesterday morning i heard a knocking at our bedroom door just before the dressing-bell rang. "who's there?" i called out. "hush up and come out here," came a whisper through the keyhole. i knew it was tom, and though i felt inclined to give him a turn at coventry at first, i got up and opened the door. "now then, what's the row? have you set all the water-jugs on fire?" i asked. "we want you in our room a minute. is miss chandos asleep?" he added. "it ain't likely, with all the row you've been making at this door. what do you want, tom? you know i'm in coventry." "well, you won't be much longer. we'll give up about the cribs, charley; you've beat us. but slip on some of your things and come into our room. collins wants to speak to you. he's got some news." "and a hamper too, hasn't he?" "yes, but there wasn't much besides clothes, and that's what's put him out." "does he think i'm to blame, then?" i said. "no, but he thinks you might help him fill it. but come on, charley, now, before swain comes. we must think of something at once." "i shan't be a minute, chandos," i said, slipping my head inside the door; and then i followed tom to his room. this is a good deal larger than ours, and has six beds in it, jackson, collins, and tom, with three others, sleeping here. they were all perched on collins's bed when we went in, talking over the matter upon which tom had been dispatched. "i say, stewart, you'll promise us, first of all, not to tell what goes on here, even if you shouldn't join the fun?" "did you ever know me to turn sneak, any of you fellows?" i asked, rather angrily. "you need not get your back up, stewart; we only asked you a civil question, and you might give us a civil answer. it's all right, though; i don't believe you'd peach." "no, i wouldn't." "well, i believe you. now, look here. the governor's birthday is on the twenty-fourth, and we shall have a holiday--a whole holiday, this year, as i happen to know; for i overheard swain talking about the weather being unusually fine, and the boys having worked very steadily lately; they were to have the whole day to spend at dinglewell. you've never been to dinglewell, have you, stewart?" "no, but i've heard about it." "oh, it's the jolliest place! and we can do pretty much as we like in the woods. there's only one thing they're mean about, and that's the grub. sandwiches and stale buns i don't relish, especially when i think of the pantry shelves almost cracking with the good things at home; for you must know there's always a grand dinner-party in the evening, and cook begins preparing for it days beforehand. i tell you, stewart, it's enough to make a fellow's mouth water to see the pies and tarts and custards standing there." "you're not obliged to look at them, i suppose?" "oh, it's not the looking at them i object to, but the not tasting; and i mean to remedy that this year. are you game for a lark?" "just try me, that's all!" i said. "charley's good for any lark that don't hurt anybody," said tom. "then this will fit him as nicely as possible, for nobody will be hurt. even the governor himself will laugh over it, and we shall have a jolly feed into the bargain." "you mean to have some of the pies and tarts out of cook's pantry, then?" "exactly, old fellow. you'd help us, i know." "what am i to do?" i asked; "and how are you going to get them away--put them in your pockets?" "pockets be bothered! no, everybody knows i had a hamper from home yesterday, and i mean to let the school think it was stuffed full of good things, and that i mean to save them until we go to dinglewell." "oh, i see," i said, laughing; but there wasn't time to say any more, for the bell rang, and i was obliged to hurry back to my room, for there's no telling when or where swain will turn up in the morning. chandos looked at me when i got back, but he would not ask any questions, and of course i can't split on the other fellows. later in the day i had another talk with collins about clearing the larder, and we agreed to do it the night before we went to dinglewell; and the things were to be packed in his hamper, and swain is to be asked beforehand to let it go in the cart with the other grub and things. this is the best of the whole fun, to think swain should help us clear the governor's larder. i laughed until collins declared i should bring it all out and spoil it. i wouldn't be out of this fun for anything. i only wish i could be at home when cook finds it out. i'd give my share of the fun to see the scare. [illustration: clearing the larder.] april rd.--i've only time for a line before chandos comes in, and the other fellows don't want him to know anything of what's going on. we've done it--cleared the larder of every pie and custard we could get hold of. i thought we should be caught once, and my hair almost stood on end as i heard cook's voice outside the door; but she went on, and so did we. i handed the things to collins through the window, and each fellow in the secret took something and stole up to his room with it, and now they are all safely packed in the hamper, and swain has promised it shall go in the cart. poor old swain, if he only knew what he had promised! but he'll never know that he helped to clear the governor's pantry, although he'll pull a long face to-morrow when he comes home and finds there's precious little to eat. the best of the fun is, they won't find out that they're gone until dinner is nearly ready, for the precious things were packed on the top shelves out of the way, and i nearly broke my neck once trying to reach them. i wonder what chandos will say about this when he hears of it? he is looking forward to the fun we shall have in the woods to-morrow as much as anybody. i wonder whether he would think this innocent fun? i don't think i shall go to the feed, though i helped to get the things, for collins won't ask him, which i think is rather mean of him, considering that chandos had to stay here for the easter holidays, while the rest of us went home for a fortnight. i wonder what we shall do with the dishes when we've eaten the pies! we can't bring 'em home, that's certain, and swain mustn't see them either, and he'll expect to be invited, for collins has pitched him a fine yarn about the things his mother has sent for this feed. i must ask collins what he means to do about this, for if we don't look out the crockery will spoil the whole game. what a pity it is they can't make pies without dishes! i almost wish i'd only brought those little tarts that collins carried away in his handkerchief. they got broken a bit, and some of the jam ran out, but they're just as good broken as whole, and there's no dishes to worry about. bother the dishes! i must go and speak to him about them before chandos comes up. i wonder why he is downstairs so long after time. surely he can't have any mischief on hand! april th.--our holiday is over, and the fun too; but i'm afraid we haven't heard the last of the governor's pies. if he only knew what a bother they were to us after all, and how often we wished them back in the pantry even before we had eaten them, he would feel more comfortable about it, i should think, for it's the last time i'll ever have anything to do with robbing a larder, even for a lark. it was all through the dishes. nobody knew how we were to get rid of them, and some of the fellows got so frightened they wanted to pitch the whole lot away. but we couldn't do that, even if collins and jackson would have agreed to it, for the hamper had gone in the cart, and we couldn't get at it until swain said, soon after we reached dinglewell, "would you like your hamper left with the other things until dinner-time, collins?" "i don't think so, sir, stewart and jackson, and a few more of us, are going to look for ferns, and so we can carry the hamper, and if we shouldn't get back by dinner-time it won't matter." "i don't know so much about that," said swain, turning rather rusty; "i cannot let you stray miles off. you may take the hamper, of course, but you must not go beyond the old tower, and then i shall know where to find you if you are wanted." "the contrary old hunks--he's never done that before!" grumbled collins, as we turned away, carrying the hamper between us. we didn't feel very jolly about the thing now, and i wished i could back out of it and join the football party with chandos and the rest. we might have been carrying a coffin with the body of somebody we'd killed, by the solemn way we marched along. as soon as we were away from swain and the rest i said, "now let's pitch all the rubbish down the first hole we can find." "that's your own throat, i suppose, stewart," said jackson. "no, i don't want a bit; i've had enough thinking of the dishes," i said. "oh, hang the dishes! i wish you hadn't thought of them at all, or had left them in the pantry," said collins. "well, i like that--after dragging me into the scrape to grumble at me for helping! now, look here, i've had enough of the fun, and will give up the feed to you, and go back to the rest, if you like." "and leave me to take care of the precious dishes! i knew you were a coward, stewart." "no, i'm not a coward, and i'll stay and see it out, if you like. we must smash the dishes up, you know, and throw the bits about. swain will never see anything of them then." "bravo, charley! what a pity we hadn't thought of that before! now, then, let's find a place where we can be sure to be to ourselves, and when we've cleared out the good things we'll begin the smashing business." it did not take us long to demolish the pies and custards, and each dish as it was emptied was broken into pieces, and we amused ourselves by throwing these as far as we could in every direction. it was quite a relief when the last tart was eaten and the last dish scattered, and i then proposed returning to the others, for, our penance over, surely we might have some play now. "you forget we've come fern-grubbing," said collins. "i propose that, as we have robbed the governor of his dinner, we should take him something for his fernery. it will help to ward off suspicion, too, i should think; it ought, i am sure." "i am not at all sure," i said, "and i know nothing about ferns either." "he wants to get back to his nurse," laughed jackson. "miss chandos said he mustn't be long," put in tom, provokingly; but the next minute he had measured his length on the ground, for if i did want to have a game with chandos i wasn't going to be told of it by tom. then the fellows all turned rusty, and there was something of a fight, until about the middle of the afternoon we were so tired of each other and our fruitless search for ferns that we threw the hamper away and went back to the rest. "i knew you wouldn't get any ferns," said swain, when he heard of the result of our expedition. "i suppose you have had your dinner?" he added, speaking rather stiffly. "yes, sir," answered collins; and we were glad to turn away, for we fancied he looked at us very suspiciously. we had certainly missed the fun to-day in our eagerness to grasp it; for seven more disagreeable, disconsolate boys it would be hard to find than we, as we sauntered towards the two football parties, who were running, shouting, laughing, and evidently enjoying the game wonderfully. there seemed to be no room for us now, and we stood about watching the fun as it grew more fast and furious. chandos saw me at last, and ran across to where i was standing. "why, stewart, where have you been all day? what made you run away from this football? it has been such glorious play!" "i'm glad you've enjoyed it. i've been with collins and the rest to look for some ferns." "to look for ferns! why, collins must know that ferns don't grow in dinglewell forest; at least, i never saw any," said chandos. "i don't think they do, for we couldn't find them either, and so we came back." "well, you'll join the game now, won't you? come on, we'll make room for you." "no, i don't care about it to-day," i said, for i began to feel a kind of dizziness in my head. i had felt sick for the last hour, but this pain in my head was something quite new, and i began to fear i should be ill. certainly i had no inclination to join in the _mêlée_ over the ball, and only wanted to be left alone. the miserable day came to an end at last, and i was glad enough to go home and go to bed, and i fancy tom and one or two of the others felt as bad as i did, although nobody complained or even owned to having a headache, for fear swain should suspect us when he heard of the robbery. robbery! what an ugly word that is! but of course it isn't as though we really stole things; we only took the pies for fun, which is different from common stealing, only we missed the fun altogether this time. we expected to hear all about the affair when we came home--that the cook had gone into hysterics and the governor fainted, or something like that; but we did not hear a single word, and of course we couldn't ask. yesterday we did hear a little bit from the housemaid; but she didn't know who the governor suspected. she thought it was burglars, and of course we said it must be, and sent the whisper through the school that burglars had broken into the pantry. one of the juniors was so frightened at the word "robbers," that he went and asked swain if he thought they would come any more, or whether he had better write and ask his mamma to send for him. "who has been telling you this tale about burglars and robbers? it is nothing to be afraid of. burglars such as you are thinking of don't come to steal pies and custards. we shall find out the thief or thieves very soon, i have no doubt." i have been wondering ever since i heard this whether swain suspects us after all, or whether he just said it to pacify the youngster. not a word has been said about it by the governor, and so i am inclined to think we shall get off without any further punishment. it will only be fair after all, for if the governor knew how his precious pies spoiled all our holiday, and how miserable and sick they made us feel, he wouldn't want to serve us out any more by way of making us remember it. i'm not likely to forget or repeat it again, for a day like that is worse than the hardest grind at euclid. chapter vii. a surprise. april th.--there's been a most awful row, and the fellows say i turned rat--at least, jackson and collins have sent me to coventry over it; but i should do it again if there was the same occasion, for how could i let a poor servant lose her place and her character through one of my larks? the governor must be a drivelling donkey not to suspect us instead of the servants. i always fancied that swain did smell a rat until young came tearing up to me with the tale that the police were to be sent for to search the kitchen-maid's boxes. "why, what's the row now?" i asked. "they can't find out anything clear about those pies; but it's pretty certain the kitchen-maid has been giving away bread and meat, which, it seems, is against the rules, and they think she has handed the pies away too--sold them, perhaps." "sold your grandmother! young, you're not such a muff as to think the servants did that, are you?" "i don't know what to think. it couldn't be burglars, you know." "of course not, it was us. i did most of the business, and i'm off to the governor now to tell him all about it;" and, leaving young staring with all his eyes, i rushed indoors past swain, who stood near the schoolroom door, and bolted on to the master's study. i could hardly wait for him to say "come in;" but when i opened the door all my courage seemed to have gone, and i felt ready to run away again. "did you wish to speak to me, stewart?" "yes, sir; please, sir, it's about the pies," i said, hardly knowing how to begin. "you mean the robbery that has been committed lately?" "please, sir, i never thought about it's being a robbery when i took them." "you took them! you robbed my pantry, stewart?" "it wasn't a robbery, sir--it was only a lark. i did not want the pies to eat; it was just for the fun." "and what did you do with them?" asked the governor, sternly. "well, sir, mr. swain helped us get them away, although he didn't know it;" and then bit by bit it all came out. i tried to screen collins and the rest, but somehow there was no getting over the governor's close questions, and he sent for them, and gave us all a lecture and then a long imposition. i hate impositions and all sorts of grind, but i didn't mind that so much, for after all the governor didn't give it us so stiff as he might--as i thought he would; and that poor girl is not to lose her place after all. i thought when the impositions were got over there would be an end of the affair; but it seems i shall for ever be nagged about it--called a rat, a sneak, a coward. tom says i need not have been in such a hurry to run off to the governor--that if the police had come they would not have found the empty dishes in her box, and so she would not have lost her place, and we could still have kept our secret. chandos, too, talks something like the governor. according to them it was an actual robbery, although i did it in fun. the result was the same, they say, and it might have led to disastrous consequences if i had not told the whole truth about it; and then he went on to say it was not keeping the promise i had made when frank was so ill. "well, how in the world is a fellow to keep straight for ever?" i said. "what pleasure did you get out of this?" "none at all, as it happened, and it's the last pantry i'll rob; but still--" and there i stopped. "i suppose you mean to say you will get into some other mischief at the first opportunity?" "well, how am i to keep out of it?" i asked. "what pleasure did you ever get by it? now, i know you did not enjoy the holiday at dinglewell as i did, and yet--" "no, that i didn't," i said; "it was the most miserable day i ever spent, and i'll never rob a pantry any more, even for fun. i tell you, chandos, i'd like to keep straight if i could, but how can i? i've tried, and tried hard, ever since that affair of poor frank's. i've never touched a crib since, i give you my word, and you don't know how hard it is to leave off when once you've begun on that tack." "i know it must be hard work, and i think you have done very well in resisting as you have the temptation to use cribs; but you might have done better, stewart, if you were not so proud." "proud!" i said. "nobody ever called me that before. sailors are never proud, you know." "well, you are, or you would accept the help a friend is waiting to give you if you were not." "now, chandos, that isn't fair," i said. "i have always been willing to accept help and take advice from you." "i wasn't speaking of myself, but of one who cares for you far more than i do, although i feel sorry enough when you go wrong, and get into scrapes, and make people miserable, as you often do through your thoughtlessness." "i suppose you mean my mother? but i tell you, chandos, she expects it--she knows boys can't keep out of mischief." "but i know they can; and it wasn't your mother i was thinking of just now, but god." "but--but you don't think he cares much about it, do you, chandos? he can't, you know." "you believe that i care, don't you--at least a little?" "well, yes, i do, for you have always been my friend, and helped me out of a scrape, and given me good advice; but--but it's different about god," i said. "why is it different? he is your friend, who cares far more for your welfare than i do, and he is more anxious to see you do well--live a pure, honest, upright life--than i can be; and yet you will not accept the help he alone can give, and by which alone you can conquer this inclination to get into mischief and often do such great wrong." "god is my friend?" i repeated. "look here, chandos, if i could believe that--well, i don't know what i should do, but somehow i should want to be different. i almost wish it could be true." "it is true, stewart, as true as truth, as true as you and i are standing here. i wish you would believe that god feels a personal interest in you, as much as though you were the only schoolboy in the world." "i wish i could. but somehow, chandos, it seems so strange--too wonderful, you know, to be true, that god--the great god who made heaven and earth--can care for a harum-scarum lot like us." "yes, it is wonderful; but you know the lord jesus christ cared so much for this harum-scarum world and all the people in it that he was content to die--to lay down his life to bring them to god." "yes, i've heard something about it in church; and since i've been trying to do the square thing and write bits of the sermon, i've heard about it there too; but then it never seemed to me that it could be for boys. god the friend of boys like me? why, look here, chandos; if the governor was to proclaim himself my friend it would be an honour, you know; but look at the difference! i take it that you mean i could go and tell god about every little scrape and trouble i got into, and he would help me out of it?" "or help you to bear it, as the case might be. that is exactly what i do mean, stewart." "you do; and you believe it?" "believe it; of course i believe it. i don't know how i should get on if i did not," said chandos; and i am sure he spoke truly. "well, perhaps i may come to believe it too some day, but i can't now--not just in the way you do. of course i know we ought to pray and do the square thing; but as long as we do that and go to church it always seemed to me that god wouldn't trouble himself about us any further. i have been doing the square thing too lately; at least, i've tried at it, and isn't that enough?" "but, stewart, according to your belief, we should all be the slaves of god--doing just what we were obliged, for fear of punishment, and no more. god does not ask, will not accept such service as that. don't you remember the text of last sunday, 'my son, give me thine heart,' and what the minister said of god desiring our will, our affection to be given to him? the service would follow then quite naturally, he said; and when i heard it i was thinking of you--thinking you had begun at the wrong end, trying to force yourself into giving god service without any heart or love or pleasure in it." "yes, you're about right, chandos," i said; "but i don't see how it could be different. god made frank well, and i promised that if he would do that and save me from being miserable all my life i'd do the square thing; and i'm not mean enough to back out of the bargain if i can help it." "but, stewart, you do not surely think that god answered our prayers for frank just because he wanted to tie you to this miserable bondage--for it is bondage, slavery--this service which you know ought to be and is 'perfect freedom' to those who begin at the right end, and not the wrong--by giving their hearts--their will and love to god." "well, i don't know. of course god wants me to be good, i suppose." "but he would never take such an advantage of us as you suppose--making a bargain with us, as it were. no, no, stewart, you have made a great mistake about this. god heard and answered our prayers because he pitied our distress and loved you too well to let the miserable consequences of your thoughtless mischief follow you through all your life; and you ought to return love for love, and not treat god as though you thought him a hard taskmaster." "well, i don't know; you may be right, chandos, but i don't see how i am to begin. what a pity it is you are not going to be a parson!" i couldn't help saying that, and i meant it too. may th.--something has happened that i never thought did happen anywhere except in books. chandos, that so many of the boys have looked down upon as being poor and beneath them, because he never seemed to have any pocket money to spend, like the rest of us, has suddenly become a baronet--sir eustace chandos, of chandos court, and i don't know how many other places besides. it came upon us like a thunderbolt, for chandos never told us his uncle was a baronet, or that he had any relatives but the merchant uncle. he did tell me a few weeks ago that he had just heard of the sudden death of his two cousins, but he did not say any more, except that he had not seen them above twice in his life. i suppose he may have thought it would make no great difference to him, as his uncle was not a very old man; but now his uncle has just died too, and our miss chandos becomes sir eustace. well, i only wish his uncle had put off dying a little bit longer--just till i felt more settled about things; but now i feel sure i shall run away to sea if the mother don't come round and give her consent. may th.--bravo! sir eustace is not going to leave us just yet. it seems his brother frank is just coming back, and he prefers to stay another year, and then he will go to college, i suppose. it don't seem to have made a bit of difference in him either. i thought perhaps he might like to drop our friendship now he was so rich and i still poor charley stewart, but he seemed hurt at the bare suggestion, and so i am to call him chandos as usual, and we shall share the room just the same as though nothing had happened. i have thought a good deal about this the last two days. i know a good many fellows would have packed up their traps and gone off at once, or else held their heads so high that a poor chap like me would never be able to speak to them; and i've been wondering whether it's chandos having learned so many things about god that makes him different in this. i've thought, too, that perhaps after all, as chandos is just as willing to be my friend now he is sir eustace, that god may be my friend, as he said, though i can hardly get used to the thought yet. may th.--there has been a tremendous row over the prize essay by which tom won the watch last christmas. after all this time, when everybody thought it was forgotten--though a good many of us did wonder then how tom managed it--now it is found out that it was all made up of cribs, some taken from books, and some from notes that one of the older fellows lost. somebody must have turned rat, tom says. he is in an awful rage at having to give up the watch, but the governor insisted; and now tom is as dull and looks as miserable as he can be, for the school has sent him to coventry over it, which is very mean, i think, seeing they upheld him last winter, when a good many at least knew he had no right to try for this prize. he must wish he had let chandos take his chance now, i should think. i cannot help pitying him, and chandos and i have agreed not to join the school this time, though the other fellows threaten us with coventry for speaking to tom as we do. the sea fever, as chandos calls it, has suddenly seized tom again, and he is always talking about it, as though we were both sure of going. i wish we were; but tom's father says he has no real liking for it, and therefore won't let him go, and my mother is afraid. oh dear! if mother would only give her consent! but she never will, i am afraid, and there will be nothing for it but to run away. tom says we had better make up our minds to go from here before next christmas. if it wasn't for the talks i've had with chandos i'd do it; but i think i must give the mother one more chance, and see if i can't persuade her in the holidays to let me go. i wish i could think of something to please her very much; i'd do anything to get her consent to my going to sea. june th.--i've been talking to chandos. he says i have got the sea fever very bad this time, and he is afraid some of the other boys will catch the infection. i know what he means. he is afraid his brother may learn to like the sea from hearing so much about it from tom, for the two are always together now. but i don't think he need to be afraid, frank would never do for the sea, i am sure. he has persuaded me not to tease my mother too much about these plans of mine these holidays, but to go in for lots of grind next half, and get a prize at christmas, and then, perhaps, when she sees i have really been industrious with my lessons, and yet love the sea as dearly as ever, she will be more likely to yield. the plan may be a good one--i think it is, but it's precious hard. grind is not quite such a trouble as it was at first, but still it's bad enough; and what with no cribs, and the extra i shall have to do if i am to have a chance of taking a prize, it is just enough to turn my brain. i scratch my head and pull a long face every time i think of it, but still i think i will try it, hard as it is. june th.--mrs. chandos has sent a very pressing invitation for mamma and me to pay them a visit at chandos court, and of course sir eustace is quite eager that i should accept it. not that he wants to show off his grandeur, i could never believe that of chandos. chapter viii. running away to sea. august.--we are back at school once more, and i am going to begin grinding in real earnest for this prize. the mater has half consented, or at least half promised, to give her consent if i get this prize. mrs. chandos talked her into this, i fancy, while we were staying at the court. what a jolly time we had there, in spite of its being awfully grand! everybody calls chandos the "young baronet" about there, and people touch their caps to him as though he were a great swell, as i suppose he is. i never thought there was so much fun in him as i know there is now. he seems to love fun as much as any of us, only he is very careful that his pleasure does not give any one else pain, which makes all the difference in our way of getting fun; and i fancy his enjoyment of it is deeper after all. september st.--there is to be an extra prize given for latin this year, and the examination is to take place early in december. chandos wants me to go in for this, but i am half afraid. it will want such lots of grind. he says learning would not be so much trouble to me if i would only make up my mind to like it; but i don't think i shall ever do this. but still i must get one prize at christmas somehow; and having done my lessons so long on the square, without even touching a crib, i think i may manage it without quite killing myself. september th.--i wish prizes had never been invented--never been thought of. i believe it's done just to plague boys. here we are working like galley slaves; and if i don't go on grind, grind, chandos whispers, "you forget the prize--you are going to sea." no, i don't forget it; i have been thinking of it more than ever lately, and so has tom. he means to run away and get to liverpool before the winter sets in, and of course he wants me to go with him, and calls me "rat" and "coward" because i will not promise. of course i don't mean to split on him, for i can't help wishing i could go too; but somehow, now that it seems possible i may get my mother's consent to go in a proper manner--go as a midshipman in the navy--i would rather wait, although i do hate the grind. chandos says i shall have to grind harder still if i go to the naval college at greenwich; but i won't mind that so much, for the grind will be about ships and navigation, and not the stupid things we have to learn here. october th.--tom means to go. everything is so miserable here, he says. the fellows have been rather hard upon him, i think, considering they all backed him up to keep chandos out of trying for the watch last year. well, he don't want a watch now, but he's going in for as much grind as though he did, or as though he was still poor, and going to mount his uncle's office stool, instead of living in all the glory of chandos court. but i began about tom. he means to be missing some fine morning, and to make his way to liverpool. he thinks he shall be sure to get a ship there, and is to write to me and his father just before he sails. he don't mean to write to the governor at all, because he was so mean about the watch. we always talked about selling that to pay our expenses on the road, for of course tom don't want to beg; and to save him from this i have given him all the pocket-money i had left, which was only half-a-crown and twopence, for i never can keep money long, now that old woman with the bulls'-eyes comes to the playground gate so often. poor tom! i wish i had more i could give him, for things have been pretty hard for him here lately, though i dare say he deserved it for the mean trick he served chandos. what a scare it will be when they first find out that tom has gone! i shall have to keep quiet, though--hear, see, and say nothing, as they tell the youngsters, for i cannot pretend to be anxious when i know all about it, and i don't mean to split on tom. sometimes i fancy that chandos minor is in the secret. tom is stupid if he lets too many know what he is up to. i should have kept my own counsel, and not let chandos know this. october th.--the house is all in commotion. nothing has gone on in its proper order, and everybody seems to be wondering what will happen next. tom has gone--run away to sea, as the boys are whispering to each other; but that is not the worst. i knew he meant going when he said "good night" to me last night, and so i risked the imposition i might get, and stayed in my room this morning until chandos came rushing in, looking white and scared. "is frank here, stewart?" he said. "frank?--no, i haven't seen him," i said. "then he's gone--gone with haslitt," he said, dropping into a chair. "did you know anything about this, stewart?" he asked. "i knew that tom meant to go some time. i've told you the same." "but about frank--what have you heard about him? tell me instantly, stewart. think of my poor mother." "i don't believe your brother has gone with tom. he isn't such a muff as to do that." "you forget the sea fever that we used to tease him about in the holidays." "yes, i know we teased him, but nobody could ever think frank would be fit for sea. tom didn't, i know." "but he's taken him--they're gone away together, i'm certain." "oh, nonsense, chandos. look here, now, you mustn't split on tom, or say a word to the governor that i know anything about it; but i've talked to tom lots of times about this, but he never said a word about anybody else going with him. he wanted me to go, of course, but, failing me, he should have to go alone, he said." "but where can frank be? nobody has seen him this morning, and most of his clothes and all his money have gone--i have been to look." "well, if i thought--" and then i stopped. "look here, i can't split on tom unless i am quite sure that young muff has really gone. don't tell what i have said, chandos; but if they are together, tom is the greatest stupid i ever heard of, for he might be sure i should tell all i knew then, and i will too. fancy that poor little muff frank handling tarred ropes--he'd want to put his gloves on first!" and i burst out laughing at the thought of chandos minor going to sea. chandos court would do for him nicely, but on board a ship he would be in misery. chandos left me laughing, but soon came back. "stewart, you must go to the governor and tell him all you know about this affair. there is no time to be lost, you see, for somebody must go after them. a carriage has been ordered, and swain is to go with a policeman; but if they find out before starting which road they have probably taken, perhaps it may save hours, perhaps days, of delay." "well, i know tom meant to go to liverpool; he told me so over and over again." "well, come and tell the doctor before he sends off the telegram to haslitt's father." "is he going to send to your mother too?" i asked. "not just yet. i want to spare my mother this anxiety if i can. it was for this--to look after frank a little longer, because he is inclined to get into mischief, that i decided to stay here for the rest of the year, but it seems i am of little use in preventing the mischief. but come now, stewart, every moment is precious." so we tore off to the doctor's study, where he was closeted with a policeman. "if you please, sir, stewart has come to tell you something about haslitt," said chandos, pushing me forward. "i don't know much, sir, only he said he was going to liverpool. i shouldn't have split about it only for little chandos, and he--" "when did he tell you this, stewart? you came to school together, i remember." "yes, sir, we are old chums, and he had talked about going to liverpool lots of times." "you meant to go together, then, young gentleman?" said the policeman. "yes; i mean to go to sea, but i'll wait till i get my mother's consent now. young chandos, though, isn't fit for the sea, and he mustn't go." "and you think they have taken the road to liverpool, young gentleman?" "i am sure they have." "and how do you think they meant to travel?" asked the policeman again. "oh, they'd walk, unless chandos junior had lots of tin, and that ain't likely; for mother brown makes us shell out for her bulls'-eyes." "do you know how much money your brother had, chandos?" asked the governor. "not much, sir, i should think. he came to borrow some of me yesterday, but i only gave him a shilling." "then we may conclude they are walking," said the policeman; and a few minutes afterwards he and swain drove away, and we have been wondering ever since whether they would catch the runaways." october th.--nobody heard anything about tom and chandos until yesterday, for they didn't go to liverpool after all, and so swain and the policeman had their journey for nothing. mr. haslitt got here a few hours after the telegram was sent, and asked me all about tom; but he was too impatient to wait until swain got back at night, as everybody expected he would do, but went off to london to set people to work at once, in case they were not heard of. it was just as well he did, too, for tom must have changed his mind at the last minute, and started for plymouth instead of liverpool, for that was where he was found--he and chandos--wandering about the docks asking everybody if they wanted a boy to go to sea. fancy anybody taking that poor little muff chandos! and it seems tom might have got a berth for himself, but he wouldn't go without chandos, so they were both caught, and i'm glad of it--glad at least that they found chandos minor, though i can't help feeling sorry for tom, for he'll have a harder time of it than ever now, i fancy. [illustration: "do you want a boy to go to sea?"] his father is very angry with him, not only for this last scrape, but about pretty well everything that's happened since he's been here; for of course it all came out in talking to the governor and the boys, and that watch affair he is mad about, and thinks it began all the mischief. but i think the beginning of it was when he let chandos into that scrape about the farm-yard--that was the first mean thing i ever knew tom to do; and now if it wasn't actual stealing it was next to it, for he put chandos minor up to taking his brother's studs and a locket that was with them. the police found that out; i don't know what those london fellows could not find out if they tried. nobody had missed the things until we heard they had been found, and then chandos went to the drawer where he had put them and found they were gone, and some money too; but he won't say a word about the money, it seems. he is dreadfully upset, i know, although he is very quiet about it; but i have come in rather suddenly once or twice in the middle of the day, and found him kneeling down, and though he has tried to hide it, i know he was crying too. he need not be afraid of me now, though, for i'd--well i'd rather kick up a row and laugh in church than tell the other fellows of it. i'm in the secret a little. i know he feels it awfully about frank, and i suppose it helps him a bit to go and tell god all about it. that's just what it is, i know. he prays as though god was as much his friend as i am and just as ready to help him as i should be if i could; and i know if i'd only got the chance i'd do it. october th.--frank chandos is back in his place once more, but tom has gone home with his father. i don't think anybody is likely to try running away again in a hurry, for to see tom and chandos minor when the policeman brought them in was enough to make anybody think twice before they tried that game. that poor little muff chandos cried like a girl, but tom tried to brave it out until he saw his father. he gave it up then, and i almost wished for his sake that we were all on the alder pond again, for a more miserable look i never saw on any face than that on tom's. his head drooped, and he never raised his eyes from the floor again while we were there. poor old tom! if he could only have been brave enough to speak out the truth last year about that farm-yard business, all the rest might not have followed. but this fuss about him and chandos minor has put everything else out of my head, and i have forgotten all about the prize and the grind too. what a bother prizes are! i'm afraid i shall stand a poor chance of getting this one now, for the other fellows who mean to go in for it have been working like galley slaves all the time this row was going on, but i couldn't, and chandos seemed to forget everything but that little muff, and so i am all behind, i know. chandos says i shall be able to make up for lost time now if i only work steadily every day, but there's the rub. how can i be sure that i can work steadily for more than a month? fancy grinding without a lazy spell for a whole month! i'm sure i couldn't do it, and so i may as well give up at once. i think i will, for what is the use of trying now? it will be so much grind thrown away. and we are having such splendid weather now, that won't last much longer, that it seems a pity to be boring over a book a single minute longer than i am obliged. i shall tell chandos to-morrow that i mean to give up the whole thing, for i can't do it. november st.--i am grinding still, for chandos won't hear of my giving up. he says the things i learn--the grind--will be more useful than the prize by-and-by; and then he reminded me of my mother, and how very pleased she would be if i gained this prize. i know that, and i should like to please her for once, independent of the sea scheme. this is the prize to me, for i don't care much about the watch for itself; it will remind me too much of poor tom and his watch. as to the grind, what do i care about julius cæsar and hannibal and rome and carthage? if it was about nelson and howe, and abercrombie and cook, and a few more like them, i'd grind away, never fear. why can't they let us know what the questions are going to be--a few of them at least? and then we might manage; but to be expected to know all about everything, and the fellows that lived hundreds of years ago, is rather too stiff, and if it wasn't for chandos i should give it up, i know, much as i want to please my mother. november th.--i've had a letter from tom. fancy tom writing a letter! he says everything is just as miserable at home as it was here, and he has to do no end of grind shut up in his father's room. he saw my mother last week, and his father told her she need not be afraid i should run away to sea now, for i had learned a few things at school i was not likely to forget in a hurry. well, that's true enough; but i don't think tom's father knows what it is i have learned that prevented me going with tom, and i am not sure myself that i have learned all the secret that makes such a difference between chandos and two or three others and the rest of us at school, that makes everybody take their word for anything, and be sure they would not do a mean, sneakish trick. i feel as though i was stopping just outside this secret, for god is not my friend--at least i cannot feel that he is, as chandos does. sometimes i wish i could, for i know this is more to him a great deal than being sir eustace chandos; but somehow i don't seem able to get hold of it, although i do believe it's true--all that chandos says about god being his friend. chapter ix. conclusion. november th.--i'm in for it again. it isn't much this time--only a trick we played off on mother brown. the mean old hunks! to say she never gave credit, when she's cleaned us all out with her nasty bulls'-eyes. i'll never eat another, that i won't. the governor has heard of this lark, and my share in it, i suppose, for i'm ordered to go to his study at nine o'clock to-morrow morning. well, i don't care what the punishment is, so long as mother brown don't hear of it; but she would glory in that, i know, for i've led her a nice life lately. november th.--i wish i could hang mother brown, and choke her with her own precious bulls'-eyes. a nice imposition i've had through her! this fresh hindrance would have taken away my last chance of the prize; but now--well, i did not go looking for the prize questions, but when they were there right before my eyes, and nobody else in the room, how could i help seeing them? i don't see that it's much of a cheat either, for of course i shall answer them all by myself, and if it helps me to know where to read up--well, i've had a good many hindrances, so that it's about fair after all. november th.--i'm getting along famously with my grind, i think, although i almost wish i could forget those questions sometimes. but i can't, and without meaning it i turn over the leaves of the book that will answer some of them. yesterday chandos came and looked over my shoulder, and when he saw where i was reading he said, "halloa, stewart, i thought you said you shouldn't look at that?" "did i?" i stammered, and i shut the book. "don't shut it up; i don't want to hinder you. i'm glad you're going in for it so thoroughly," he said. "oh, don't bother!" i said, crossly; for somehow i can't think of these questions and chandos at the same time, and i shall tell him not to interfere if he comes poking round again. november st.--we have just heard that our examination is to take place the second of next month--about ten days hence. i wish it was over, or that i had never made up my mind to go in for it. i hate the very name of prizes, and if i get it i'll shy the watch down the first well i see. what a fuss chandos is making too! he says i am so cross and touchy he cannot understand me. i suppose not, for i cannot understand myself just now. i know one thing, though; i hate mother brown and her bulls'-eyes, for if it hadn't been for her i couldn't have seen these questions, but now i have seen them i can't forget them. i've tried--i've turned to another part of the book, and tried to read and learn all about that, but although i began to feel some interest in that before, i couldn't now, and i was soon turning the leaves again. i wish i had given it up when tom went away. i'd do it now if it wasn't for chandos, but i should not like him to know anything about this, and so i suppose i must go on. i can do one thing, though; i can answer the questions so badly that i shall lose the prize, and that is how i must manage, though it's rather hard after doing such lots of grind for it. november th.--i've just had a letter from mamma. i wish it had not come yet, for it makes me wish to get this prize more than ever. i feel as though i must get it, must have it now, and yet i have not touched a book the last two days. chandos is puzzled and concerned, i can see, and i hardly know how to avoid him, and yet i try to do so all i can. oh, why did the governor leave those questions about? it was dreadfully careless of him. if he had only locked them up in his desk when he went to breakfast, as he ought to have done, i couldn't have seen them, and i shouldn't be in this trouble now. i wonder whether tom's prize essay worried him as much! if i could only get out of it without letting anybody know of that sneaking trick of peeping i'd do it; but how could i tell them i was every bit as mean as tom, when i raved so about him last year? everybody would remember that, and throw it up in my teeth, and they would say i had learned it of chandos too, and i couldn't bear that. it's precious hard, but i shall have to go on. i must and i will get this prize, if i can, though i shall hate the sight of it, and hate myself too. december rd.--it's over. i could answer every question, of course; but--but, oh! how i wish i had been ill, or something had happened to prevent my going in for it at the last minute. i don't want this prize now, and if i don't get it i shall be almost as thankful as i was when frank chandos began to get well. i wish i could feel that god was my friend, and would help me out of this scrape, but i can't ask him. i've felt afraid somehow to kneel down since i turned sneak yes, i am a sneak, a mean, miserable sneak, and i hate myself more than i hated tom, and i said hard things enough about him; but i never thought then i should ever come to do the same myself. december th.--i had dropped my pen and was actually crying yesterday, when chandos came in and caught me. "what is the matter, stewart? are you ill, old fellow?" he asked, and he put his arm round me, so that there was no getting away from him. "don't, chandos," i said, "i can't bear it! i'm a miserable, mean sneak, and if you were to kick me out of the room i should feel better, for that's what i deserve. mind, i never meant to be a sneak, and i didn't think i ever should do such a mean trick, but now you do know it you'd better turn me up as i did tom." "well, i don't know what you've done yet, we'll talk about that afterwards; but just tell me this, would you do the same thing again if you had the chance?" "do it again? i tell you i hate myself for it; but the worst of it is, it won't undo it now it's done. i never thought i could be so mean, chandos." "i suppose not; but bad as it is, you need not give up all hope. god knew how mean you could be, and yet he will be your friend if you would let him. is it about the prize, stewart?" "oh yes; i do hope i shan't get it," i groaned. "well, you shall tell me all about it by-and-by if you like, but now just let me say a word. you never felt before that you were a sinner--that you could do anything bad?" "i've been trying to keep straight and do everything on the square, but i may as well give up now, for i see i can't do it." "no, no, you won't give up, charley. i'm going to call you charley now, because i hope we shall be better friends than ever after this. i was just as miserable once as you are now. i had told a lie, and i felt i could never be forgiven; but my mother talked to me, and i'll tell you as well as i can remember what she said: "'you've been very proud, my boy, and thought you could get on very well without any help but your own determination to do right.'" "well, what more do we want?" i said. "has it been enough, stewart? hasn't this been a miserable failure? and are you not complaining now that you are more wicked than you thought possible?" "well, yes, that's true enough," i confessed. "now let me tell you, stewart, what mother told me. god knew you would fail. he knew when he put adam into the garden of eden that he wouldn't keep straight long; but he gave him a fair chance, and he loved him so much that he provided a remedy at once for the sins he and all men would commit. the lord jesus christ agreed then to bear the sins of the whole world--yours and mine among them, stewart--and this is what is meant by forgiveness of sins. you never felt you needed forgiveness before for you never felt the burden of sin." "but look here, chandos, i don't see how god is going to forgive me, because, you see, i knew better." "of course you did. but have you never read in your bible, 'the blood of jesus christ cleanseth us from all sin.' 'if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us'? but god is showing you the truth now--that you need pardon and forgiveness, and he is willing to give you these; pardon for the sins already committed, to wash them all away in the blood of his dear son, who gave his life for you; and not only pardon, but grace and strength for the future to enable you to resist the temptation to do wrong at any future time." "look here, if god would help me like that, i shall feel so glad," i said; "it's no good for me to say i'll always keep on the square any more after this mean trick, for i may do another, as tom did. he didn't stop at the first, and i'm afraid i shan't if god don't help me. oh, chandos, i do want him to help me out of this scrape, and keep me from doing anything like this again." "well, charley, suppose we kneel down now and ask god for this, and then you shall tell me all about it if you like." "i think i had better tell you first," i said, "and then you can tell god for me. i'll try and do it myself by-and-by, but i can't just at once. i'm not good enough to kneel down at all." then i told chandos about the questions, and we kneeled down together, and he asked god to forgive me and help me to do what was right. "if god will only let me lose this prize now i shan't care," i said, when we got up. "but--but i don't think we ought to wait for that," said chandos. "what can i do?" i said. "suppose you get it--and you may, you know," said chandos; "you would be obliged to do something then." "oh, i can't bear to think of that. won't god help me by giving it to another fellow? "god will never help us to be cowards; he will help you to do the brave and right thing, which is to go to dr. mellor at once, tell him all about it, and ask him to destroy your papers." "tell the governor i'm a mean sneak! i couldn't do it, chandos." "then god cannot help you in any other way, nor i either. i tell you he helps people to be brave and do the right; but don't expect he is going to screen you from the consequences of sin, because he cannot and will not; and to expect it would be like sawing your finger with a sharp knife and not expecting to cut it. i will not attempt to persuade you, charley; but if you are sincere in asking god's pardon now, and his help for the future, you will not hesitate about this long." "but it is so hard to do this, chandos." "yes, and god knows exactly how hard it is better than i do; but as soon as he sees you are willing to bear this, and do the right, he will give you the strength and courage necessary." when i lifted my head from my arms i found that chandos was gone. i sat for nearly an hour thinking over what he had been saying--dear old chandos! who is so good himself, and yet not half so proud as i was about poor tom. i wonder whether god will help me as he says. i don't deserve it one bit, any more than i deserve that the lord jesus should forgive me. december th.--i am sure god has begun to help me. i went and made a clean breast of it to the governor this morning, and he has promised to burn my papers, and keep the whole thing a secret from the rest. it was pretty hard to begin telling him, but when once i had begun i did not feel a bit afraid, and i must say he behaved splendidly. he didn't blow me up or order me an imposition for prying round his table, but he said, quite kindly, "i am very sorry for you, stewart. i wish you had come to me before, or told me you had seen these questions, and i might have saved you a great deal of unhappiness--for i am sure you have been unhappy--and not deprived you of all chance of getting the prize. try and remember this for the future--i am your friend as well as your schoolmaster, and if there is any difficulty in which i can help you i hope you will trust me as a friend. i am glad to see you and chandos get on so well together;" and then he actually shook hands with me as i was going out of the door. i told chandos all about it afterwards and he said, "you know now how god helps those who trust in him; i hope you will never forget it again." i don't think i ever shall. i don't feel afraid to kneel down and ask his help now, and i know i need it, for who can tell what i might do next after this mean trick? december th.--i have written and told mamma how i have lost the prize. i thought i had better do this, for she had made so sure i should get it if i really tried that i did not like to go home without telling her first. poor mamma! i am sorry, for she is dreadfully disappointed, i know, and i am afraid she will not let me go to sea either. i wonder whether i shall be able to give up this wish entirely, as chandos did his? i am afraid not, for often in my dreams i seem to be on the sea, and how can i ever forget it? but i must try to settle down, i suppose. god will help me in this, i know, as he did to go to the governor, only it makes me feel dreadfully old to think of it. december th.--everybody is busy packing and getting ready to go home, but my packing must wait until i write up my log once more. i mean to tie it up and put it away until i go to sea, for i am really going after all. the news came yesterday; my mother wrote to say that, as i had had the moral courage to confess having done wrong, half her fear about my going to sea was taken away, for she felt sure i was less likely to do wrong now i had felt so much unhappiness about it than i was before. dear mamma! she is mistaken here, but i wonder whether i shall ever be able to tell her that god alone can keep me from the evil she fears? i could not think much about this yesterday. it was enough for me that i was going to sea, and when i had read that much of the letter, so as to understand it, i tore round the playground, holding up the letter and shouting, "hurrah! i'm going to sea--i'm going to sea!" some of the fellows pretended to think i was mad when i rushed at chandos and hugged him, and shouted, "it's all your doing, old fellow. i'm going to sea! i'm going to sea!" "let him alone; let him blow off steam," laughed chandos when some of the fellows tried to stop me, and i went round the playground again like a steam-engine. everybody in the house knew it five minutes after the letter came. luckily lessons were over for the day, or there would have been an imposition for me, but as it was nobody interfered. to-day i can think more about it, and finish my log, for i shan't come here after christmas, and if i write another i shall get a new book. but i mean to keep this, for i shall like to read it by-and-by; and if ever i am likely to forget how god has been my friend, and how i learned to know it, or if ever i get into a scrape and am unhappy again, i shall read what chandos said to me a day or two ago, that i may never forget: "the blood of jesus christ cleanseth us from all sin." we only meant to laugh over it, tom and i, but now i think i shall remember some wise and good words when i read up "charley's log." [illustration: sailing ship] london: r. k. burt and co., wine office court.